Week 360 – Monday 9.25pm BBC1, Steak Isn’t Toast And, A Survey – Ask As Many Under Forties As You Can ‘Who Or What Was Rosebud?’

Here we are at Week 360. You’ll need to put up with me for another two postings as I felt guilty that Leila had done the last three. So no sense, no intelligence just my usual pish.

We were discussing the other week some older films and that’s where the idea for this posting came from.

Our age group has a broad knowledge of films and music, simply because we had no choice to choose. When I was young and you wanted to watch a film, you watched what was on the TV, you only had choice from the cinema. But that choice was whether or not you wanted to see it. Those were the days before the multiplexes.

I have a great love for those three station days. It meant I did watch Westerns, Hitchcock, Swashbucklers, Films from a decade or so back from when I was living. And I can’t believe it, but even the odd Romance! It was the same with music and that is why we know the likes of Zappa, Frampton, Cufflinks, Eddie and the Hotrods. We may not know much about them, but we know of them.

I find it sad that few kids could name five Beatles songs. Or four films by John Wayne. If you mentioned three or four members of a group, they wouldn’t have a clue.

Books are the same, even if we didn’t read any of the classics, we knew something about them.

I think it’s weird how many circles we have in life. The one I’ve been thinking about lately is the trend of folks listening to podcasts. This all started off with postage. Then we had phones to actually speak to someone. Then it was decided that writing to them in text was the way to go. Some folks wrote blogs and now those blogs that you read have become podcasts that means you are listening once again.

In this world of choosing to watch / listen to what you do, you are not exposed to as much variety. Ironically, our variety came from little choice – In a way, that is a shame … And it makes for you being shit at a pub quiz!!!

For a certain age group its maybe weird that from having very little choice we still developed taste and preference but at least we have experienced all sorts.

Taste and preference reminds me of a lovely lady called Katie Sievewright who I worked with many years ago. Well me typing this and also having had a steak for my tea last night.

‘Tea’, I need to explain, now this gets a bit complicated.

In Scotland, we have breakfast as does everyone, then we have dinner which is probably what you all call lunch. At what you would call dinner time we sometimes have our tea. But it may also be dinner. The rule of thumb is if your meal has chips it’s tea as traditionally you would have a cup of tea with it. But if you had potatoes then you would call it dinner. Supper is still supper unless you are having fish and chips from a chip shop then a supper maybe eaten at dinner time which is then your tea even though you eat this whilst drinking Irn Bru. (Lager can be substituted for the drink tea at tea-time. Or let’s be honest, breakfast or dinner at lunch time.)

Brunch is only for wankers and elevenses should be eaten every eleven minutes and involves Kit-Kats and Jaffa Cakes.

Anyhow, back to Katie.

I’m quite adventurous when it comes to food and if I see anything on a menu that I haven’t tried before, that’s the very thing for me. Don’t get me wrong, this has caught me out a few times but that in itself becomes another challenge!

Katie told me one day, that her favourite meal was a thick fillet steak dipped in egg and then rolled in breadcrumbs and fried. Fair dos, maybe a bit of a waste of a steak but that isn’t bad. Then she told me that she liked it to be served on-top of tinned spaghetti hoops.

I’ve wanted to try this but I couldn’t do that to a lovely slab of beef! I mean Bernard the bull died to feed me and here I would be making a mockery of his lovely flesh by sitting it on something that Heinz made.

(I am following on from pissing off the vegans last week!)

Frankie Boyle once said that he didn’t like Vegans much due to their ungodly flatulence and brittle boned children.

Best meat eaters joke I’ve ever heard was in an episode of The Simpsons. I may have mentioned this before. I find that I am now repeating myself. No sod that! Some things just need re-telling!!

To be truthful, I just checked and I’ve done 276 of these, including yearly posts, so I reckon that I will repeat myself every now and then!

Anyhow Lisa asked her father at a barbecue if there was anything to eat that hadn’t been slaughtered and Homer stated, ‘There’s veal, I think he died of loneliness!’

And another recommendation that I’ve well, recommended a few times is the novel ‘Meat’ by Joseph D’lacey. It’s a brilliant look at the slaughter trade with a very clever slant and also a reason for re-writing the bible. How rude using the bible to manipulate belief!!

Okay, since I’m talking about fiction stories (In the name of fuck, I’m shameless!!) let’s get to this week’s contributions.

We had two new writers, one returner, a fourth timer and a very inventive author who was showcased for the 16^th time.

First up on Monday was Rachel Siever.

This was her fourth story for us.

She is a hard working and tenacious writer who was published on Monday with, ‘Hundreds Of Little Pieces‘

‘This was excellent, it gave you a first hand look of an inflicted mind.’

‘The picture is painted very well.’

‘Really great tone to this!’

For his second offering, David Flynn was next up with ‘Leaving Macedonia‘.

‘There was an injection of tension and fear throughout.’

‘A description of horrendous things but it was never gratuitous.’

‘This makes you think of all those hells on Earth.’

On Wednesday we had Marco Etheridge.

First off we need to thank him for actually reading the guidelines.

And secondly we have to thank him for ignoring them!!

‘No Good Deed‘ was story number sixteen for Marco.

‘Good, clever and brilliantly put together.’

‘I wonder if he went over on purpose? It didn’t matter as you never noticed as this never dragged.’

‘Very entertaining!’

Our two newbies nearly finished off and then finished off the week.

As always, we welcome them, hope they have fun on the site and we want to see much more of their work.

Glenn Dungan was published on Thursday with, ‘Gosh Darnit, I’m Wet.‘

‘Weird, off-putting, violent and very interesting!’

‘Great tone and pace.’

‘Very well written.’

And last up on Friday was Matt Garabedian with, ‘We Do Not Mistrust Each Other Because We Are Both Armed.’

‘The words fly by.’

‘There’s some really good touches throughout.’

‘Well constructed.’

That’s us for another week.

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And we are still waiting for someone to take on a Re-Run this year!!!

Just to finish, I see those crazy royals have been at it again. The Harry one is moaning about protection when he is here in Britain and this is causing quite the stooshie. I have an easy answer, he should just hide behind his gran.

And I don’t understand the surprise from the British public that RandyAndyPandy insisted on five soft toys on his bed each night…I mean everyone needs bait when fishing.

Hugh

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay