Is laughter the best medicine?

Is laughter the best medicine? If you had asked me the question a few weeks ago I would have given you a look that indicated that I thought you were mad - or possibly that I was mildly constipated (if I’m honest I’ve not really mastered the whole expressive look thing - I regard it as the bastard offspring of mime and an unspecified foreign language. It also probably explains why my acting career was restricted to a brief appearance as a sheep in a nativity play – I was substituted within minutes before I managed to wreck the St Josephs under 7’s Christmas pageant. Apparently my attempt as a happy go lucky sheep came across more as small menacing child, leering dementedly while covered in cotton wool (Andy Warhol could probably have made an unsuccessful art installation out of me...). This so disturbed the front three rows of the audience that they threatened to stage a mass exodus that would have given Moses’ exit from Egypt a run for its money..... but I digress....

I have always been of the opinion that laughter can make everything better....That was before I cracked a rib (or possibly strained a chest muscle, the jury is still out). Suddenly laughter is no longer a laughing matter.  It has become a painful exercise that brings tears to my eyes – although not as bad as sneezing, which currently makes me want to curl up into a ball and scream obscenities that would make a tourette's sufferer blush like a school girl who’s just learned, in front of her entire school, that females don’t have a fartectomy at birth....

I discovered this week that film selection is vitally important to your health and wellbeing when I made the mistake of going to see “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” as this week’s C.A.C.T.U.S  (Cheap As Chips TUeSday - watch any film for £2.90) choice.  .... It’s not that Salmon fishing is a bad film, on the contrary it is a great film but not if you are suffering from sore rib syndrome.  It turned out to be way to funny (not something that I would normally complain about in a comedy).   The next 24 hours turned into a riot of pain, I should have gone to see something dull and boring instead....

It got me thinking about laughter and how important it is to the British way of life and indeed history...

I suspect that it was through laughter that we built a vast Empire ...they (the soon to be conquered) were so busy laughing at us, in our white socks with sandals, string vests and knotted hankies on our heads (beautifully offsetting our bright red sunburnt faces) that we had taken over before they realised how incompetent a nation we were.... Voila!  Yet another  country had turned pink on the map...

I’m not the only one that is in pain in the house at the moment – Mrs B and I were having dinner the other night, when a loud screech disrupted the night air and the cat flap erupted in a ball of black fur that streaked through the kitchen, leaving a trail of black fuzz like an etch-a-sketch pad in the hands of an active epileptic.... Mrs B almost hit the roof, while I took the opportunity to check the underside of the table to make sure it was safe.... when Mrs B had returned to terrafirma and I had finished off the vital (and long overdue) table safety inspection, we went in search of a rather disturbed Mischief.  We discovered the poor thing in one of the spare rooms,  puffed up to twice her normal size (very impressive considering the amount of fur that had been distributed along her epic escape route), her little heart pumping away like a small boy who has just discovered underwear catalogues.  Her tale had a rather distinct kink in it and she spent the next few days struggling to sit down and getting very tetchy at any attempt to inspect the damage.  We are not sure what attacked her (Fox, neighbourhood cat, territorial robin), although to be honest she can be a bit neurotic at times, I have seen her panic and streak across the garden after doing a poo (truly a case of being scared shitless).

Tea – a non drinker’s guide

A bit of a disaster at South Street Pantry this week as their coffee machine decided to do an impression of an over-sized paper weight – one of those old fashioned paper weights that doesn’t dispense coffee.  I decided to take the opportunity to check out the tea menu....An interesting experiment for a confirmed non-tea drinker....

Massala Chai - I was promised it was like Christmas in a Tea pot....Hmmm it was more like the taste of Santa’s socks after Mrs Santa had left him for one of the Elves and so no washing had been done for 6 months or so....

Gunpowder – If you have been looking for grandma’s false teeth you can call off the search, I think I may have found them, they were in a cup of hot water with just a hint of gingivitis.... 

Lemon and Ginger – like someone had dragged my tongue across a vat full of rusty nails that had been seeped in expertly matured sulphuric acid....

Green tea – So that’s what they do with all the left over grass clippings.....

Earl Grey – Like drinking liquid soap but without the fun of burping bubbles afterwards.... Begs the question: are regular Earl Grey drinkers self regulating potty mouths who have taken their mother's mantra “Wash your mouth out” to heart....

