Food for your thoughts

I had this thought the other day. I was filling up with petrol and looking at the price. 134.9p per litre. Now if I put in 1 litre of unleaded how would I pay for it? I could pay with £1.35 but then they would owe me 0.1p, so how would they pay me my change?

Most, if not all, of us put in 20 quids worth, or whatever. So in those cases there is no problem. But what if you put your fuel in by the litre? 10 litres is ok, £13.49. But what about 11 litres? That would be  £14.83.9. Again, how does the change get paid?

There is an argument that says that the advertised price is only an invitation to buy at that price, so therefore if you don’t like the price you don’t buy it, but once the fuel is in the tank who is going to get it back out again? It is not like being in a shop where you just put the item back on  the shelf

I may just start putting my fuel in by the litre just to see what happens when I ask for my change.

 

Regards

Giant68

Under Egyptian Skies, the outtakes.

 

There was this moment, which I should regret but I don’t, where I was particularly cruel to an old bloke. I am not proud of this, no, hang on! I am proud of it as it was damned funny. There was a gentleman on the boat who bore a remarkable resemblance to  the late actor James Mason. He had a blond wife who had a mobile phone that always seemed to ring when we were looking at monuments, and during those deep, quiet moments when you are trying to drink in the surroundings, dozy bint! But back to her hubby.

There was a pool on the boat. Not a big one, more a dipping pool than a swimming pool. During the heat of the day it was a pleasant place to sit and cool down. In fact, I got to know a new friend around this very pool. The boiled horse would sit by it trying to look sophisticated. Anyway… ‘get on with it!’ I hear you cry. This blog must be a bit like those stories that Ronnie Corbett used to do in that big arm chair, it just goes on forever with no rhyme or reason.

Anyway, this gentleman asked me one day how deep it was. I indicated a point on my chest at about nipple level, saying ‘It’s about this deep’. And he promptly jumped in. Now bear in mind that I am 6’8” and he was 5’ bugger all. I hope you can see what is coming here. He just vanished under the surface and reappeared some moments later coughing up the lungful of water he had inhaled. I don’t know who had more problems breathing at this point, him with a lungful of water or us who were laughing so hard I thought I might never breath again!

Cruel bastard? Me? Well if the cap fits…

There were some other moments which I may divulge at some other time.

Regards

Giant68 :-)

Under Egyptian Skies (part 2)

 

As I have been told off by people waiting for the second instalment of my holiday adventures I suppose I had better get blogging again. Happy New Year, by the way.

Quick pause at this point while I read the last Egyptian blog to remind myself what I wrote, and what I can write about now,

I have travelled a bit, not much by some peoples standards admittedly, but I have seen some amazing sights. There are also many more places I want to see before I shuffle off of this mortal coil. But there are some amazing places in Egypt. To stand in temples that were built thousands of years ago is, in some cases, breath-taking. To see camels in their natural habitat, Egyptians going about their business, makes a person realise that their world view is very small.

In the last holiday blog I wrote about the intent of every Egyptian to prize money from the tourist. And I made it seem as though it was a very unpleasant process, on the whole it was, but there were some cases where I didn’t mind. The crew on the boat were some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Ultimately, they all wanted a tip, I am a very cynical person as you may have noticed. But they attempted to get that tip by making sure that my every need was catered for. Our cabin was spotless, every day the stewards would fold towels into different shapes and leave them on the bed. It was a pleasure to go back to our room to see what they had left for us. The waiters in the restaurant soon discovered that at breakfast, if my coffee cup was empty and i was still sat there then it had to be refilled. I was bouncing off the walls I had so much caffeine in my system!

Our tour guide, Hussein, seemed to have a very laconic way of talking and this led to myself, Mrs Giant68, Hannah and Stuart taking the p£$$ out of him, mercilessly. One thing I remember was his description of the ‘Son et lumiere’ at Karnak: ‘It is boring, do not go there’.

I was dragged up to dance with a belly dancer. To be honest, when my belly gets dancing it takes a while for it to stop. I have watched the sun set over the dessert and the moon rise over the jungle. I took my Kindle thinking that I would do a lot of reading but I ended up putting it down and just watching the world go by. I took somewhere in the region of 1000 photos.

 

But, at the end of the day, I may never go back there. I enjoyed it immensely, but the recommendation is that after handling money, or being touched, you wash your hands. You can’t drink the water, alcohol is pricey, the food can be a little odd, etc. etc…

Regards

Giant68

It’s Christmas!

There are some things that I could do without, such as work and the responsibilities that come with being a grown man with a mortgage. And there are some things that I need, such as Christmas TV. Now, that may appear to a little strange to most of you but here is why.

In trying to forget the responsibilities it is nice to try and reclaim childhood. Christmas TV can help me do that. There are new programs such as the Gruffalo, The Gruffalos Child and The Snowman etc. There are also the old programs that I was, almost, forced to watch as a child, Morecombe and Wise etc.All of these allow me to shed the veneer of adulthood and, for the duration of the program, become the child I used to be and lose myself in these fantasy worlds.

 

Over the years I have watched these programs with my own children and now I watch with my granddaughter (soon to have a brother or sister :-) )

Silly games. These need to be played, while supping the Christmas booze. We can play board games till late at night, making up our own rules as we get more drunk! It may have been an eye-opener for no.1 sons girlfriend this year as we played 'Articulate' and 'The Logo Game' late into the night. The laughs that accompany these sessions can be quite stress relieving for a short time, till the daily grind of paying the bills returns with a bang!

But do not mistake childlike with childish, there is a world of difference.

