Lardy-dah

I thought I'd misread this article a number of time before I actually began to understand it. I'm afraid it's true.  Army Gurkha chefs have been creating sculptures, one of Buddha, one of a horse, purely out of Lard. Yep, Lard.

Lt. Cpl. Amrit Limbu, said that it took 100 hours and 33lbs of lard to make the statue of Buddha.  He also pointed out that it was boring work. Good luck at the stating the obvious awards Amrit.

Lt.Cpl. Limbu also said that the most difficult thing to do was the face, because it could break at any time. Now, I know a few squaddies, and I can guarantee that the biggest problem was more likely to be a load of hungry soldiers wondering where the frig their fish and chips was.  I bet they were livid. 

I'm a big fan of Gurkhas. Especially on hamburgers (hehe.) But the Gurkha regiment is absolute top drawer, and have done a lot for Britain, and considering they aren't even from here, top blokes all round. For this reason I don't resent them doing a bit of cocking around with lard. I do however wonder what is next?

I'd like to see a Royal Marine make a go-kart out of jam. Or a Fighter-pilot making a model of Doncaster out of cottage cheese. It's a worker! What else have the armed forces got to do with the billions of tax payers money they get each year?

I personally am about to embark on year-long sabbatical to research and develop a new kind computer made entirely of ice cream. The biggest obstacle I need to get round is the cooling system. I think it will need to be fairly powerful, and it might be difficult to get electrical current to pass through the raspberry ripples. The jury is out on whether or not it will be Vista compatible, but who knows? Something has to be.

Hunting in Packs

Why is it whenever I go shopping, every feral mongoloid family in a hundred mile radius goes shopping at the same time? I was in a shop yesterday, and found it impossible to walk down a single aisle without my way being blocked by a pack of rabid, bargain hungry swamp dwellers. The great unwashed of the area seem to congregate in clans at any inconvenient place. With the clan leader in the middle whooping and hollering at his pack of unwashed offspring, as he feels he must as both their father and uncle.  His canine satellites hollering back in a language only they and their brethren can understand.  He sends out the pack one by one to do his bidding, collecting first the Kestrel Super, next the SmartPrice Whiskey.  Slowly his plan comes together with each trip of his infantile slaves make to and from the mobile command post his Reubenesque wives have set up by the Branston pickle.

I appreciate that people need to go shopping, and as much as I'd like the idiots to go at a different time to myself, they clearly don't want to comply. So, all I am asking, is that either the minimum amount of people go in, or the children you bring with you are chained to the trolly.

You may think that this is an extreme measure, but if they are chained to the trolly, there is a much slimmer chance that they are walking side by side blocking the whole aisle. I'd prefer it if children were staked neatly outside the shop for later retrieval, obviously, but I'm trying to compromise, and I think you should meet me half way, ok?

The shops also have a lot to answer to. Why do they make the aisles so narrow? At least make them big enough for your own frigging trollies to pass each other.  Then, the geniuses decide to place piles of crap all over the floor so that even one trolly struggles to make it's way down.

You may not realise, but I'm not a big fan of supermarkets. But needs must, so we go every week, expecting more and more of the backward banjo players that inhabit the corridors of groceries in every town, and we leave disappointed time and time again.

Shop online? It's a fiver! What do you think I am? Mad?

How do they know?

Dog food. Not the most exciting subject.  But here we are. There are two types of Dog food.  The stuff that stinks and makes your dog fart, and the other stuff.  

My biggest problem with the Fart Fuel version is that it makes me gip.  I have to strain to hold back the cascade of Weetos and stomach bile from heaving forth from my core.  That's only the start of the smell-based problems.  Next you have to mix it in with the mixer biscuits. These may look like your favorite Golden Nuggets breakfast, but they do not taste like it. No sir. Then, when you start mixing it all together, the smell is amplified. Think of it as a smelly equivalent to mixing Mentos and Diet Coke. This further pushes the vom juice up the oesophagus. You may think that your troubles are over once the food is on the floor and Shep is tucking in.  But no.  For the next four hours, old Shep will be launching arse mortars at a rate the American Army would be jealous of.

Now, my real reason for discussing Dog food is the adverts.  We are constantly told that 8 out of 10 prefer this, and new improved that.  How do they know?  I mean, my dog has been known to eat dirty nappies.  Like a dog can tell if something is new improved.  This can only mean one thing.  Humans have tried it.

