After seeing runours flying around the interwebs about the return of full sized Monster Munch, I was eager to give them a try. Whilst down the local shops, stocking up on essentials (beer and sausage rolls, mainly), I glanced over to the crisps shelf, and noticed them there. Yes, Roast Beef Monster Munch, in their distinctive old yellow packet…

Of course, the question is, would I be enough of a tight bastard to spend the asking price of 45p? Well, considering I actually have a photograph of them, in front of my monitor, I think you can safely assume that I did indeed buy them.

The bags are obviously bigger than they are now, and the packet has “Bigger Like They Used to be!*”… the asterisk points to some small text stating “as in 1977″. This clearly shows they’re not trying to corner the kids’ market with these, instead they’re going for the adult market, who grew up with them as kids, and were dismayed to find that Walkers completely destroyed their branding.

Now, I like to think I had a little part to play, after my rant on one of the UK newsgroups about the state of British crisps, and in particular Monster munch…

Someone in uk.culture.nostalgia.1980s asked “What do you miss from the 80’s that you wish were still with us?” My reply is the long-winded one below…

>>Cheese and Onion Monster Munch.

> Whatever happened to sizzling bacon flavour?

You know what, I can answer that with detail.

In the late 80’s (whee, just on topic), the short-lived extra flavours of Monster Munch were finished. Salt and Vinegar disappeared late 80s, Cheese and onion followed suit shortly after. In fact I consumed my last packet on 28th August 1989, leaving the Roast Beef and Pickled Onion flavours. Within a year or two, the Bacon flavour varieties were introduced in their distinctive orange packet. Oddly, orange is not a colour you’d associate with bacon crisps, even now.

In the mid 90s, the Monster Munch brand was “rejigged”. The packets for the remaining flavours were changed to be that little more monsterish. Therefore, the sizzling bacon variety were discontinued, in favour of the “Scary Spider” flavour. Basically, this was EXACTLY the same as the bacon flavour, but the packets were black and the crisps themselves had changed shape. These survived for a few years. Not many.

Shortly after, mid 1990s, I believe this was the time that Smiths Crisps became defunct and were swallowed up by the Walkers franchise. The packets changed from the clear plastic variety, to foil. The crisps changed their “shape” (there was more than one shape than just the “foot” they use now) to a much smaller version. Most flavours were ditched. A new “Hamburger” flavour was introduced, to replace the beef ones and pretty much everything else. I really disliked them. I can’t remember if the “Flaming Hot” ones came out the same time, or whether these were a later addition.

Either way, despite all of this uproar, the pickled onion ones stayed unchanged, except for their shape. I believe their bags have always been purple. They’re still strong (though not as strong as previous incarnations).

The “Roast Beef” ones returned earlier this decade, and always remind me of a long-forgotten brand”. They survive today, in their foil packets, along with the Flamin’ hot and Pickled Onion varieties.

Quite honestly, in the last 12 hours, I’ve pouched at least 6 bags of these particular crisps. I love them so much.

Is it pure coincidence that I wrote that on August 3rd, and here I am, a month and a half later, chowing down on original sized Monster Munch?

Technorati Tags: branding, childhood, crisis, memories, monster munch, newsgroups, Reminiscing, roast beef, snacks, walkers

Let’s recap over the last few days, as they’ve been memorable.

On Tuesday, I started doing the front garden again. It was an absolute mess. Thanks to the lovely summer we haven’t had, I’d not had chance to cut the grass, so it was almost knee height. So, out comes the lawnmover. There’s something satisfying on seeing the grass disappear, and come out from underneath the lawnmower as green mush. Or, maybe that’s just me.

Next step was the privet. Now, this was a state. Much worse than the grass. Basically, it’s not been cut for about 2 months, as the neighbour borrowed the hedge cutter, and blew it up. That was nice.

So, it’s just been left to grow wild. I had once attempted to start cutting it with shears a couple of weeks ago. I got about an inch across before I realised it was a fruitless excersise and abandoned it, planning to go to Focus later that day and just buy a new hedge trimmer. This obviously hadn’t been done.

So, after making another tiny bit of progress across the hedge with the shears, I totally gave up, dragged Daddykins into the car, off we went to Focus. The only sole purpose for him being there was the 10% discount card he carries. We made our way to the hedge trimmer section and picked up THE BEAST. Bright green, bright yellow cable, blade approximately 2 feet long. This’ll do for me!

