Snack of the Month - Salty Sticks filled with Peanuts (& bonus snacks!)

This month's snack of the month is a contender for least exciting name for a snack, ever. Yes, it's "Salty Sticks filled with Peanuts".

This was another random snack discovered in Home Bargains. They are basically a pretzel-type stick with a smidgeon of peanut butter inserted in them. They look like this when served. 

The filling is minimal.

Despite being very thinly spread, the filling gives the pretzel sticks a nice peanutty taste. However, they're not very exciting, and unlike Ding Dong or Bamba Puffs, I probably wouldn't bother buying them again. 

Speaking of Ding Dong, Cathy went for a foray into town and came home with an array of Ding Dong that has kept me going while watching late night baseball games recently. 

I haz all the Ding Dong!

In addition to a regular 'Mixed Nuts' bag, there were Hot & Spicy flavour, Garlic flavour, and a 'Snack Mix' that contained crispy little curls and other crunchy bits. That latter one was a very nice snack. The Hot & Spicy was less hot or spicy than I expected and didn't taste much different to regular Ding Dong, and I haven't tried the garlic one yet.

We have recently had a relaxation in lockdown rules, and that's meant we have been able to visit a few friends and sit outside with them. When we visited Matt and Lauren in their new home (well, on their new patio), Matt was keen to show me their Snack Crates, which are mystery boxes of snacks from different countries that arrive in a very nicely packaged box that even includes a link to a curated Spotify playlist from that country. 

They had a box from Brazil and Sweden on the go. Here's the Brazil box, with Matt doing his best 'showcase the snack crate' smile.

The contents of the Swedish snack crate seemed to have been picked to amuse puerile anglophone snackers.

I'm sure everyone would like to eat some skum, munch on some kex, and chow down on plopp. And the people who selected the snacks for that crate weren't sniggering as they put it together. 

One of the snacks in the Brazil crate was another peanut-based snack. There were two in the crate, so Matt and Lauren said I was welcome to take one for blog review purposes!

Pacoquita is like a crumbly block of peanut butter with a bit of sugar mixed in. It crumbles like a butter tablet or very dry fudge. It was very nice, but I wouldn't be able to eat a lot of it because it was very rich. 

That's it for now. Stay tuned for another snack of the month next month.

The merits of blogging (and should I continue)

I've blogged before about how blogging has changed. Social media and other things has taken its toll. I've been wondering about whether to wind up my blog and just admit it's over and time to move on.

I started this blog way back in 2006. (You can read the first post here if you really want to.) For the first couple of years I was updating it several times a week; most days in fact. Now I can barely get one post posted every month.

It is a bit of a relic of a past life. Since 2006 I have gotten older if not wiser, found new interests and hobbies. I've been through redundancy and a five year stint at another job and now am onto something else. I'm back at Uni doing a MSc. I've stopped working with young people and started preaching regularly. I have a niece and nephew who I love to bits. Life is good and busy and full and I just don't know what this blog is for any more, or who it's for.

Why the title?
Back in 1999 (I think) we went on holiday to mid-Wales and stayed outside Pantperthog. I got a photo with the village sign because I thought it was funny. Then in 2005 we were on holiday in the Scottish highlands and I posed for a photo with the sign for Knockando, again because it amused me. And then I was setting up a blog and I wanted a title and those were the two things that popped into my head.

Recently I discovered it would take over 8 hours to drive from Pantperthog to Knockando. Part of me is tempted to see if that is true. Maybe one day...

So, anyway, the blog might get a revamp or maybe I'll just rediscover a love for posting random thoughts. Or this may be it. It's been a fun almost-decade for the most part.

I'm sure it tastes delicious

Well, actually I'm not sure.

(Spotted in Morrison's, Cardiff Bay)

Paris - Day 4 (the voyage home)

We had a final morning in Paris, so we went shopping.

I found an arcade of stamp shops (the Passages du Promenades). Yes, I bought something.

We were also the first customers of the day in this creperie. I had a crepe au sucre et citron.

The thing about Paris is is seems every street you walk down has some sort of massive monument. Arches are everywhere.

I liked the cheeky lion on this one.

But it was time to leave. In a station cafe I had this lemonade. It tasted better than you'd think, given the name.

There were a pantheon of trains at the Gare du Nord, including several TGVs.

But back at an English station, Cathy met a celebrity!

Frankie Boyle's sort of toys?

A few weeks ago comedian Frankie Boyle (who seems to grow less funny with every passing month) caused a nasty sort of stir when he used various racist slurs in one of his routines. One of those words was 'Paki'.

Given that 'Paki' is considered quite an offensive term, I'm not sure who really thought up the names for these Disney characters...

The potential for miscommunication is immense.

