Marmalade is not really my jam

I like the idea of marmalade, but it's really not my jam. But the taste always does make me hark back to Victorian England, when I sat at the dining table, circa 1881, taking breakfast, toast with a nice, fresh marmalade - freshly squeezed from a hen - in my white smock, reading the news on my iPad - “Queen Victoria beheads rogue marmalade maker”, “Victoria snubs new sour marmalade”, and the like. 

Back in the very old days, when life was really quite shit, unless you were obscenely wealthy, but even then... marmalade was taken in the evening, but it was the good ol’ Scots who elevated its status to a ‘breakfast staple’, making all the other toppings feel unwanted and disrespected and wondering if they should start to make their Instagram page more racy and/or aesthetically pleasing to the masses.

I haven’t had marmalade in nearly 130 years. I first met marmalade down in old Moulin Rouge, strutting itself on the streets.  It’s one of those hard-to-find-a-good-one products that could really go either way. Sour, sweet, lots of peel, even more peel, please sir no peel, peel is not appealing. 


Anyway anyway, back to circa 2019. In the very best British spirit of Keeping Calm and Carrying On, I will continue my search for a non-disgusting Marmalade. So I bought some, in an effort to not judge a jar by it’s contents.
 
So I cooked some bread, in the traditional manner of toasting it in a toaster, favoured by many, and, lo and behold, I could not for the life of me open the darn jar of marmalade. And in the very best British spirit of Keeping Calm and Carrying On, I used vegemite instead. Vegemite never lets me down. And it has a positive, happy little vegemite attitude while it's at it, which is nice.

The next day I tried again with the marmalade jar, because I ain’t no quitter of opening marmalade jars. I used a knife, I tried to bang the lid open, I hired a forklift to wedge it open, I threw it off the Grand Canyon and watched it plunge 1,000 metres to the bottom of the Colorado River; but nothing worked. 

Downton Abbey marmalade??? Shut up and take my $$$

Day three, and I was not ready to throw in the towel. I was not going to be defeated by a jar of breakfast spread. I slaved and toiled over the opening of that bloody jar, day after day, year after year, and, finally, on the 15th year anniversary of trying to open the stupid thing, it popped open, like no-one had suffered in the opening of that jar. And you know what; it wasn’t the one for me, so I gave it to my dad, an unfussy marmalade consumer.

And to this day, the search for My Marmalade continues.

The Twinkie is Sinky

The company that makes Twinkies, the sugary snack that Americans love for reasons I cannot fathom, is going bust.  And, surprise, surprise, it is the fault of a workers' union, after striking workers failed to hit a deadline to go back to work at the advice of their union, and now 18,000 people don't have a job.  A union that costs workers their jobs isn't much of a union.  Which part of the word "union" do unions not understand?

The post-Twinkie world is, unsurprisingly, causing great distress to many folk in the United States because they just don't have that many options of sickly, sugary crap to stuff their faces with.  People in Australia don't really care about Twinkies or their demise.  But I do know what Twinkies are, having been exposed to their mass marketing techniques when I was but a child, and I was just as grossed out by them then as I am now.

My familiarity with Twinkies comes from observing Jughead Jones and Aunt Hilda as they gorged themselves stupid on creamy, sponge cake goo on the advertisement pages of my Archie Comics in the 1980s.  I never felt a need to go anywhere near a Twinkie after that.  And the comic also tried to flog sea monkeys through some ponzi scheme, where you could weirdly purchase a middle-class family of midget crustaceans.  Totally freaked me out.  They still try and sell those things.

While we are on topic, let me tell you what really gets my goat.  American bread.  They put sugar in normal, average, garden variety bread in the United States!  Bread is not supposed to taste like a Twinkie.  It's so distasteful that on my recent sojourn to Florida I was forced to spit that shit out (such a way with words today).  No wonder the United States has a collective weight problem.

I admit that America is an ongoing, moving target of my cynicism and negativity, but, what can I say, it's an easy target.  If questioned I will use the 'Twinkie Defense (sic)", a compelling argument made by a U.S. man who blamed the sugar in Twinkies for giving him depression which caused him to murder someone.  Like I said; easy target.

Breakfast & Butterfingers

Breakfast

*Gets on soapbox*

The Red Cross do incredible work for people in times of crisis, providing immediate and practical help and support to those in need around the world. As a charity, one of their fundamental principles is that no child should go hungry. To this end, Red Cross Australia manage an initiative called the Good Start Breakfast Club, which serves 850,000 breakfasts each year in 220 schools in areas of greatest need.

It sounds like a fantastic initiative but it begs the question that charities don't ask because they are open-handed and tolerant and don't judge people who possibly deserved to be judged every now and again. My question is this: If you can't afford to give your children breakfast then why are you breeding?? What the hell is wrong with people?

Unless you live in a third world country, it is inexcusable to send your kid to school without giving them a meal of some sort. Sending ravenous kids to school was unheard of when I was that age. No matter how busy my mum was, she always made sure we had something to eat before we headed off to school.