It's the only logical explanation.  And the worst of it is, to get to the conclusion of 8 out of 10 preferring it, 10 people have tried it. Who are these freaks? I wonder if that is a career they chose at school? Erm, I'm taking Biology and Chemistry. I want to work with animals. You'd bet your mortgage on them meaning vet.  What would the training regime, involve?

I'm at a loss as to who would want a job like this, but you can bet your bottom dollar they recruit outside dodgy fried chicken shops.  At least they know the people coming out of there will eat anything.

A poultry matter

Ok, ok, since you asked. Which did come first? The chicken or the egg?  Again, I made it my mission to investigate this, and put it to bed once and for all.

The Domestic Chicken, Gallus Gallus Domesticus, has numbers of 24 billion worldwide at any one time.  That's alive, not frozen or covered in a secret blend of herbs and spices.  They have been domesticated for millennia, and are thought to date back to the dinosaurs.  How cool is that? Deep fried T-Rex and chips.

Now, there are a number of ways of looking at the Chicken/Egg debate.  Here's mine.  The egg came first.  Why? I hear you ask silently.  Well, the Domestic Chicken, evolved a long time ago, millions of years presumably, and is thought to be a hybrid of the Red and Grey Jungle Fowl of the Indian Sub-continent. While evolution is often hazy and long winded, at some point, the first of these hybrid animals evolved after a drunken night of Drambuie and debauchery in the local boozer.  After the mating took place, the first chicken would have been born, from an egg!  Ta-da! Egg came first.  The Red Jungle Fowl never called the Grey, despite promising he would, and the Grey had to raise the universe's first ever chickens alone in a council nest.

So now, you can stop asking!  I'm sure there are people who lack purpose in their life after this revelation, but I'm sure there are hundreds of similar questions that can be sent my way.

One other interesting fact about chicken.  When cannibals have been interviewed about the consumption of human flesh, they have compared the taste to that of chicken.  So next time you are tucking into a McChicken Whopper Bucket, you might as well be eating your own arm!

Oh, and, putting another debate to rest once and for all.  The Chicken Royale with Bacon and Cheese.  THAT is what chickens think about growing up to become.  But only because they've never heard of Pirates or Ninjas.

You've got to grin to get it in

That's what she said! Hahahaha. Oh wait, that doesn't work.  Anyway, Wagon Wheels.  For the millionth time, I've just heard someone complaining about the shrinking of the Wagon Wheel.  Is this an actual occurrence or merely a trick of the cerebrum, remembering a larger Wheel in your infantile hands? Well, I intend to find out. 

They were launched in 1948, at the Olympia Food Fair no less. (Sorry, what?) The manufacturers, Burtons Foods, have issued a number of statements saying the dimensions of the Wagon Wheel has remained unchanged in the in intervening 60 years. (Ooo. Wagon Wheels are as old as Prince Charles.  What are the chances?)  Why would they lie?

Well, the Australian Wagon Wheel, albeit since 2003 produced by a different company, measures 88mm in diameter.  Compared to it's 74mm pommie cousin, it is definitely more like we "remember."  At some point, someone decided they would make them in Australia, and in a simpler time, presumably, used the same specifications of the UK wheel. Unless someone invents a time machine, we'll never know.  (I think this is probably the best use for such a machine, should any Quantum Leapers be making significant progress.) But wait!  The Aussie Wheel is 4 whole millimeters thinner than ours!  4mm!  That's nearly half a centimetre of chocolatey-mallowy goodness.  Stitch that Kylie!

So what does all this mean?  Well, if the UK and Aussie wheels were ever the same size, then ours has shrunk, but got fat.  Like a pensioner.  But there may be more to it than that.  In the early 1980's the UK Wheel seized being produced in Slough, and began being made in South Wales.  No, I'm not blaming the Welsh for shrinking Wagon Wheels.  The new factory stopped using the Slough technique of crinkling the edges, and went for a smoother edge, this reducing the size of the wheel marginally!

This is however, not the reason they seem smaller to my generation.  They were being made in the smoother mould long before I was old enough to be eating Wagon Wheels.  Also, we are talking millimeters difference, so unless you are Rain Man, you wouldn't have noticed. "Smaller, definitely smaller AHH!"  

So, that's that.  Wagon wheels are probably the same size they've possibly always been, maybe.  Conclusive huh? No need to thank me.