Sandwich ingredients – can’t we all just get along?

Say you’re a slice of cheese, with all the crucial memories and opinions that a slice of cheese would have.

You want, specifics? Fine you’re brie.

Actually, no – you’re cheddar. Being cheddar is important for this.

It matters to me.

Anyway, you’re a slice of opinionated (cheddar) cheese – and someone places a slice of ham on top of you.

Opinionated ham.

Ham with a mother.

Ham with hopes (not dreams though – it’s just ham).

And that slice of ham is laying on top of you face to cheesy face – how would you feel?

Perhaps you’d nod politely at one another, like businessman bumping into each other on a crowded train, but then again, that doesn’t often happen when they’re both horizontal.

It’d be really neat if you’d both simply get along. No need to shove.

But that’s not all – next is the disappointment that comes from the comfortable slice of bread you yourself had already been placed on.

You’d been enjoying it being as soft and convenient as it was to relax upon, though weirdly, it was particularly buttery. As buttery as anything you can think of as being buttery.

Not many things are buttery. In fact, its likely that most things that are buttery, aside from bread, are not intended to be buttery.

Buttery.

Albeit buttery, it was a pleasant place to find yourself as a slice of cheese, even when a slice of ham is pressed against you.

Then, you see over the slice of ham’s………………. shoulder (?)……a second slice of bread descending its way towards you.

Now I can’t pretend to have ever heard cheese before. But if I were then, like you are now – a piece of cheese about to be imprisoned within the kind of butteriness that you’d honestly begun to trust – I think I’d have a lot to say. And even more to scream.

Meanwhile, the slice of ham is still squished up against you, face-to-face, unable to move because it’s inanimate (AKA “thoroughly well-cooked”) and is desperately asking what you’re freaking out about, but can sense the darkness looming up from behind it.

As I said, I’ve never heard cheese, and I’ve never heard the inside of a sandwich either, but I’ll bet its muffled.

Now I don’t want to be grim here. There’s no pain in the life of this cheese (can’t guarantee same for the ham) so have no fear of me describing the agony of teeth coming together through you – some cheddar cheese.

But, the idea of being chewed cheese basically just occurred to me and I wanted to share consideration for the sensation with you.

My favourite part was the suggestion of the cheese and ham nodding politely at each other. Its nice to get along.

There might be a metaphor in there somewhere, sandwich ingredients getting along and so on.

But I’ll leave that to you to be interested in, I’m just curious about being a piece of cheese.

Sam


Why I don’t remember my weekends.

I tend not to remember my weekends, because I tend not to remember most things that aren’t memorable.

I cooked pig’s feet on Sunday night, and I have literally no clue what we took place.

No clue.

I’m thoroughly informed on the flavour of trotters (taste like pig feet, probably like your feet too), but not on the preceeding 48 hours.

It’s because I ‘Walter Mitty’ – but not in the exotic or adventurous sense like the famous movie.

Instead, when my weekend is happening, and especially when my wife is explaining to me what we’re doing for the weekend, I like to get lost in an internal fiction of mundane oddness.

And it’s very frustrating.

I’d love to enjoy the memories of a weekend, or maybe even the weekend itself, but I reverie without mercy to the point that I’ve broadly got no idea what’s going on.

My wife was speaking, as I presume she does regularly, and instantaneously I began daydreaming about how I would explain to an ancient Viking that a cow is female, using only the most choice grunts and hand-gestures.

Why did I do that?

I didn’t do that!

That daydream happened to me and I simply couldn’t look away.

If this bizarre scenario played itself in your head – you’d also miss-out on your wife’s plans for your weekend.

And to be frank, whilst I’d like to enjoy the weekend, sometimes – I also really want to give some serious consideration to how I’d explain to an ancient Viking that a cow is female, and then watching myself in my own head, with an ancient Viking I’ve never even met before, miming a vagina whilst really committing to an effeminate moo.

