chicken and autumn

london 1.15pm 15C cloudy tuesday 2019

the trees lining the street around my flat are being trimmed now. so it is that time of year come round again. i think they get a trim about every 2-3yrs. this time they are cutting the branches before the leaves fall out. so saves the road sweepers a lot of work as they dont hve to sweep away the fallen leaves. the immediate effect of this tree trimming is to bring in the sunshine onto the flats. it is amazing how dark the shadows that the trees with their leaves make the road beneath them. and with their leaves cropped off, it just brightens everything up.

i suppose it is one sign of autumn coming. another is the huge amounts of crab apples that laden the trees near the stockwell lidl. i was there earlier today to do some shopping in lidl, and walked under those trees, and they look so good to eat. but crab apples are only good for making jelly and jam, i think. not that i have done it, but i have seen recipes of it. soon they will be littering the ground where they have fallen. no one bothers to harvest them. i am surprised the trees are not chopped down, because they do make a mess.

there was a female gingkyo tree growing in pimlico, which had been chopped down. it was one of 4 gingko trees , the other 3 were males, but this one the female with its stinky fruit really caused a huge mess, as it falls to the ground and get mashed. and it has a pungent smell too. so they finally chopped it down and replaced it with another gingko tree, presumably a male one. haha.

today i happened to pass through that area, on my way to the sainsburys, and saw a row of tables, with leaflets and posters. about mental health. and i was told about the free yoga classes that they were doing for over 50s. they were giving out free pizzas, and cupcakes. and one of those cloth shopping bags. there is a name for this kind of bags, but i forgot. in fact, one of the yoga classes is later today. i might go see what it is about, as the venue is very near me. (added. it is allready 5.35pm, and the class starts at 5.45pm, so it looks like i wont be going. too lazy. )

i got a notification that kfc is bringing back its offer of £6 for 20 chicken wings. but only till 17 nov. it normally cost £8.

but today there was raw drumsticks for £1.25 a kg. sold in lidl.  i think you can get 10  drumsticks for that , and they got more meat than chicken wings. so i dont think that kfc offer is much of a bargain… do you? in fact, i bought a pack of the drumsticks and cooked soya sauce chicken with it, and it was delicious. i threw in some cinnamon barks, and i think it does make a difference, they impart a certain flavour to it that is very nice.

 

 

 

 

travelling all over london

london 5.50pm victoria station concourse 18C friday 2019

its a dull day today, and quite chilly, or perhaps i was only wearing a hoodie and have shorts on, so i felt the cold more. i have been ranging from west to east london and south as well. i have certainly been using my freedom pass to the fullest haha. started early today by going to ladbroke grove. why? u might well ask, because i wanted to go to the papa john pop up at the top of portobello road, (the one with the famous open air market stalls). they were giving out sweet cakes and i did not know this… filter coffee as well. to publicise these cakes. they will be doing it again tomorrow, so i might go again. i did not realise it is near the portobello road… i have heard of this famous market of course but i have never been there. it is one of these strange pockets of neglect when i was a tourist doing tourist things when i first arrive here. for some reason i never seem to visit these portobello market. after getting my cake , i took a wander down the road, and had a look see what they are selling. knick knacks , old clothes, old furniture. (they could be antiques for all i know, but they look like old furniture to me haha). people laying their stuff on the road, like what you see people do in the poorer street markets of asian cities.

i am surprised it still happens here, but it could be that top end of the road which i was on, is given over to poorer vendors. i have always got the impression that the stuff sold in the market on that road are quite expensive.

there was a loud crash, and i saw a vendor had two of his furniture fall over, he had put them on the pavement, which has a small slope to the road to allow water to drain, and that plus a strong wind gust, must have toppled the cabinet, breaking the glass on the front. i felt a bit sorry for him. then, i returned to ladbroke grove station, and took the hammersmith line just as it came when i arrived, and took it all the way to upton park, to buy chilli, and garlic. then back by way of the jubilee line at west ham, to waterloo. and home by the bus. 