"Where's Billy?"

"Oh, he's up in his room playing with a little Paki..."

Another sportsman with a weird name

I was watching the baseball at breakfast yesterday. NY Mets v Detroit Tigers. Stepping up to the plate was the new Mets star-in-the-making Angel Pagan.

Yes, that's right Angel, as in heavenly messengers sent from above, Pagan, as in pre-Christian tribal goddess-worshippers. Although to be fair he is Hispanic, so it's pronounced Ang-hel Pah-gahn.

But even so, a quality juxtaposed name.

World Cup fever and Waldo Ponce

Funniest name at the World Cup? Got to be Chile's central defender Waldo Ponce.

Just in case you want to go Ponce spotting here's a picture of him.



I tried to find a picture of him with his back to the camera so you could see his shirt with 'Ponce' written on it. But no such luck. Nice headband though.

I bet there's a sign that says 'Don't touch'

He might be called Phil. He might be a fruit. He might just like puns. Who's to say?




(Spotted on our recent book group trip to Hay on Wye.)

The art of caffeinated seduction

What would you do if, late at night, someone invited you in 'for a coffee' and then produced THIS?

For those about to...

We salute you!

Territorial cheese

We went on a late night shoppping trip to Tesco last night (not recommended three days before Christmas), because we needed a few staples like milk, cheese and, er, gherkins.

Anyhoo, I got some Double Gloucester cheese. Two lots because it was on linksave.

After we paid I was checking the receipt to make sure the special offers had come off and there it was: "Territorial cheese - 2 for £x". Now I've heard it called 'Regional cheese' before now when it's lumped in with the Cheshire, Red Leicester and Wensleydale, but 'territorial' sounds so much worse.

I can imagine the scene in the fridge right now - the cheese is kicking the other perishable produce. "Get away from my cheese box, you! This is my territory! You're not allowed near it!"

Obviously no one told Setanta

Watching Setanta Sports News this morning while eating my mini Oatibix, I was pleasantly surprised to see highlights of the England v Holland under-19 game. That wasn’t just because England won, but because the presenters hyped it up by saying “And now, action from New Meadow, where England took on Holland last night…”

When you support a lower league team, just seeing the ground on TV is relatively cool. But obviously no one has told the Setanta crew that the official name for the ground is the ProStar Stadium, and “New Meadow” has been excised from the vocabulary by the STFC marketing thought police. (Even though on the big sign next to the stadium that announces the building plans, it still says ‘Site of the New Meadow’, as Cathy pointed out when we went to the Aldershot game.)

And a shout out to mum (‘Hi, mum!’) who told me at the weekend that, just like I refer to the ProStar Stadium as the PornStar Stadium, she calls it the Prostate Stadium. Which is just as bad, if not as rude.

Confuzzled by nomenclature

I’ve been ripping quite a lot of music onto my computer at work recently. When I do, I offer my colleagues in “The Sardine Tin” (the nickname for our new office) the option of having a listen. When I offered round the Barenaked Ladies greatest hits, my friend Neil took me up on it, saying: “I quite like Barenaked Ladies.” At which point another guy who hadn’t really been listening, said “What?”

The comedy potential in the name saw another interesting exchange at home. We were heading out somewhere and Cathy was trying to decide which CD to bring along. “Would you like some Barenaked Ladies in the car?” she asked. Ah, if only…

It’s a similar problem I have when I tell people that “I love Scouting for Girls.” It makes me sound like a proper perv. Apparently when they chose the name they were parodying a book called Scouting for Boys, which sounds much worse to me. Surely they’d have picked up the double meaning there? Unless they did it deliberately in which case their claims of innocence are complete lies.

But the all-time worst band nomenclature resulted in Cathy once telling me: “I want to get Laid by James.”

Hoo boy.

++UPDATE++
Cathy has informed me that what she actually said was "How embarrasing would it be to go into a shop and say 'I want to get Laid by James'?"

As usual I obviously wasn't listening properly...

Scouts in Bondage

I wonder what kinds of search entries will bring people here with a blog post title like that…

Anyway, I’ve been reading this book recently. Well, I say reading, because it’s mainly just pictures of covers from books from yesteryear with laughable titles. Or, as the blurb on the book says, “Titles which may cause vulgar minds to misapprehend their content.”

I think my favourite book is 'Invisible Dick', where you not only get a comedy cover, but also a chapter list to laugh at, especially “Chapter 2: The Vanishing Helmet.” But there are some other gems, like ‘How to Recognise Leprosy’, and ‘The Corpse Came Too!’

