The Blog of Thog

I Do Not Understand Stuffed Vine Leaves

2025-04-21T12:25:00.002+01:00

I don't understand the concept of stuffed vine leaves.

How do you stuff a leaf? Leaves are really thin. I imagine some sort of machine that somehow puffs up the leaf by blowing air into it, maybe air frying it, so you get this puffed crispy leaf that you can pipe food into.

Secondly, leaves aren't something to eat. We've all eaten leaves of course, and when did we eat them? As children, when everything went into our mouths to try, and most of it got spat out again.

And vines are long stringy things that Lara Croft probably climbs, or that grapes grow on in order to make wine.

Nothing of the phrase "stuffed vine leaves" makes any sense to me, and particularly when considering something to eat.

I accept that it is a thing, and it's probably quite nice if I ever tried one, but it just doesn't make sense. I suspect that the leaves are actually folded or rolled (as per the AI-generated image in this post) to form a container for food. So they aren't actually stuffed themselves. They are not akin to a stuffed crust on a pizza.

All of this is hypothetical, I have no idea of how they are actually made, to my knowledge I've never had one, and if given the choice of stuffed vine leaves or a steak pie for a meal, I am confident that I would go for the pie (provided that it was genuinely a pie ie filling that is fully contained by pastry, and not a stew with a hat as some places serve)

Thinking about it, steak pie is filling wrapped in pastry.... if they wrapped cooked and chopped steak and gravy in leaves, I wonder if that would be more acceptable to me?

I hope you're having a good Easter weekend, and don't forget to check my book out :)

Free ebook! (only available for 44 hours)

2025-04-07T12:10:00.007+01:00

"Like nursery rhymes and fairy stories for adults... But less morals and more sex and death" - Amazon review

Fancy trying my book?

It's currently available for free via Amazon as an ebook, but only until Wednesday 9th April (PDT)!

Get it now, via https://amzn.to/44lPwTg

Rollercoaster of emotions

2025-03-30T21:42:00.001+01:00

Anyone else go through a series of emotions for no reason?

Today, when I woke up, I was done.

Didn't want to lift a finger. Could easily have spent the day in bed napping and scrolling TikTok. It felt like I'd forgotten to take my anti-depressants, but that wasn't the case, I've taken them every day since Tuesday.

Since my book launched earlier this week, I've been pushing hard on the promotion. I've sent out about forty packages to targeted individuals with presents in telling them about the book, I've been doing lots on social media, and I've contacted four hundred libraries to suggest that they buy the book.

As of yesterday, I was on six sales.

Now, there's so much against me. A new author, selling a book in an unclear genre (not a nice definable one like thriller or romance), a collection of short stories instead of a novel, self-published, without proper marketing, an agent, or big social media presence, has a likelihood of major success of under 1%. Selling a hundred copies has a maximum likelihood of 10%.

And I didn't write the book to be a massive success - although that would be nice, of course, who doesn't want to earn millions from a book they've published and have a mansion with several staff? (especially a gardener.... not a fan of the outdoors lol). I wrote it because I've always wanted to publish a book, and the stories in it I like. Even though I wrote them, they make me laugh.

But still. When I woke up - depression was significant.

That feeling faded when I received a nice email from one of the libraries I'd contacted, saying that it wasn't a fit for their library (being medical in nature), but they was going to suggest it to another library on campus. I chilled on Minecraft for a couple of hours, and felt pretty good after that. And I checked my stats and found I was up to eight sales!

So then this afternoon I went out, and came back, listless and apathetic despite it being spring and there being some actual sunshine around.

And now I'm feeling good - I've had a decent dinner, I've made some more promotional videos, I'm now feeling like I've actually had quite a good day. And I'm on leave tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that.

Sometimes, with having mental health stuff going on, I forget that it's actually an issue. Some days I'm powering through all sorts of challenges and tasks, and feeling perfectly fine, and I think it's not a thing any more.

And then some days, like today, you have a spell where you feel like everything is wrong, and there's no rhyme or reason behind it.

But now I'm feeling better :) and I'm very lucky to have this platform to vent on (and those who know me well, I am so very happy to have you in my life - I wouldn't be here without numerous people who have helped me and continue to help me)

Finally - If you haven't already.... buy my book! https://amzn.to/3XBVH1z

What character are you?

2025-03-29T01:07:00.004+00:00

You can now take a quick quiz to see which of the characters in my new book "Norman the Insurance Salesman and Other Stories" you are - I'm Sam the Carrot.... which isn't a good sign 😟

Take the quiz now:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikeraven/which-norman-the-insurance-salesman-character-ar-5gb7lk9evg

If you've not bought my book yet, why not pop over to https://amzn.to/3Y8BIrk and take a look?