i came back to an empty flat, because my friend from usa has gone out of london for a week, and simon was at work. i had a lunch of eggs and bacon, and then decided to go to the library to charge up my chromebook. and there i saw an advert in the times, from lidl saying they are selling chicken legs for £1.49/kg. it is excellent value so i went to the lidl in stockwell to buy them, and got 3packs. and a cucumber at 39p too. the upton park was selling 3 cucumbers for £1, i had wanted to eat cucumbers but 3 is a lot. so this one is just cost only a little bit more and dont have to buy so many. 

anyway, i am back to the victoria station, charging my chromebook to completion this time. whilst i had  cooked one of the packs as chicken curry sitting on the stove now it is cooking on the residual heat. we seem to have good bargain prices on chicken recently. i sometimes wonder why it is so.

i read in the news that in indonesia they have such low prices for chicken, because of a glut of them, that they are asking farmers to destroy their chicken eggs, or give it away… it is puzzling to me, what connection to a glut of chicken to many eggs. but that is the interconnection of factors i suppose. one of the reports said the price of chicken has gone down to US$2.10/kg, that is £1.71/kg. and that is supposed to be the lowest price chicken for 3yrs. i am surprised that they consider it so low that it jeopardise the market, when here we are being sold £1.49/kg , the chicken legs that i bought in lidl today… something is fishy dont you think? why can we here in the west can make a profit with those prices, but they cannot in indonesia??? 

 

i am at home now and saw a newspaper article saying victoria station is closed today… in that no trains are running there due to a power cut in streatham. but i was there only this morning, at about 12pm. i did not notice anything was wrong, because there were people about, it was not deserted… and i did not bother to look at the destination board. otherwise i would be able to see whatever.

london 1.01pm 28C sunny thursday 2018

i can be very unobservant actually. i mean imagine going through there and not be aware of any disruption.  but there was no crowds, that is what i meant to say… usually when trains are cancelled or whatever, there will be masses of people hanging about. i guess by the time i went there, they will have told people no point hanging around here. no trains are running so u might as well go elsewhere.  added. this link shows that not all trains are cancelled or delayed. only the gatwick and southeastern line. southern line is as normal. so that explains why there were still quite a lot of people about. 

even so there were quite a lot of people about so much so that i thought everything was running.

i went to the eating food court, to see if kfc got their double down burger… i heard they have introduced it only for this month, till 22nd. it is a double chicken portion that acts like two buns. i saw they have only a combined meal on the menu board , you get it with fries, and a soft drink for £6.29p. i asked them if they will do one without the fries and drink, and they said it will be £5.49. though no mention of it on the notice board. so not much difference in price. in other words, anyone wanting one might as well go the whole hog and get the fries and drink. which must be the intention with the way it is priced. it looks rather good.

in this link they were charging £4.79p when they introduced it last year (though i did not notice it last year. again shows how unobservant i can be).

now it is £5.49… pity that. if it were the old price i might buy one. but unfortunately my innate sense of value for money makes me compare it with what i can get for £4. in sainsburys,a frozen pack of 2.5kg chicken pieces which i can cook any method.

in fact, i returned home and got cooking a curry with half of that bag of frozen chicken. and to make it even better value, i used a pack of creamed coconut which i got 50g for less than 5p…so i was not tempted to buy that double down burger. 