Off we went to the till, picking up a pair of sweeping brooms on the way. I flashed my credit card at the lovely young lady on the counter, while Daddykins flashed his discount card. By this time, however, the rain was lashing down, I had no chance of being able to do it today, so the beast of a machine would have to lie dormant for another day.

On the way back, I went to Nettos, had a good old chinwag with Elaine, who now works there, after giving Employment Palace the old heave-ho several months back. Off we went home, and I got prepared to go out for the night. The rain was still bouncing off the rain at this point. The day took a turn for the worse, as I suddenly realised that my wallet had vanished. I’d last had it when in Nettos. GAH! Luckily, I’d got cashback, so I still had some funds for the night, but I was obviously a bit concerned over my missing moolah holder.

Eventually, I had to leave, otherwise I’d have never got out. I left Daddykins looking for it for me. He’s nice like that.

While I was stood at the bus stop, my mobile rings. The wallet had been located, it was in my room, under my chair. Thank god for that. It was the first time my wallet had been missing for a long period since 14th March 2004

Anyhoo, that cheered me up, and I went to the club for a couple of games of snooker, and while the rain fell out of the sky at an alarming rate, I continued to pot balls at a strangely accurate rate.

Chris reunited me with my wallet, as he’d seen Daddykins downstairs in the bar. Several hours later, I returned home, and went to bed, as Wednesday was the delivery date of my camera. Hurrah!

I awoke early. This was nothing to do with the camera, but in fact my guts churning excess acid, probably down to the alcohol, and half a packet of beef slices I’d consumed before going to bed. Well, I say bed, I chose to sleep on the sofa, as my bed was filled with various computer parts, and I was too lazy (read drunk) to clear it off. Actually, there was another reason. I’d need to be near the door so I could answer it with enthusiasm should the delivery turn up early, instead of fighting my way into clothes as I headed down the stairs.

Obviously, thanks to that excess acid, I was awake and up early anyway, so it turned out I didn’t need to sleep on the sofa after all.

I started on some maintenance to the gallery DB, that killed an hour or so. It was 9AM, and the weather was looking quite decent. This obviously meant that it was time to attack the flea market, as is always the tradition on a Wednesday, assuming I’m not working, and the weather looks OK.

Now, when I go to the flea market, I’m always in a world of my own, as I have my music playing through earphones. I made a little pact with myself, similar to what I did with the Bruce Hornsby record. Anyway, I said to myself, that if I was ever listening to a song, and it appeared in the collection of records / CDs I was browsing at the time, then I’d buy it.

In all of the times I’ve been down the flea market with music playing, it’s never once happened. This time, it happened twice. Maybe I’ve just had obscure music playing in the past.

Just as the opening drum beat of “Teenage Kicks” by the Undertones started, I pulled out a CD entitled “The Sounds of the Suburbs”, and indeed,Teenage Kicks was on there. Therefore I bought it… it only cost me 50p. I’ve wanted this CD for ages anyway, as the cover contains a nice image of a concrete lamp post. I remember seeing it advertised way back in 1992.

I was flicking through a box of singles, whilst listening to “68 Guns” by the Alarm. Guess what appeared in the pile? Yes, that very song. I couldn’t go back on my “word” so bought it, along with another pile of records. Due to the current state of my computer equipment, I’ve played neither the CD or record, but more on that later.

I also bought some clothes pegs while I was there. I bet you really wanted to know that too.

At this point, I entered the town centre itself. Normally my first purchase would be the corned beef pasty from Greggs, but they have put their prices up again. From 73p, to 75p. Considering they have 3 stores in the shopping centre alone, they obviously can do without my trade, so I thought I’d take my business to one of the alternate bakeries.

This was a big mistake.

I bought some sausage rolls. I thought I’d get them in bulk, and take a couple home for my dad. This was a big mistake, as they were rank. Firstly, all 4 sausage rolls got put into the same bag, which instantly turned translucent from the grease. This meant it would be impossible for me to eat just one in the “half in the bag” tradition, without the other ones falling out.

I had to go to the poundshop and purchase something, just so I had a carrier bag to carry these home in.

With my sausage rolls slowly degrading, I hopped on the bus home, and returned back to Mercuryvapour Towers, clutching my belongings.

