by Fern Shaw | Nov 9, 2015 | water cooler
Funny story. I social media-ed a friend the other day to ask him his opinion on a newish restaurant in our area – the type of jeuj (my word) restaurant that one usually only finds in town or city centres. He replied that the food was really good, but his one question was in the form of a hashtag #wewantplates, as apparently most of their courses were served on stone type boards reminiscent of the ‘80’s steak house grub that used to come on sizzling hot rocks and invariably take your eye out with the fat splatters* (more about this later).
Then this week, while having a gander at what’s trending in the U.K., I chanced upon a hilarious and rather troubling Twitter campaign titled – you guessed it – @wewantplates.
**The account was set up by Ross McGinnes, a journalist from West Yorkshire after a friend posted a photo of a steak on a slate online.
In just a week, the campaign has already attracted some 5,000 followers with his series of witty ripostes to restaurants who have dared to inject a large portion of gimmick into their presentation of meals.
Examples of novelty food presentation ranged from high tea set out on mini gardening benches through to bread in a hat. Yes, really, bread served in a flat cap. Hopefully, the cap hadn’t been worn before.
Other novelties include deconstructed tea served with milk in test tubes; Brie balls served in Camper shoes; bread served in slippers (not kidding) in Switzerland and butter slivers served on a broken bathroom tile.
Aside from the sizzling hot rock fiasco, I think the most adventurous I’ve ever ventured is to eat lunch (nothing too soggy, mind) off a wooden breadboard at my German mate’s house – and I survived, so all good. I believe I’d draw the line with any of the above presentation styles though, but without doubt, the one novelty serving style that would mean my bottom not even touching the chair would be an Italian restaurant where diners are invited to tuck into a sharing portion of spaghetti and sauce on a bare surface. Mamma mia, no! Just, no!
*In the spirit – aha – of complete transparency to do with ‘hot rock’ cooking, I went one step further in trying to remove my face at one of these occasions by splashing loads of spirit vinegar over my chips while my steak was still ‘cooking’ and almost succeeded in flambéing not only myself but my dinner companion. This is just another reason why people start up campaigns like @wewantplates – the ‘safety to the diner’ factor.
When all is said and done though, isn’t it nice to know that at least you know when you swagger on up to your water cooler, you’re pretty much guaranteed of being reliably served up a cool draught of spring water or a mug of piping hot water, depending (of course) on which product you have on your premises. No bare bones, gardening shed, flat cap serving going on here, dear!
**extracts from an article at the Mail Online
by Fern Shaw | Oct 19, 2015 | water cooler
I was trolling the net, looking at what’s trending this week in the U.K. when it occurred to me – whatever happened to all of those ‘Pet Rocks’. No, I don’t mean your pet rocking out on some YouTube clip, I’m referring to the 1970 something craze of having your own Pet Rock to take care of.
In case you don’t have a clue as to what I’m referring to, here’s some more info, ‘In April 1975, Gary Dahl (founder of the pet rock) was in a bar listening to his friends complain about their pets. This gave him the idea for the perfect ‘pet’: a rock. A rock would not need to be fed, walked, bathed, or groomed; and would not die, become sick, or be disobedient. He said they were to be the perfect pets, and joked about it with his friends. Dahl took the idea seriously, and drafted an ‘instruction manual’ for a pet rock. It was full of puns, gags and plays on words that referred to the rock as an actual pet’ – Wiki
Now you know. If you missed this trend or craze, for whatever reason, bet you’re pleased round about now! But what about other crazes or trends in the last few decades that we look back at and can apply the oft used expression, ‘I’m so glad there wasn’t any social media when I was growing up’? Here are a few examples that may have you groaning into your water bottle:
Tamagotchi’s; Mr Motivator; Sega Mega Drives and Tetris.
Yo-yos; jelly aliens in plastic eggs; Pokémon cards and glow-in-the-dark jewellery.
Banana and butterfly hair clips.
Big hair; leggings and, of course, the ubiquitous Shell Suit. In case you were wondering what a shell suit was, this was big, fashion wise, in the eighties. The shell suit was a pretty bizarre fashion statement, jumping on the leisure wear trend à la Flashdance. It was a trend that allowed people who blatantly never did any form of exercise to look like they did, and it came in the form of nylon waterproof trousers and a matching jacket. It was during this time that fluorescent materials were at the very peak of their popularity. This meant that all manner of different garish colours and fluorescent strips were thrown together and it really didn’t matter if it clashed or not – in fact, if it did clash that was all the better.
While I was writing this and chuckling meanly to myself about how awful some of the trends i.e. the shell suit, were back then, and congratulating myself about how we truly have come a long way, baby, a thought occurred to me. In a word – the Onesie.