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free food

london 7.02pm 18.7C (high 23.7C ) sunny wednesday 2018

we are still having warm weather, even though they keep telling us rain will come. but nothing like that so far. the weather website does not forecast rain either for the next 7days. ah well, nevermind.

i got two emails from steve, telling me of free food given out today. steve is the guy who goes to all the free food events.

one of the events i know about, that was the slim chicken, a new usa company opening a new branch in london. they do fried chicken breasts and the selling point is the sauces they accompany it with. so this one is a freebie with the chicken breast and all the sauces … they are very generous, let us have 2nd helpings. each time it is two long chicken breast pieces, very tender, that we can use to dip into the sauces. i did not go back for a 3rd helping… though i think they would give it to me if i did. then afterwards i wondered off to another freebie that steve told me about, one that i did not know. it was a van giving away free bacon burgers in smithfield market, that is near liverpool st station. i went around lunch time, so everyone was out of their offices, sitting around eating their takeaway lunches. so i did the same, and pretend to be a office worker on my lunch break. haha. all of them were eating bought lunches… no one was bringing home -made lunches. those lunch boxes must cost something, at least £5, and even then i saw a woman throwing away her salad box into the waste bin, with food still inside, not eaten.

salads are the easiest things to eat, i mean you can eat a lot without feeling full, but here she was could not finish it. when i was at the slim chicken place, a man came to sweep the 3 sauces that i picked and threw them into a waste bag. i could not help saying are you throwing them away? what a waste! and he said, afraid so. i had thought of recapping them and taking them with me. but they are very salty those sauces, one was sweet (has honey )  one is siracha hot, and the other is mayonnaise like. all salty though.

but anyway i had a enjoyable time eating the food, and wandering around looking at the other people. all were no older than 30s.

first time i am in the area when they are having their lunch time, and could see the kind of people who work there. no chinese people, and only one or two black people. perhaps there are plenty of them around but i did not see them, i have to admit i was not looking specially for them. hey, wait, the woman throwing away her half eaten salad was dark looking , indian or south american maybe. i cannot tell. 

there was a guy giving away free ribena drinks in a bottle at the entrance to liverpool st station, when i went there to get back after the freebie. i think the office workers there must be so used to these free drinks, because that guy was not crowded with people wanting it. i took one, and drank it, and thought it was nice because it was not as sweet as it used to be. but it was not fizzy, and is just like someone making a drink out of concentrated ribena by adding ordinary water. as a kid i love that taste of ribena but now as an adult i have stopped drinking it. maybe it was just as well we were too poor to have it in the house, so i dont get to drink it all the time when growing up. perhaps that might explain why i find it so easy to give up sweet drinks. i did not get that habit when young. 

added. 10.5.18 i had a look at the suger content of that drink, and it is 4.6mg /100mg. quite a reduction when the ordinary bottle usually contains 11.6mg/100mg. but better to just drink water really. these bottles usually cost £1.25 for 500ml, and there is all that plastic to process. 

gearing up to christmas

london 3.37pm 11.8C friday 2017 cloudy

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autumn leaves in hydepark speakers corner, and the big screen adverts in piccadilly circus. 

this morning i was on the bus to the library and picked up the metro free newspaper and saw tesco advert showing their chicken for £2.25… and it ranges from 1.5-1.9kg. i was there last night to get bargains, but did not notice this sale.

anyway, i went this morning and got two , picking up the biggest chickens i could find. haha. they were 1.87kg, which makes the chickens even better value. and i used the £3 voucher i got from tesco because of the points i have gathered.  the chickens are now in the oven, one as a roast, the other in a curry in a casserole in the oven. i remembered that u could cook a casserole in the oven so killing two birds with one stone as it were… cooking two items in the same oven at the same time.

its quite fun doing the shopping and catching bargains. cheap fun u might say in more ways than one. haha.

the other news today is the showing of the john lewis shopping advert this year. they sent me the email about it, to let me see it… the theme this year was a monster under the bed and how the monster decided to go away when the boy was losing out on his sleep playing with him all night. it seems people were in tears when he left and gave the boy a night light that throws stars all over the room. i must be rather dense in noticing the signs, because i completely miss out of seeing that night light , and did not notice the monster is leaving… i had to read the article spelling it out haha. so i suppose it will trigger all those parents rushing off to buy the monster toy(£20) and monster bedroom slippers… and monster pyjamas haha. ah well, if it makes some child not so afraid of monsters under the bed, it might be a good thing. hoho.