At this point I was saved by the arrival of a replacement coffee machine – just as well as I was only a couple of tea cups away from needing a stomach pump.....

Footnote

Mrs B is a tea-a-holic and does not function until she has had at least one cup of tea in the morning.  We were watching a show on the 100 best gadgets and a Teas-maids was included :

Mrs B - "Why on earth would anyone need a Teas-maid?  How difficult is it to walk down stair's and switch a kettle on?"

Me -    "That's rich coming from someone who is incapable of moving until they have had a gulp of tea....If I wasn't here, how exactly would you manage to get downstairs without moving?" 

5,000 is the magic number 
Unbelievably this week one of my blogs reached the magic number of 5,000 hits, it has been read by almost 5 times the number of people of my next most popular..... I have mixed emotions about this as it is the lovingly titled “Getting in touch with your inner Tranny ” and does not exactly show me at my manly best...

A record of the week

Tea in the Sahara by The Police - I've had a bit of a Police obsession this week, so this was an apt song for my hot beverage suffering.... 

Exodus by Bob Marley - I had no idea Bob was in the audience for my inglorious acting depute and retirement rolled into one painful burst of thespian misadventure..... 

It only hurts when I'm breathing by Shania Twain - or laughing, moving, coughing, sneezing..... well living really....

Photo finish

I've not been able to heft The Beast around much recently but did manage to take some pictures of our friends Sophie & Wayne's,  two cats....Meet -

Lola 

Coco

Both Lola and Coco pops are currently in the dog house as, after 10 months of angelic behaviour, they have recently massacred their first bird.....

Hope to see you next time...

Tell me they are not taking the Piste....

It was off to Italy (Chompaluc) last week for a ski trip.

In truth it turned into a holiday of extremes.

Possibly the world's worst hotel web site*

Etre Mascognaz

We should have guessed from the chaos that met us, as we attempted to navigate around the hotel’s web site, we were trying to book through, that it was going to be an interesting stay. There were glimpses of what you were getting but it is like looking at it through a telescope from the wrong end (in the dark with a flash light that blinks on briefly once every five minutes). There was an English translation on the site but while the interpreter may have been fluent in Italian and Spanish, their grasp of English appeared to have been gleaned from episodes of the "Clangers". OK, so I’m a fine one to talk when it comes down to foreign language - my companions Joe, Kirsty and Mrs B were more than happy to stand back and amuse themselves watching my pitiful attempts at conversing with (or possibly at) the locals. As has been remarked in previous episodes of the BlackLOG I am to foreign language (and often to the English language itself) what Greece is currently to the European economy....

* It does beg the question why we booked with them.....

Booking
The hotel had promised our friend Joe, who was doing the booking (my language skills were not deemed strong enough), that they would reserve the rooms that we wanted (or thought we wanted. Like I said, the web site was clear as mud.....), while he sorted out flights. Somehow they managed to give the rooms we had selected away only a few hours later. To add insult to injury, out of a maximum occupancy of 56, the most that were staying at any one time were 10 and 4 of those were us yet they still managed to give the rooms we had reserved away.....How?????

Accommodation
It was incredible but this had more to do with its uniqueness. There were some friendly staff but they had an inbuilt ineptness that made Manuel out of Fawlty Towers look like a well trained waiter..... for example, we were only informed on our last morning that there was a hot option for breakfast. To be fair it was a different waiter than we had had for the previous seven mornings and when he found out that we had not been offered the hot option he was distraught and turned more Basil Fawlty than Manuel, taking it as a personal affront. For one horrific moment I thought he was going to cry, he then spent the rest of breakfast scurrying around getting under everyone’s feet as he valiantly (but ultimately rather annoyingly) tried to cram seven days of service into one hour. He only just stopped short of cutting up our food and spoon feeding it to us.....

The accommodation had been created from a 15th century enclave, that was slowly being turned into hotel rooms property by property (peering through one of the windows of a house that was waiting patiently for its makeover it looked like it had not been touched since the last owner had checked out for the last time some 30 years previously). The enclave was spread on two sides of a small valley. There were two restaurants, a swimming pool and a health spa. When I asked reception where the Health spa was I was told it was a five minute jaunt across the other side of the valley.

