bargain london

london 2.45pm 18.1C

it’s very pleasant to spent time in this virgin lounge. there is a film show on now , da vinci code, (2006). they have been showing films every sunday for july. though it is difficult to hear what is said, as the volume is set low. or it maybe i am a bit deaf and so dont hear it. but the films are not what i am here for anyway. so it does not matter than i cannot hear much of it. 

nowadays i have to rely on the subtitles to know what is being said on tv. thank goodness for it really. my enjoyment of the tv is made more so because i can read what is said and so i dont miss much of the dialogue. 

added. am writing this on the bus 88 now. there is no wifi here, but it does not matter as my chrome book allows me to write things offline. i checked earlier with the tfl website to see if this bus is coming, and it did not say it was. that is why i was real surprised to see it when i left the virgin lounge. i had intended to take another bus, but this one came along just in time. i wanted to take it to the tesco just to see what is on bargain offer there. it is early closing on sunday.

i think the timetable of the bus has been disturbed and made unreliable because the whole of regent st is closed to traffic because of this time of year, when every year in july, the whole of regent st is pedestrianised. 

its quite sunny now looking out of the bus. earlier it was drizzling. which made up my mind for me not to bother going to tower bridge to see the indonesian festival there. but it seems it is quite sunny now but it is allready 3.16pm so the festival would be near its closing time.

i was reading this morning about how venice residents are real fed up of the huge amount of tourists in their city and wanting to limit the numbers going there. well, here in london we get roads closed for events so that is the effect the tourists and catering to them have on the locals living in london. but london is big enough so the effect is quite small.

i was in venice many years ago, in the 90s, and i noticed if u just go a little bit off the main tourist routes , the city can be remarkably desserted… even in peak season. but maybe now even those out of the way spots are full of tourists, who knows right? i think every tourist attraction is now full of people. which makes me glad i saw them before they got so crowded.

then there is that japanese article about the birth rate falling in japan and that is because the men are unable to get permanent full time jobs. and so are not good prospects for marriage, or want to have babies. and there is another phenomenon…  it seems there are lots of single men who dont want to have sex at all and hide out in their parents home completely cutting themselves  off from society. its a strange society that one in japan.

 i got to the tesco at 3.30pm and just in time to get all the reductions. a whole free range chicken from £6 to £1.50. and 2packs of chicken drumsticks reduced by 3/4 to 37p a pack. that seems to be the prevailing rate of final reductions. 25% of the original price. it is another of the fun things about living in london. i got an email offering me a monthly subscription to the empire cinema chain . unlimited film shows for £20 a month if i want to go to the central london cinemas of that chain. that is a nice bargain price i think. so now if u like to watch films on the big screen, it is quite affordable now.

seems to me it is not that expensive to get your entertainment and stuff in london after all. and there is all kinds of free vouchers for free food or reduced dining in london as well. i got the voucher for free hamburger from primeburgers. it is the last of their free monday offers, it seems. so i am looking forward to this monday (tomorrow) when i shall be able to get it. they have certainly made mondays a lot more attractive these past month or two. 

added. wed 26.7.17. it seems paris is the most touristy city, (7 visitor to 1 parisien)according to this report. surprising to me, kuala lumpur is 2nd. london is 13th. (1.5visitors to 1 londoner). i am surprised  venice is not in there,it has been ruled out because most of the visitors are day trippers and from cruise ships, rather than those who stay at least a night there.

instant noodle for 10p each

london 6.05pm 23.8C cloudy (high of 25.8C) thursday

hmm, i see wordpress is changing the appearance of the editing bar that used to run across the page in two lines before but now they have made it into one line and it is a very long one, runs out of my screen in fact so that you have to use the scroller to move it along.

its cooler today, and very pleasant in fact. i prefer it like this. i did not have any hay fever, though one of the chinese guys is suffering from it now. strange when this cooler weather should bring the pollen down. he said he had hay fever once, and then it went away for a long time, but now he is starting to get it again. 

went to a meet up of ex lyc members, a club for chinese-caucasians that have long closed down but the old members still meet up to talk of old times. though now the topic tends to be old age concerns like death, strokes, disease instead of love life. still, it was nice to chitchat. and to meet the other chinese guys who i have not known when i was at the club in its heyday.

afterwards three of us chinese guys went to chinatown to buy stuff. one bought me to ‘see woo’, as he wanted to show me their fresh meat section. it is new, because i have not seen it before. full of fresh stuff even live crab, live lobster… anyway i did not buy anything. he bought fresh chicken livers… then we went on to ‘new loon moon’, me to find if they have any reduced instant noodles. which they have at 10p each for 70mg packs. and these have different flavours too. i bought 15. (and have eaten one as soon as i got back, red curry one and it is very nice indeed.) there was lots of it, so u will still be able to get this bargain if u go now. as usual, the reason why they are selling it cheap is because they expire next month.