all these christmas adverts is setting the mood for the coming festivities. and there are all those christmas villages that they put up around this time selling more stuff. the oxford st lights are also on, as will all the other streets as they get switched on over the coming months. rather fun, if u dont have to worry about making dinner or giving presents, like me.

i went again to the billy and the chicks restaurant this morning for their freebie. this time the doorman told us it will be a pulled chicken over chips with their special hot sauce, called fuck sauce. haha. i could not believe he said that. i misheard him say fuck chips, but a couple, who looked indian and waiting along with me told me it is the name of the sauce… i was chatting with them as they joined just after me. then the daughter of the elderly chinese man just ahead of me came and joined him, and they discovered they know each other. the daughter who is in her 20s said she works around here and able to get time off to come. she said it was for her father to experience it. they spoke mandarin to each other, so dont think they are from malaysia. from singapore, or from china i think.

london 2.48pm brightcloudy tuesday 2017

i dont usually see chinese or indians queueing up for these things. but this place seem to attract them, because yesterday there were a lot of young chinese guys queueing up too. but the rest of the queue this time was composed of young black and white guys wearing trainers and track suits… so perhaps they are not the usual office workers. perhaps they are from a construction firm working near by. 

i was hoping for proper chicken fried with batter but maybe that would be expecting too much. i found out kfc actually have a special , two fillet of chicken sandwich, no buns, the fillet are the buns. i thought that would be rather nice to have.

on the way to the library, i pass by victoria station, and went up to the mezzanine floor of victoria place to see how much they are selling it. £6.09. hmm, it sounds like a better bargain. it would be difficult to compete with that. looks like kfc got the chicken market all sewn up. haha. but will it taste good though. i have yet to buy one to taste it. 

the chicken burger of the billy place which i got yesterday is very nice. very tender and juicy. usually chicken breast  can be very dry and tough. i think they use chicken thighs. it must be difficult to make sure it cooks right through and still not overcook it.

i suppose one of the things that we amuse ourselves with is finding nice food places , people do that all the time in malaysia, thailand, singapore, but here i think we have a bit of variation, where to find free food. haha. the only thing is they are confined to the hamburger, chicken, pizza type of food.  its interesting that none of the chinese, indian, food places offer free food. i guess they dont need to as they have enough customers… or do they? maybe competition between burger, pizza, and chicken joints is much fiercer. or there are so many new restaurants opening offering the chicken, hamburger, pizza variations, that they have to advertise by giving free food to let people know they are there. whereas not many of the other types of restaurants are opening. i hear there is real shortage of cooks for indian, chinese food so maybe that might be the reason why there are so few new chinese or indian restaurants opening. 

added. 8.20pm. hmm, it seems london is the chicken capital of the world. it seems there are tons of chicken shops all over london catering to the locals. it seems school children allready have a £2 chicken deal aimed at them. so might be those young guys in the queue are all from the outer reaches of london where fried chicken is king.

lovely chicken meal

london 9.38am 15.1C sunny friday 2017. sunset is 7.14pm . days are getting shorter. but it does not feel autumnal at all. trees are still green. and it is quite warm.

not a lot of flowers though, the plants around here are looking rather bedraggled.

on wednesday, i went into a M&S store in chelsea on my way to the circuit training, and saw they have half price oakham farm whole chicken. and today i see they are advertising it in the papers.  if u search the shelves you can find a large chicken 1.8kg usually £6 , for £3. which is a nice bargain. but i think by now they are all gone, and only the small ones are left, which are not so much of a bargain. they are usually £4, which i think is very overpriced, reducing it to half price £2 just makes them barely reasonable. 

