Sucrose, in All its Glory

Oh, giddy aunt, this is going badly.  As in badly badly.  At the time of writing, everyone else is on at least 5 posts (within less than 48 hours of the kickoff - they're all rabidly obsessed with this thing!), and I'm trailing the field with a rather dismal 2.  So here goes me, notching up my third post in a pathetic bid to regain at least a small shred of dignity before Sam, Hannah and Tim wipe me off the face of the blogosphere...

I'm going to talk about sugar this time.  I had a few different chocolates and things as Christmas presents, and now I intend to bore you, distract you or whatever by waffling on about them.  Confectionery as a form of revenge...

...no, wait, I don't think that's going to serve it cold, is it.  Never mind, I'll just write the stuff anyway.

First arrival: jelly babies.

These turned up at the foot of my bed on the morning of the 25th.  I've always liked jelly babies.  More often than not, I will eat a single one in up to half a dozen very small bites, usually starting with the head and/or the feet.  This habit tends to annoy the relatives.  But as I see it, half a dozen smaller bits of jelly baby lasts up to half a dozen times as long as one full-sized jelly baby, so I get more for my money.

Second arrival: chocolate orange segments.

I can't remember who gave me the first box, but I've ended up with two.  Good job I like chocolate orange.

The second box also has a WHSmiths voucher inside, because I decided the chocolate box was probably the safest place for it at the time as the box is big enough for me not to lose it easily.

Third arrival: dolly mixtures.

If you thought it was bad that I can eat a jelly baby in multiple bits, you've got another think coming: I can and will even do the same thing to a dolly mixture.  In fact, to prove a point, I recently halved one, eating one of the two pieces at each stage, until I ended up with 1/1024th of a dolly mixture.  I should point out that I don't normally take it to that extreme; as I said, I was proving a point.

I've been keen on dolly mixtures for even longer than jelly babies, I think, and so much so that I've got a CGI short film in development about a robot that works in a dolly-mixture factory.  I'll keep you posted on that one.

Fourth arrival: little anonymous chocolate pencil thing.

Can't comment on it as I haven't eaten it yet.

Fifth arrival: Whittards cinnamon hot chocolate.

Like ordinary hot chocolate powder, but with added cinnamon.  Had 3 mugs so far.  Very nice.

Sixth arrival: miniature Snickers and Bounty bites out of somebody else's Celebrations packs.

Siblings wanted to trade for some of my chocolate orange bits, and I got the Snickers and the Bounties because the siblings aren't so keen on those ones.

Seventh arrival: a Double Decker bar.

I'm quite partial to these things, but hardly ever get one ('hardly ever' as in one or two a year at best), so it was a very pleasant surprise when Cat left one on my desk for me this afternoon.

I think that covers all the edible stuff I've currently got on my desk (no, wait - there's also a tiny, very random packet of salt.  Don't ask; I don't know any more).  And hopefully means I'm losing horribly by one less post.

Which of those seven do you like best?


You Can Put Numbers on Failure:

• First 12 for '12 status: 3 down, 9 to go - now trailing the field by two posts
• Latest book read: still A Brit Different
• Latest film/TV watched: still Sherlock
• Latest music listened to: still the Karl Jenkins stuff
• Latest edible item eaten: another hot chocolate (mint one this time)
• Predominant colour of clothes: same stuff as earlier today
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook and Word 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; Blogspot Dashboard; my previous post; Sam's blog; Blogspot Create Post)
• Webcomics posted today: n/a

- The Colclough

Weird Child.

Little brother and sister each had a friend over to dinner today.  Had spaghetti, then trifle.

Sister's friend picked at the trifle (claimed she'd never seen or heard of it before - the poor deprived little mite!), and eventually decided she didn't really like it all that much.  After eating most of it anyway as part of the decision-making process, that is.

But then someone passed her what was left of the sugar-snap peas (ick), and she happily ate the whole lot.

So, she likes sugar-snap peas better than trifle.  This is bizarre and upsetting, but still sort of understandable - after all, some people don't like damp sponge cake, and others don't like cold custard.

But then, just as I was digesting this piece of weirdness, Mum tells me something even stranger: namely, that one of little sister's other friends likes cucumber better than chocolate.

This I am not sure I can handle.

I have a very definite view on the raison d'etre of cucumbers: they exist for the sole purpose of adding crunch to tuna sandwiches, which are otherwise a bit squishy and dull.  Outside of a tuna sandwich, a cucumber is a strange and meaningless thing.  Cucumbers are never, ever, under any circumstances an alternative to chocolate, and it is morally wrong to think otherwise.

I'm not sure I can handle much more of this...


- The Colclough