Book statistics

2025-03-26T21:56:00.005+00:00

I've been delighted to see that my book sales have increased - yesterday I sold 2 books, while today I sold 3, representing a 50% increase in sales.

Assuming this increase continues at the current rate, by the 3rd of June everyone on Earth will have a copy.

I'm getting a speedboat!

Joking aside, go and have a look :) https://amzn.to/3FSmErC

IT IS LIVE

2025-03-25T21:34:00.003+00:00

It's live.

At last.

All formats of my book are available at https://amzn.to/4iG0sj3 and despite mucking up the promotion, I feel good now.

It's been a long road, and I'd definitely do some things differently if I did it again (and maybe I will!), but I'm just so pleased to have the thing out there in the wild.

Obviously if you're reading this, I'd love you, kind reader, to go and buy a copy - and maybe even leave a review on the Amazon website (or post about the book wherever you'd like) - it's very much a labour of love.

If you want to find out more about the book, there's shedloads of info over at thog.uk too :)

Really annoyed

2025-03-24T08:13:00.004+00:00

I'm really annoyed at myself.

I had a plan for publishing and promoting my book ("Norman the Insurance Salesman and Other Stories" - catchy, I know!), which was to make it live at the start of May, and before that I'd send advance readers copy to my targeted list of awesome people, and hopefully that would result in some reviews and some promotion to try to kickstart sales.

All that changed when the other day I clicked Publish on the eBook instead of scheduling it first.

The issue with this is that Kindle don't (understandably) allow you to distribute your eBooks outside of the Kindle Store and Amazon if you're signed up to their Kindle Select programme - which I am. So while I can still tell people about the book, and give them copies of the sample pages Amazon put on their website, I can't send anyone the full book in electronic format.

I could buy physical copies and post them, but that's an outlay I can't afford right now. So the reality is that I'm not going to be getting the reviews and the buzz that I was hoping for.

It's bittersweet - I'm really annoyed at myself, because it's my mistake, but also I'm really excited to have my book out live - except it isn't fully live, because of me trying to fix my mistake, the eBook is now back in review status and not actually purchasable, while the paperback and hardback copies are (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F2884VMF) so I'm now waiting until the eBook is back fully live too and then I can do my promotion. Effectively I'm doing a "soft launch", which in my experience is when someone logical tries to do marketing - and it doesn't work. But I'm hoping that I'm wrong!

It's still fun. Writing a book is something I've always wanted to do, and it feels great to have done it. It's just not how I was hoping it would go! But that's life for you I guess :)

Anyway - expect to continue to hear from me more book-related stuff!

New Website and Book Progress

2025-03-08T12:46:00.005+00:00

First and foremost, I've got a new website, it's thog.uk - go and take a look at it if you haven't already.

Next....

See this??

This is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I appreciate that it isn't that easy to read, but basically Kindle Self Publishing has accepted my manuscript.

I knew that writing and publishing a book would be a lot of work, but I didn't realise the amount of tinkering needed at this stage. There's so much little tweaking to be done, both fixing errors in the upload process but also correcting words and format errors. It's going to be an iterative process, particularly as I get feedback from beta readers, but I can't deny that I'm impatient and getting tempted just to press the Publish button!

The other cool thing is I've got my cover artwork produced by the awesome Nazia Hameed (https://www.fiverr.com/designby_nazia) which I'm really grateful for.

Nazia came up with 5 different concepts this was great as I really had no idea what I wanted (which is definitely not helpful!)

So, I'm hoping to publish in a couple of months, stay tuned :)

Album Cover

2025-02-22T20:03:00.004+00:00

I feel like this photo is an accidental album cover for a northern England indie pop band that sings songs about getting their dole money on time.

Whetting your appetite

2025-02-20T09:13:00.004+00:00

To continue to build up the excitement for my upcoming book (Norman the Insurance Salesman and Other Stories), I asked AI to generate some front covers based on my story titles..... this is what I got from ChatGPT:

I personally quite like the third one...

Gemini meanwhile made this, which I really like the style of!

Meanwhile Nightcafe refused to generate an image for "child safety reasons"?!?

And finally Copilot came up with this:

I really like the style of Gemini but the third ChatGPT image feels like the best one overall - but of course I know the names of the characters! Thoughts welcomed :)

Writing a book

2025-02-09T11:17:00.000+00:00

So, I've been writing a book.

To be honest, I'm hoping it's kind of there. I've printed out a couple of copies of first drafts for people to give their feedback on, and I'm sure there will be a bit of refinement but I hope it's somewhere near ready for me to work on.

Now, obviously, I have a vision, and that's me on a stage at a book festival (probably at Hay-on-Wye) being interviewed by someone, lots of people sat listening, while we take part in an interesting and funny discussion. I love making people laugh.