but tesco is also selling 25% off chicken , £3.37 for any medium and large size, and if u find one that is 1.95kg as i did , you can get a nice bargain. the trick is to find the largest chicken they have got that is reduced by 25%. i must have got there just when they stock them up, because these large chickens usually get bought very quickly. they are not advertising this though. maybe they reduced it as a response to the M&S offer.

i roasted the chicken yesterday, and by today they are all eaten. simon loves eating them…he even offered to peel the potatoes so i can roast them together with the chicken. he knows i am not bothered to peel them if it were left to me… haha. it does make the outside crisp when peeled. 

 i find the chickens sold in london are very meaty, they have lots of breast meat, which is a good thing. and if u dont over cook them, they can be very juicy and tender. i think the larger the chicken the better, in that a lot of the weight then is meat, rather than bones. a small chicken have proportionately more bones than meat.

its really lovely to have a roast. i realise people in s.e.asia dont roast meats, as it is too hot and the oven just makes the kitchen unbearable. and it is true that roast dinners are more enjoyable during the cool months. or when we get a cool summer, which is often. haha. another plus for london, even our summers are cool enough to have roast chicken so we can enjoy it all year round. nice or what.

but chicken can be cooked in other ways too, like in a curry, or with black soya sauce. i am often torn between choosing how to cook them, as i like them all… so it is really tempting to buy more chicken so i can cook them in those other 2 ways.

in the old days when i get really cheap chickens,(£1 each!) i will buy 3, and  cook them in all the 3 ways. and freeze them. perhaps with all this competition for chicken, i might be able to find more reduced priced later in the weeks ahead as they come up to their expiry date. who knows! right?

added. 12.25pm 17.1C sunny. correction about there being no flowers around. i went out to the library just now and on the way i could see lots of flowers. like this one hanging basket near the bus stop, plenty of these hanging on every lamp post in the area.

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then as i was coming back, i decided to look in to the tate britain to see what they have got. 

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very pretty these, with the sunlight shining through them they seem to be lit from below. they are transparent blocks that rachel whiteread the artist have made of the spaces underneath stools. she did a shed too, sitting outside on the grass.

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 its about man height. must use a lot of concrete haha. it’s a chicken shed, a replica in concrete of the inside of a chicken shed.

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nice looking staircase inside the tate britain. those black patterns on the floor look like they are 3 dimensional peaks rising off the ground.

a succulent plant, that i see growing and overflowing the planter in our estate. its fleshy leaves i like.

london victoria library 11.58am sunny 21.9C friday 2017

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and i have learnt something new about hydrangea from this post today. it seems it is blue or pink depanding on the acidity of the soil. and that is because more acid soil makes it easier to absorb aluminium. amazing isn’t it? but what about if it is white? 

White hydrangeas should be white every year but the soil pH will affect the tiny true flowers. But to keep them pure white they are best grown in some shade – in full sun they will turn pink through scorching.

i thought i saw a pink hydrangea in my estate but i think it is not. i realise it cannot be hydrangea when i see another plant with this intense red. 

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its a pleasant day today 3.20pm 22.1C sunny. i got back from buying pork joint and a chicken from lidl’s. they are the cheapest £2.79/kg for the pork, £1.87/kg for the chicken. and for medium size chicken too. (its about 1.65kg)usually they increase the cost for the heavier  chicken. heavier chicken have more meat, relative to their bones.

it is now roasting in the oven, whilst the pork is cut up and freezing now.

i find whole chicken are best for roasting. when i bought chicken pieces , i find they dont roast well, the skin was not crispy at all. maybe they might be better grilled… simon asked me why i dont buy them anymore… as he likes the thighs, he says he prefers them to breast or drumsticks. it surprised me as i thought he , like most white people, like breasts meat.. no bones see?  

i realise the lidl pork has a lot more fat and skin to it. these are meant to be roasted , so they had a thick layer of fatty skin on it, to provide the crackling… when i buy them i dont use them to roast, but to stir fry, cutting them into pieces. but british people dont seem to like to stir fry their pork. you cannot buy any pork without the skin and fat layer. so i use the skin and fat to make crackling, by cutting them fine and frying them. and reserving the oil from it to use in cooking to add that flavour. 