 

Digital StillCamera

quite a lot of variety. though sometimes one must not get too carried away with all these labels because they might all taste the same. haha. but the first one i tried, the red curry , is very nice.

added. 8.59pm 23C dry . went to the tesco to buy reduced foods. it is pot luck really, sometimes i get nothing but today there were loads of mince beef reduced. 750mg to 75p, (from £5)at 5%fat too. though next to it was 15%fat 750mg from £3.50,for 88p, and i bought that too even though it is not as good a bargain. there was also   500mg angus beef 15%fat minced at 60p. i bought that too. ah well, it just goes to show the power of association. when two things are side by side, and you are not paying attention. still, i got lots of minced beef now in my freezer. i also got lamb liver for 29p. after seeing my friend buy chicken liver, i too was starting to crave liver. i thought i will only be able to find bread reduced today, so all that meat is a bonus. i got wholemeal bread800mg for 5p, and two loaves of 400mg each for 4p each. i went at about 8pm. so much of these things are pot luck. if no one went earlier to buy these things, and so clean the shelves before u get there;  or the shop dont reduce the price until very late, so all the bargains are snapped up before you get there , you can sometimes come back empty handed.  but today was rather a feast of bargains.

it is similar to the time when i found so many chillis on sale. i have since eaten some of them, and they are really very hot. i cannot imagine the british liking these chillis, they are so hot, maybe that explains why so many were unsold, necessitating them to drastically reduce so many of them when their sell by date arrives. those chillis are from kenya and indeed i am pleased to see some countries  still retain the species that produce hot chillis. local chillis are very mild, actually, too mild. like the garlic, so mild that it is useless really…

cheap veg

london 12.54pm 13.3C cloudy tuesday 2015

i wonder if anyone else have noticed, but so far this december has been very mild, in london that is. so much so that when i read in the papers and saw the snow covered pictures in the daily mail saying there is snow up north, it makes me wonder. glad i dont live in the north where it seems to snow or flood or god knows what all. in london it is fantastic. very mild weather and very pleasant. not much sun mind you but then can’t have everything hey? 

last night i happen to go into the tesco.com and saw they were selling 39p veg… quite a nice selection esp the cauliflower. usually that veg is very difficult to get cheap. so i hot foot it last night to my local tesco and got all the 39p offers,even bought two of the cauliflowers;  except the brussels sprouts, and that was because i did not see it. i am pleased with the other veg i got. and i got sweet peppers 3 in the pack for 25p, reduced section. and got two white bread for 14p each. the potatoes at 2.5kg for 39p is heavy so i took the bus back, even though it is only 3 stops away.

not for the first time i marvel at the bus system. i had the bus practically all to myself, it is like a personalised chauffeur service all laid out for my benefit. i do feel like a millionaire whenever i get such occasions occur. all the pleasure of the feelings of being a millionaire without the angst and the bother of making the money. haha. 

i got bananas reduced to 24p per kg, i bought two bunches, they are real good value as the bananas were not overripe and all those i have so far eaten are unspoilt. sometimes i get a craving for bananas.

i guess we are getting all these reduced veg because they are expiring in 19dec. so they want to get rid of them. after 19dec, they will have a fresh new batch of  veg delivered and they will increase in price to catch the christmas shoppers.

what is rather mystifying is that tesco dont advertise these cheap veg. i only knew of it because i happen to visit their website. not sure why i did, because i dont normally go into the tesco website. oh, hang on, of course they advertise it , but in their website, which is the best place to advertise it. i wonder what made me think the only way to advertise it is via the newspapers with the paid ads. nowadays with social media, that is not the only route anymore. i wonder if tesco has a facebook or twitter page. haha. if not they should. maybe pay one of the facebook or twitter user to do it.