I got home, and inspected the sausage rolls. The bag was entirely translucent at this point, and the grease had seeped through into the base of the carrier bag. These were going to be… how you say… different?

I placed them on a plate, and took them into the living room. I had only taken one bite, when the doorbell rang. My camera was here! I’d only been in the house seven minutes! Suddenly, I’d lost all interest in the sausage rolls, and I headed to the door. I grabbed the box, signed for it, and unpacked everything, putting the battery on charge within minutes of it passing the threshold. I’d used one in the past, so I knew what to expect.

OK, so I had two hours to kill while the battery charge. Obviously I couldn’t really do much with it on a flat battery. This is where THE BEAST came into play. Yes, the hedge cutter I’d bought yesterday was going to have its first very public airing. Now, I was used to the old shitty thing we had previously. The old one had the cutting power of… something very blunt. I was expecting something similar from this one. I plugged it in, and off we went. Oh, my, it was like a knife through hot butter. The old one kept jamming at the single thought of a slightly tough twig. This one just ate them. It even came with the interesting smell of burning components! I assumed that this was because it was new, so didn’t really bother. It worked perfectly.

Unfortunately, as the summer is almost officially over, I’ll not get a chance to use it again until next spring. You’d better believe I’ll be counting down the days until I get to break out THE BEAST again. Anyone want their hedge cutting? Only joking.

Soo, after sweeping up the majority of the clippings, I head back into the house to check the status of my camera battery. Just as I approached it, the LED switched from red to green, meaning it was fully charged. Wooooooo! I abandoned the hedge clippings, and returned to the camera.

Daddykins assisted me a great deal, by managing to work out how the hell the neck strap goes on. Eventually, after working out how to fit the lens, I was all ready to go. I was a bit concerned about my memory card. Andrew D had bought a fast-speed one for his. I didn’t, hoping and praying that my range of memory cards would be suitable. Thankfully, I’m happy to report that they are, and all of the cards work fine with the camera, even the 32Mb Kodak MMC card (though it takes 10 times longer to do a low-level format than it does with the other larger cards)

The camera upgrade does mean one important thing. It means that after only 40 minutes of the battery being charged, I was able to take images such as this one…

The only thing I need to purchase now is a tripod. I tried taking some night shots without one, they were abysmal. I also need a remote.

Obviously, I’ll post updates in the next few days

Technorati Tags: canon, eos, flea market, new camera, photo, rank, sausage roll

Ahh, now we’re starting to get into the swing of things. We knew where all of the eateries were, and we knew where we can stock up on supplies, we knew how much it was to get into at least 3 of the attractions.

Today was the day that we’d all planned to get up early and attack the Eiffel tower queues. It looked as if you really had to get in there early, or not bother getting in at all. Now, I knew, if we were going to attempt this, we really WOULD need supplies. Definitely water, for a kick off. Thankfully, Shoppy came in handy again, and I picked up three bottles of water. We also had the breakfast this morning. Now you may remember yesterday I mentioned La Terasse, where we’d stopped off for something to eat on the night. Well, that’s where we went for breakfast too.

I forgot to mention we also went for breakfast here on Day 2. I think. See, my mind doesn’t record every single detail on mornings. I just remember getting confused over the following…

Me: “Parlez vous Anglais?”
Him: “No, only French.”

You will just have to imagine my face at that point. No, in fact, imagine my face about 30 seconds later when I got his “joke”. Anyway, one awesome breakfast later, we head off to the Eiffel tower, and joined the queue, at 9:43, and didn’t get into the actual tower until 10:29. There was then a 7 minute wait until we got into the cable car at 10:36 to take up up to the first floor. The question was, would the view be worth it? I don’t think I’ll bother answering that question, as I can assure you, the views are absolutely amazing. Oh, wait. I just answered it.

Seriously though, it’s not until you get up to a high point that you realise how big Paris is. Here is a view of the hotel we were staying in, from the top…

See that “wedge” right in the very centre? That’s where the hotel is.

We stayed up there for ages. It was surprisingly warm considering we were on the top of a ~1,000 metre high structure. After spending quite a while at the top (mainly because there was a queue for the lift approximately a mile long), we went back down to the second level, and began the long walk down the stairs to the 1st floor. It was less busy than getting the lift, obviously, plus it offered a more entertaining view.

