Dehumanizer has written a small write up of Lords of Midnight over on his site; Games of My Life.

He discusses the merits of the game when you consider it as a Lord of the Rings inspired epic.

See Also: Similarties to other Fantasy Stoires…

Now that I’m on the topic of food…

There is a definite North/South divide in England when it comes to food.

Firstly if we take the good old staple Chippy. It is very hard to find a chip shop that will sell Gravy, Mushy Peas, or Curry Sauce. The exception for curry sauce is chippies that are Chinese take aways. If you are lucky enough to find such a chip shop, they generally sell the gravy etc as an extra in a little Polystyrene cup. You get no chance of eating it to go… what ever happened to take out trays? Also the pies down south are awful, they generally seem to be plastic wrapped Pukka Pies, whereas in the north they tend to be fresh Hollands Pies. Worse yet is that they don’t sell Steak and Kidney puddings… and even if they did there’d be no tray for it, or gravy to pour over it. All supermarkets sell Hollands products in packs of 4… in the south - nothing. There are now a few Asda’s starting to stock their products, however on the whole I have to import my supplies.

Greggs is a pretty universal pie shop now, however there is a subtle difference depending where in the country you live. Greggs in Newcastle sell Ham and Pease pudding Stottie cake, but by the time you get to Manchester you can’t buy this. Manchester have decent pasties, my particular favourite being Potato and Meat ( note the order ), however as you move south these are replaced with inferior pasties and the Potato and meat is not even available.

Warburton’s bakery is a good northern baker. You can now get a small amount of their products in southern supermarkets. I recently found that sainsbury’s were selling their Seeded Batch which is just fantastic for sandwiches, but even better toasted. Other products that are a Warbutons must… Oven Bottoms and Toastie. Although beware, the Toastie loaf is generall taller than your toaster!




Food, Gravy, Mushy Peas, Curry, chip shop, Polystyrene, Pease pudding, Stottie cake, pasties
Gravy, Mushy Peas, Curry, chip shop, Polystyrene, Pease pudding, Stottie cake, pasties

Continuing the thread of foods that I didn’t used to like but now do… Pretzels… or more to the point Penn State Pretzels.

I used to love those chocolate covered ones… where did they go?





Food, Pretzels
Pretzels

Everyone seems to go on nowadays about the current degeneration of this generation…. ASBOs everywhere… we all know that it’s the previous generations fault, and because the problem is actually due to a lack of discipline and direction from the parents, then that means that the problem started many generations ago and all those Old cronies stood gaggling about the “Youth of today” wearing their hoodies and standing about on street corners… can rinse their hair safe in the knowledge that it is all their fault.

Anyway, more importantly than all this is the fact that I think the problem has manifested itself in cats.

We have a number of cats around our house, and when we moved in 4 years ago we inherited a cat with the house. I know that sounds odd, but the cat had been bought when the owners moved in to a brand new house 18 years prior and they were now moving to Australia and coudn’t take the cat with them. So it seemed such a shame to us that the poor thing would get put down after such a good innings, that we decided to keep the cat. It lived another year before croaking it with age related internal problems. To be honest, the only thing the cat was good for was keeping the garden free of other cats. I guess their is some irony in there somewhere!

Now, to tie all this information together; when I was a lad cats used to shit in the soil and cover it over. Cats were considered a clean pet unlike a dog that will drop its load anywhere. But it seems that the hoody wearing feline of today is quite content to shit wherever it feels like and leave it for someone else to clean up. Sound familiar? Yes yes I know it’s only cat poo, but its actually a problem when you have little kids and worse still for babies and pregnant women. Cat poo is a carrier of Toxoplasmosis. Not to mention the more important issue of your kids trailing cat shit around the house!!!!!

So is this a problem that has managed to jump species or are we looking at a more serious evolutionary problem? How long before we are giving ASBOS to cats?

Romeo and Juliet
Mark Knopfler - Dire Straits

A lovestruck romeo sing a streetsuss serenade
Laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made
Finds a convenient street light steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it?

Juliet says hey it’s romeo you nearly gimme a heart attack
He’s underneath the window she’s singing hey la my boyfriend’s back
You shouldn’t come around here singing up at people like that
Anyway what you gonna do about it?

Juliet the dice was loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded into my heart
And I forget the movie song
When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong juliet?

Come up on different streets they both were streets of shame
Both dirty both mean yes and the dream was just the same
And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?

When you can fall for chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
You promised me everything you promised me thick and thin
Now you just say oh romeo yeah you know I used to have a scene with him

Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above and I love you till I die
There’s a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong juliet?

I can’t do the talk like they talk on the TV
And I can’t do a love song like the way it’s meant to be
I can’t do everything but I’d do anything for you
I can’t do anything except be in love you

And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
And all I do is keep th beat and bad company
All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme
Julie I’d do the stars with you any time

Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above I’ll love you till I die
And there’s a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong juliet?

A lovestruck romeo sings a streetsuss serenade
Laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made
finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it?

See also: Where Art Thou Romeo