i googled it and found that there was a scam about free tescovouchers in facebook a few years ago. so maybe that is the reason why tesco dont do facebook. 

 perhaps since it costs money to advertise it in the newspapers and since they are selling these veg for such low prices, it would wipe out the profit if they have to pay for the advertising too. so maybe they are hoping people like me will advertise it for them via word of mouth. haha.

there are no websites that aggregate all the bargains and broadcast it to all. the reason is because there is no money to be made for having such a website that tells people of transient bargains. and u have to be quick off the mark, as these offers soon get sold out. and the info will be out of date very quickly and no website can keep up. that is why i think we dont get any such websites at all. 

 

survey fail

london 6.45pm monday 2015

recently i redeemed sainsburys points on their nectar card for a cup of coffee at cafe nero, and they sent me this

We value your opinions and feedback.

We would like to invite you to participate in a survey which should take around 5 minutes to complete. As a thank you for completing this survey your Nectar account will be credited with 50 Nectar points.

well the first question was did you spend that and bought a coffee at nero? and since i had not, i said no … and they said u are not eligible for continuing with the survey. sigh, i am rather bad at surveys. they dont want to know my opinion … at least they gave me  25points as consolation. haha. i havent spent it yet, and i guess they are not looking for people like me who seem to like delayed gratification and not spend it straight away. i only redeemed it because it is the only thing i am remotely interested in , in their list of things i can buy with my points. its amazing that so many of the things they suggest i am not interested in. so perhaps they might get wise to me that way… and decide in future not to ask me to join in their surveys. haha.  and even with the free coffee i am not really that eager to get it. this is because i can really get free coffee from waitrose with my waitrose card and i still dont do it. also i am beginning to realise that i would prefer a starbucks pumpkin spice coffee… long ago the dailymail gave me one, or rather any coffee i chose at starbucks, if i redeem 70points of their points system, and it so happen it was during the autumn when they bring in this pumpkin spice latte. i did enjoy it very much.

this year the dailymail are not doing it, though it is early days and they might bring this offer of a free starbucks coffee back next month. who knows. haha. now i know that it takes 350 points from the sainsburys to get one, and only a ordinary latte or cappuccino, that 70 points from the dailymail is quite a bargain after all. 

force of nature

london 9.11pm 15.6C sunday 2015

i have seen videos of the flood in Nice and antibes. quite a deluge and in a first world country like france. we are so used to seeing these in developing countries, like india, bangladesh, or thailand that it is a reality check to see it happening in france, and with people being killed too. makes u realise that nature is an untameable force, even if we forget that sometimes.

i saw in the weather map that there were very strong storms over europe, i was checking it because here in uk they were predicting lashing big storms for us, which turned out to be a damp squid. haha. as usual.

i dont know if the weather people  in France foresaw this storm over south of france,  i think they know it is coming, but they wont be able to predict that the river would burst its banks and cause this deluge. if not for the river bursting its banks, i think this storm would pass as another big rain, and that is that. but when the river burst its banks it becomes a big disaster.

tomorrow will be the start of paying for plastic bags. it will definitely make us use less. that is good. i have always used my own bags, so it wont change much for me. haha. but few people do it like i do, so we have to force them to stop using bags by hitting them in their pocket. we should have done it ages ago.

the downside is that we will have to buy rubbish bags, where previously i used shopping bags to keep household rubbish.it will mean more plastic bags used. how to prevent it?  i will try to see if i can use newspapers, but water will go through newspapers.

 added. 20.10.15 i found a website that says there are packaging materials everywhere, the plastic that fruits are packed in, the insides of the cereal packages, etc, so i shall be saving them to line my rubbish in paper and not have to use plastic rubbish bags. 

i am glad that i can be online

london 15.5C 5.47am bank holiday monday 2015 sunrise 6.10am

it has just struck me that it was very fortunate that i corrected the glitch in my chromebook yesterday, instead of just returning home and hope that it will correct itself. if i had not gone to the google store so soon after the glitch appeared, and had it corrected, i would be having a useless chrome book not working at all during this bank holiday. and with the shops closed today i might not be able to get the same expert help at the store today as it wont be fully manned. so i really have saved myself a lot of grieve by going there yesterday and get it sorted out so quick.