Sometimes, I’d really like to do that.

But, reality is also lovely at times.

My wife and kids a smashing, really lovely. Can’t fault them at all.

My wife walks towards me with a smile that she can’t help – because she, like me, has a massive face.

Thus, she presents me with a smile, the same way someone might want to show me they’ve a bucket.

And my children – they’re worth being around for, as well as all that parental responsibility, etc.

My son reminds me of me, he’s the best show off and hopefully will do better than having a blog one day.

My daughter makes me laugh, and I expect that’s a phase till she finds easier means of getting chocolates and dollies.

How do they compare with an ancient Viking ignorant of bovine gender?

They’re preferable, but I’m still distracted by the ridiculous.

I’ll just have to concentrate on the preferable, I suppose.

But I hope you appreciate that having an uninvited Nordic fellow, complete with axe and beard and numerous other stereotypic apparel, inserted into your head from nowhere, might be distracting.

Because it is – I’ve written a whole blog about it. That’s how distracting it is – it gives me focus.

If this distracting focus makes me a millionaire thanks to this blog, that’s a negative – I don’t want my son to be inspired by such things.

He’s already distracted enough, with the void look in his eyes that tells me that in his head he’s somewhere nicer than the conversation I’m currently giving him.

He needs a good, solid focus, uninfluenced by fictional Vikings and me.

He needs his grinning mother – the ultimate reality, the sort you can both hang your hat on and rely.

My daughter will be fine, she takes after the ultimate reality with the big face.

I’m reminded of something teachers have said for, I expect, centuries…”must try harder”.

I’ll certainly try.

Sam


Can’t I just donate a foot and have fewer worries?

I wish sacrifice was real.

Not that form of sacrifice we see every day, in which people sacrifice (meaning ‘dedicate’) their time and efforts to something for others; time and efforts that might otherwise have been enjoyably spent on more selfish endeavours.

People do that every day, and that’s wonderful. Good for them.

I mean the kind of sacrifice that currently doesn’t work. The other…..other….kind of sacrifice.

Don’t worry, I don’t want to sacrifice my children or pets or anything like that.

Just one of my feet.

To the gods.

If I could lop off my left foot (I need my right foot for work) and throw it into the fire of heavenly donations (like an ethereal footbank) in exchange for just a little less woe – I’d do that.

Let me put it like this: you can retain your left foot…..or…..your mortage is paid off by the gods. Which would you choose?

I’d be hopping to the bank with a right-footed glee not seen since I hopped for genuine joy as a child.

Then I could spend my money on things I really want to buy. Like a shoe.

And I mean no offence to those out there without left feet, but this is my view and whilst I’m sorry right now – I’ll happily apologise further when my mortage is paid off by the Gods and I can consider sacrificing some of my remaining toes in exchange for free wifi.

My children get ill, you see.

And if you’ve children too, then so do yours.

Consider this – plus war, climate change and taxes, and you’ll realise – your not as attached to your left foot as you once thought. And you’ll feel this all the more following the ‘procedure‘.

All in exchange for a little sacrifice. Just a little less woe, would be nice

Fewer feet, less woe, a fair compromise.

And what will the gods do with my foot?

None of my business, but there’s no doubting that it’ll all come down to procreating with it and birthing angelic hordes of demi-god feet that can march or tap-dance at will.

Not that it’s any of my business.

Sam


Bread. Where did the inspiration come from?

Because I don’t have it.

The inspiration for bread is beyond me. Especially the ‘yeast‘ bit.

I have no idea what yeast is to be honest with you. And should I ever find myself holding a lump of it in my hand and was told to get some of the local crops to make bread, I’d seriously have to consider leaning on magic to get the job done.

And that’s with magic being real, which it isn’t, but then again I suspect yeast might not be either.

Take some wheat, squash it in a dry manner – don’t let it get wet in the squashing process.

