The Green Goblin Blog

I was waiting to order at the bar last night, eavesdropping on other people as you do.
A woman was saying how the ban on smoking had meant that instead of non-smoking people going outside for some fresh air it's the smokers who now have to go outside. One of her male companions said "yes, it's turned 360 degrees around".
I thought "there's someone who failed GCSE maths..."

Popped into the Hong Hong for a little tea after some serious shopping. They provide two menus - "all you can eat" and "a la carte", which sounds weird as it is French. Maybe it should be 照菜单点菜 instead?
Anyway, Sue convinced me that we would end up spending more than the AYCE fixed-rate by choosing what we wanted off the normal (and longer) menu. So we ordered appetisers for two (satay sticks, crispy rolls, sesame seed toast, fried cabbage and spare ribs), crispy duck for two, a bowl of hot'n'sour soup for me, chicken'n'mushroom in soy sauce for me, crispy beef for Sue, and a mound of Singapore noodles to share. Needless to say, I had to finish off what Sue couldn't manage. Did I mention the two bottles of Tiger, the toffee ice cream dessert, or the coffee? How remiss.
So not exactly a black mark on my weekly dietary record. More an oil slick.

Saw Mr Carr at the Hexagon tonight. Sell out event with me getting the very last ticket. Well, it was the last at the time I called. Maybe they had some returned tickets afterwards. Who knows or cares?
Jimmy Carr is very good. His delivery is very clear and professional, he can handle heckling very well, and he is happy to spend as along as it takes afterwards talking to people and signing autographs. His humour may not be to everybody's tastes but that should not be confused with a lack of quality.
Reminded me a lot of last night's Milton Jones at 21 South Street (1/10 the size of the Hexagon) where Milton has a VERY long series of one liners with twists in the tail to throw you and get the laugh. Jimmy added to this style with more interaction with the audience (moral dillemas, such as "should you swallow or spit?"), more sexual references and less of the weirdness.
A few of the more memorable (and safe to post):
"Venison's dear, isn't it?"
"Woman went to the doctors and was told she was morbidly obese. As if she didn't have enough on her plate..."
"What's black, white and red all over? A race riot"

Was it worth £20 (twice the price of Milton)? Probably.

I did join the queue afterwards to get my ticket signed - too tight to pay for a programme. Decided to chat to him and prepared a little sequence about the woman two rows in front of me. She had worn leopard print shoes and rested them on the balcony rail for all to see. During the performance Jimmy ranted against the chaviness of wearing leopard print clothes and I told him how disappointed I was that I couldn't see her face at the time. She didn't put her shoes up after that for some reason. I nearly fluffed my lines, trying to say lemon instead of leopard and I felt a bit embarrased about it but at least I was brave enough to try.

Labels: Comedy

21 South Street was sold out tonight as Milton came to town with his deadpan delivery. We love him - just so funny all the time. The quickfire punchlines catch you all the time.

Labels: Comedy

On the way to D&D tonight I popped into the BP garage for refreshments. Their diet drink range is pretty limited if you don't want coke and I bought reduced sugar Fanta orange as that sounded good. Silly me - two litres of fizzy drink is 600 calories, 30% less sugar or not 30% less sugar.

So, with the home-made turkey sandwich and ever-present packet of McCoy's (1,000 cals), followed in the evening by a more reasonably sized bowl of Monday's meat and rice concoction (600 cals) that makes 2,000 for the day.

Definitely a run of consistency over the last few days.

Chicken fajita wrap and crisps
Beef sandwich (bread, sirloin, margerine)
Quarter of a Gü bombe au chocolat

One thing you must be careful of is not confusing dry rice and cooked rice when calculating calories, as I did. Rice quadruples in weight when cooked in water which can really throw out some big numbers if you get it wrong.

Uncooked white long grain rice is 365 calories per 100g - the 270g of uncooked rice I used to go with tonight's meal is 1000 calories which coincidentally makes one kilo of cooked rice.

So for tea...
half of the meat concoction - 715 calories
half of the cooked rice - 500 calories
Total - 1,215 calories (and not the 2,500 I initially came up with)

Lunch was a chicken fajita wrap with a packet of "McCoy’s Specials Tortillas hot Jalapeno peppers and cheese", followed by two tiny chocolate brownies (755 calories).

Not a bad day then - about 2,000 all-in.

1,600 cals today

Sausage sandwich
Sirloin steak and chips
3 coffees
Litre of Pepsi Max at the cinema
Quarter of a Gü bombe au chocolat (I blame Sue)
5 half-cobs of sweetcorn.

The last one is a tricky one to work out. The packet says there are 116 calories per 100g (almost one half-cob). Does this mean per 100g of half-cob which only offers about 35g of edible?
Tinned sweetcorn is about the same calorie content so the packet must be talking about the edible portion which you can't weigh until after you've eaten it :-)
So 5 half-cobs is 200g of sweetcorn and therefore 230 calories.

I've noticed that my weight has been creaping up remorselessly over the last year and has now passed the "how much?!?!" point so it's time to act.

Today I have managed to keep my food consumption down to

250g bread roll with margerine
100g roast beef
500g mushroom risotto
1 coffee
2 litres of Orangina Light

for nearly 1,500 calories.

My body can tell something's up and is definitely starting to complain.

An email came round today at work:


From: Chris
Sent: 01 October 2007 15:01
To: Social
Subject: Recreational garden in building 1.

Hi,
After returning from holiday my desk seems to have overgrown a little.
Does anyone with green fingers need some pansies, geraniums, daisies or turf?

Thanks,
Chris.