That Special Time of Year

That time has arrived when we are building up to the arrival of of the fat bloke with the beard and the red suit. In a couple of weeks time we will have to leave out a glass of scotch, a mince pie and a carrot. Just in case the mythical character wants to get a little fatter, pissed and feed his transport carrots. By the way, did you know that carrots contain traces of lysergic acid diethylamide? That’s LSD to us mortals. You would have to eat several tons of carrots to get high, but poor old Rudolph must be stoned all the time!

 

Anyway, today was the day that the Christmas decorations would go up. Every year I forget what a trying experience this is. Christmas music, or a Christmas film goes on, and out come the boxes of decorations.

We have, or had, 7 sets of lights for the tree, or wherever we decide to put them. Some go outside and the rest go inside. But of the 7 only 3 were working, or had the power adapters. Now this is something that I do not understand. Last year, and every year, we put everything away in a box. One for the tree, one for the decorations and one for the lights and the bits that go with them. But it seems that every year, during the summer, someone, or something, goes into my attic and rearranges the boxes. Even going so far as to remove some of the contents and hide them. Because this year there were a couple of the power adapters missing. There were also several sets of lights that didn’t work, either completely or partially. When they were put away they worked. So what has happened during the year to stop them working? This must be something to do with the Law of Sod. Closely related to Murphy’s Law, but nothing to do with Coles Law which, I think you will find, is shredded cabbage, carrot and onion with a little mayo.

Eventually we have a tree that is illuminated, the room festooned with tinsel and baubles and 2 empty bottles of wine.

To be completely honest, I wonder whether it was worth the effort.

Regards.

And a happy Christmas to anyone who reads this.

Giant68

Under Egyptian Skies

Disclaimer: All the names and faces have been changed to protect the innocent…

Bugger that! There were no innocents in this story, we were all as guilty as hell, of having a good time, laughing too much, drinking not enough… you get the picture.

Not being able to go to Spain this year and visit Jose the surly barman and all the others, we decided, after careful thought, to go to Egypt and cruise down the Nile. This started off badly due to the fact that the flight was dry. Egyptair are muslim so no booze! Nevertheless, we survived the trip without a glass of red and arrived at Luxor airport where the process of starting to separate us from our money began. Just 20 quid for the entry visa this time.

On the coach and try and figure out just what the rules of the road   are in this country. It seems that after dark it is optional to use headlights, if your vehicle has them. Occasionally, and at random intervals, you will flash your headlights for no apparent reason. Egypt is starting to confuse me!

We reached our cruise ship(?) late at night so didn’t get to see anything of Luxor till sunrise the next morning, but I must admit that the view was stunning.

Having never been out of Europe the baking sun was a bit of a shock to the system, as was the boiled horse that spent most of the day sunbathing, posing, pouting and generally thrusting her sunburnt chest at any man that ventured onto the sun deck of the MS Darakum. I think that she was French, and boy, did she love herself! Strangely, rather than the women on the boat getting bitchy about her it was the men that made more derogatory comments.

From the minute we stepped off the boat we learnt that the locals have one aim in life. And that aim is to separate any tourist and his money. The most used word in Egyptian is ‘baksheesh’ which I think means ‘Hello good sir, would you please empty your pockets of anything of value and give it to me or I will follow you to the ends of the Earth pestering you until you can take no more.’ They will try and sell you papyrus bookmarks, scarab bracelets, scarves, anything that they think a European would want to take home and throw in the bin. If you take a photograph of one of the monuments and they think that they may be in it they want paying. As a tourist your most used phrase will be ‘la shokran’ or no thankyou, even though, after a couple of days you want to say ‘f^<$ off!’

 

The guy above decided that I would take his photo with Mrs Giant68. He wanted paying for the privilege of course, which I duly did. He had a gun.

Next time I will tell you of the towel animals, the sights and sounds, the food, the waiter that looked like benny from ‘The Mummy’ and the friends we made. But now I am just going to look back through the photos I took and remember the really fantastic holiday that we had cruising down the Nile on the Nile on the MS Darakum.

Regards

Giant68

A shameful confession

I have a terrible confession to make. It will make grown men cry and people will shun me. There is a good chance that I will be hounded in the street and persecuted for the rest of my life. But to clear my conscience I must confess.

I have been a science fiction fan for as long as I have been able to read. At school I read novels by Hugh Walters. I watched films like ‘Forbidden Planet’. I listened to Jet Morgan and the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. As I grew older I moved to novels by Asimov and Blish. The Foundation series and Cities in Flight are still some of my favourite reading. When I was 12 years old I went to the cinema and was completely blown away by  film where a starship appears from the top of the screen, energy beams are lighting it up and then a massive starship is chasing it. Star Wars had an impact on my pre-teenage mind. If there were any doubts as to whether I liked the futuristic universe they were gone. Now I read the same stuff, Neal Asher, Peter F Hamilton, Ian M Banks among many. I love it, you will already know this if you read all my blogs.

But here is where it starts to go wrong. ITV have been showing the later Star Wars prequels. When they first came out I went to the cinema to see them and thought ‘Wow!’ But now I have sat and watched them through an adults eyes and thought ‘actually they’re pretty crap.’

There. I have admitted it. I do not like the newer Star Wars Films. The comedy characters, that tit with the big ears for example, spoil it for starters. But they could have been so good. The concept was fantastic but it was let down by the fact that it seemed to be aimed at preschool children. Sorry George, your special effects are some of the best I have seen but you still made three crap films. You should have left  it with just the first three. Please don’t bother to make any more.

Regards

Giant68