Archive for the ‘Purchases’ Category

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Starbucks

November 2, 2009

I have a vague feeling that I’m supposed to hate Starbucks, but I can’t remember why. I used to think it was because they put proper coffee shops out of business, but then I remembered that we haven’t had proper coffee shops in the UK since the 1930s.

Anyway, I like Starbucks. I don’t go there very often, but when I do, I really like it. I like that you can sit on sofas and armchairs instead of on poky little wooden chairs, and I like that the music is quiet enough that you can read without hearing it, and I like how warm and steamy it is, and that you can buy a Guardian to accompany your coffee (or, in my case, tea), and I like that they ask whether you want them to leave room for the milk but let you pour the milk yourself.

The coffee may quite possibly be dreadful, but since I dislike and disapprove of coffee, this doesn’t deter me at all. The one thing I’d change, in fact, would be to make them open later, so that you could meet friends there in the evening rather than at the pub. Oh, and I’d have them make their cheese and marmite panini available all day, rather than just at breakfast time.

Still, if anyone can remember why I’m supposed to hate them, please let me know.

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Lilies

August 5, 2009

I can perceive intellectually that lilies are attractive; I just can’t bring myself to believe it in my heart. The problem is one of association. Just as meeting a lovely Nigel can convince you that it’s a nice name when it plainly isn’t, lilies’ ability to give me an instantaneous, powerful and lasting headache prevents me from appreciating their aesthetic charms.

That this is a minority opinion is borne out by the two – two! – women who separately got on to my train this evening carrying large bunches of lilies. The first landed at the other end of the carriage, but the second came and sat next to me. The journey only takes ten minutes,  but I knew that was long enough, so I got up and perched myself close to the door, breathing fresh air for as long as I possibly could before it slid shut.

I felt a bit bad for the woman. I wanted to explain, but my bad feeling for the woman was trumped by my wish not to have people thinking I was a madwoman on a crowded commuter train.

Fortunately, as I was leaving the train I caught a potent whiff of essence of male armpit, which put all thoughts of lilies – which put, in fact, all thoughts – immediately out of my mind.

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Smug

July 22, 2009

I think today might have been my highest-achieving day ever. This morning I got up and made Glamorgan sausages, washed up, and cleaned the kitchen; all before I left for work. At work, I did loads of work. At lunchtime I went to the bank and paid in a cheque, and went to Morrison’s and bought toothpaste, tissues, a mixing bowl, cling film, teabags and a tray for collecting rain water*, which list constitutes everything I needed and didn’t have in my egg. Then I went back to the office and did loads more work, before zooming off to the gym, and finally home for the sausages. Now I am heating up the remains of Sunday’s apple crumble and thinking about how grown-up I am.

It could only have been improved had I remembered to get travel insurance for our Norwegian fjord cruise next month, and to ring up and renew my library book. But you can’t have everything. It leaves me with something to achieve tomorrow.

* Congratulate me, please: I am the proud new mother of a Sarracenia flava, which in return for a constant supply of rain water promises to rid me forever of flying beasties and similar horrors.

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M&S

June 8, 2009

I have always liked shopping at Marks and Spencer because it is such a sensible shop, and when I am pretending to be a grown-up I like to imagine I’m sensible. It’s also where my rich auntie used to buy her food, so from a young age I thought of it as the place to go for luxury foodstuffs, even though what it offers foodwise is really limited to things you put in an oven and warm up, rather than than things you can use to cook with.

But after some thought, I’ve decided that after Stuart Rose’s rant in the Observer last week, I will be buying my tights elsewhere. It can be very hard work trying to be taken seriously in the workplace when the obvious sexism is unspoken – especially if you work, as I do, in a male-dominated sector – but it’s really very disspiriting when someone as prominent as he is can, apparently unchallenged, say something like this:

Girls today have never had it so good, right?…Apart from the fact that you’ve got more equality than you ever can deal with, the fact of the matter is that you’ve got real democracy and there are really no glass ceilings, despite the fact that some of you moan about it all the time. Women can get to the top of any single job that they want to in the UK. You’ve got a woman fighter pilot who went in to join the Red Arrows yesterday. I mean, what else do you want to do, for God’s sake? Women astronauts. Women miners. Women dentists. Women doctors. Women managing directors. What is it you haven’t got?

Yes, what on earth are we complaining about, now that we’re allowed to be miners? The piece goes on to suggest that he might have been attempting to wind up his (female) interviewer, but it’s such a vastly stupid thing to say that I don’t much care what his motivation was. Your tights aren’t that good, mister, and your cheese selection is crap, and whilst there are probably a hundred reasons to boycott any high street store if you look closely enough, this one was so eminently avoidable; so completely unnecessary, that I shall be taking my fluffy little head elsewhere in future.

