not such good treats

Starbucks have been offering treats on Thursdays throughout March for their cardholders...

...the first Thursday (being their 40th birthday and all) the treat was a free petite pastry which I went for...

... the second treat was a free cocoa cappuccino when you bought a drink (I didnt go for that one because I didnt want to have two drinks!).

I was looking forward to what my third treat was going to be...

it was a free bag of coffee beans (again this was a treat that I wasnt going to go for).

And yesterday I got an e-mail saying what the final treat was (as this is the last Thursday in March) and *sigh* it is another bag of coffee...

...why couldnt they have made the treats food ones - that would have bought in more customers which is what the aim of the treats were after all!

a proper prize winning competition...

I have decided to do a proper prize winning competition...

You have to decide "what I am thinking" the best four answers two on this blog and two on flickr so yes theoretically you have twice the chance of winning if you enter both ways ;o)

The first prize is a pair of genuine chopsticks (unused) as picked up by me from Itsu and the booby prize is a genuine stirrer (unused) from Starbucks.

The closing date is Friday 8th April...

...terms and conditions apply and the final decision as to who wins is solely down to me ;o)

does this mean that I will have to take a different route to work

Shops that I have been walking past have been slowly shutting since September last year...

It started with Barneys Place and Richer Sounds towards the end of last year, then on Friday last week Pret a Manger closed their shop, then this morning I saw that Orange is closing their shop on Friday, at this point the penny finally dropped that something was going on...

and then the crescendo was seeing this sign in the window of The Stone Horse.

Does this mean that I wont be able to walk down the Side of the Heron Tower now?

The route that I think I will take (if I have to change) will then include 2 lots of Boris Bikes so that is twice the photo opportunities ;o)

breakfast of choice

I started off having a banana for breakfast, but of late the bananas on offer have been horrible looking to say the least (by horrible looking I mean either bruised or under-ripe) I know that with the under-ripe ones I could buy them and eat them after a few days - but LOL what would I eat in the meantime?

So I graduated onto cereal, the cereal was nice but on Sunday I wanted to have a change...

...so what do I got for? toast perhaps? no I dont fancy toast! Crumpets?  Ooohh that sparked my interest.

So while out shopping I eagerly looked at the calories on the crumpets and found some with 78 calories in each one, and even better their profits support armed forces charities - so Im giving to charity too ;o).

I saw a big rat

Walking to work this morning from the train station, I was merrily crossing Bevis Marks while walking down St Mary Axe and I saw something move very quickly out of the corner of my eye!

I thought that I was imagining things so I looked again and it was a RAT a blooming big rat...

so (LOL as I was only on my way to work) I decided to follow him to see where he went...

...he ran into a crevice so I managed to do a couple of photos before he ran off again ;o)

here he is thinking that if he keeps still then I cant see him

and here he is running off

my favourite kind of battle

Following on from this post, I have started watching Iron Chef Australia and am pleased to say that at least they are following the proper format unlike the travesty of a show that they tried to pass off here in the UK!

On the intro to Iron Chef Australia it showed clips featuring two (thats not just one) former contestants from the first series of Masterchef Australia I must say I was well excited when I saw this.

Anyway I went to put the next show on that was in the planner and it is battle chocolate and the contestant chef is Chris Badenoch and blow me one of his sous chefs is the other contestant that I saw Julia Jenkins - what a shame that they didnt have their own separate battles!

I havent watched it yet to know who has won whether it was the iron chef or the Masterchef contestants.  LOL perhaps they should have had them up against the judges Gary & George - that would have been a battle worth watching ;o)

and I filled the kettle up for him too...

I was making some teas this morning, and a bloke who has just moved into our building looked at my cup and said “is that a huge a cup of tea?” to which I said laughingly “yes its mine” then he said “I thought it was a jug – it must last you ALL day!”

Blooming cheek…

Too much LOUD noise

The BBC have a penchant for putting music at levels (that wouldn’t be out of place at a InXS concert – yes I know Im showing my age) on as supposed background music.

Now I haven’t watched this show myself but I saw this about Brian Cox Wonders of the Universe and the fact it has music levels on there so LOUD that hundreds of viewers have complained…

,,,they said that because of the significant number of complaints received it meant that they would review the music levels and would “turn it down”.

James e-mailed the BBC a while ago about the loud music levels on Masterchef – I think they fobbed him off by saying that the viewers liked the music level (or something) perhaps he should have done an online petition or LOL chained himself to the outside of Comet in protest ;o)

rediscovering golden syrup cake

Last week while doing our food shopping James came back with a packet of Jamaican Ginger Cake and a packet of Golden Syrup Cake as they were buy one get one free...

...anyhow I opened up the packet of the golden syrup cake and had forgotten just how nice it tastes according to the packet a slice of it is 88 calories, and they deem a slice to be one tenth of the packet...

...now I dont know about you but I really cant be bothered to measure out a tenth of anything...

...and what sort of product would you really want to measure out in 10ths?

LOL I think I had about a quarter of it which to my way of thinking is a far better portion size ;o)

lamb sandwich loyalty card

I went to get my half a lamb sandwich today (still makes me laugh because it makes me sound so greedy).

I queued up and saw the people in front of me handing over cards (I thought they might have been ID passes) and that they were getting discounts.

I go to pay for my sandwich and the lady behind the counter passes me a loyalty card...