Find some yeast, if you believe in such things, and just add it. I’m not sure how, maybe throw it at the dry squashed wheat. How thick a crust you get depends on how hard you throw it.

And where to find said yeast?

I’d imagine a cave, or the underside of a mighty boulder, or behind a waterfall at the mermaid lagoon – what does it matter? It doesn’t exist anyway.

When hunting the mythical ‘yeast beast’, search the forgotten realms of some dark bakery, where it continues to both give decent, hard-working folk infections, whilst simultaneously remaining imaginary.

Back to whatever ‘baking’ is:

It’s possible you then contribute an egg to the proceedings, but that might result in a cake and cakes are simply ridiculous – look at them. They have cherries on top.

Heat, the hot stuff. Put it in the mixture. On and around too.

With that done, it’s just a matter of time.

Time to wonder what the hell you were playing at, throwing yeast at things and hoping there’d be a positive outcome because you made it hotter.

What the hell were the first people who actually made bread trying to do? From whence did their inspiration come?

From whence?!

There’s only one possible explanation for bread.

And I do believe it’s the creativity of idiocy, curious to see what happens when you do something to something and see if something happens.

In this case, it was bread. But what was the first baker trying to achieve? Food?

Because and no point in the bread making process does it look like food.

It looks like matter with no future, regardless of if it gets hot or not.

What could they see that I can’t?

Did they have any idea it would become the basis of poetic metaphors for religious and socio-political economic movements, or the far more serious daily status is holds for the French?

Probably. Most of my actions are based on how important the outcomes will be for the French. Such as this blog, which I’d presume they’d refer to as “hors-de-propos” – the opposite of bread.

Sam


The News. Interesting, irrelevant or 80 years old.

I am sitting here, trying to remember what articles I read now. Thankfully it was the Daily Star, so there were lots of pictures.

Pictures are good memory joggers, especially as they make words standout in the first place, and the Daily Star nails this, mainly through images of massive interest and zero relevance. Like this one:

Its a beaver. Doesn’t really need the words actually, though I do like the “Hey“.

Hey” indeed.

The Daily Star might be what we’d hand to the extraterrestrials to give them an idea of what our focus really is, or we’d roll it up to bop them on the head (nearest equivalent) to shoo them out of our atmosphere.

Either way, we’d still say “Hey”.

If they ever come at all, but in the meanwhile….we’ve clouds.

We’re just not dangerous enough yet. Or cool enough either. I’m doing my bit, but you should all really be a bit more dangerous.

Perhaps like the warrior in the garden, rather than the gardener in a war. But I’m frankly more interested in a dangerous gardner.

With big, purple and suggestive-as-hell vegetables. Mainly purple.

It’s nice to have a goal which accommodates climate change, since the UK is going to have no aims to avoid it.

And, purple vegetables. Very ‘in-vogue’. Very ‘end-times’.

It’s getting hotter. Leave the heating off, especially if you’re in the pub.

I like a cold pub. It’s a chance to wear your coat indoors, as though you’re at ski-resort in South London (great place to drink and ski but not actually the latter).

Or you can wear loads and loads of fashionable outfits, like the music video for ‘Only You’ performed by The Flying Pickets.

THAT’S fashion. THAT’S a chilly pub.

It’s scenic. Looks good. You can’t take it away from chilly pubs, from The Flying Pickets, and from magpies.

Take a magpie. Take two, they’re free.

Now flatten it.

And you’ve got yourself the flag I’ve always thought would suit me, and my inevitable nation-state, very well indeed thank you.

Of course the black, of course the white. But those two; with that blue……if not the heights, then certainly the depths of fashion.

The last thing I noted in this paper was an advert. For a book of a tale from a witness to warcrimes they endured as a child in WW2.

I’ve tried to write about this theme but I’ve struggled to summarise in my irreverent style.

WW2 is still the news. Because we still can’t quite believed it happened.

Probably a book worth reading. Like a newspaper worth enjoying the pictures of.

Sam