life is very nice , at least in london. other places like india or in texas are having its floods, so not nice for them. but there is always somewhere in the world that is not having a nice time. that is life really. isn’t that the truth? 

we are now in september, the start of autumn, though it does not feel autumnal now in london. 

a simple electric all purpose gadget

london 6.31pm 13.6C thursday 2017

i am roasting a 1.65kg chicken i bought this afternoon at aldi £1.87/kg. i am using a electrical oven. a stand alone gadget , not the oven in my new cooker. i find my new oven uses up too much electricity to cook a chicken, so i am using this one which seems to be more economical. perhaps because it is smaller, as it can only take one chicken and no room for vegetables. 

the brand is called kitchen m8. it is supposed to be a all purpose thing, can boil, roast, steam/slow cook, saute/grill,deep fry. seems like a miracle gadget. haha. there is no timer, so u just look at it and if it is done you switch it off. it is what i can use. now i am getting old, i dont really like anything complicated gadgets.

simon tells me he cannot get used to the smartphone he bought, so i asked him if i can have it. but i am finding it very complicated too. so not sure i shall bother with it. afraid that problem with his laptop, its windows, is still not solved. it is an unusual problem, a virus that gets and infects only his laptop and not either mine or my friend’s who uses the same router. yet that virus disappears from his laptop when he uses another router.  is that weird or not? or is it just his fxxking soul want to make his life difficult. i have a feeling that even if there is a virus there that is reporting all his actions to a unknown source, it wont be able to find out much if he goes into a https website. but simon is not convinced about that.

i have tried to contact my talk talk people, but cannot get through to their tech line in the online chat. the trouble is they are always busy and tells me to hang on, but when they do get to me, i dont know they are there, so their query is not answered by me, and they disconnect. added 11.4.17 tuesday. latest update, in the end simon could not get them either, and so he decided to just buy a new laptop. another windows. personally i would not buy another windows, seeing it was the one that failed to keep out that virus infection in the first place. his new one costs about £300 for 1 trillionG HD, and 2 million G memory. or something like that.

added 9.11pm 12.7C afraid the chicken did not come out well. it fell to pieces.haha and the skin did not go crispy at all. so it was a failure. dont think i shall use it to roast a chicken next time. though funny enough i recall it did a good roast early on when we first tried it out. so why it did not do so now is a mystery. or do you think it was a false memory that i have about it doing a good roast chicken. maybe we never roasted a chicken with it. i must ask simon whether we did. it is funny that i am now not sure if we did. ah well, looks like the only way to roast a chicken and get that lovely crisp skin is with the usual oven. i might do a curry chicken next time, since it has been ages since i did that. but for that i shall use my induction stove and i bet it will use up very little electricity and quicker too. 

i know, my life is really very nice, if these are the things that i have to contend with. a chicken that did not come out right, it is tiny problems in the big scheme of things. but it goes to show that even though i have roasted chickens many times, if i want to experiment with a new gadget, things can go wrong. maybe that is why a cook when they find something that works stick with it. that may explain why some cooks stick to a recipe faithfully, rather than be like me, who is quite slapdash about following recipes. i get variable results of course, though all of them are edible. but i know my nature, i am too lazy to follow strictly any recipe or method. anything can do with me. maybe that is why i like the stir fry method. it can be very slapdash and still work out fine. 

added 9.55pm 12.3C i just read an article in the tuesday (today is thursday) metro free newspaper about people’s usage of their smartphone. it seems making calls is the least common use for smartphones. it is 11th .

1 is texting, 2 email, 3 facebook, 4 camera, 5 reading news, 6 online shopping, 7 checking weather, 8 whatsapp,9 banking, 10 watching videos on youtube.

that might explain why i dont find a smartphone that necessary. i can do all those things much more easily in my chromebook. i suppose the whatsapp will be the most useful if i got a smartphone, but with simon’s i dont know how to get that app. he has not got it in his phone. 