Mrs B and I spotted the swimming pool on the top of the slope and made straight for it. This involved a march along a muddy road and across a steep slope.....unfortunately it turned out not to be a swimming pool at all but a large barn which had nothing to do with where we were staying. Mrs B was well chuffed to be dragged from pillar to post, after a hard days skiing. Crest fallen we made our way back down the slope to the only other properties clinging to the side of the valley,  two Chalet style building. By the time we reached them I was steaming (so much so I probably didn’t actually need the sauna any more).

It turned out the swimming pool and health centre had been built under the chalets....A map or someone to show the idiot Brits around would have been very useful. I strongly suspect some guests never actually find the health spa or may get lost in their attempt to find it. I’m sure we passed Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, Harold Holt , Captain Oates, Lord Lucan riding Shergar ,Where's Wally and the Missing Link on the way.

On the last evening we managed to discover a health suite on our side of the valley, which had everything except the swimming pool, the hotel staff had dutifully watched us trail across the valley every evening but didn’t once think to mention about the facilities just a few meters away.....

Italian Plumbing
You have to love it. They use high end equipment but never seem to plumb it in properly, so when you go to turn a tap on you end up chasing it around the bathroom. How hard is it to tighten the nuts up a few extra turns.....? Very, apparently. If you live in a country shaped like a giant boot that is.... I’ll give the Italians credit for decent coffee and for the fantastic ice-cream but even the old lady that lived in a shoe managed to have decent plumbing .... You don’t bring up large amounts of children without lashing of hot water .....

Italian driving
There is nothing more exhilarating than driving around a mountain hairpin, only to find a mad Italian speeding towards you, on your side of the road and very reluctant to give you your space back.....An Italian work colleague informs me that not giving way, especially when you are in the wrong, is seen as excellent driving by most Italians.....

Snow
I’ve never skied on a white carpet before – I felt like some sort of chilly royalty.... The piste bashers had done an excellent job keeping the slopes open but even they have limitations and by the end of our week the runs were like thin tentacles snaking down the mountain.

The early morning slide (as the previous night’s slush turned to ice overnight) started to thaw out from around 10am allowing a few hours of semi-decent skiing, as long as you didn’t make wide turns - coming off the snow carpet was not really a sensible option.

The sun was so strong that by around 2 pm the snow was running down the hills quicker than Usain Bolt in an Olympic 100m final.

Around  2:30pm  the snow started to get all needy and started to stick to your skies, not unlike a small child that has been caught eating all the sweets and is now so tacky that any contact leaves it attached to you like Velcro...     

By about 3:30pm  the snow was doing laps back and forth across its self as it turned into a swimming pool....

Best Ski App ever
I discovered the best Iphone app ever....

well if you are a skier that is.... Skitracks

You set the app running in the morning – put it in your pocket and then at the end of the day you have a record of your ski day – the only time it went wrong was when I gave it to Mrs B who went all competitive on me and managed to crash. She decided the App was not a good idea but managed to switch it off when handing it back...

You get run by run guide for your day (When Mrs B doesn’t turn it off that is)
The distance
Speed - (warning it will encourage you to try and break your neck)
Gradient - (If I had known it was that steep I would have stayed on the chairlift)
Time taken - (It should come with some readymade excuses.....I only took that long because I was doing up my glove ......and don't forget I had to help up that skier who drifted out in front of me....No indication what so ever.... )
In fact everything you could dream about knowing as a skier

This builds up to give you a complete picture of you ski day. If you get messy with your food at lunchtime and you don’t bother to clean your Iphone you even get a record of what you ate.....(This is not listed as a function of the App but personal experience just a personal observation.....)

Accuracy - I checked the app against the GPS in the car and it showed roughly the same speed, so I’m fairly confident with the following stats :-

- My new speed record 75.9mph (it was a bit misty and I didn’t see how steep the slope was.....)

- my best ever crash speed around 54mph – (this was based on the readout going from 54 to zero almost instantaneously) I’ve still got saw ribs to prove it...Not recommended....

Ski stat heaven

As an added bonus, with data roaming off the app works without any additional costs when travelling abroad....

Great if you want to know where you have
been all day.... maybe not so good if you are
trying to cover your tracks .....

A record of the week

White Lines - Duran Duran  - For those of you who thought it was a drug song...Wrong.... it was actually about the perils of booking late season ski trips......