I have tried over the years to write a book. And I understand the formula for writing a successful book.

The successful book is a novel, with a twist, a good plot, relatable characters, all that good stuff, fascinating detail, maybe some excitement. I understand that.

But I can't write that.

I lose my train of thought far too quickly, at most I write a chapter and then it peters out. My Google Drive is full of abandoned stories.

Short stories don't sell. Any website that advises people trying to make it as an author tells you that. Especially not "flash fiction" which I thought was stories that were fifty words or so, but apparently stories as long as 750 words can be flash fiction, and that's what I tend to write, most of my stories are short. They're a few pages. To be honest, they're the right length for when you're on the toilet.

Also, my book isn't long enough. Books should be over 60,000 words. I'm not there. I'm around 17,500 words.

So, I know my book isn't going to sell. Furthermore, it's in fairly bad taste. A lot of the stories have a lot of death and/or sex in it, they're silly, and sensibilities are offended by them.

But I like them.

I have one qualification for the story to make it into the book - and that is that it should make me laugh. If I'm not smiling when I read it back, it's not going in (and there's a stack of stories I wrote that haven't made it into the book because of that).

I've also been careful with some of the stories to try to ensure that there isn't gender bias or shit like that. People can be great, nice, lovely, alright, annoying, and outright dicks. And they can vary between these (I know I do). Your race, gender, religion, whatever other qualities, don't matter. They don't affect your behaviour. Your behaviour affects your behaviour.

Beyond that, there's few limits. There's a story about a being from Norse mythology. There's a story about Alan the Demon. And there's a story about Norman the Insurance Salesman.

So anyway, the book is coming. I expect that it will sell very few copies, mostly to my closest friends and family who feel like they ought to buy a copy. I'm sure that it won't get anywhere and that I won't be interviewed on a stage or win any prizes, but it's coming.

AI D&D experiments

2025-01-05T16:20:00.004+00:00

Having had the Christmas break to unwind, destress, and generally have space to think about other stuff than work, I found myself pondering D&D one afternoon.

I've never actually played proper D&D, although I have played other roleplaying systems (Cyberpunk RED notably which was great fun). I did once go through the set up of a character for D&D, which seemed to take quite a while and at the time did make me worry that the game might require more time rolling dice or consulting rulebooks than having fun, but I've never actually tried it. Of course, D&D - and any other similar roleplaying game, requires a number of elements, including people to play with, and a dungeonmaster to run an adventure for the players.

I was curious to see whether AI could be used to simulate D&D, and particularly to make an enjoyable experience.

Before I go further, I'll nail down this point to anyone reading this who has played D&D properly - it's not D&D, I know it's not D&D, AI could never replace the organic interaction between humans and a human dungeonmaster (I don't actually believe this, I think in time it might be able to, but I don't want this post to turn into a place where awesome people that I like rant about the purity of human D&D), I just want to talk about my experience trying it.

So, I fired up ChatGPT - free version - and typed...

hi chatgpt - can you play d&d with me?

ChatGPT replied "Absolutely, I can! Do you have a character ready, or would you like me to help you create one? Also, are you imagining a classic D&D setup (like swords, spells, and dungeons), or do you want to try something unique? Let’s dive in! 🐉✨"

I gave it a very brief summary - ie "my character is a human male bard called thog, equipped with a short sword, a lute, a backpack, and 100 gold. quite happy to play a classic D&D setup with you can be the dungeonmaster. Happy for you to be creative and don't feel like you need to stick too closely to the rules of D&D, just make it fun :)"

And promptly lost the next 24 hours.

It dropped my character into a bustling town called Evermere, and sent me a chap in a leather apron - who I assumed was a butcher, although I don't think it was ever actually said - in need of an adventurer to find his daughter. It happily handled my responses, allowed me to build up a party over time, and handled my sometimes unusual responses - when confronted with a snarling and possibly magical wolf, I told ChatGPT that I would "play a tune on my lute softly while kneeling down and singing "doggy woo, who's a good doggy woo". I offer it a few of my rations and try not to look the wolf in the eyes as it can cause aggression in canines" - ChatGPT happily went with it, and continued to describe what happened.

Through experimentation, I found that I could ask it to make the adventure more challenging and to incorporate more dice rolls - without them it felt a little bit on the easy side - but fundamentally it made it a really enjoyable experience. Over time my character got the ability to read minds, and on asking it to read the minds of my party it was interesting to see that not all of my party was wholly on board with the actions my character was making, although it seemed that as long as I was being successful, they were happy to come along for the ride.

Was it perfect?

No. Absolutely not. I found that it had a tendency to forget details - one of my party members, Elira, I didn't interact with as much as the others and it seemed as a result that it wasn't always clear whether she was actually still there or not. My inventory also didn't always align, with items that I hadn't used recently strangely vanishing.

