Self Indulgence

The Guitar of My Dreams

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

My darling wifey decided she was going to buy me my guitar of my dreams. How could I say no to that? Not only that, but the plan was I’d get a Saturday off from family duties to go and enjoy the whole guitar buying experience. West Dorset isn’t exactly packed with good guitar stores – so eventually I decided I was going to head to Manson’s in Exeter. The store has a great reputation and actually makes the guitar used by the bloke with the stupid wheezy voice in Muse.

The aimed to get up early (not hard as I was on baby duty) and be out of the door at 8am to drive from Dorchester to Exeter. Baby wakes me up at 5.30am and the day doesn’t get much better. He’s in an unusually crabby mood by 9am. And why haven’t I left by then? My three year old daughter is seeming faking being ill but then gets herself in so much of a tiz that she vomits all over our sofa.

Looks like my trip is over before it’s begun. But wifey shoves me out of the door at 10am and says she’ll cope, “go have fun”, she says.

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The Corned Beef Tin of Doom

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

A gruesome story from ten years ago…the faint-hearted might like to look away now.

I was opening a tin of corned beef, the sort with a key. I’d turned the key all around the can and was trying to pull the smaller section away – when it suddenly gave way.

Ouch! I said, thinking I’d given myself a little nick.

Then the blood started fountaining out of the end of my finger.

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The Food of Kings

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

The Goblin Meat Pudding sounds like something Gollum would buy down at Crazy Saruman’s Convenience & Liquor Store. But behind the silly name lurks a meal fit for a king.

For the last two weeks every weekday lunchtime I’ve sat down to a couple of Goblin Meat Puddings, made by Simpsons Foods of Manchester. I’ve been eating these things since I was a kid and the gorgeous L recently ordered 20 (yes 20) of them in an online grocery order because she knows I like them.

This lunchtime I have eaten the last of them. So it’s goodbye to the tasty soft pastry for a while and I’ll have to eat something more healthy instead. But I just wanted to pay tribute to one of the finest foods available, and easy to cook too, taking just 90 seconds in the microwave.

I’ve not eaten one of these things for ages until L bought me some and the can has certainly changed and is more attractive. The problem with the old one was that it was a bit of a lottery whether you opened it at the right end. So you’d end up having to open up both and pushing the pudding out. Now with it’s handy grenade style packaging, pudding opening confusion is a thing of the past.

But all waffling and silliness aside, the Goblin Meat Pudding really is the lunch of champions, albeit slightly porkie champions.

Being sent to church

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

I hated going to church as a kid. Not unusual that. Not only did I find it boring, I just didn’t believe – and realised this was odd for a pretty young kid going through the usual rites of passage such as first confession, communion and confirmation.

I think this lack of faith grew into a pretty militant and active atheism (as opposed to just not caring) precisely because every Sunday I would have to go to church with the family and at numerous times around Easter. I was bemused at Easter by Benediction, wondering if there was some correlation between the length of the service, the number of times we’d have to kneel and then stand up; and the number of alter-boys who fainted.

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