so now i am a bit shell shocked as it were, thinking of what it might have been and how i escaped that. i should be ecstatic at missing that fate, but i think humans cannot feel great joy at having escaped something we dont know what we missed.

i can imagine another timeline where i did not escape and am suffering the angst at not being able to get online as i would normally do. i am trying to savour that feeling of having narrowly escaped a calamity.

the sky outside my window is beginning to lighten now. as it is 5.55am .  it’s very quiet here; no dawn chorus from noisy birds , one of the joys of living in a city, as opposed to the country where there are more birds about.

even the seagulls that normally would be nesting on the chimneys of the block of flats opposite me have gone. their young has grown up and flown off i think, that is why they are gone. and not because of the hawk which the estate hired to try to scare them away.

yesterday i was just on the outskirts of the nottinghill area, where the carnival is on, the police have placed road blocks on all the roads going into that area. i was not affected as the paddington library was just outside that area. must be real inconvenient for the motorists living there. i think they got good weather yesterday, in that the threatened rain did not come.

they expect the real rain to come today. the festival is still on today.  huge rain clouds can be seen on the weather maps coming into london marching across london and  practically covering london for the whole day.

the libraries are all closed today, so i wont be able to go there as i normally do to read the papers.

i read here in the papers online, ( i found a great aggregate website for it, better than the one i had before which got lost when the chromebook got glitched)that walking 20 mins everyday will be useful to keep off ageing. i suspect as much, but it seems fresh evidence has been found to support it. i think i will walk to the library now instead of taking the bus as i normally do.

it is so tempting to take the bus, as it is free for me. it will certainly save money for my westminster council  for bus fares, as they pay my fare. haha. here is a case where it discourages walking. but people must do the healthy thing and forego the bus;  and just because it is free, does not mean u must take it.

it is the same with plastic bags given away by the supermarkets. for years, i have taken my own bags because i dont subscribe to that attitude where if it is free, i must take it. well, from october, everyone in england will have to pay 5p for each of  the bags. in wales and in scotland, this payment have allready been in place and dont seem to present problems so i am sure it will be so in england when it is implemented.

hope everyone bring their own bags. though i have been using the free bags that simon brings home  to line my rubbish bins and use as rubbish bags. we shall have to find another solution to that. we used to buy plastic rubbish bags. but that would just propagate more plastic bags surely? i wonder what other people would do to solve this? sainsbury bags are bio degradable, maybe they all are nowadays, so maybe the whole thing has come too late, and no need to ban supermarket bags, but to make rubbish bags biodegradable instead. hmm, u can see solving one problem, or thinking we solve one problem leads to another , and worst one.

contactless cards are going from strength to strength. esp from 1sept, the limit will be raised to £30 per transaction. i have not used it, because i prefer to pay cash. but in uk plenty like it. i think once the buses and tubes adopted it, people become used to it and so it becomes a normal part of their life. it is a bit like credit cards … i remember i used them like as if they were normal when i came to uk, even though when i was growing up in malaysia i never use them. 

added 7.50pm i think i know what happened to cause the glitch in my chromebook. i used a different email from what i registered with. instead of using the email with the @gmail.com , i forgot and used the @hotmail.com address. so that locked me out of my account in the chromebook. there must be a way to start again , but i dont know how . all i saw was the box asking me to type in my password, there was no box asking me for the email address again. so let this be a warning to those who are using chromebook. use the gmail account when u log on. 

Wombling for Cash | The Mini Millionaire

Wombling for Cash | The Mini Millionaire.

wombling, this is a new term for me.

it is used to describe the practise of collecting receipts to claim their points, or refunds from price comparisons.

since the supermarkets have offered to refund money to match prices with other supermarkets, and reward points, this way of getting free money has taken off. and someone had coined this term .

it is also used loosely for collecting macdonalds cups with the beanie stickers, to get a free coffee if u collect enough. haha.

i had recently got myself a sainsbury nectar card, because i recently got myself a sainsbury mobile sim card. i know there is no logical reason why getting one should lead to getting the other. haha.

 i used to have a nectar card ages ago but lost it.

i buy so few things from sainsburys that it will take me ages to accummulate enough points.