I also found that I ended up upgrading to the paid version of ChatGPT to get a sufficient amount of what it called "advanced data analysis" - aka dice rolls - to make it interesting, along with more access to the GPT-4o model (although I would say that the GPT-4o mini model did a good job too). Also ChatGPT learns things about you to customise its responses, and pretty soon this memory was filled with ephemera as "Thog decided to go east", and once full the game fell over.

Another annoying issue is that as the ChatGPT log gets longer, it takes longer and longer for responses to come through on the web browser. I found that this was the case on any web browser, or on the Microsoft app, however when using the Android ChatGPT app on my phone, it didn't suffer with this delay. And of course, there's no way (that I could find) of running the Android app on my PC.

And currently you can add to the list that the current chat of ChatGPT which has my adventure in has lost the ability to do dice rolls - it is specifically that chat, if I open up another instance of ChatGPT it happily does dice rolls as needed, but the chat where I want the dice rolls to happen it just reports bugs.

But putting all this to one side, it was definitely sufficiently fun and entertaining to keep me gripped for a day, and I'm happily continuing to play as and when I see fit. Figuring out workarounds for issues was a lot of fun - I resolved ChatGPT's memory issue and slowdown on the web browser by having it export a data file (a JSON file apparently!) all about my party, including their equipment, class, level, relationships with each other, personality and background, which I could tweak as I saw fit and then import into another ChatGPT instance to start again. I do like this as part of the thrill for me is being able to take a character and play them through multiple adventures

For completeness, I did also try other AIs, in particular Google Gemini (Gemini 1.5 Flash) and Microsoft Copilot. Gemini outright told me "I can't play D&D with you in the traditional sense" but then when I clarified what I wanted it to do, it did respond well and while I'm not sure it was quite as good as ChatGPT, did a reasonable attempt of being my dungeonmaster and again rolled with me making unusual choices and roleplayed them adequately. Copilot I found made it more like a "choose your own adventure" book, where your choices were clearly set - again though, it wasn't unpleasant to play, and when I did want to reject its options and propose something else to do it handled it well.

So I would say if you're needing a D&D fix but you don't for whatever reason have people handy, you could do a lot worse than giving your friendly AI a shot.

Thog the Bard according to ChatGPT

Travelling and trying to create a buzz by dancing

2024-08-12T21:14:00.004+01:00

So, I've just come back from a week in Bordeaux in France, and it was lovely.

But hot.

Now, for those who aren't aware, I'm from the UK, and not even the southern bit. I'm from the north, where twenty degrees Celsius (68 in Fahrenheit) is getting hot. So me choosing a place where it was regularly in the thirties - and on the day of us leaving, was due to hit 41 - wasn't the best idea. Nor was it booking a hotel without air conditioning, fortunately I rectified that on arrival and got upgraded, otherwise sleep would have been a faint hope.

But France was great, the people were great, and we saw so much cool stuff, like the Museum of Illusions, which is full of optical illusions, allowing for photos like this:

It's interesting though what things you take for granted which turn out to just not be a thing in different countries. Getting fresh, not UHT milk from a supermarket or a corner shop was seemingly impossible. And the amazing french bread that was provided along with meals never came with butter unless you asked for it (which seems like an oversight bearing in mind how much french butter is).

Nevertheless, it was a great experience.

Onto my second subject of the post, which is that I need to rebuild an audience. Not that I ever had a huge one, but letting my blog and YouTube channel atrophy for several years didn't help. And you see, I'm writing a book that I want to release by the end of the year.

It's not a clever book, or a sensible book. It's a bunch of short silly stories that make me laugh, and hopefully if you share my sense of humour, will do the same for you.

But if I'm to make my fortune selling a book, I need several hundred thousand willing fans waiting to buy it.

I thought that I might hop onto social media trends to build my audience - now, if you're not aware, Deadpool & Wolverine is in cinemas at the moment, and one of the dances, to NSync's Bye Bye Bye, is quite popular on TikTok right now.

Oh god no. I'm not posting that video for people to see.

Anyone want a cheap Deadpool mask? Barely used?

It was suggested to me, that as Ryan Reynolds had a body double do the dance in the film for him, that I perhaps need the same. Applicants do feel free to reach out.

Do People Still Blog?

2024-07-21T16:19:00.000+01:00

Unrelated dog pic

As part of bringing my blog back to life, I've been going through various settings and things (universal analytics is out, welcome Google Analytics 4!).

One thing I had on my blog was a long list of other blogs that I particularly liked - as a blogger you're encouraged to find other blogs, make connections, network, all that good stuff. Which I enjoyed, and I found some really good blogs at the time.