Besides the fact that since many of these books were published certain words have attained a different meaning, it’s also notable how many were published by Christian book-houses. We can perhaps forgive ‘The Day Amanda Came’ or ‘Willie’s Ordeal’, but surely there has always been some humour in a title like ‘Christie’s Old Organ’. And as for ‘The Captain’s Bunk – an Adventure Story for Boys’, all that can be said is ‘hmmmmm!’

Anyway, I thoroughly recommend you get yourself a copy if you need a good giggle, as it has reduced several of my friends to paroxysms of laughter. It’s also made me consider scouring the bookshelves more closely in junk and charity shops to see if I can spot a few humorous titles to start my own collection…

My new nickname

"Hello, I'm Three Bingos. Nice to meet you."

(It's because I'm kicking butt at Scrabulous)

A couple more funny baseball names

I missed out Wally Joyner from my list of Padres players with funny names. Also, looking through some of my other cards I found a rookie card for a Mets player called Ian Bladergroen. Which just sounds painful.

But the best name in baseball has to be Albert Pujols. It doesn't look so funny written down, but he's Hispanic. You pronounce his name by sounding the u as 'oo' and the j as a h.

Now say it.

Respect!!

I chose to do a talk with the youth today on the topic of names. As part of my research I looked up what my name meant on various websites. Obviously I knew the gist: Hebrew, root meaning 'God has given', etc.

I don't think the kids could have been less interested, until I told them that 'Jonathan' in American street-slang apparently means 'bad ass'. So now if anyone asks me what my name means, I'm going to say "'Bad Ass!' You dig?"

Yeah, I feel like Samuel L Jackson.

Chinese greeting

Up to Shrewsbury for a very brief there-and-back-in-a-day visit, partly to deliver some fruit juice (long story) and also because it was my foster-sister Sarah's birthday. The folks decided to get in Chinese food, and when we got back from the takeaway, we realised they hadn't put the sweet and sour chicken in for the meat-eaters.

I drove back to the takeaway and when I walked in the girl on the counter recognised me and said quite loudly: "Chicken Balls!"

I said: "Well, I'm known by many names..."

Another post about spam marketing and stupid names

Another trawl through the bulk mail folder has revealed yet more names that have been especially selected to dupe unwitting idiots to open a spam email. I've done this twice now and it’s still entertaining.

How stupid would you have to be to open an unsolicited email from…
Bella Kimball
etti miguela
Ronda Dodd
Ottilia Hilliard
ramona cyril
shoshana flores
Nelly Mcbride
zozo momoh
Shavonda
Estella Mcnally
Jasper Buck
Zander Gonzales
Luciano Sprague
Lovetta Lavera

and what is the point of sending spam with one word ‘names’ like…
cowgirl
clang (!?)
cholera (!?!?!)

My favourite from this haul was jennifer bran, who sent me an email titled Sweeter Tasting Sperm. Mmm, yummy. What is the recipe?

Stupid spam names

Inspired by Tez, the Tokyo-based hurrah maiden, and her comments on stupid spammers, I had a look through my yahoo bulk mail folders (yes, I’m that lucky – I have two). I have to agree with TLB that the people who set up spam are obviously idiots, and all the evidence can be found in the names they use (culled and presented below for your amusement) to try and convince you that they’re genuine. Losers!

Hmm, yes, I’d open an email from someone called…
Hung Mahoney
Octavius Herbert
Aurora Law
Geralyn [that’s not even a name!]
Gertrud Nanette
Henriette Frost
Claudius Le [Roman mum, Chinese dad?]
Jonah Rodriguez
Clementina Pratt
Aurelia Wylie
Adalbert Jensen
Benedikta Dantzler
Jolene Jeffers
Yesenia Cullen
Kresten League
Edna Gore
Barra Spikes
Montagu Fuller
Swapnil Moffatt
Bozidar Downey
Prem Scoggin
Cronus Mosier
Gunhilda Danko

But this stupidity has given me a certain amount of inspiration – now when I’m looking for potential characters for a story, I’ll just refer back to this post. I’m already imagining glamorous lesbian private detective/part-time lapdancer Benedikta Dantzler investigating the evil crime syndicate run by Septuagenarian mob-boss Edna Gore, whose deadly assassins Hung Mahoney and Gunhilda Danko killed innocent bank-clerk Adalbert Jansen, when he inadvertently discovered the mob’s money-laundering plan. Can Dantzler foil the bad guys, console Adalbert Jansen’s grieving grown-up daughters Clementina Pratt and Aurelia Wylie, avoid the amorous advances of Jansen’s estranged thrice-married bi-curious wife Yesenia Cullen, and find out more about the alluring and enigmatic Aurora Law – a fatally beautiful femme with her own score to settle with Gore. And who are Cronus Mosier, Swapnil Moffatt and Barra Spikes, and why are they sitting on Benedikta’s couch drinking espresso at 7am?