will i haunt car parks for lost receipts? no. haha. too lazy.

i suppose if a receipt for £40 get swept by the wind and deposited right by me i shall keep it (i suppose, not even sure if i would.) i am just too lazy but really it is an excellent way of getting free money and can be a lot of fun esp if u find a receipt with £150 spend on it. and it is not impossible, nowadays people spend heck of a lot .

added. 25.3.15 as usual i should have googled it, and found the urban dictionary gives 6 different meanings to the word. 

added. i daresay the supermarkets dont like it, but i think if u are discreet they will let u as prosecuting you would just be bad publicity. also in uk , many special offers do not require  a specific person, ie you, having to  compulsory buying their stuff. as long as u can produce a valid receipt, it should be ok.

Just a word of caution be careful somebody was apparently accused of credit card theft because they wombled a receipt where payment had been made by a stolen credit card. Then when they had the points added to their clubcard all fingers pointed to them.

If I do womble which isn’t that often I tend to go for receipts which are cash transactions

Welshy x 

 so that is the danger. haha. 

unknown unknowns

london

i am at the library, on another lovely warm day, and read in the times newspaper that sainsburys will stop offering a refund if what u bought fromthem is more expensive than the similar thing in tesco.

you have to buy more than £10 worth of stuff from sainsburys before the till will find out for you what is more expensive than tesco and give you a voucher of refund.

since i never buy anythng more than £10 at any one time, it is no use to me.

all i can see when i view the prices in sainsburys is the upfront cost and so many of their stuff is more costly than tesco. simple things like milk powder, basic instant coffee, basic spaghetti, etc, even basic bread… oats… practically everything really so much so that i stopped going to sainsburys.

i used to wonder when i was there how come it is so busy with people, when it is obviously more expensive than tesco, and i used to wonder how come i never hear of sainsburys profits being hit , like we hear so much about tesco’s falling profits and market share.

so now i know why. people rely on the refund that the computer will find out for them; maybe not realising that  sainsburys have upped their price knowing that only those who shop for small amounts will pay the increased costs and those customers are not really to be wooed anyway as they buy so little.

now according to today’s news article they say they will stopp the refunds.

so maybe people are realising it is better to go straight to the cheap supermarkets like lidl, aldi, rather than fluff around with buying more expensive stuff and getting a refund back, in vouchers what’s more that means coming back to the store to redeem it and only if u buy more of those higher priced stuff. that might explain why sainsburys is dropping that scheme.

Another unknown unknown i discovered is my cistern in my wc. sometimes it does not flush, because the water does not rush in to fill that gadget which house the plunger .

so i tend to leave it for a bit, and it soon fills up with water. this time something new happened. i can feel the inside of that gadget that cause the flush is full, but the water does not drain down to the bowl. i tried it a few times but it still did not work. so i press hard on the top of the gadget and whatever it did, it made the thing worked. well well, some unknown unknowns i have dislodged there. 

my problem with the washing machine double check valve may be solved. simon managed to fit one all by himself. the water engineer came yesterday to check it and signed it off.

he was the one who recommended this to be fitted to overcome the slight contamination of my water.

my initial suggestion that i disconnect the washing machine and not use it luckily is not needed now. i admit it is nice to be able to use the washing machine.

i guess it is nice to live with other people, who can take the trouble to fix it rather than live on my own where i would take the path of least resistence where it can lead to a bit of inconvenience. i would highly recommend living with others. 

from midday today there is a malaysian food festival in trafalgar square. it is to promote malaysia and malaysian foods sponsored by the malaysian govt. i shall go most probably just to see what is going on.

added later. well i have just been to trafalgar square and bought some malaysian foodstuff from the malaysiakitchen stall. 1kg frozen fish balls £5.50. dried instant noodles pack of 10 , 40mg each for .50p.each pack.  i bought 2packs. and then there is the 3 for £2 malaysian chili sauce.  i was not going to buy them but there was a guy there with samples to taste and i just happen to ask him what is the difference between them and he said one got garlic, the other got ginger, and another is sweet. well that kicked me into buying the garlic and ginger ones. as i must have bought the suger ones last year as it was so sweet and i was put off buying them again . so just goes to show u have to have someone tell you what it is different about them.

