Can You Use That In A Sentence, Please?



Ah..... my dearly beloved clients! I've gotta love 'em.... apart from keeping me in employment, they provide me with endless inspiration. Mainly inspiration on how not to behave unless you want to be classified as a complete raving lunatic slightly high maintenance. But inspiration nonetheless.


Like how to make every email appear far more complicated (and therefore far more important) than it needs to be.

It's quite simple really... just add a whole lot of unnecessary or daft words. Then sprinkle liberally with "regarding".

Exhibit A 
"With regards our recent conversation regarding the updates regarding...."



Be sure to use the word "pursuant" whenever possible....

Exhibit B
"Pursuant to our recent teleconference...." or "Pursuant to your email"


Better yet, use words completely out of context, whenever possible... again this will make things appear far more urgent than they really are (and possibly even quite secretive)...

Exhibit C
"I will discuss this with you later today, following our internal review meeting that is currently transpiring."

Don't be afraid to be melodramatic ...

Exhibit D
"There is a mighty sword poised over our necks. If we do not get the documents in time, it will be the end of us."


Or intimidate with title dropping...

Exhibit E
"I will have to discuss that with our Big Cheese Global Vice President of Very-Important-Sounding Functions-That-Are-Not-All-That....."


The power of downright rudeness should never be underestimated. It won't win you any friends though, so proceed with caution...

Exhibit F
" Send me the document NOW!" or "I MUST HAVE IT BY 3PM TODAY!" .

And if all else fails, get touchy-feely

Exhibit G
"I am reaching out to you right now, to ask you to..." [Client with exceptionally long arms, obviously...able to reach right across the Atlantic]

Ridiculously Easy Chocolate Tart

If you want to awe your dinner guests... well, perhaps apart from almost burning off their eyebrows, lashes and 'taches in a freak accident involving paper napkins and candles.... serve them this dead-easy-to-make chocolate tart.

I've had nothing but positive feedback on it.... and I'm sure it has nothing to do with my guests' fear of my pyromaniac potential....


What you need:
1 packet of plain biscuits - HobNobs, Digestives, Graham crackers (depending on your geographical location)

80 g butter, melted

1 large bar (200 g) of good quality chocolate (I prefer dark, but you can use milk, nut, white or whatever takes your fancy)

1 packet of marshmallows

150 mL (2/3 cup) milk

250 mL (1 cup) whipping cream



What you do:
Prepare a biscuit base by crushing the biscuits (either in a food processor or by hand by placing biscuits in a clean bag on top of a board and crushing with a rolling pin) and mixing with the melted butter.

Press into a 25 cm pie tin.

Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 180C (160 with fan)/ 374F/ Gas mark 5 until golden brown.

Chill slightly in the refrigerator.


Place the marshmallows, broken chocolate and milk in a large glass mixing bowl. Microwave for approximately 2 minutes, stirring well every 60 seconds, until the marshmallows and chocolate are melted.

Cool slightly.

Whip cream until it forms stiff peaks.

Gradually fold the cream into the chocolate-mallow mix, and pour onto the biscuit base.

Place in the refrigerator to set; decorate with chocolate curls and serve.  Can be made at least a day in advance.

YUMMY!

Dinner Party Dos And Don’ts

Do find out beforehand what your guests don’t like to eat… I’ve served tomato and celery soup to someone who eats everything under the sun, except celery and tomatoes.

Don’t try out exceedingly complicated, new recipes or techniques.

Do remember to include all the ingredients… especially the ones you sent your (long suffering) husband out to get in the middle of the night, as you forgot to add them to your weekly grocery delivery.

Don’t overdo the garlic… unless you’re trapped in a Twilight Saga, there is definitely such a thing as too much garlic, even in garlic bread!

Do keep your eye on the ball, or rather on the oven…. otherwise that incredibly garlicky garlic bread will be incredibly blackened, incredibly garlicky garlic bread.