‘nuff said. Trolling trend water cooler critiquer out.
by Fern Shaw | Sep 11, 2015 | Water Coolers
Some time ago I wrote a blog about poor Pluto – the planet that was a planet, and then it wasn’t annnnnd … now it looks like it may, once again, be reinstated as a planet.
Confused as I am? It’s no wonder. Imagine how the planet / non-planet feels?
As a popular meme doing the rounds says, ’So you dumped me years ago, now you’re driving round my house real slow?’
I looked up the current arguments about the planetary / non-planetary arguments and to be ferpectly honest, they’re a little too highbrow for little old me.
In the previous blog, I outlined the criteria as to what defines a body being termed a planet.
Currently though, it seems that although Pluto may not make it to the big timey big planet status, it does meet enough of the criteria – it’s round and it also has moons and a thin atmosphere – for it to be classified as a dwarf planet.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were initially classed as a proper planet, then declassified as a not a planet at all and then classified again as a dwarf of what I previously was, I wouldn’t be pleased. I may just detach myself from my many moons and orbit, and wreak some heavy duty comet type damage on those who called me dwarf – see if they called me small then!
But then, that’s me.
You’ll have to excuse me now, as I’m off to the water cooler. I’m going to set up opposing soapboxes – one all for Pluto being rightfully termed a fully-fledged planet and one for the naysayers. If you’re going to do similar, I’d suggest wearing some type of armour – things could take a nasty turn.
by Fern Shaw | Aug 24, 2015 | Water Boilers, water cooler
Let’s fact check here for a moment.
This is a blog page.
The running (aha) theme is generally about all things watery.
There’s heaps of information about the supply of water and how we deliver said water to you, dear customer, through the provision of our spankingly smart range of:
Bottled Water Coolers
Mains Fed Water Coolers
Water Boilers
Hotel and Catering Solutions
Water for Schools
Water Fountains and
Accessories
so, it’s important to keep you informed about the importance of drinking water; to advise about how to keep from becoming dehydrated (occurs more often and easier than you might think); what to drink; how often to drink it and in general; how to keep yourself healthily hydrated.
But the one question I don’t think I’ve asked as yet is: What makes you thirsty?
Are you like me where when you go to the pictures, it’s not officially an occasion unless you have a bucket of very over-salted popcorn and then when your tongue swells up and you feel like you’ve been eating dry desert sand, you wonder why you are so thirsty?
or, are you more of a be out all day in warm weather, keeping active, running from place to place, sweating a bit and wait-until-the-last-minute where you’re absolutely parched and then you guzzle fizzy drinks (packed full of bad sugars) which will probably make you more thirsty than before you drank them.
or, do you load up on the Chinese or American fast food which is packed with too much salt (and then you still add loads of salt to your meal or chips) and again, wonder why you’re feeling so thirsty?
Whatever your thirst metiér is, I’m sure it doesn’t help realising that most of our extreme thirst is self-imposed. Us humanoids, such silly beings, aren’t we?
by Fern Shaw | Aug 24, 2015 | Uncategorized
Last week, we sent a mailer to all you wonderful people with 4 different articles, one of which was a quick quiz. Gauging the response to these articles, it seems the quiz came up trumps. I found this very interesting. Humanoids like to engage, one and two, like to be asked their opinion. Hm.
With this in mind I’ve devoted this week to preparing blogs that mystify, question and challenge (okay, perhaps that’s a little strong, but then you know me – all about the drama). In this blog we look at facts that have been around for yoinks, except, as it turns out, they aren’t actually facts.
Frankenstein was the name of the monster in Mary Shelley’s book.
Frankenstein is actually the name of the monster’s creator.
Coffee is made from beans.
A coffee bean is a seed of the coffee plant, and is the source for coffee. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a cherry. Even though they are seeds, they are referred to as ‘beans’ because of their resemblance to true beans.
Chameleons change colour to match their surroundings.
They change as a response to mood, temperature, communication and light, not the object they are touching.
Peanuts are a type of nut.
This is incorrect. They belong to the plant family, Leguminosae.
Your blood is blue before it’s oxygenated.
Not true – human blood is always red.
When in London, you are merely 6ft away from a rat.
This is just a rough estimate as rodents are not evenly spread.
Tomatoes are a vegetable.
While the Supreme Court of the United States did rule that tomatoes are vegetables in the legal sense for the purpose of taxation (Nix vs Hedden), they did not claim they are vegetables in any botanical sense. They are still fruits.
Now you know. Amaze your friends and colleagues around the water cooler station. Your street cred will increase exponentially. (Unless, of course, people will think you’re just showing off. Can’t help you with that, sorry!).