the frozen fish balls are really good value. they did not sell them last year.  normally 200mg cost about £2 fresh in the chinese shop in chinatown. these are about half price. i cant imagine how ordinary people will buy them as the fish balls will thaw out by the time they go home. i live nearby so i can go home and put them in the freezer and still be able to get back to trafalgar square later today if i want to. who knows maybe they will reduce everything as the evening approaches and they close shop. haha. they even have frozen roti chenai £1.50 for 6. i did not buy them as i dont know what to do with them or if they taste the same after thawing. i am quite attracted to roti done this way and i see roti king who i hear do quite authentic roti blatha. and was quite tempted to try them. it costs £5 though.

some western guys were buying it, but only the roti, no sauce. i said aren’t you supposed to eat that with curry sauce? one of them said yes, but you can chose how to eat it. i must say even though the customer is king… and we are all supposed to accept it;  but really how are u to get the real experience of eating roti blatha if u dont combine it with the curry sauce?? it is just not the malaysian way.

i glanced at the staff in the stall and i can see the guys in the stall kind of having a glazed look in their face. i guess they have learnt never to correct the english customers. haha. just let them do whatever they like.

i have noticed that about all this ethnic food being sold in uk, esp in london. they mix and match and just adulterate and add stuff that u dont associate with that dish.

that is why i am not surprised if one day an indian restaurant would serve curry and chips… if one had not allready done so. i can understand why some italian restaurants lament at how the british diner will add stuff to the pasta sauces and call it bolognaise, or puttanesce, which in the country of origin would never agree to it.  

I call myself a malaysian but even i am confused with the various names for the roti. i know it as roti blatha, but i have heard it called roti chenai, prata. are they mean all the same thing except for dialect difference?

added. 7pm. i went there again at about 5pm. i cooked a noodle dish with the fish balls and noodles and it was very nice. i bought another of those noodles at 50p after i chatted with a malaysian student who said he was here only 8days having just arrived to do his university degree which will take him 3yrs. he pays £100 a week for a room share with another student. i told him about the noodles as it is quite ideal. i told him he can use a stock cube to get the flavour. and then add whatever he wants like mince beef, or frozen cheap fish, or fish balls, veg etc. and that is a meal allready. he bought 3 packs. 

and i got the address of their shop. it is quite a long way away. chuang lee unit 4 meridientrading estate,28 lombard wal4l, london se7 7sw. nearest station is charlton station. or go to greenwich station and take bus472 or 486towards thamesmead centre and get off at peninsular park road. i think it is too far for me to go considering i only buy a few items. i will just have to wait next year when they come again to trafalgar square. 

I also got to see a chef doing a masterclass of roti chennai making. the dough was already prepared so we dont get to know how it is done. i guess we shall have to buy his cook book, but he demonstrated how to toss it. and then it is fried . alot of oil used. video  

Anyway afterwards i asked him why is there so many names for it? he said roti prata (or blatha) is a singapore invention. the original name is roti chennai, (or they spell it cennai,) from a place in india.

the spelling is all over the place, it is also spelt roti paratha, roti canai.

added.13.10.14 i just read in the metro newspaper today that chennai was formerly known as madras. so the name roti chennai must be new, i think roti prata, blatha, paratha, must be the original name. i know it as roti blatha, a corruption of prata and paratha i think. i wonder whether it exists in madras anymore. if it does maybe they call it a diffrent name.

added again. 14.10.14 found this …(from wikipedia)

‘Changes to the local name of cities in the indigenous languages is less common. However, a change in English may also be a reflection of changes in other Indian languages other than the specific local one. For example the change of Madras (Hindi मद्रास Madras) to Chennai (Hindi चेन्नई Chennai) was reflected in many of India’s languages, as well incidentally in English, while the Tamil endonym Chennai (சென்னை Chennai) had always been Chennai and remained unaffected by the change.’

so perhaps it is an old phrase and means ‘tamil bread’. south indians are the main people who settled in malaysia, and most south indians are tamils.

living in london pt5

london

A continueing joy in living in london is the apples. even supermarket apples are delicious, firm, crunchy, sweet, juicy. so much so that i can eat two apples on the trot one after the other, and i eat all of it, only the stalk left. they are that good. my favourite is gala apples.

