Month: January 2014

Office Jargon

Researchers asked 2 000 people about their opinions on office jargon and the phrases they find most irksome.

Over a quarter cited the term “social notworking” – the art of appearing to be hard at work while messing about on Facebook and Twitter – as the most irritating new jargon term.

It was closely followed by “deja brew”, the seemingly kind offer to make a colleague a cup of tea, when you know that they have just had one and are therefore likely to decline.

The top three is completed by “blue-sky drinking”, a term used to describe an unlimited free bar at a work party.

The remaining top 10 most irritating office jargon are: Continue reading “Office Jargon”

Premier League Predictor

Click picture for larger image

So there we were discussing the English Premier League and the current loss of form by perennial trophy winners Manchester United (being a life long Eastern Province supporter, I’m an expert on trophyless seasons.)

There was a lot of mirth among the group following the loss to Chelsea on the previous Sunday. I happened to mention that in the greater scheme of things, no planner would pencil in 3 points at the beginning of a season for a trip to Stamford Bridge, I further suggested that I doubt if visiting managers pencil in wins for visits to other title rivals, no, when planning a long campaign I assume points collected from these visits are considered a bonus.

I then laid down a challenge, put the managers hat on and predict how many points your team will gather from now ’till the end of the season, there are Liverpool, Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea fans in the circle, we’ve all stuck in R50 (£3) and there could well be 10 of us accepting the challenge  by next weekend.

A mate of mine met me on Tuesday and gave me my ‘scoresheet’, to be completed and handed in by end of January (he’s done one for every team! Is he keen or what?)

As you can see, I’ve got Manchester United, only the total after all 15 games matters, it matters not how I get to the total. It’s winner take all, 10 x R50 = a nice dinner out for me, I’ve got a figure of 32pts in my head for my submission (3,3,0,3,0,3,1,3,3,0,3,1,3,3,3,)

We will be getting weekly updates on the progress of all entrants, any suggestions / advice / help would be appreciated.

Devil’s freeze for sipu

There isn’t really a recipe, it is old deep South, handful of this and that!

Start off with a quart of good vanilla ice cream, I use a recipe with eggs, cream and milk, scalded plus vanilla and sugar into the ice cream maker.  Or you could start with a large tub of best ice cream already made.

Part freeze and then add, chopped pecans, chopped angelica, flaked sweetened coconut (NOT dessicated) and brandy, no more than 3-4 tablespoons per quart otherwise you screw up the freezing temp abd get slurp instead.  Freeze hard, pack in a box and leave to firm up for a day or so.  You would need a good handful of each addition.

If you need a good ice cream basic recipe let me know and I’ll dig mine out.

How the Confederates managed to lose with ice cream like this defeats me utterly!

Copacabana Dreams

The left footers really should know better. Don’t they read the good book? Graven images aren’t allowed. God is not happy. After trying to hold his temper and count to, I don’t know, a virgintillion and one his patience ran out and he rained down on the Rio statue of Christ the Redeemer some very, very frightening tautological thunderbolts and lightning.

Aiming this year to travel more, Brazil is one of the countries on my goto list. My goal is not to help fix the statue or swim in the Amazon river or look at the rock paintings in the Parque Nacional da Serra da Capivara. Would you believe I’m not even going there to watch the skimpily clad carnival girls rocococoing in the flesh. My mission is to make the natives better at football. Coming from where I come from I’m sure my ministry will be helpful in this godforsaken land of no-hopers. After all, my five-a-side team have won their last few matches.

Gin and Fat.

Well this started out as a comment on Sipu’s recent post, then as usual it got so long and convoluted I decided it better belonged here.

A number of unforeseen consequences of Whitney’s cotton gin followed rapidly after its wider application.  The rapid growth in cotton fibre production in the southern states was accompanied by a huge supply of cottonseed, for every bale of cotton (480 lbs) an astonishing 700 pounds of cottonseed were produced, most of it was dumped in the nearest river (gins were often water powered) or simply left on the ground to rot.

Continue reading “Gin and Fat.”

War and Gin

Had my father been alive, this month would have seen him celebrate his 100th birthday. Of course 1914 is better remembered for being the year that The Great War commenced.

It was an earlier great war, what Southern States call, ‘The War of Northern Agression’ aka the American Civil War, that saw the birth of my grandfather, in November 1862; exactly one year before President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

The Napoleonic Wars had not yet commenced when my great grandfather was born 220 years ago, in February 1794. However, they were well under way when, at the age of 16 he went off to fight with Wellington against the Corsican upstart. Much to his chagrin, my ancestor was wounded at the battle of Quatre Bras, which took place two days before Waterloo and thus was unable to take part in that more famous battle. Continue reading “War and Gin”