A Quarter of Nostalgia…

Some months ago I came across the A quarter of website, they sell sweets that you thought had disappeared; Black Jacks, Refreshers, Sugar Peanuts, Lemon Sherbets and about 700 more! The days of four Black Jacks for a penny are long gone but still a great site if you want a little treat!

I had a hankering for some liquorice and included in my tenners worth some Bassetti, now maybe it was stale, a bad batch or maybe my jaws are getting weak, but I can’t recall ever having liquorice sticks that damned hard before! Anyone else out there tried this stuff?

I gave up on buying Bassetts’ Liquorice Allsorts some time ago when I bought a bag one Christmas from Sainburys, again maybe it was a duff batch but I was extremely dissapointed at the small amount of actual liquorice in the bag, just tons of sugary stuff, very little plain liquorice and little if any of those bobbly aniseed jelly ones!

Have they economised on the ingredients over the years or was I just unlucky? The picture on the American Candy Blog seems to show a far different mix than I had. Do they have different mixes for different countries I wonder?

Strike “Down the Tube”

A 72-hour strike on London Undergound was called off last night by the RMT Union after an improved pay offer was made. It was due to start at midday on Wednesday 20th August.

1,000 track, signal and train maintenance staff working for Tube Lines were due to walk out. Tube Lines is responsible for running the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee lines.

Drat, there goes that “working from home” stint to watch the Olympics on TV…

McCarthyism to McCainism – Communists takeover America?!

Funny old week it’s been, US politician John McCain claimed that “We are all Georgians” and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice jumped on a plane to assure the Georgians that America was solidly behind them.  

Just what would Joe McCarthy have made of all this adoration of Stalin’s birthpace?

Olympics Day Seven

Good start to the day… the British men’s cycling team have set a new world record in the team sprint qualifying round at the Velodrome, and Ben Ainslie looks set to get at least a Silver medal tomorrow in the sailing.

Must get some work done… but keeping an eye on it here – BBC Sport Olympics

The Good Ol’ Days 2 – or 1968 and all that

President Bush says he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to express “America’s unwavering support” for the Georgia government.

Condoleezza Rice said Russia cannot act like its Soviet forebears – “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital and get away with it”

Aah “The Good Ol’ Days of ‘68″ when the US was so tolerant it let the Russians get away with it…

Coincidently there was an Olympics on that year too – 1968 Olympics Black Power salute – how times have changed for Black Americans.

Georgia beats Russia

Among the Olympic results today was the Georgian team beating the Russian team at beach volleyball. But the ‘Georgian team’ of Cristine Santanna and Andrezza Martins, are both native Brazilians. Seems they took up an invitation to represent Georgia after missing out on Olympic qualification for their native Brazil. Is anything coming out of Georgia what it seems to be?

Russia beats Georgia

Looking at most US News agencies one would think that poor old Georgia had been the victim of a Russian coup. But Sky News, some live BBC News coverage and an interview on the BBC’s HARDTalk program, which elicited some less than convincing ’statements of facts’ from the Georgian side, would seem to show that the Georgian President has paid the price for a massive strategic blunder. Russia’s rapid military response and more self assured and convincing political responses leave the score Russia 1 Georgia 0 but no doubt more ‘facts’ will unfold and the game is far from over…

Whatever happened to the good ol’ days?

George warns Russia that their behaviour is not acceptable in the 21st century. Trying to overthrow another government that’s been democratically elected is just not on old comrades. If only you’d picked on a nasty dictatorship, a bunch of communists, Arabs or Oriental types things would have been fine.

Whatever happened to the good ol’ days when you could have National Pride in dropping a couple of A bombs on some slitty-eyed Civilian Targets or get audiences whooping in their seats when the US Cavalry came charging over the hill to wipe out a few hundred Indian savages?

Olympic Breakfast

How great to see our Olympic cyclist Nicole Cooke win a Gold at the week-end, and not a mask in sight. Brits 1, USA 0

Not usually a swimming fan, but to see Rebecca Adlington winning a Gold and Joanne Jackson a Bronze in the women’s 400m free-style was pretty cool. Well done! First women’s swimming gold for Britain in 48 years apparently, but who cares about such statistics? Pour moi, seeing two Union Jacks, albeit alongside the Stars and Stripes, waving there on the Olympic flag poles was a great start to the day!

ba, ba, ba

ba, ba, ba (or 08/08/08 if you prefer)

Worked from home yesterday to see the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony; of course most Londoners were working hard as usual in the office, including the London Olympics 2012 office staff…

With 8 being a much prized number in China, the Opening ceremony on the 8th August 2008 appears not only very fortunate for the Chinese but it will make remembering when it happened a darn site easier for all of us.

Which brings me to ask, am I the only Londoner that gets totally wound up every time I hear a BBC commentator referring glibly to ‘the events of 9/11′, as if I am supposed to remember that ‘of course’ it means 11th September 2001, and not as ’silly old English me’ would think refers to 9th November? Since when has the UK used the American month, date, year date format?

In the West the number 7 is often considered lucky, perhaps the ‘events of 7/7′ might change some people’s views on that…