Hungry?

 

As a departure from my usual ramblings about how unfair life is and how although the solutions to life’s problems is not to be found at the bottom of a whisky bottle its fun to try and find them there anyway, I thought I would write about something which brings me great pleasure… gluttony.

More accurately I refer to the art of making a good sandwich.

Being British I thought we had the whole thing covererd right from our nice little triangular cucumber sandwiches to the heart attack inducing ‘chip butty’. I was mistaken.

My best friend, a chef in the US of A once proudly informed me that ‘whatever you can put on a plate, I can put in a sandwich‘. To illustrate the point he made the largest bread rolls (more akin to logs) I have ever seen and proceeded to fill them with layer after layer of meat, crispy fried chicken, salad, cheese, pickle, more meat, fried potatoes then mayonnaise. Literally a plate full of food crammed into a sandwich.

 

Impressive thought I. Until of course I took a bite of one end while watching the entire contents spill out of the other. Which of course brings me to a question and a challenge for my regular reader (the one and only reader). When you have made the perfect sandwich or sub as my friend called it, how the hell are you supposed to eat it without dislocating your jaw, bursting several blood vessels or looking a complete prat?

Answers on a postcard please. The best suggestion will win a sandwich. It’s one we accidentally dropped on the floor but all the bits of dirt and fluff have been scraped off so it’s OK.

Here’s my attempt at a top 5

5. Cut the sandwich in half so that you have a chance of covering it with your hands in case anything tries to escape. The cupping method.

4. Squash the sandwich into a more manageable size. Asking a fat person to sit on it usually has the desired effect however please use tact when asking for use of their buttocks. Also don’t be surprised if you loose it either between the cheeks or in a fold of flab. This is better known as the elephant method.

3. Lean right over your plate then take a bite from  one end then the next bite from the other until your bites meet in the middle. This is the see-saw method.

2. Get the sandwich, shove it in a blender and liquidise it. Its easier to eat through a straw. Great idea for hospital food. The baby food method.

1. Get naked, get in the bath tub and go wild. When finished just wash the spilled bits of food and dribble off with the shower. The pig slop method.

 

Tough luck really

My department is closing down soon.

 This is very sad.

It was a good department full of good people.

We loaned money to old people who desperately needed it and made a modest profit on the side.

However due to the American sub prime blah blah blah credit crunch blah blah blah Northern Rock collapse blah blah blah… no further funds are available and so we have to close.

I have just spent the afternoon writing to people whom had received offers for loans to inform them that we can no longer honour these offers and must therefore withdraw them. While the letters were polite, informative and sympathetic what they really should have said is written below;

 

Dear Mr & Mrs Incontinent Hearing Aid-Wearer

Recently you successfully applied for a loan with us and received a loan offer in writing. It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that this offer must be rescinded due to current costs of obtaining loan funding.

While I am sure that you have probably already decided what you will do with the money and have paid the deposit on that luxurious new car or had plans drawn up for the little guest apartment or swimming pool, I am afraid you will no longer be getting a penny from us.

I would therefore advise you to plead with the nice man at the Ferrari dealership for your deposit back, call your contractor and ask him to tear up those plans for which the architect charged a fortune to draft and ask the pool company to fill up the huge gaping hole in your back garden.

While this decision is regrettable we have had no choice and so would appreciate it if you refrain from calling my direct line and screaming down the phone at me. After all you’re not the only one who is screwed. I’m out of a job next week.

Many thanks for your interest in our company. Please enjoy the remainder of your retirement.

Yours sincerely

F. Ingscint-Now 

 

 

Paranoia

My childhood memories are not the happiest.

I have no recollection of my father. It seems that just as I was leaving hospital after what was apparently a difficult delivery, my father was being admitted for tests to confirm whether he had cancer or not. Unfortunately the tests were positive and he never left hospital again. I have only one photograph of my father and I together. He is sitting up in his hospital bed holding me in his arms.

Following his death my mother was left on her own with 3 young children to care for. Life was hard but she did the best she could. I have memories of her going without food so that we children could eat. Being a young lad without a father for some reason made me an object of hatred in the village and as a result the remaining memories of my young life tend to revolve around me being beaten black and blue. Things did not really improve during my teens until the age of 15 when I decided not to be a victim anymore.

Even so, it seems that my life has gone from one disaster to another. Always when things are going well, it seems as if some unseen force comes along and pulls the rug right out from under my feet and I end up flat on my arse.

I’m sorry to bitch about this of course and am fully aware that there are people worse off however it does raise interesting questions. For example why do some people work hard all of their lives to get absolutely nowhere where others seem to cruse and even when a disaster strikes, they come out of it smelling of roses?

Why is it that it’s always when things appear to be running smoothly that the sh*t hits the fan and splatters all over your open mouthed face?

My theory is that when your are born a secret government agency takes your name and enters it into some kind of lottery to decide who will succeed in life and who will fail. Those chosen to succeed will always get the breaks while those chosen to fail will get breaks of a different and altogether more unpleasant kind. This government agency keeps tabs on everything in your life and times everything to perfection. They listen out for the time you dare to mention to your wife that you’re happy, life is good, your savings have picked up again…  then at that precise moment you get bitch slapped.

And so it goes that the next day at work I find that the business I’ve been managing is to close for no fault of my own and that all my staff are to be given other jobs and that the only position for me, despite having a high profile in the company and being showered with praise from the company directors, is a rapid demotion from senior manager to toilet cleaner.

Perhaps I’m being silly or downright pathetic but since this kind of thing is a regular occurance for me, again through no fault of my own, I think I could be forgiven for being a little paranoid.

Or perhaps bad luck is simply a matter of genetics in which case considering my family history I’m completely screwed.