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Archives for musings

Mince Pie Results

December 25th, 2016

Yes I know it’s Christmas already but it’s not too late to share the results of our office mince pie survey.

In all 24 pies were sampled: a record! The best is Riverford organic pies but the Waitrose “all butter” and M&S “star” pies are decent too. Stock up now!

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Tintin and the Mysterious Snowman

August 8th, 2016

I found this little probably-not-genuine Tintin book on a stall in Jixi Longchuan a few months ago. The original story is obviously “Tintin in Tibet” but the Chinese title – which I read as 柛校的“雪人” – was initially a bit of a mystery. 雪人 literally “snow-man” is clear enough, but what is 柛校? The only unhelpful thing my dictionary has to say about 柛 is its unicode code point. Inside, it turns out the actual title is 神秘的“雪人” or “mysterious snowman” and I’d been confused by the font. And there was me thinking I’d found an interesting investigative blog post topic. :-(

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Tintin’s name in Chinese is 丁丁 “ding-ding” which incidentally also seems to be Tinky Winky’s Chinese name as well.

The dialogue is an incey bit beyond my reading level at the moment, but it’s somewhat understandable. Better than my failed attempt to read Doraemon anyway.

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Nick the Art Collector

July 24th, 2016

I’ve been decorating my home recently! These two oil paintings I bought on canvases from some student art market. The framer was a bit snooty about the quality, and actually I paid more to get them framed than the paintings cost originally, but they liven up the walls and I’m no art critic…

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This one is a painting on rice paper I bought when I was in China back in April. Again I got it framed separately back in the UK. The lady in the shop didn’t speak English and my Chinese isn’t great, but I gathered it’s a painting of Suzhou in autumn by a local man who is old, famous, and blind. Hanging in my hallway now: looks really good.

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Coats Without Hanging Loop

May 16th, 2016

There’s an alarming trend among clothing manufacturers recently, particularly those in the “outdoor” sector, to make coats without the little loop used to hang it on a coat hook. Seriously! WHY??! This is a £130 Berghaus “Light Hike” jacket. How am I supposed to hang it on the coat hook, eh? By the hood or something?? A little fabric loop would have cost about 5p.

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Well the joke’s on you Berghaus, because I returned it and bought a different one. Here’s another example from a Craft running raincoat. This is almost tolerable as it’s a special purpose item I can chuck with the rest of my running stuff, BUT HOW HARD WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO PUT A TINY LOOP ON IT???! There’s already even a little elastic thing for tying up the hood.

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And just to prove it is possible in 2016 to put a normal hanging loop on a coat, North Face managed to get it right.

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Snow Day

April 30th, 2016

Something very strange happened this Tuesday afternoon.

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I’m pretty sure it’s nearly May so why is it snowing??

Sneaking Sign

February 11th, 2016

While I was in Norway I noticed something very alarming. They have two kinds of pedestrian crossing sign!

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The left-hand one looks like a normal crossing sign with the gentleman going about his business in the regular manner. But the one on the right is a sinister crossing. That guy is a) wearing a hat – suspicious – and b) he is sneaking. This sign is also curiously absent from the Wikipedia list of Norwegian road signs. What is he doing? What is the purpose of this crossing??

Youtube Comments

January 21st, 2016

This is the most succinct summary of every Youtube discussion ever:

youtube

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Where to buy tea in Taipei

November 13th, 2015

The last time I was in Taipei I bought some Oolong tea from an old lady on a market stall near the Longshan temple. When I got home and tried it it was sooo good. It’s a lot lighter than normal Oolong tea and tastes kind of… buttery. The tea is rolled up into tiny balls that expand to whole leaves, not shredded like normal tea. The packaging was rather nondescript – it just says something like “Taiwan Oolong Tea” on it – so I worried I would never be able to buy any more.

So now I’m back in Taipei I thought I’d see if the stall was still there and stock up. And it was!

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For the benefit of anyone else in the area who wants to buy good cheap tea, it’s located here, in the market at the crossroads on Guangzhou Street, not the “tourist” one which is a bit seedy.

Here’s today’s haul. Three packets for 500元 – about £10! Bargain.

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The lady on the stall is very friendly. There’s limited choice so you can’t go too far wrong even if you hardly speak Chinese like me. She gave me her business card! Maybe useful for future tea dealings.

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Commuting

August 19th, 2015

On Monday night I finally fulfilled my dream of going for a walk on the M25.

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The atmosphere was surprisingly jovial. By chance the guy in the blue mini had stopped just behind his driving instructor.

Definitely looking forward to having a five minute walk to work.

Emergency

June 21st, 2015

Oh noes! Vegetable scrubbing carrot’s eyes have fallen out! No need to panic though as I performed emergency surgery using some glue.

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