The oft used excuses dragged out in parents’ defence these days - ‘I don’t have time’ and ‘life’s busy these days’ – are all very well. But things have always been busy for anyone bringing up children. People create their own busyness. And all their busyness says to me is that they need start reprioritising and buy their kids some damn weetbix.

It's like anything in life that feels unfair, like those women who are unable to pay their bills because they have just bought an expensive pair of shoes.  We all have disposable income and we all have spare time on our hands; we just choose to prioritise things differently.

At what point do parents need to start taking responsibility for their own children’s health and nutrition rather than leaving in to the state and charities?

The Red Cross is for people who really need it. I imagine a lot of these parents do need their support, but, in that case, they need to put a halt in the breeding process and stop blowing their cash on grog and cigarettes.  And charities shouldn’t be abused by smug parents who can't be bothered to give their offspring cereal in the morning. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people?

I can see people reading this now – “what does she know, she isn’t a parent?” Well, I know shirking responsibility when I see it.

*Gets off soapbox*

Butterfingers

I don’t really care to make new year’s resolutions, because who the hell keeps those things? But, for my own safety and for the safety of anything in my possession, I will resolutely endeavour to be more vigilant this and avoid walking into things as much as possible (for me).

I have a habit of walking into door frames, tripping over bed corners and coffee tables, walking into rear vision mirrors in car parks, and just generally hurting myself at least once a day. My talent for walking into things defies explanation.

I find it quite unfair when people tell me to just be more careful. I shouldn’t have to think strategically when I walk around a corner; shouldn’t the parts of my brain that look after spatial awareness and reasoning be onto this? I think someone has been having a siesta whilst on the job.

My explanation for this is my lack of depth perception – one short and one long sighted eye – but I will make an effort to walk into things less this year.

Unmark Everything

The marketing departments of cigarette companies like to espouse the virtues of smoking their addictive little sticks through stupid messages and graphic designs placed on their packaging and labelling in an attempt to encourage potential buyers to purchase their product.  Of course the evil little catch in the rather conspicuous small print is that this leads the buyer's health down the well-worn path of lung diseases, cancer, diabetes, stroke, hypertension, blood clots, emphysema, heart attacks, addiction, ashtray breathe, general stinkiness etc etc etc etc.

I think having unmarked cigarette packets is a rather excellent idea.  I don't think it'll stop people from smoking, or stop impressionable young things from taking up the behaviour, but I stand behind the idea of pissing off cigarette manufacturers and leaving their sellers out of pocket.  Why should the sellers be punished?  Um, because they are selling packeted poison that should be made illegal.  Screw the stupid sellers.

I actually think we should put plain labels on everything that's for sale on the market.  Because the real thing never looks like the cover on the box anyway.  Nearly all the models we see in magazines are air brushed, meaning they look nothing like the actual model in person. 

The same goes for food that, once prepared, usually looks nothing like it's model on the packet, which has undergone hours of food styling and hair and makeup teams armed with tongs and forks, and has benefited from the art of airbrushing and savvy lighting techniques.  Furthermore, lasagnes that drip tantalisingly with actual cheese on the box will often contain no actual cheese, just some sort of processed white sauce concoction.

But why not take it one step further and have no packaging whatsoever?  Just force smokers to rock up to their local Woolies with a plastic bag or cardboard box, and the seller can toss in a bunch of cigarettes while simultaneously judging them, correctly, as one of the world's least bright folk.  Considering that millions of people around the world die of smoking-related ilnesses every year, I think this is a valid appraisal of their intelligence. 

But I guess smokers are content to venture out into the freezing cold night and start puffing away, so a small inconvenience like a lack of packaging will probably be of little concern to them.  But perhaps by the time the smoker has carted their cancer stick-laden cardboard box home, they would likely be so damaged by water vapour, dust, and crushed to the point that they will be rendered useless. 

Alternatively, we could use one of those companies that wraps all their product in titanium-based plastic, the kind that you simply cannot remove, and get them to wrap all cigarette packets.  By the time the smokers get the darn stuff off, they would have gotten through all the nastier symptoms of nicotine addiction.

I don't know, I'm just trying to help.  I'm a helper.

Queanbeyan Quartier français

The French Quarter, Queanbeyan. On exquisite April mornings in Le Dodsworth Hauteurs, I like to ride my bicycle into la ville de Queanbeyan, taking in the impossible tranquillité of the hurlement (yell) of cockatoos and the subtle répercussions of the idiots locaux automobiles, as they prepare to head into town for a petit pisser du jour.

On my ride, I take in the délicieux scents of freshly cut herbs, foie gras, bird excrement and other various non spécifié odours, and I snort in admirablement at other feisty smells as I near the l'avenue de fromage moisi et graisse (avenue of moldy cheese and grease). The dewy dawn air blanchits my breathe as I bid my bonjours to a local mademoiselle, who wanders the gouttière (gutter) collecting various fresh produce from the local boite (trash) dotted along the pittoresque route on the le boulevard de bogans.