Don't Leave Me This Way -by The Communards – A heartfelt plea to the snow....

Shut Your Eyes by Snow Patrol – It could have been any Snow Patrol song really.....

White Lines BBBC Mix - Grandmaster and Melle Mel – for those of you who prefer their snow pure and original....oddly I prefer the Duran Duran version....

Ice, Ice Baby -Jim carey does Vanilla Ice – included for no reason other than to prove both Vanilla and Jim Carey have no talent....  

Photo finish
This weeks The Beast gets to document the problems of global warming....



 The entrance to the hotel - was like a
James Bond villains Lair....



A couple of snow mobiles ready for
the inevitable Bond chase....

Or would have been if only
there had been more snow....



Welcome to my lair Mr Bond.....



Kirsty and Joe
our low rent  Bond girls

We were stayng on the left.
the health suite and swimming pool were on the right.


All we had to do was get passed the
Troll who lived under the bridge...

 

White Lines - Don't do it.....




A little pop quiz for you....

Try and pretended you have not just read about

the idiot Brits hacking up the hill to the wrong building...

Which building would you think contained a swimming pool?

A). The swimming pool shaped building                                

in the top right of the Picture                                    

B). Heidi's house clinging to the side of the valley alley....

C).  None of them, I am  a terrible photographer               

and missed the building from the shot.                  



Our chalet - a little off the beaten track....

It came with its own driver - unfortunately
he never  managed to get it started so
we had to use the Land-Rover...

Britt Ekland eat your heart out...



The 5 course meals have played havoc with my waistline....



Is it just us or does the snow always seems whiter
on the other side of the slope....

While it was the worst snow conditions we have ever encountered and the hotel was quirky it was the right sort of quirky.  Despite the vagaries of some of the service we received the Italians are so friendly you can forgive them almost anything.... besides with good friends you can enjoy anywhere...well almost anywhere....

Till next time

The Tea Room previously known as Delicious

I’m sad to report that my favourite Tea Room – ‘Delicious’ exists no more.....

However before you all go into mourning on behalf of my loss (P.S. I will be judging you harshly if you were not feeling slightly down at this point ...) I can report, with much delight, that it is not the end but a new beginning. A bit of a spruce up, a new name, some tweaks to the menu and it has been re-launched as The South Street Pantry. The same happy staff (the look of “Oh no not you again” is hardly noticeable) and a friendly atmosphere .... They also now serve alcohol, which doesn’t mean a lot to me as a non-drinker*, but apparently does to the majority of this drunken country of mine....

* Non- drinkers discriminated against
It has come to my attention that as a non-drinker I am being discriminated against when it comes to dieting. The high calorific count for alcohol means that you pesky drinkers can lose shed loads of weight by just stopping drinking for half an hour. Not so for me – I have to give up eating entirely for about 18 months before an ounce disappears off the scales**....Now don’t you go accusing me of eating all the cakes at the Tea Room previously known as Delicious – I have, for the record, been surviving on a diet of Hummus – hold the celery and carrot sticks – (do I look like a rabbit?) and salads (OK, it does sound like I’m starting to eat like one). This barely leaves me enough energy to lift my full fat Latte, with whipped cream, chocolate droppings, marshmallows and 15 spoons of sugar .....


** I’m thinking of inventing a new scales which you can pre-program with your desired weight....


Imaginary conversation ....well more of a monologue really


Me – “Mrs B - I’m down to 6 stone, I had better eat loads of fattening stuff before I fade away............”


Mrs B – nothing said just a stony stare that would make solid granite blush.....


Me – “By the way you appear to have shrunk all my clothes*** and the house doors**** in that last wash......You should never boil wash doors..


*** They should be hanging off my 6 stone skeletal, if unbelievably well upholstered body....


**** Why else would they prevent me from wafting from room to room?


Mrs B - Shaking her head sadly, with a ‘Why me?’ or possibly “Give me strength” expression on her cute little face..

I happened to be the last customer of Delicious or would have been if Adam (1/3 owner) had let me pay for my drinks – so I guess my claim is to being more of the last Freeloader. As a nice bit of symmetry I was the first customer through the door for the re-launch party (rumours that I camped outside for the four days of renovations are wildly exaggerated – I happened to be pining at home). Since the Beast was with me on both occasions I can share with you not just the demise but also the phoenix rising from the flames – just meander down to Photo Finish once you get bored with the wordy bits.....although most of you probably haven’t made it this far and are probably already down there.....