but just now, i bought 8 for £1 in tesco , after my swim, and took a bite of one when i left the store and was surprised that it tasted awful. very friable, soft, tasteless. I was thinking to myself do i have to eat all of it? and dreading it. It was that bad.

then i remembered long ago when i was in malaysia, and bought some fruits from the night market from some local malay guys who have set up a stall there, and they were not sweet and i actually went back to the street market and returned them and got my money back. i regret doing it, because those were natural fruits, and if they are not as sweet as i expected it is only because it is nature. i was very young and foolish in those days.

so i thought if i can return the fruits to those guys who least deserve it, why am i not returning these fruits to tesco right now? i have only gone a few steps away from the store… its not like i have returned home and found out. so i turned tail at once and returned to the store and asked for the store manager.

I told him the fruits are too old and i want to return it. I was actually holding the half eaten apple, it was that bad. he asked if i want a replacement, but i did not trust the rest of the batch were any better so i said i will take a refund. and of course he gave me my £1 back without any fuss. so i have to qualify my praise of apples from supermarket that it is not always that nice. haha. Still, it is the first time i got a bad batch in all my years of buying apples in london. and it is still one of the best things to enjoy about london. haha.

Gala apples actually are not native to uk. most uk apples like braeburn, russet, bramleys, are quite sour. but i think some local farmers are growing gala apples in uk now. It’s possible the apples are not that nice because it is not apple season now. that season comes around autumn time. 

I wonder what are the seasonal fruits we can get to eat now . it is spring now. i cannot think there are any fruits ripening and  available now. after all, the flowering season have only just started. But i remember reading somewhere that apples can be stored throughout the winter and brought out to be sold in batches.  but if there are no fruits actually growing now, what fruits are we to eat? that is assuming  we want to eat only seasonal fruits?? Unlike in malaysia, or seasia, where pineapple , papaya, guava, lime, jackfruit, bananas, starfruit, grow all the year round, we here in the temperate zone have winter where nothing fruits. You can see why there are no pure vegetarians in the prehistoric peoples who live in temperate climates. haha. any who are foolish enough to want to just eat vegetation will die. in winter, people will have to hunt animals or rear them to survive.

I just have a thought. all those religions, buddism , hinduism, which advocate a vegetarian diet are started in the tropics… where it is possible to live on vegetation all year. so those religions are suited to the peoples who live there.

and desert religions like jewism islamism, christianity seem to be in place to regulate people’s use of scarce resources. how much easier it is to get obedience when you tell people God wants it rather than pass man made laws that people will flout.  and the idea of a single god is so no other gods will contradict each other. 

You can understand why those religions came about in those regions of the world, but why should people in the temperate zone take up these religions?  (one of desert areas, the other of tropical areas), and force it into a temperate zone or cold climate way of life? It does not make sense, does it? 

A religion that worships the sun and time people’s activities according to its progress in the heavens as the seasons change… that would be more useful as a religion to the people who live in northern climes. maybe that is what stonehenge and all the other stone circles allude to, and druids are the high priests of such a religion. but they were all swept away when the romans came to britain and introduced christianity. and impose a religion for the desert areas to a northern climate country and people. Ah well, just my thoughts about religion, and how it comes about. 

 Added. i googled it and found out that rhubarb is the only fruit in season around now. first of all, i never knew rhubarb is a fruit. i had always thought it to be a vegetable. anyway, I have never seen any supermarket with a glut of rhubarb to sell. they make very good rhubarb crumble that is the only use for it that i know of. 

starting anew

london

I thought i will have to buy a rucksack to replace the one i lost. but i found a spare lying around. it was given to me by london underground.

It says ‘you’re better off by bike’. so it must be one of the boris bike publicity thing when the bikes first began operation. must be 2or 3 yrs ago.

don’t remember what was the occasion when it was given to me. it has a small pocket in front to keep small things so avoid rummaging in the depths of the main space. 

And i dug up a rain coat to replace the one i lost.

i found that along with the other raincoat in the park after prince william’s wedding( i have a commemoration mug dated 29april 2011) so this raincoat is that old. never been used since i found it.

there was no date when the raincoat was bought so not sure how old it is.