Sadly, the vast majority of them have ceased blogging (as I had!) for several years. A few remain - most notably my friend Tim Clark, who pops up on various places on the internet, including on The Wild Word.

So, do I look and find new blogs? I always love to read blogs, provided that they've got a bit of personality - far too many blogs are written in purely professional speak (and possibly nowadays AI generated) with no hint of the person that wrote them.

So, if you have any suggestions of good blogs to visit, please do let me know in the comments :)

Where has my website address gone?

2024-07-05T16:35:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, I had a blog.

I enjoyed blogging, and after a while decided to splash out on a website name.

I won't hyperlink it, but it was www.mikeraven.co.uk

But when I took a break from blogging, I decided to cancel the web name. I wasn't doing the blog any more, so why keep paying for the domain name? It wasn't as though any income from the blog was paying for the domain name.

Now, of course, when I try to get the domain back, it's owned by someone else. Not that they're doing anything with it, there's a few general adverts if you go to that address. But I can't find a way to buy it back.

So - relaunched website calls for a new web domain!

Welcome to thog.uk :)

And welcome to the chocolate digarinut!

The Relaunch of the blog

2024-06-23T19:19:00.000+01:00

Hello!

I vaguely remember doing this blogging thing. I used to do it quite a lot, in fact. Good for stretching the writing muscles.

Why did I stop? I''m struggling to remember, to be honest. I think I was finding that I didn't really have anything to write about, and neither did I have the urge.

That is changing!

I'm working on a book. Now ideally, what I would like is for an agent to contact me out of the blue (via email, no one wants a phone call), tell me how amazing I am, and to set me up with a huge publisher who would give me a six-figure advance for a book of whatever length and quality I decide to churn out. Unbelievably, this has not happened to date!

I'm working on a collection of short stories. The stories vary in length and topic, but have one common element.

Immature humour. Crude, you could call it. And again, no matter how hard I search on literary agents websites, none of them seem to be looking for this. Nevertheless, the success of games such as Cards Against Humanity and Joking Hazard (both of which I love) makes me feel that there is an audience out there somewhere.

So, I'm going to try to bring this old blog back to life with the shameless aim of building an audience of bloodythirsty billionaires desperate for a book stuffed full of with stories such as "Charles, the dog that couldn't stop licking" and "Chantelle the Juicy Sausage".

Hopefully it'll become a stocking filler for that relative with questionable taste you have (and if you don't have a relative with questionable taste, it's you)

The Cat in the Car Park

2023-09-04T19:23:00.002+01:00

I drove into the works car park today, circling as I looked for a decent space (ideally a space with adjacent spaces empty, and somewhere that would be sheltered from the non-seasonal sun we are experiencing in the UK at the moment), and glimpsed what appeared to be a cat in a car looking at me.

I was so taken back that I had to circle around the car park again, even though I risked losing my cherished spot.

This is what I saw:

That would be the buttons on a black coat.

In other news, I've started writing a series of short silly stories that I'm going to post on here and on YouTube / TikTok (yes I know) - they're going to be strange, and not safe for kids!

Have a good Monday :)

Time Travel, at a speed of 1440 minutes per day!

2020-01-16T15:11:00.001+00:00

Past Mike left Current Mike a pack of four mince pies in his car as a nice surprise for when he got in it! I love me :D

2019 and the Skatepark

2019-04-07T21:52:00.000+01:00

It's 2019.

It's not just 2019, it's well into 2019. It's been something like five months since I blogged.

About time I wrote a post then.

It's been busy here, mainly because we moved house back in November, and we haven't paused to catch our breath really since then. We've moved into a little village in East Yorkshire, which is better for my son to get to school, and had also provided my wife a little more desperately needed room in order to support her burgeoning needle minder activities.

As for myself, I've been working and doing stuff round the house. An interesting side effect of a larger house is that I now lose stuff because I forget how many rooms we've got - more than once I've stomped around looking for something before realising that we've now got a utility room to put stuff in.

Anyway, I'm blogging because I've got something nice and embarrassing to blog about.

This weekend we've been visiting family in Lancashire, which has been very nice, and this morning, my son decided that he wanted to go to a skatepark with his scooter. This is an entirely normal occurrence, recently he's been on the scooter a lot, to the point where we've bought him a new scooter as his old one was getting a little small, and I've even purchased a skateboard for myself to accompany him (although I've not dared to go outside with it yet, I am contenting myself with falling over in the hall whilst next to a wall).

The essential kit for a skater boi.

Anyhow, we went to the skatepark, and my son was scootering around, having fun, and I decided to warm up a little (it was chilly and I hadn't taken a jacket) by running around a bit, and seeing if I could climb up one of the ramps. There was a few curved ramps, and one particularly high one.