“Bonjour Mademoiselle!”, I wave frantically while flicking my tasselled handlebar bell.

“F*%#@ off”, she grunts.

I have always loved La Queanbeyan. It reminds me of a grande country town, with friendly human visages and petit amigos everywhere you go.

While the monsoirs like to while away their day in the gaztrillion pubs, many of them remain in le populaire establishments until late in the evening; preferring to walk home along the queanbeyan rivière at the fraiche dawn, away from the harsh polluer des joueurs (foul players), or get a lift in the chariot de paddywagons.

I whizzed onto the bustling Grand Rond (big roundabout) on the Route du Bungendore, chiming my bell and directing traffic on the circle de suicide.

“GET OFF THE ROAD YOU STUPID F%#@!!!”, says one of locals, greeting me in the usual quoi que manner.

“Oh yes, good day to you, monsieur!”, I said, waving back.

The townsfolk and I would exchange pleasantries all day if we could.  I love the hustle and bustle of this part of the Secteur Obèse (fat quarter), with its shiny, riche asphalte surface and boulevards bustling with idiots de village and classe ouvrière, heading off to collect their welfare profites from sécurité sociale and participer in some early afternoon combat de pub.

I park my bike on the la maison de vélo (home of bike) and enter the razzle éblouit of the l'arc d'or (arch of golden) into the jaune and rouge brick building that houses the la maison de hamburgers, owned by the famous cuisinier Monsieur McDonald.

I enquire about the fresh products of the day to the young monsieur behind the compteur, with an eye for a de graine de sesame seed (bread roll) or lasagnes d'escargot or les pommes de terre ont cuisiné dans le vin with 12 herbes secrètes (potatoes cooked in wine with 28 secret herbs).

“Fresh? Um, the sweet and sour sauce packets arrived in a box yesterday?”, monsieur says to my delight.

“Oh, lovely, may I take ten please?”

“Whatever.”

Full of de joie after my brisk and savoure purchases, I positively skip out the l'arc d'or and allow the succulent l'odours de village to direct me to my next destination on the l'avenue de pépites (avenue of nuggets).

I often leave the village with a grand trolley brimming with l'homme a fait (man-made) fresh fruit and veg and various delicat knickerknackers that I don’t need or want, but provide équilibre in my trolley and ensure I will look tres faux and pertinent yet blasé on my journey back to the grand maison.

McBogans

Ah, Today Tonight. What would we do without you? We’d probably get along just fine, and be a far less litigious society, and have far less cashed-up bogans, and no-one would notice you were gone.   Anyway, TT ran a story tonight on parents who take their children on family shopping adventures. What? So why is that TT-worthy? 

Well, aside from the fact that TT is completely ridiculous at the best of times, this story was about a type of shopping adventure that you engage in without any exchange of cash taking place. No, no credit cards either. Don’t need credit cards. It’s more of a five-fingered discount type of family outing. For arguments sake, let’s call it bogan shopping. Because bogans think shopping the traditional, old-fashioned way of trading cash for goods kinda McSucks.

But who can blame the bogans.  When the parole officer told Tracee-Lee that she should spend more quality time with her offspring, Chardonaay-Jaiymee, she probably meant do something that wasn't illegal.  But how can Tracee-Lee have possibly be expected to know that?  Those parole officers really need to be more SPECIFIC. “Quality time with your family” for convicted criminals means taking your offspring with you when you steal a three-pack of skivvies from Best and Less / hold up an IGA.

And then the journalist (that's italicised for the purpose of sarcasm), spoke to the security manager of one electronics outlet. Surely, if they have footage of a bogan lady walking out with a blue ray DVD player and surround sound system they should have caught her. How do these people get the guts to walk out with a pile of hot goods anyway? That’s confidence.

And what were the security personnel doing when the stock was walking out the door in the hands of bogan trash? Probably eating one of McDonald’s new Pounder burgers.  Rather than securing things, they were probably stuffing their faces with 50,000 calories of fluorescent cheese and a curious meat-looking product on a sesame seed bun-looking product.  Maximum taste, minimum wage. Sheesh, it's like putting Hamburglar in charge of the security department.

I really hate segways on commercial television. Why do they have to announce that they have just made a fabulous segway into the next story? It was stupid even before they decided to point it out.  Anywho, speaking of McDonalds...

TT also reported that McDonalds are denying they have a burger called the Pounder, even though they do in fact have a new burger called the Pounder.  Instead of dealing with the fallout of having a burger on your menu with a calorie count that would feed a third world country, and further bloat the waistlines of people who seem incapable of driving anywhere expect fast food outlets, the McDonald’s PR simply denied its existence.

Despite the fact the TT man (I can’t bring myself to call him a journalist again) had just gone into McDonalds and bought a Pounder.  Genius damage control. I like it. I stand behind it. Bill Clinton also famously got away with it with the skanky McIntern using this little tactic.  Well, got away with it in the sense that most lefties still think the sun shines out of his McArse.