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Ramsay

May 27, 2009

I decided yesterday that a meal in a properly swanky restaurant is worth at least a weekend away, for the amount of pleasure it brings. This was on the back of lunch at Gordon Ramsay’s Claridges restaurant, which might have been the best meal I’ve ever had. We had the set lunch, but it was so good I’m tempted to go back and try everything else, and if I could afford it that’s exactly what I’d do. As it is, I’ll just share the menu with you so you can enjoy it vicariously.

Since it was a special occasion our waiter gave us a whistlestop tour of the kitchen, which was much calmer and quieter than you’d expect. I thought kitchens of posh restaurants were supposed to be a louder and hotter version of actual hell, but this was more like a very orderly production line. Which, I suppose, is what it is.

(Do you like my new design, by the way? It’s not my own; it’s one of WordPress’s standard designs, but I like the layout and the header image, which makes me think of Ireland, where I will be next week. A fantastic meal may be a good substitute for a holiday, but there’s no harm in having one of each.)

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Shoes

May 18, 2009

I have bought these

black shoes

and these

red shoes

and these

blue shoes

As astute eyes like yours will have noticed, they are all the same. I bought the black ones first, and they were SO comfortable and SO pretty that I found myself thinking about the other colours and wondering whether they’d be a good investment. And after a couple of days I remembered something that an ex-boss at the Guardian once told me when I couldn’t decide whether to buy a lambswool Elvis Presley scarf for £45, which was that the amount of emotional energy I was expending worrying about whether to buy it would soon outweigh the financial cost of just doing it. So I did.

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Sunglasses

March 18, 2009

I bought my first sunglasses of the spring earlier, at the end of a lunch hour spent scrunching my face up against the brightness of the day. I was looking for a geekish pair to go with the actual anorak I am wearing (not this instant, as I sit in my office typing, but as part of today’s outfit), but I work in a district with a limited supply of shops selling anything anyone would actually want to buy, and the only sunglasses on offer were the enormous kind preferred by Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole and other people I don’t want to look like.  (Well, OK, I would be happy to look like Cheryl Cole, I’m not crazy. But I don’t want to dress like her.)

My eventual compromise solution was some fairly enormous sunglasses, but with thick white plastic rims which stop them from looking like something impossibly glamorous that should be teamed with skinny jeans and an enormous bag, since given the choice I would always go for flared jeans and a tiny bag.

These are they:

glasses

When I came back into the office I stuck them on my head, and had an immediate rush of summery feeling. It was brilliant.

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Genius III

December 1, 2008

This is the cleverest thing I’ve seen since the toilet you wash your hands in.  I never know what to do with my used teabag in cafés.  Designed by Jonas Trampedach, who wins a gladallover hall of fame entry.

(There isn’t a gladallover hall of fame, but there might be one day, and he’ll be in it.)

tea_coffin1

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Autumn boots, winter coat

November 25, 2008

I bought a winter coat from Zara today.  It’s very pretty, but Zara’s website is just about the worst I’ve ever seen and in any case the coat isn’t on it and I can’t find a picture anywhere else, although googling “Zara coat” I did come across this picture of Zara Phillips, coincidentally wearing a coat which is quite similar, though also quite different.

So instead here are the boots I also bought, which are just as useful but less pretty:

boot

Technically, I suppose, it’s only one boot.  But you can infer the other.

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A recipe

November 13, 2008

This recipe doesn’t have a name, because I only made it up on Monday. But it was really nice, so I think it deserves to be written down. Call it anything you like.

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 chicken breasts

A handful of bean shoots

A handful of mange tout, chopped into pieces an inch long

Three spring onions, chopped up small

Brown rice

Cashew nuts

Butter

Olive oil

For the marinade

2 tbsp sesame oil

Three cloves of garlic, chopped or sliced

A little hunk of ginger, finely chopped

A sprinkling of chili flakes

Salt

A splash of lemon juice

Mix the sesame oil, garlic, ginger, chili flakes, salt and lemon juice together in a dish. Cut the chicken into smallish pieces and stir it in, making sure every piece of chicken is coated with marinade. Leave for at least half an hour.

Boil the rice. When it’s got about 15 minutes to go, heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Once it’s hot, add the chicken and fry quickly on both sides until it starts to brown.

Turn the heat down and add the mange tout and the bean shoots. Keep stirring.

When the rice has ten minutes to go, add the cashews to the rice pot. Once the rice is done, drain it, add a slab of butter and close the lid for a minute.

Add the spring onion to the chicken pan, stir and take off the heat. Take the lid off the rice and stir it so that the butter is mixed in. Add the rice to the chicken and stir everything together. Put on plates. Eat.

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