I was chatting to Adam who mentioned that while the majority of people were positive about the name change, a small minority acted as if Adam had slapped them around the face and then stolen their first born child and put them to bed early .... That sounds like a clear case of Kiddy-napping to me.....

Socialising with lettuce
I noticed when I was paying for a bag of lettuce – I was self scanning, so had plenty of time to read the packaging as I desperately turned it over trying to find the damn bar code....It apparently has its own face book page. What the hell is going on, I struggle to eat the bloody stuff let alone have a desire to socially interact with it....

I can only assume it has a limited range of Facebook status. Select from :-

- On the shelf

- In the Fridge

- In a bowl*****
***** Posh households only or our house if Mrs B is in charge of putting the salad together. Personally I would serve it fresh from the bag or dumped on the side of the plate....

- Dressing for Lunch******
******I’m really not ready to face naked lettuce

- On a fork*******
******* Very briefly unless they happen to have been selected by one of those chatty types that spear their food with a fork and then wave it around dangerously during animated conversation.....

A clean break
A bit of a moral question for you – is it wrong to sack your cleaners via text?

In my defence they were absolutely rubbish at their job (a husband and wife team).

Mrs B has done her best over the six months that we have endured their services, leaving little encouraging notes – like tips and hints on how to use cleaning products. They appear to work on a Pig-Pen basis (character from Peanuts) only occasionally managing to accidently clean things, much preferring a redistribution of dirt method.

They briefly offered an ironing service – but the clothes came back more wrinkled than before they started. Only the wrinkles were more permanent and now came with singe marks...

The last straw came when we asked them to spring clean our kitchen cupboards – They left a note saying that they had not managed to complete the task, which is fine, because we imagined they had spent ages doing a really thorough job.

It was only when we went to check what they had finished and found we could only tell which cupboards they had completed because of the chaos of the contents – the cupboards themselves did not appear to have been cleaned at all. I think they had carefully taken everything out and then, a bit like competitors in the Crystal Maze, had panicked that time was running out, got scared they might get locked in and so had just thrown everything back before dashing for the exit....I wonder if it was Richard O’Brian or Ed Tudor-Pole at our front door screaming "Quick!, quick!, before the portal closes and you are locked inside forever!" – Apologies If you are not English and of a certain age, the whole Crystal Maze reference is going to mean nothing to you.....

So, without a backwards glance (eek, anyone know a good cleaner?) I dumped them by text.

There will be no reconciliation..................

Oddly our house seems cleaner already....

A record of the week

Changes - by David Bowie  - Nothing stays the same, embrace the change......

The Best Part of Breaking up is when you're making up.... by The Symbals - Except when it's your rubbish (no pun intended) cleaners.... 

Photo finish
We start off this week by taking you back to the last day at Delicious - I also get around to playing with the Coloursplash app on the Ipad....

A very versatile Tea Room, we once had our kitchen

revamped here...... oh hang on a second, Mrs B just

reminded me - that was when it was a kitchen company...

Che -reflecting on the good
old days at Delicious...

Emma - sweeping out the old..... 
No I don't mean me - bloody cheek

South Street Pantry launch party

Welcome to the new world

Lucy used to live 2 doors up from us but in
good old English tradition we had never spoken 
until she started working at The Tea Room
previously known as Delicious...

Fran and Amber on bar duty

Emma reluctant to let the last bit of cake go...

Che liberates another cake in
 the  Baking Revolution.....

Backroom meets front of house
Simon managing to look more Che than Che.....

Emma on camera duty

Adding a touch of colour to your life...
If this had been Essex the orange colour would
probably have been the skin tone.... 

I'm a bit worried that Alice has gone prematurely grey....

It's all about the cake.....

Adam likes to stand out from the crowd.....

The front of house team

Alice, Lucy, Amber, Adam, Che, Emma and Fran

A.K.A Adam's Harem

(Sorry Fran I guess that leaves you the choice

of  being an honorary woman or eunuch)

That's better. Alice returns to Colourland....

Despite what the cake thinks, it's all about the coffee......

Mrs B and Adam toast to new begining.... 
or is Adam still recruiting for his Harem???

 See you next time....