Day 448: I Do Some Thinking About Various Things, Including Tomatoes

As regular readers will be aware, I am very much in favour of non-working (both literally and metaphorically).

The mind, unfettered by the cretinous witterings of retarded colleagues and unencumbered by "To Do" lists beseeching one to do things in which one has no interest, expands; creativity improves; there is time to cook properly and take regular exercise.

Most importantly, perhaps, there is time to stare open-mouthed out of the window, lost in contemplation for entire days on end, whilst drawing contemplatively upon a small clay pipe and adjusting one's thermal pantaloons. (As an aside, it is my personal belief that if every man, woman and child in the Western World spent at least one hour per day just thinking, we would wipe out childhood obesity and global warming in one go.)

I have now been literally non-working for about five weeks exactly. I spent three of those five weeks in London, wishing I were elsewhere and then, as if by magic, an aeroplane arrived and brought me to Canada, where I have now been for over twelve days. And, as I am still non-working, I have had over nearly twelve days to think about things, many of which are very important and/or interesting.

Here are some of my current preoccupations. I know you will like them a lot.

Is This The Most Disgusting Recipe In The World?

Recipe cards in racks in supermarkets are quite a good way of finding out about local cultures, so I always look at them, even if they are in for e.g. Turkish, which I do not understand. (The pictures can still look nice, you see.)

Desperate to better understand French-Canadian culture, I stared for some long seconds at the recipe cards in our local supermarket last night, only to find my blood running cold and bile rising unbidden into my delicate monkey mouth. Here is why:



Allow me to translate (non-literally; approximately, without recourse to either dictionary or Bescherelle):

"Black Forest Gateau" is a chocolate cake, originally from Germany. Rich in chocolate, flavoured with cherry liqueur and generously served with black cherries and whipped vanilla cream, it is of course very popular with chocolate-lovers. Here's a way of discovering its delicious flavours - without having to wait for pudding!

The recipe is called "Black Forest Chicken".

And They Come Bigger Than This Too

This is an alien vegetable seen at a market. (It was surrounded by over-excited Italians taking photographs of each other next to it. It was bigger than most of them, but then most Italians are under 5ft 2.)

I know they are big, I know they get bigger, but still - this one was the size of a rolled-up fat adult (and a tall one at that - possibly a Dutch one!):



















But it doesn't stop there! Next weekend, a self-haircutting pathologist and I will be going to interpret marrows and pumpkins. It is almost too much to bear!

Traffic Light People Of The World

I am really confused about the apparent lack of interest in my new website, which I think is really interesting. In it, I am trying to collect different traffic light people from around the world as they are not all the same - in fact often, they are quite different.

The reason I am confused is quite simple: people do not seem to be that interested in it, which is completely the opposite of what my research told me to believe! In fact, a recent poll (conducted on the web-site in question) indicated that "the people" (i.e. readers, regular and otherwise), were "naturally" also interested in the idea of a collection of traffic light people from around the world. In fact, 82% of respondents seemed to like the idea! This is quite a high percentage and one that would normally have the NPD johnnies shouting "Go! Go! Go!" from the rafters.

What this is telling me is that even the most meticulous "consumer market research poll" is not always an indicator of success. Still, I am hoping that my new website will be a slow-burn sort of affair, and that there will be a Tipping Point, at which point it will be eaten by the Big Fish and eventually described as "One Of The World's Top 100 Superbrands".

Tomatoes

I am thinking about tomatoes A LOT at the moment. I have a non-stop mouth-hunger for them. It is like I cannot get enough of them. At 8am yesterday morning I lay in bed thinking about Heritage tomatoes and dribbling a bit. It was disgusting.

It is now also time to say in public what I have always known in my head, which is that cold (i.e. fresh out of the refrigerator) tomatoes do not taste of anything. Let your tomatoes be room temperature, and preferably harvested (with your hand and/or mouth) from the defuct fire pit at the top of the garden. Yes.

Media Recruitment Agencies In Montreal

Cocking hell! The truth is that one day I will have to work again. But where are the agencies stuffed full of young thrusting media recruitment professionals, each and every one screaming with glee at my arrival in the New World? I do not know, is the answer; maybe they do not exist at all.

This is a bind, as it means I will actually have to look for a job. In the old days one had only to email off a CV and have a brief meeting with a man who said "have you considered writing a, hem, personal statement?"*, only to find oneself days later having top-flight interviews with chief executives of universally acclaimed communications conglomerates, swiftly followed by a job offer (complete with salary of over $250,000). Sadly, I do not think it is that easy anymore! Maybe I had better try harder.

In the meantime, however, I shall relax in my armchair, fez askew, small clay pipe hanging from my monkey lips, and stare out of the window for a while.

Yes. That's better.




* Yes. In the UK: no fucking way. I am not a cunt. In N. America: it seems you have to, although I do not I repeat not talk about myself in the third person in it, you know: "An eminently qualified marketing professional, NWM has been sucking on her own monkey arse for over fifteen years whilst building brands and differentiating parity products..."