Literatea

Time for a new series from Literatea. “Hurray!”, I hear you cry, “No more wedding woes!”. And you’d be right. This is a lot more interesting. I’m going to entitle this one
Customer Reviews From Hell

or

Customer Reviews and the Dark Side of Allowing Just About Anyone to Publish Their Thoughts on the Interweb.

Yes, today’s beauty does indeed come from the UK (you may be surprised to hear. If you live in the UK, however, nothing would surprise you less.) and is a review from Amazon for a pair of headphones.

The Review:

I AM HAVING THESE FOR 2 YRS NOW BUT THE WIRE HAS KINDA BROKEN CAUSE ME DOG ATE THE WIRE SO ONLY ONE SPEAKER WORKS.BUT I LIKE IT SO MUCH THAT I DONT WANNA EXPERIMENT WITH ANYTHING ELSE AND AM BUYING IT AGAIN FOR A SECOND TIME.

“… I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.” Winston Churchill

I was going to launch into one about women and the colour navy. Think I’ll save the rant for now as a friend wants her bridesmaids in the selfsame colour…

Picture the scene: watery slides and rapids, heated swimming pools, the icy-cold plunge pool, 7- or 8-degree heat outside, a forest, worship, hanging out with your mates, seminars…

This has been one of the highlights of my youth work days for the past (almost) seven years. Every year Newfrontiers does a conference for youth leaders at CenterParcs at the beginning of the year. And I’m off to my very last one today. These conferences are always God-centered, full of people who love the Lord, old hands, newbies, youth cell leaders, year teamers, full timers and hard workers who do youf on top of everything else! The teaching is helpful, strongly biblical, application-based and God-glorifying. Now I could finish this post by saying something trite and emo like “I shall miss it” or “There have been good times, there have been bad times, but they’ve all been God’s times” or some nonsense. Instead I’m going to dish out some advice, wisdom; call it what you will.

I’ve done church-based youth work for about seven years now. Six of those have been on salaried staff at my church. I think that one of the reasons I’ve lasted as long as I have are my teams. They have changed substantially over the years but there has been one common factor in all of them: we’ve always been friends. When picking your team don’t be shy about asking people who you get along with. Do you enjoy someone’s company? Do you get along with them? Do they have traits and skills you’d like on your team? Then ask them to join in your vision! We’ve had great times planning our programmes, throwing about ideas for keeping things fresh, doing weekends away and bible weeks. We’ve led our young people evangelistically, we’ve seen young people baptised, joining the church, serving, bringing their friends in. We’ve had meals together, had planning meetings in the pub together, bellyached over things being a bit pants together and prayed together. It’s fun to be on a fun team and that, in my experience, is how serving should be. It makes for a work with longevity and passion and vision, which brings me the end of today’s two-pence-worth.

Ahhhh, wedding cakes. What lovely, ivory-towered confections of great imaginings and all that, um, stuff.

So here you see the sort of thing we’re going for. It’s unlikely to be quite so pink but it’s a fairly good representation of the style. Oh- and it’s going to be a lemon sponge!

“… Baths, but not with other people! Islands. I could go on all day. Katharine Clifton’s reply to Almásy’s question “What do you love most?” in The English Patient

I am going to refrain from using the tag line. But you’ve got to know: I. love. it.

And I have amazing, incredible, utterly waste-of-space facts about the smelly brown stuff. No sniggering there, please.

ONE!
There are actually Marmite clubs out there. Here’s a Marmite Forum if you wish to join. Haters, please don’t flame the nice people on the forum.

TWO!
When Catherine Zeta Jones was (is?) preggers she had loads of Marmite sent to her by the makers for her cravings. That and Branston Pickle. My mum craved gherkins with vanilla icecream when she had me. I turned out fine- honest.

THREE!
An 8 oz. (227 grams) jar of Marmite was sold in Jersey in May 1944 for £8, which is about £300 ($480) at 1990 prices. It was probably the only Marmite in the Channel Islands at the time. (I didn’t know this but apparently the Channel Islands suffered occupation during the second world war)

FOUR!
It’s nutritious! Veggies can enjoy it as a helpful supplement to their diets as it contains Vitamin B12. Preggers ladies can snack on Marmite fingers to their hearts’ content as it also has both Riboflavin and Folic Acid.

And may I just say: don’t overdo it. You’ll only put the kiddles off if you offer them sandwiches with little margarine and too much Marmite. Easy on the brown stuff and it should go down beautifully. And marmite toast is one of the best car sickness antidotes I’ve ever had.

…and as tender as a young lady’s heart, all owing to my skilful cookery; for I consulted Mrs. Hale (Sarah Hale’s cookbook) at every step, and precisely followed her directions. To say the truth, I look upon it as such a masterpiece in its way, that it seems irreverential to eat it. Things on which so much thought and labor are bestowed should surely be immortal…..”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844), fending for himself while his wife was away

Last night I was hungry. I rooted around in the fridge for a stomach-rumbling minute and happened upon half of a tin of baked beans. Result! Next to hand was a packet of sliced corned beef. Thoughts of cowboy-style food started to enter my hunger-addled brain and before I knew where I was the delightful concoction was sitting on a pile of steaming toast before me.

Now you know my secret: I am a corned beef lover.

…I’ll make the money by selling one of my livers. I can get by with one.” Homer Simpson

In case you don’t know who “we” are, the one on the left is me, Nelly, and the happy lookin’ guy on the right is Stickman_ben. Yay!