Status-Q

Harry Lamin, a British soldier in WW1, wrote letters back to his family at home. Now, exactly 90 years on, his grandson is publishing them as a blog, in real time. It’s been quiet for a couple of weeks because letters only come occasionally and the last one was on Dec 30th, 1917.

Now… as then, of course… nobody knows if he’s still alive.

It’s a brilliant idea. More information on CNN.

Ah, that’s nice… a Google search for ‘quentin’ has me back on page one again. Something that hasn’t happened for some time, mostly since that Tarantino fellow became rather popular.

It just goes to show that the level of ability one needs to achieve fame these days is just proportional to the popularity of one’s name!

🙂

I have a kind aunt who sends us a box of chocolates every Christmas, and they are much appreciated. But as I munched away tonight (with a reckless disregard for my waistline) I was troubled again by a question which has bothered me before. It’s this:

Why are there so many nutty ones in the box?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like nuts. I like chocolate. I even quite like the combination. But the chocolates with almonds, walnuts, hazelnut praline or whatever are so clearly inferior to those based on fruit, caramel, coffee or liqueurs that I wonder why they always seem to form such a large part of the selection on offer. I would simply put this down to personal preference except that everybody else I’ve ever asked about this feels the same way!

So who is it who decides that so many of the chocolates in the average box should be nutty at the core? Are there hordes of secretive chocolate-nut lovers out there? Those who, on opening a new box, spurn the strawberries, but quiver with anticipation when contemplating the myriad delights that praline has bestowed upon us? Come out of the closet and let us know! You’re among friends here. Or are nutty chocolates much cheaper to manufacture? Perhaps it’s a conspiracy of nut-producers to dispose of nuts which for seem reason don’t make the grade elsewhere in unsweetened form?

Until this mystery is solved, I shall have to continue to be the noble husband, consuming chiefly those nut-based chocolates discarded by my beloved. It’s a tough job. All, however, is not lost, because I’ve discovered that Waitrose sell small tubs of delicious dark-chocolate-covered apricots, which go a long way to helping restore the balance of my carefully-controlled chocolate-based diet.

Intriguing global stastistics.

Thanks to Simon for the link.

I was working away at my machine, vaguely conscious of noises outside, and as the whistles and bangs became louder I started to wonder what they were. After a fairly short pause, I realised that today was New Year’s Eve, but by the time I’d cottoned on to the fact, we were already into 2008, here in the UK, at least.

Ho hum. Definitely still a bit jetlagged.

Happy New Year everybody! Hope you have a great one.