Marks and Spencer Jersey - 125th Birthday Redux

A while ago I blogged about M&S in Jersey failing completely to honour the 125th birthday promotions in the rest of the chain.

One of the bosses was quoted as saying that this was because they hadn't been open for the full 125 years.

Having been shopping there the other day (sadly they are the only shop in town who seem to sell nice chinos which fit me really well so I can't boycott them completely) - I noticed that despite this, they have no problem in using "Celebrating 125 years" carrier bags.

Nobbers!

The Developer's Tattoo

I have no idea of the original source of this, but a friend just forwarded it to me in an email.

It's so good, I just had to share.

Do-follow-tastic

I'm a big believer in giving credit where it is due - which is why it's always irritating to see that most blogs, sites, etc only give nofollow links.

For example, the crafts directory site I am involved with gives a do-follow link if you sign the handmade pledge. So. Finally, I've gotten around to editing my blog template, so that I can incorporate follow links in my posts.

And if you leave a comment with your name and url, you'll get a link back against that too. But please use your name, or at least something more sensible than a load of keyword spam, or you won't get anything at all.

The fridge of death

OK.

So.

Yesterday, our new cooker (to replace the oven which I may or may not have told you had died) arrived. A nice bloke called Tim brought it round, as he is moving to Belgium. It cost us £100 and is well worth the money for a double-oven cooker with a good hob, which is approx 18 months old (well used, but thats not a problem).

So.

I had to remove our old integrated hob and fridge, open up the worktop a bit, then wire in and put into place the new cooker. This sounds quite easy.

This would be quite easy.

If when you lift the hob, you don't see this:


Suffice to say, once I finally managed to extract the fridge, I didn't plug it back in. Back to the classifieds to look for a fridge/freezer, methinks!

It's "Follow Friday" - not "List of names Friday"!

OK. So, I've blogged about #followfriday (Follow Friday) before. I'm just going to follow that up (ha ha), in light of a recent trend.

It seems to have become 'vogue' over the last 2-3 weeks, to simply tweet a big list of names. Or lots of big lists of names.

Frankly, that just annoys people. I'm not going to follow @rod @jane @freddy @tom @dick and @harry just because you spewed out 40 names and they were in there!

Why not tweet 2-3 names, one at a time, and give a good reason?

Here were mine for today (copied from twhirl):

First.. @GoodAndBadPR - because some of the examples they point out are just brilliant (brought to us by @10Yetis) #followfriday

Second.. @Oolamoola because of their great posts about the things you can achieve on a budget (plus they're up for a challenge) #followf ...

And finally @mestiere, because his tweets are a great way to find new crafts! (see also @ukcrafts) #followfriday

So there we go - food for thought, and a whinge off my chest. You may all return to your breakfast/lunch/dinner now! ;)

PS: You can follow me here: @mattchedit

Lard? Aye Carumba!

Looked up a recipe for frijoles (refried beans) in a newish cook book (love charity shops) last night. I know how I make them, but thought I'd get a second opinion.

The recipe listed the ingredients: Black beans (250g), Lard (50g)...

Wait. Hang on. Thats the first time in bloody ages I've seen a recipe actually come out, bold as brass, and say "LARD"!! Something we normally joke about!

In the end, I used approx 250g of beans (soaked overnight, washed, simmered for an hour) - frying in a pan with lots of olive oil, salt, pepper, sweet paprika (pimenton dulce), coriander (powered, as ran out of fresh - doh) and a good splash of milk to help loosen them up and turn them into a nice squishy beany mess.

Lard???

8mb Broadband in Jersey? Surely not!

Well, apparently yes - in August.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/jersey/8102269.stm

Although we will have to wait and see how much it's going to cost!