Do stock up on the pre-dinner nibbles, just in case the food takes longer to cook than you thought it would…. a few years’ back, I kept an (exceedingly patient) dinner guest waiting till nearly midnight to tuck into a chicken that stubbornly refused to roast– a disastrous combination of not having a proper roasting pan and just a mini table-top oven.

Do create an ambient setting, but do watch out for fire hazards…. paper napkins + candles + animated dinner guests = a good way to test your smoke detectors before winter.

Don’t use paper napkins. Ever again.

Thank You For Thanksgiving!



Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers! Hope y'all been having a wonderful day....celebrating the invention of roast turkey and sweet potato 'n pumpkin pie ... What? That's not what Thanksgiving is all about? Well, why is there not a special day marking such culinary delights?

All joking aside, I am still so grateful for Thanksgiving... you see, it's the one and only time of the year when I can guarantee that Annoying Demanding Client across the pond will be too busy running Operation Turkey Dinner Preparation.... and I reckon she has an army of kitchen skivvies scuttling about under her watchful and disapproving eye...to even think about harrassing me for the next couple of days. It is safe to answer my phone and open my email box.

What bliss!

Hope you get to spend time with the people that mean the most to you...

A Day In London...

It was a very short weekend for me.... thanks to Annoying Demanding Client throwing a hissy fit last week, I had to push Nice Reasonable Client's project aside and focus on ACD. That meant a Sunday slog to meet NRC's deadline for today.

At least I managed to get out and about on Saturday, with a trip down to London for the day. Apparently, most of the UK's population - and a shed load of tourists - had the same idea, as everywhere was packed! I was having some serious claustrophobia issues on the rammed underground trains and heaving stations... perhaps I've just been living out in the sticks for too long now, but I am not a Big City Girl any more. Give me green fields, fresh air and open spaces any day!

Still, it's good to remind yourself of what you are (or aren't) missing every now and again.

First stop, the wonderful V&A Museum of Art and Design.....

Delicious almond croissants and coffee in the aesthetically pleasing museum cafe

A chance to look at the priceless treasures in the Japan Gallery....

The China Gallery....

The Medieval Gallery.....

Light fitting in entrance to the V&A

India....

Then, a stroll through the carpets of autumn leaves in Hyde Park....

Back into the West End for the evening, to meet friends for a Japanese meal in Soho....

 Fairy lights on Harrods Store

Chinatown

Apologies for not getting around to all your blogs very much lately.... hope to catch up with you all soon!

The 'Tache Chronicles, Continued

Exactly halfway through the Movember Challenge.... and hubby is getting hairy!

It's uncanny!

Day 15

To mark this most momentous moment, here are some completely random yet titillating titbits about 'taches...

Sweet home Alabama!

It's illegal in Alabama to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church. 

All dolphins are born with a moustache, it helps them locate their mothers while nursing… it sheds after a few days.

In 1967, The Beatles gave away cardboard moustaches with their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Salvador Dalí published a book dedicated solely to his moustache.

Narcissus is a type of flower, whereas a narcissist....

Two of the most famous moustaches were actually fake and only on when filming - Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin.

On average a man with a moustache touches it 760 times in a 24 hour day.

The longest recorded moustache belongs to Bajansinh Juwansinh Gurjar of Ahmedabad, India. It had not been cut for 22 years and was 12 feet, 6 inches long in 2004. Imagine how long it is today!

Now that's just ridiculous!

The King of Hearts is the only playing card king without a moustache.

The prize for weirdest moustache research goes to researchers in 1936. They found that if you attach a false moustache to the face of a wild female woodpecker, a male woodpecker will attack her as if she were a rival male.

In the 16th century, King Francis I of France, introduced the death penalty for anyone wearing a beard or moustache.

Off with his 'tache

In 1955, the Belgian tenor, Jan Verbeek, accidentally swallowed a false moustache during a performance of Mefistofele. This did not stop him from carrying on with his performance, however, and he continued to finish the show, although it was clear to the audience that high notes were more difficult for him to hit as he had some throat irritation from the hairs sticking to the back of his throat.

Another famous Belgian 'tache