... the expiry date on there is 12th April 2011 and on the card it has spaces for ten stamps, now I only go in there once a week so does this mean that if I dont get my additional nine stamps fast enough I wont get my free sandwich (or whatever my reward will be)?

what if I end up with the almond one?

The other day I got e-mailed a voucher from Starbucks for a free petite if you buy a coffee based beverage valid for today...

So I walked into Starbucks clutching my voucher still contemplating which petite I should go for...

I was thinking do I go for a cake pop or a whoopie pie?

As it happened the bloke in front of me had a voucher too...

...then the strangest thing happened...

...he didnt get asked what petite he wanted he just got handed a brown paper bag - he looked in the bag and said thanks...

I was then thinking to myself "what if I get an almond one?" I hate almonds :o( although for some reason I love marzipan - go figure ;o).

Anyhow I order my drink hand over my voucher get given my brown paper bag - I joked with the barista that they are well organised by having the free petites ready bagged (whilst quietly seething that I wasnt able to chose which one I wanted)...

I peered in the bag and saw that I had a rocky road cake pop as luck would have that was the exact one I wanted ;o)

pancake (yester) day

Yesterday was Pancake Day, and I went the semi lazy route and bought ready made pancake batter (if I had gone ultra lazy then I would have bought them ready made...).

I buy the ready made pancake mix to stop James from moaning about the mess I make (hasnt he ever heard of someone being creative?).

Anyhow armed with my ready made mix I made myself 2 pancakes (I can hear you saying "thats not too bad") but LOL I did use half of the batter (I think it was a pint of mix so theoretically each pancake used up a quarter of a pint ;o)).

I even tried to be healthy by putting a chopped up peach in one but I did drizzle golden syrup on both ;o)

new drink new cup new logo

The nice manager in my local Starbucks has been teasing me for the past week and a half about the new drink and food coming out but wouldnt divulge (despite my begging and grovelling and promises of undying custom) what the new things would be...

Today all of our speculation came to an end...

...the new drink is a cocoa cappuccino, and yes I tried one ;o)

I just got a tall one in case I didnt like it...

I did like it but I wont get it as my main drink I will probably have it as my second drink.

It has a mocha taste to it (which I can still taste now).

They also had the new food in too...

...LOL I have already told James that he is going to have to sacrifice his almond croissant on Saturday so I can try 2 new things ;o)

he looks more goonish in person

Me and James have been watching Cookery School...

Last week there was a bloke called Robert, James thought that he was simple but I had a soft spot for him...

When they were doing their end of the day synopsis Gizzie referred to him as enthusiastic but useless...

...I was really hoping that they would keep Robert in, James wanted them to boot him out - they listened to James and not me!

It then struck me that the reason that I liked Robert was because he reminded me of James (what with being enthusiastic but useless and everything) - when I told him this he got quite indignant saying that he wasnt that bad!

Anyhow I have enjoyed spending the day or rather the weekend telling him how I have heard people referring to him as "that Robert from Cookery School" and how one person (reportedly said) that "he looked more goonish in person".

LOL for some reason James is currently in a sulk ;o)

why cant we have both?

I saw on the cover of todays Metro this article that they are thinking of moving the May Day Bank Holiday to either St Georges Day the 23rd April or Trafalgar Day the 21st October.

By all means move May Day because lets face it we have too many of our bank holidays all squashed together on the calendar what with Easter (by far one of my favourite holidays because of the chocolates that am able to eat without James having a pop at me) being at the end of April this year then the following week we have May Day then four weeks later we have Whitsun.

But why oh why oh why cant we have both St Georges Day and Trafalgar Day?  We have the fewest Bank Holidays like anywhere and having one extra will improve morale LOL it will improve mine anyway ;o)

a glut from down under

Someone at Watch has been buying up (what I guess are cheap) cookery shows from Australia & New Zealand...

It started with Masterchef Australia I thought their rehash of the format really worked - I even preferred it to the UK version (which they have since hashed to make it more like the Australian version and James now hates the new version of it).

We have had two series of Masterchef Australia which I thoroughly enjoyed ;o)

Then a few weeks ago came Masterchef New Zealand - we sky plussed it (so if you know who won please dont let the cat out of the bag), we watched the first episode last night...

...incidentally I was totally gobsmacked to see Ross Burden as one of the judges (he looks really haggered now).

Anyway now onto the reason for this post...

Watch have now just started showing the first season of Junior Masterchef Australia, with Gary and George still being two of the judges, they are both really warm people and they totally make the show what it is...

In the junior series their enthusiasm has increased to what was a six upto a eighteen (and yes I am talking out of ten here).  This was all too much for poor James and he exclaimed (after a girl managed to melt a plastic ramekin (she filled it with cake mix then put it in the oven) while making a chocolate cake - and Gary gave her a hug and helped her save the dessert she was making) that I could watch this series on my own...

Paris syndrome

This morning whilst giving me a lift to the station James said that he heard something on QI that would explain everything...

...he wouldnt tell me what it was but promised (on a stack of crunchy nut cornflakes no less) to look it up to see if it was true when he got to work - whilst not disagreeing with Stephen Fry...

LOL I ended up having to send him a gentle reminder (hmmmmm I wonder what will happen to his cereal in that case?)...

...and he sent me this...

...does this mean that James is a closet Japanese?