I found both of them lying around abandoned in st james park. This was when so many people came to london to see the wedding and left so many things in the park after they have been camping on it overnight.

it was a virgin marathon raincoat. when i wore it to a gay group walk, one of the guys there told me it was sold to people who have applied unsuccessfully to compete in the marathon. it was a sort of consolation price for not being able to run. that is interesting. i wonder if that might deter a person from wearing it, as it would mark them out to those in the know as being losers. wearing something that shows they did not run in the marathon at all… 

The london virgin ( is virgin still sponsoring it? maybe not anymore!googled it and found out it is renamed virgin money now)marathon has just finished a few weeks ago. one chap died after finishing. so it is quite dangerous thing to do.

i knew this knapsack  would come in useful one day, even if it took 3yrs to come to its own. haha. the raincoat took 3yrs too so it must be about the time of the boris bikes.

which surprised me somewhat. i never knew i had it for so long. i was using the other raincoat all that time.

i thought i will have to buy a swimsuit to replace the one i lost, but i found one that i did not realise is a swim wear . i have been using it like it was  a spare pair of shorts , and lucky for me the swim centre allows people to wear shorts to swim ;

unlike in malaysia where they insist u must have speedo style swim wear. shorts are not allowed. i wonder why?  maybe they dont want people using their daily shorts  that they use and wear when they are out and about.

it being very warm, people who wear shorts in malaysia are labourers. when i was visiting there, i was the only one who is malaysian, who is not a labourer who was wearing shorts. The other group of people who wear shorts are the male european tourists.  

so maybe they realise anyone who is malaysian and wears shorts is likely to be a labourer who wears his shorts as workwear. they  dont want to encourage riff raff. that is my guess for them imposing this blanket ban on shorts in the swimming pool.

here in uk, there are no such restrictive rules. people can and do wear any style of swim wear in the pool.

and i found a spare pair of swim goggles too. so it looks like i am hardly inconvenienced at all at the loss of that knapsack which i left at the bus stop. 

I was browsing in the sainsburys this evening, looking for food reductions.

it being the bank holiday bargains may be had. i got 2loaves of organic wholemeal bread 800mg for 29p each. and rump steak 300mg reduced from £3.47 to 89p. there was a lady who bought all of them , she was standing over the sales assistant whilst it was being stamped with the reduced tickets, and when i approach she said  all the packs stacked up on the trolley were hers. sigh. but luckily she missed this one. haha or rather she might not like the look of it. it was two strips of meat instead of one whole slab.

it was just the right one for me as i was kind of craving a good rump steak. this was because the other day i read a newspaper article talking about the angus steak house in london and saying how puzzling  why they are still so profitable and in business when they are just not good at all.

one of the critics was a owner of a upmarket steak restaurant and he said the beef he ordered was inedible.

i really wonder… it shows u must not get a rival to be the critic. he is not likely to praise the beef right?

in the tripadviser, the angus steak house got praise from the customers so they cannot be all that bad.

It is pricey though, £15 for a steak.(that was the price for a rump steak in their website) and nothing else. side dishes, gravy, etc are extra.

added.23.4.14 found the article . read it here. they were charged more because they ordered sirloin.

I think rump steak is a really good steak and is my preferred choice to sirloin or fillet. 

 

but really u can eat the steak with nothing else. Steak is that good, which is what i did when i had the steak. I think to douse it in gravy is a sin. It is no way to treat a steak. 

steak is so easy to cook, a fool can cook it. so it stands to reason that no one can make it bad.

just tell them u want it medium rare… and hope they do know what medium rare is … haha. though I find if ever a restaurant make a hash of it is to overcook it. it is quite easy to do it in a busy restaurant with the chef rushing to fulfill orders.

i like if the middle is still just slightly red, but not oozing with blood. if u cook it at home, u can always cut it through with a knife to see whether it is just right. i had it with a bit of english mustard and spring onions. heavenly. 

The sainsburys tonight were selling off vegetables for 20p. mainly precut salads, which i was not interested in. though i did buy a large bag of satsumas, for 20p from £2.

i have found i can defragment more finely , and this time the computer is doing it by prioritising files. not sure what that means but it sure is taking a long time. almost 2hrs it says. it is still doing it now, about 1hr more to go. it is only 60% done.

Hang on, i just checked and it is done. so it was really not 2hrs after all. it says the duration was about 1hr 30mins. ah well, it is prioritised now.