Well, it took me a couple of goes, but eventually I managed to get up the highest ramp, with a good run and jump at the end.

And what do you do when you're at the top of a ramp?

Well, you come down it, of course.

Not having a scooter or a board with me, the natural thing (to me anyway) is to slide down it, as shown in the GIF below.

I've done this any number of times, but this time, it felt different.

It stung.

And that would because I've done it so many times in these jeans, this time the jeans gave way.

I retreated to the car to inspect the damage, and sure enough, there was a good three or so holes straight through the jeans, in the... "seat" area, shall we say.

Fortunately my wife is a keen cross stitcher and had brought her kit with her, so we sat in the car for half an hour while she tried to undo the worst of the damage.

Nevertheless, one of the worst holes reopened as the day went on, and I found myself in a market looking through fabric samples to see if I could patch it. I purchased a couple of leather rectangles for future repair, but for the time being, I resolved to close the hole again with a spot of sewing.

To this end, I bought a reel of what I thought was black but turned out to be brown cotton from the market. Of course I couldn't find where the reel started so I took to ripping the reel apart until I teased out a length of thread long enough to be of use.

The reel didn't do so well.

All repaired, I went about my day, sore but at least not exposing myself to strangers and relatives.

I did try later to prepare the leather rectangles for patchwork, and I had the bright idea of making holes in the rectangles first in order to ease the sowing. Not having a leather punch, I naturally resorted to a drill.

Pro-tip: Drills don't work on leather.

What instead happens is the leather wraps itself around the drill bit, which heats up and adheres the leather to the drill in a gluelike fashion, meaning that you have to reverse the drill and pull the leather off while swearing.

I dread to think what will happen when I go to the park next time.

The Cheese Grater Explained

2018-11-18T13:35:00.003+00:00

It's Sunday morning, which means I have a slice of time free to write! To create, to make something new, the activity of generating ephemeral ideas and translating them into the written word.

Or you could just stage photos of writing, to avoid actually having to do it.

Anyway, today I wish to embark upon an explanatory text, to educate one and all upon the humble cheese grater.

The cheese grater is something that we all own, and quietly sits in our homes, ready to be called upon when needed. Yet is it truly understood?

Today I will share with you my expertise on my very own hexagonal cheese grater, and in particular the uses of the six different sides.

Here we go!

SIDE ONE: Big Holes.

This is the standard size to be used at all times. It is used to make large gratings of cheese, ideal for putting on a sandwich, toastie, and pretty much anything else you want grated cheese for.

SIDE TWO: Small Holes!

This is the side used when you have guests and you want your food to look slightly nicer than normal. You get smaller gratings of cheese than if you used the big holes, so it takes longer and therefore is less pleasant.

SIDE THREE: The Slicer!

Allegedly used for slicing cheese, no one in history has ever used this side, because, to misquote James Acaster, when you want a slice of cheese your first thought is not the grater.

SIDE FOUR: The Slicer's Identical Twin!

As though having one side made up of slicers isn't enough, there's an identical twin on another side. This makes me wonder if people are as gross as I suspect, and rather than washing up the grater after using the slicer (as if anyone ever does), they decide to leave it because there's a totally unused and clean side still to go.

SIDE FIVE: The Finger Killer

God only knows what this side is used for, with its mixture of holes and sticky up bits, but if you ever thought that grating cheese using the side with the big holes is dangerous to your fingers, you haven't tangled with this one, which is especially designed to trick your fingers into exposing themselves before ripping a chunk off.

If a grater was conscious and wanted to eat a human, one finger at a time, this would be its mouth.

SIDE SIX: Angry Nipples

To round off this exploration of the cheese grater, the last side seems to consist of approximately seventeen million furious barbed nipples that, when in the vicinity of cheese (or anything else for that matter), clutch onto the dairy product and tear it into a thousand pieces.

Thank you for your time.

(If you enjoyed this - or even if you didn't - why not see the photos from the earthquake I survived earlier this year?)

My Day

2018-10-28T21:43:00.000+00:00

I've been challenged to write one of these "My Day" posts, which have been doing the rounds. Typically it's about a hipster-type who spends their day exercising, meditating, squeezing fresh orange juice from cows and doing something odd like having a curried Orangina to keep their energy levels up.

So, here we go.

3am: I wake up and think about the inevitable approach of death. Or biscuits. Biscuits are more likely, really. If I choose to glance at the bedroom door there is every chance that my son is stood there looking at me, and if I make any sign that I am awake he will jump on me. It's a great chance to practice my stealthiness.

3.10am: I fall asleep again.

5am: I wake up by being poked in the eye by a small child. I find this rapidly brings me to complete wakefulness far quicker than the stereotypical "waking up naturally", saving me precious time.

5.10am: I spend the next hour catching up with the world by going on fifteen different social media channels on my phone, one after another. On none of them do I have any notifications.

