I’ve been enjoying the back catalogue of the Off Menu podcast while bicycle riding.
One thing about it is that the adverts, most of which are performed by hosts Gamble and Acaster, are almost not annoying – I only have to fast-forward when I’ve heard a particular one several times. (The dynamically inserted nature of them means that if I’d started listening earlier, I’d have enjoyed a wider variety of them, not just the few currently in the inventory.) But I noticed that an advert paid for by the Lamb Marketing Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board appeared alongside a podcast guest effusing about some cooked lamb meat, while I was looking at a field of sheep – too creepy to be a mere coincidence‽
I finished the week inexplicably in Glasgow for a few days, after a jolly multimodal journey involving a few hours in Peterborough, where I took the opportunity to buy some ajvar, which is my favourite Balkan condiment.
Glasgow. I can report that a CitizenM hotel is OK:
-
Aspirant George Eggs might be disappointed by the lack of tiny kettles or trouser presses. (Irons and hairdryers are available.)
-
The muesli isn’t very good, but there are plenty of other things to eat.
-
I had the use of an unusually big television, which unfortunately meant seeing magnified the horrifying pores of the skin of face of the prime minister.
-
There was no fridge – not that I normally expect one, but there’s some evidence that some of their hotels have little fridges in rooms. Just not in Glasgow. Which might matter to people living with diabetes, who have to keep bottles of insulin at a certain temperature, or something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-
Their transactional emails are keen to point out that “you will need to scan your passport or national ID card”, so I was slightly concerned that I’d left mine behind, but I wasn’t asked to identify myself so at any point, phew.
One of the things I did was watch a pair of live RHLSTPs, which was jolly enough. I had foolishly chosen a seat very high in the room, such that the faraway stage looked very small, but after the fright of seeing Johnson’s blotchy cheeks on the television earlier perhaps it was for the best. Herring didn’t wear his usual stripy jumper during the first week’s podcast, but I shouldn’t have worried as he was wearing it for the second.
It’s wild that the manufacturer of the Scottish soft drink (like “the Scottish play”), Irn Bru, is called AG Barr, and the US Attorney General William Barr is frequently called AG Barr in headlines and things (“AG Barr orders reinstatement of the federal death penalty”).
Since when has the beleaguered restaurant chain PizzaExpress been PizzaExpress, not Pizza Express‽ Since forever, apparently, which shook me and I think is an example of the Mandela effect.