 

 

 

 

1st day of spring

london 1.13pm 10C cloudy wednesday 2017

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or so i would like to think. though i would say the spring equinox 21st would be the natural day when spring starts. but hey, if it brings spring earlier, why not take today as it. haha. its quite cloudy and do not feel spring like, even though it is rather warm. but more of the daffodils are out and nodding their heads in agreement (it seems).

read recently that people who handle the package chicken sold in supermarkets should wash their hands when they get home, because it seems not only is the chicken inside contaminated, the outside of the wrapping is also contaminated. what a state we have come to, hasn’t it? does that mean i have to wash my reuseable shopping bag too? and someone did say what about the cashier who takes the chicken package and swipe it … do they have to clean their hands afterwards, otherwise they will spread the germs to all the shopping of all their customers.

well, now u can understand why i always wash my hands as soon as i get into the house. though i do it before i read of this contaminated packaging. it is just that every surface u touch when u are out and about is really very dirty. its been touched by countless others and you dont know where their hands have been or what they have touched. 

 i suppose if u really are that worried about contamination, you should wash your clothes everytime u wear it outside. it is taken to extreme i should think.

i should separate the outdoor clothes from those that i wear indoors. (no sooner said then done now…haha.) but they are all in the same cupboard. 

perhaps it is not necessary at all, seeing our immune system has protected us very well. if it has not, there would be an epidemic of deaths and sickness from this long ago. 

i am at the library and saw a book, ss-gb prominently displayed with a tag (as shown on tv) and put on the recommended shelf, so i decided to borrow it , but the machine says i cannot and to ask at the desk.

but i had a previous experience some time ago, where i did take another book with a similar advise from the macchine to take to the desk and was told by the librarian on duty that day that it has been pre booked , and so i was not allowed to borrow it. in the past, the librarian have always let me borrow it first.

after that episode, i stopped taking  these books to the desk.

well today i see the same book on the returned shelf. but after what happened the last time, i decided to just ask the man at the desk what their policy was. i said last time i took a book to the desk the librarian did not allow me to borrow it because it has been prebooked.

he said if i find the book in the ordinary shelves i can borrow it even if it has been prebooked. but not if it is on the  just- returned shelves. so that clarifies things. well, i did not tell him that book is sitting there right now. i will let him find out for himself.

i know  that sounds rather selfish of me.hehe.  but i think if that is their policy than they want to find it for themselves and dont want our help.

i suppose u could say it is only fair that someone who has booked and paid for it, should get priority… i guess u may be right. haha. i am in two minds about reading that book, the ss-gb. it is being shown on tv now, and people have complained they cannot hear the actors. i never can hear the actors  anyway, so i rely on the subtitles. but it sounds like a grim story… or rather i think i might prefer to read the book, rather than see it enacted on tv. the style of the author is more important i think than the story itself. 

added. 5.26pm today my direct debit have taken out £145.50 for the tv license, and just now i read online that they are increasing it to £147 from 1 april. not much of an increase £1.50,though the new article was saying it like it is a huge increase.  and will be increasing with inflation for 5yrs.

 it has remained steady at £145.50 a year since 2010. some people object to paying it as they say they dont watch it. i watch it, and i like it for its no advertising. and it has programs that i like to see. its about £12 a month. i wish it is less biased and keep neutral…or at least present a balanced presentation. for eg during the referendum to leave the EU, it was very biased for remain. in the past it has been famous for being even handed. it might serve its remit to give balanced views from now on. but i guess it was so convinced that voting for brexit is suicide, it feels compelled to sway the voters.

of course it receives money from the EU, so it is not exactly a disinterested body. nothing like receiving money to make u side with the person giving it to you and even more when the money will dry up if we brexit.