6.10am: I sit down at my computer for a session of creative writing.

6.25am: I realise that I've spent fifteen minutes looking at a blank Word document whilst playing Words With Friends on my phone. I mean to say that I've been sharpening my English language skills.

6.30am: I ruminate on what food to put in my packed lunch. I find packed lunches far healthier than whatever you can buy, and really gives you chance to include energy boosters like organic fruit, chia seeds, and quinoa.

6.35am: I've packed leftover pizza and a dodgy looking banana.

7.45am: Time to get those vocal chords into action! There's nothing like a good vocal warm up by screaming "GET DRESSED! SOCKS! SHOES!" over and over. I don't worry about the volume because I'm never heard over my sons tablet anyway.

8.30am: At work, full of energy and raring to go.

8.32am: My energy levels are dropping, so I get a vitality boosting bacon and egg sandwich. I add tomato sauce to help towards my five a day.

10.00am: Someone fetches me a scone. I always make sure to get a sweet scone (never savory) like dark chocolate and cherry. At this rate I've virtually had all the fruit and vegetables I need for the day.

12.00pm: Time for lunch, and to give my lunch an exciting twist, I grab some extra steps by walking to the chip shop. Always make sure to add "chip spice" to your chips, the paprika comes with amazing health benefits, such as aiding sleep.

1.00pm: I'm really tired. Time to boost my energy levels with coffee.

1.10pm: More coffee.

1.20pm: More coffee?

1.30pm: EVERYTHING IS FANTASTIC AND AMAZING AND I'M GETTING SO MUCH WORK DONE ITS UNREAL I THINK I'LL HAVE A COFFEE.

5.30pm: Work is over and I spend the drive home unloading my mind whilst eating a Crunchie.

6.20pm: Dinner is served. I always look for a healthy option such as grilled chicken and rice. Except for Tuesdays because that's when we have pizza. Whilst eating dinner I watch some Downton Abbey to unwind.

6.25pm: Fall asleep in front of the TV.

7.30pm: Wake up. Rewind the DVD.

8.00pm: On an evening, when the brain is naturally less creative, I relax with a walk.

8.10pm: Funnily enough, whilst on my walk, I appear to find myself stood outside a pub. I do feel that it's so important to support local enterprises.

11.33pm: skweuimcal;c

11.55pm: KEBabs r 'mazing gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

12:40pm: Howw do u work the lock in teh front dorr?????? Askin 4 frend. xc

I hope that the above is of use to you, I am available for the delivery of seminars and workshops at a very reasonable rate on the topic of how to change your life. Not necessarily for the better, that's why my rate is so reasonable :)

Taking Photos

2018-10-07T08:53:00.000+01:00

I love waking up early on Sunday mornings. They're usually the quietest time of the week, when everyone else is asleep, and I can potter away doing chores (or, more likely, muck about on the computer).

This morning when I got up the sunrise was giving some interesting colours to the sky, and so I decided to pop out and take some photos by the river.

Obligatory "the camera is turned round the wrong way - oh well, I'll take a photo anyway" shot

Most of the photos are of the Humber Bridge, which I wrote about a couple of years back when it was Bridge Day (interestingly Bridge Day is coming up again soon - possible source of content for bloggers!), in short the bridge is the fifth longest single-span suspension bridge in the world, linking the north and south banks of the River Humber together.

Bridge

Bridge from a different angle

Not a bridge

Bake Off Returns

2018-09-02T08:53:00.002+01:00

Bake Off is back.

The Great British Bake Off is an institution, must-watch television. It's the most bizarre thing, in a way - get a group of generally middle-class, affable individuals in a big tent, make them bake difficult things, and then let two judges, one an evil monster who could capture your soul with a thought, the other effectively being your grandmother, complete with unending friendliness but the ability to express infinite disappointment should you not live up to expectations.

Add to this a weekly elimination and it's completely and utterly addictive. Especially when accompanied by several cans of John Smith's laced with Jagermeister.

It's maybe because we all think we could do that. Regardless of whether you're skilled in the kitchen or not, you think that with the right recipe and ingredients you could make a reasonable fist of at least a Victoria sponge or some sausage rolls (man, I'd love a flaky sausage roll right now...). When you're watching X Factor, or Britain's Got Talent, unless you are one of that those minority who actually have talent, or one of the slighter larger proportion of the population that thinks they do, you can't connect to it because you couldn't actually be up there singing/dancing/eating an elephant blindfolded.

The crisis caused by the move from BBC to Channel 4 seems to have settled down now. As much as I like Mel and Sue, and I've always liked them, for me Noel Fielding has been a pleasant surprise. When I first saw some of his work he was a bit too random and surreal for me, but in Bake Off he's odd yet friendly, a real delight.