The first floor is a lot different to the other two floors, as it has bars, exhibitions, etc. After a quick look around them, we settled for something to eat and to drink. I went for the croissant and a “pint” of Heineken. And although it was reassuringly extortionate, must say, it’sn the most picturesque beer I’ve ever had…

Edit: oops, correctified image.

The chairs, however were a little bit “rustic”. They were made entirely out of old bits of tree, and not very sturdy at all. I think the person that was on the chair behind me almost went arse-over-tit because of them.

Anyway, we ate up, drank up, and began the descent via the stairs again. Unsurprisingly, there were once again vast swaithes of souvenir sellers trying to sell you stuff from their big black bin liners. Sigh.

We headed back to the hotel temporarily for some reason, and headed off to the Arc De triomphe. Now, it’s only 1.4 miles from the hotel On our previous trip there, it certainly didn’t feel like it. It felt a hell of a lot more. Therefore, we decided to use our €16 ticket on the boat again. Now, the only slight flaw in this plan, was that in order to get up to the Champs-Élysées, the boat had to make its way all the way along the touristy parts of the Seine, and then back again This was something that took 90 minutes.

Meh, it gave me an excuse to break the camcorder out, but by the end of it, even I was all camcordered out.

Eventually, we heard the words we wanted to hear… Next stop, “Champs-Élysées”. Awesome. This is where we wanted to be.

Off we jumped, only to realise that we were nowhere near where we wanted to be. In fact, we were still 1.2 miles away from it. Gutted. That means that we’d taken a 90 minute boat trip in order to save one fifth of a mile. I suddenly knew how this guy felt.

As we continued our walk down the Champs-Élysées, we walked past the preparations for the Wall-E premiere. It is unknown whether anyone famous attended, but there were a lot of security and cameramen about.

Eventually, after what felt like a fortnight, we made it to our final destination. It was €9 to get in, and no, we didn’t take the lift. Therefore, it is a climb of 284 steps to reach the first level, which is a sort-of museum. Unfortunately, this turned out to be very sparse indeed, with only a few exhibitions in it. I really thought they’d make more of a song and dance about something that looks so impressive on the outside.

So, after a quick look around, we went up yet more stairs and reached the top of the monument. Again, the view was great.

You also get a great view of the comedy roundabout while you’re up there. It looks even madder from above. I’m honestly surprised we didn’t see a major incident while we were up there, though there were plenty of brake screeching and blaring of horns.

We headed back down, and made our way along the road we should have came in the first place. Once again, we attacked The Shoppy.

Now, imagine the scene. you enter The Shoppy, and pick up a basket, only to find that one handle on it is broken. I attempt to place it back on the top of the baskets. Next, a small woman walks into the store. She thinks I’m actually getting a basket for *her*, and she takes the broken one I was about to put down… She thanks me with a cheerful “Ah! Merci!”… now, although I did French in school, we didn’t learn the words for “this basket is broken”, and I have the documentation to prove it

I tried to explain to her in sign language that the basket was well and truly fucked, and I was simply putting it back in order to get another one.

It failed miserably.

She looked away, and muttered “oh, non merci” under her breath as she grabbed a working basket. It was all so hilariously embarrasing.

First stop after the water aisle was, of course, the beer aisle. Now, you may remember the 7.9% beers I’d bought the day before. Well, I stocked up on these again, and got a few more to last me through the night. I did spy some 9% Leffe, but steered clear of this for the time being.

In our quest to find a cheap pub the previous night, we noted a few eateries to try out. It is unsurprising that we wanted a taste of home, and therefore resorted to choosing a Chinese.

As the night was getting on by this point, we retreated to our approriate rooms, and got ready for the night. On the way down, we had a special guest in the lift…. yes, a bloody wheelie bin…

We entered the Chinese, and found it to be a very nice place. the staff were friendly, spoke perfect English and it was overall a very welcoming atmosphere. You’ll be unsurprised to find that I ordered a chicken curry. Sorry.

SIDENOTE: I know I stated I’d eat horse while I was out there. I didn’t. Though, this was mainly because I could only find one place that sold it, and at €15, I didn’t want to risk that amount of money in something that may have been horrible.

Right, with that out of the way, back to the meal. It was top notch. Me and Chris had the chicken curry, and Jonathan had Chilli beef and noodles. it was all very nice, and although yes, the beer was still expensive, we didn’t mind paying it if we were getting something to eat.

After that, it was getting late so we headed off back to the hotel to talk about the days antics, eventually retiring to bed at approximately 1:30AM.

Technorati Tags: arc de triomphe, basket, boat, chinese, drink, eiffel tower, embarrassing, Food, holiday, paris, walk

Several weeks ago, Daddykins planted some potatoes. It’s something he often does. If there’s a vegetable in the kitchen that looks slightly off, or if he finds a poor seed wedged between his ever decaying teeth, he will take it out into the back garden, and plant it to see if it’ll grow.

I can’t remember when it started. I just remember being informed of a large, white bucket placed on the garden bench. This bucket contained several potatoes which were long past their use-by date, and already had the little white sprouts coming from it. Naturally, these potatoes were covered in soil. He wanted to see if they’d actually grow. Of course, thanks to the laws set by Mother Nature, any root vegetable placed in enough soil to sufficiently feed the plant, will grow.

And it did.

I took photos of the plant during the whole growing pictures. Unfortunately, thanks to my utter incompetence, I appear to have deleted all photos I took of it, so you won’t be able to see them. They were awesome. Well, actually, they weren’t that good, but I have to keep the suspense.

The plants grew and grew, and unfortunately, thanks to the utterly shit weather we’ve had so far this “summer”, the plants themsevles became damaged and started to die off.

Daddykins announced this afternoon that he’d be interested in seeing how his experiment went, and that we would empty the afore-mentioned bucket of its vegetable matter.

Unfortunately, the first one picked out wasn’t exactly going to feed a starving family.

Delicious as it may have been, it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing we were hoping for. It ended up being discarded. My heart sank, I was hoping for a crop of golden potatoes. Instead, it looked like we’d grown a bag of slightly soft and mushy marbles. Groan.

It only took a short dig of a few centimetres before we began to get potatoes of slightly higher value, and they actually looked quite nice.

Occasionally, we’d discover the mushy remains of the “parent” potato, which had degraded to a soft paste. These were also discarded, though the dogs seemed to take a great interest in them before I shooed them away.

The more we dug, the more the potatoes kept coming. From a small experiment, we gathered enough to be actually useful.

Now that’s some good eatin’.

Originally, the plan was to boil them, with the skins on. A simple enough affair, until the idea of making them into chips (or at least the biggest ones) came into the mind of Daddykins. I simply laughed at the idea, thinking that no matter how large the crop was, there’d be no potato big enough to be a “chippy” potato.

I disappear upstairs, and download the photos off the camera card, or do something equally as inane. Several minutes later, I am summonsed to the kitchen, to see a great big pile of chips in the fryer. I am awestruck.

Needless to say, I piled the whole lot on the plate, slapped on a small amount of salt, and enjoyed them like I’ve never enjoyed a plate of chips in my whole life. They were just awesome.

Damn. It almost makes me want to take up gardening.

Technorati Tags: awesome, chips, Food, home grown, potato

Bugger, once again, I nearly burn the house down with a culinary snack fit for a king.

Last night, I returned home from the pub (says it all really), and was absolutely famished. I raided the cupboard, only to find it was bare. I raised the freezer, and pulled out two Morrison’s frozen curries. Awesome! Well, it was actually one chicken madras, and one normal chicken curry. I was starving, so I thought “What the hell”, and threw them both into the pan, surrounded by lots of water.

I left them to simmer, whlst watching the clock. It would be 35 minutes until the golden curries were ready to be consumed. This momentous event would take place at precisely 1:01AM.

In the meantime, on went the telly. I had a good old flick around, eventually settling for Inspector Morse. Unfortunately, by the time I’d thought “Bloody hell, Kevin Whately looks young there”, I was sound asleep

I awoke, in time to see the clock switch to… 4AM. Ahem. The air was filled with the musty smell of burned rice, and all I could do is sigh at my lost meal. Indeed, the pans were bone dry, the plastic bags were shadows of their former selves, and the bottom of the pan was lined with thick, black mush…

Out into the yard it went. It was raining, so I laid the pan in the small puddle which always forms when it rains…. “whhoooOOoooosh”. Up went a great plume of steam.

Tsk. So, not only was my supper completely ruined, there has been an overwhelming smell of burned curry in the kitchen ever since. Delicious!

Technorati Tags: burned, cooking, curry, disaster, morrisons, pan