So, here's to a couple of months that will be improved by Bake Off :)

A Day Out

2018-07-29T08:52:00.003+01:00

Something of a belated blog post this one, but it's time I talked about going for a walk.

So earlier this month, a group of us went to tackle the Yorkshire 3 peaks, these are 3 mountains in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Now, it should be noted that in the UK we've been experiencing particularly hot weather this last month, and the challenge is to tackle all 3 peaks, taking in 24 miles of walking, in 12 hours.

My intention was to take about 3 and a half litres of water with me, which should have been enough for the full trek. Fortunately, however, we had a relief van that met us after each peak, because even after completing just one peak I was down to my last litre of water due to the heat.

So in summary - I didn't manage all three.

I did do the first 2 peaks - Pen-y-Ghent and Whernside - but coming down Whernside was so tough, with a steep path covered in effectively slippery dust, that by the bottom I couldn't face taking on the third. Of the 20 or so of us that did it, there was 4 of us that didn't do the third, so at least I wasn't on my own. Nevertheless, I'm happy that I managed the first two, and will go back to do the third sometime perhaps later this year.

Bags packed

Setting off at 4am to avoid the sun

Up a hill somewhere

Practice Walk

2018-07-01T10:54:00.000+01:00

Next week a group of us are tackling the Yorkshire 3 Peaks. This challenge involves about 24 miles of walking - and three mountains. Where I live we have next to nothing in the way of mountains, but I wanted to least have a go at the distance to see if it was achievable, so ahead of then I took Friday off to have a practice walk.

All prepared with genuine sunglasses and some kind of sports top, I think it possibly has isotonic qualities. Most sporty things are advertised as having ISO something or other.

I started off around 6.30am in Beverley, with the intention of making it to Driffield for around lunch, and then depending on how I got on hopefully walking back in the afternoon.

Accompanying for the walk was a backpack filled with water, power bank for my phone, snacks, sun cream, blister plasters and other ephemera. I always struggle when packing a bag, I have to try to not spend too much time on it because the longer I have to pack the bag the more things I'll take "just in case".

In preparation for the day I loaded up my phone with podcasts, mostly episodes of the hilarious "My Dad Wrote A Porno" which if you haven't heard is an absolute must.

About 2 seconds after I took this photo I held my hand out towards the cows and they collectively lost their minds.

The morning walk went very well, with only a few aches from my feet the last mile or so into Driffield. After getting a bite to eat I was contemplating getting the train back to Beverley, and decided that I would check the train station on the way back.

First, though, I got a hat.

Not a stylish one

Hats don't suit me, I would love to be the sort of man who looks good wearing a hat, but inevitably they end up lop-sided, too big, the wrong colour, or just weird. But with the day being clear and sunny, and high temperatures expected in the afternoon, I got one anyway.

As a result, I missed the train back to Beverley by about 30 seconds, and wasn't going to be seeing another one for an hour. So, I decided to head back on foot, with the possible option of getting a train part of the way back from the village of Hutton Cranswick.

While most of the walk was along the main road, between Hutton Cranswick and Driffield I was taking a diversion down country lanes and through the picturesque hamlet of Skerne, and typically it was around Skerne that I started having some foot trouble. I took a couple of breaks, changing my socks, but they still didn't feel right.

Now, at this point (or ideally back in Driffield) if I had put blister plasters on, all would probably have been well.

I didn't.

So it was when I was a couple of miles away from Hutton Cranswick, and its train station, that my foot exploded.

Of course it didn't explode, it was merely a blister popping, but that's what I convinced myself it felt like. I began toying with the idea of ordering a taxi, but getting a taxi for the remainder of the walk seemed excessive. I continued to hobble on towards the train station (not at any point stopping to put blister plasters on, somehow in my mind I was of the thought that it would be worse to get my feet out of my boots, remove socks, install the plasters, and then dress again, as opposed to pushing on for the rest of the walk).

Part of the way along, and making slow progress, I checked the train times and found, about a mile and a half out, that there was a train in half an hour, and another in an hour, and then no more trains for at least another hour after that. There was no way I could make the first one, and I would have to speed up to make the second.

In short - I did make the second by with 4 minutes to spare.

Once back to Beverley I got to my car and drove home. My son decided to take on the role of doctor and assess my feet.

Here they are being x-rayed, with the aid of an iPad with no x-ray capability.

It's now 2 days after the walk, and although I'm still limping a little, I'm walking a lot better than I have been since Friday. Fingers crossed my blisters should all be healed by next Saturday and adding all of the walking up I did on the Friday it was comparable to the distance I'll be tackling next week (just without the ascents and descents!) so I'm hoping that I'll be able to get on reasonably well. Wish me luck!