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This is a tough question. There’s a lot of foods that this meerkat cannot get enough of. From BBQ chicken wings, to loaded potato skins, to soups, even the occasional salad, there’s plenty of appetizers alone that I would be drawn to, let alone main courses and desserts! I suppose if we go with the most likely type of restaurant setting (which would be some form of pub-based restaurant), we’re left looking at a menu that comprises of the likes of soups, though the type of soup itself might sway me to something else. Tomato and basil soup is nice, leek and potato, chicken soup, and various others, so it’s often a safe bet as a starter. Plus soup is quite warming, especially on a cold day.

Mains is an altogether different conundrum. Where do I start?! A lot of your typical pub restaurants will offer fish and chips (never a bad choice), various types of burger (often a go-to, though the quality can sharply vary, especially with a beef-burger), steaks, and roast dinners. Many have branched into areas such as chicken tikka masalas, grilled chicken salads and the like, but whilst I will eat those, I don’t tend to order them in this setting.

I guess if you put fish and chips, a roast lamb dinner, a medium-well steak, and a good quality burger in front of me, I’d choose the fish and chips. Well, a lot of the time. I wouldn’t choose it all of the time, since roast lamb cooked perfectly is a near-perfect dish.

Now to the dessert. I do like a pudding! Chocolate brownies, served hot with hot chocolate sauce and a blob of vanilla ice cream are a thing of beauty. So is a slice of rich strawberry cheesecake. So is a banana split. Apple pie, with cream, is divine. There’s a running joke in my house about my dessert preferences, and it’s certainly true that I will thoroughly enjoy both a brownie, and an apple pie. I think if I were forced to decide between them, the winner would be the apple pie, most of the time.

Finally, what would I drink?! This meerkat certainly enjoys a cold beer, in particular a hearty ale, so that would be a contender. However, sometimes it’s easier, and cheaper, to go for cola of some kind. It’s also marginally better for you (well, I guess that can be considered dubious, depending on your yardstick). My preference would be for a beer, let’s put it that way.

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Virtually everyone I know enjoys chocolate. It is supremely satisfying, in virtually all its forms. From the simple, understated elegance of a bar of milk chocolate, to the rich, succulent temptation of dark chocolate, and even the sweetness of white chocolate, it’s proven to be a versatile and extremely delicious form of decadence. It has been a part of human consumption for thousands of years, albeit its modern form as a bar is a relatively new invention.

The History

The cacao bean is where we get chocolate, and this bean (found on the cacao tree) is native to the Amazon, in South America. The tree was domesticated some 5,000 years ago, and was introduced to what is now Central America soon after. The beans were often used in drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and were considered to be a form of currency, as well as a form of medicine. When the Spanish encountered chocolate in 1519, they exported it back to Spain, and drinking chocolate became a popular pastime of the elite across Europe.

In the 19th Century, the formation of chocolate into solid bars took hold, and chocolate moved from a product for the wealthy, to a luxury for the masses. The mass production of chocolate bars began in earnest, with companies like Fry’s and Cadbury coming to the fore. The Swiss also began to mass produce chocolate, and before long, an entire industry had grown.

The Versatility of Chocolate

Whilst chocolate is usually associated with some form of bar, drinking chocolate has remained a firm part of how we consume the stuff. In both solid and liquid form chocolate has been paired with a wide variety of other things, including orange, mint, caramel, and a whole lot more. In some cases the combinations might seem a tad unusual, and this meerkat is certainly wary of a few of them, but each to their own. For example, chili and chocolate comes up quite a lot. It’s not for me, but if you like it, go for it!

For me, I tend to drift toward Cadbury for my chocolate fix, though I am not opposed to a fair few items from the Mars and Nestle stables. I love me a Snickers bar, and I am quite fond of Mars Bars, M&Ms (especially the peanut variety), and a great many more. Crunchies, Boosts, in fact most forms of chocolate tend to get my attention! There are a few I don’t especially warm to (such as the coconut-filled Bounties), but overall, you will this meerkat is very happy to indulge his sweet tooth! Right now, I am imagining chocolate brownies, hot, sticky chocolate fudge brownies, with hot chocolate sauce and a thick scoop of vanilla ice cream… I may need a moment.

What about you, dear meerkats? What’s your chocolate fantasy?

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There’s a bunch of foods I am not fond of, and there’s a few I absolutely loathe. I have learned to tolerate some foods down the years (such as peas, and mashed potato), but others remain firmly on my yuck list. I do not like sweetcorn, I cannot stand the slimy nature of baked beans (yes, I know they’re a British staple, no, I have never liked them), but the one I most hate, the one I would like to erase, to utterly wipe from the face of existence, is mushrooms.

Sometimes, my wife will fry up mushrooms, and when that happens, I cannot go near the kitchen. It is no exaggeration to say that I gag. The odour is cloying, sweaty and nasty. These awful, mucus-coated fungi not only smell bad and feel horrid, they look terrible, and taste even worse. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing redeemable about mushrooms.

Am I being too harsh? No. Mushrooms should be annihilated.

I am also not especially fond of tomatoes. I don’t mind them if they’re pureed on a pizza, but I could never bite into an actual tomato. I once accidentally poured myself tomato juice at a hotel, and as I felt awkward about leaving it, forced myself to drink it I didn’t like it! That said, I enjoy cream of tomato soup, so make of that what you will!

Aside from that, I am not generally a fussy eater. I know what I like, and what I don’t like, and I am prepared to experiment, just a little. Please, no mushrooms though!

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A good question, and one that has quite a few potential answers. Down the years I have eaten a few reasonably unusual (for my location at least) things. For me, the highlights would include deer meat (in the form of burgers), ostrich steak (which was very nice), oysters, and kangaroo curry.

Deer is not a million miles away from beef (at least, that’s what I recall), and the same must be said of kangaroo, though the roo is a bit lighter, for lack of a better term. Having one as a burger and one as a curry makes a direct comparison tricky. Both were nice, but the ostrich was, as I remember, wonderful. I happened upon it at a restaurant in Portugal, and from memory, this place did a lovely lamb pasanda as well. They also finished the evening with a small glass of port, which went down a treat!

The oysters were had in Australia, and I don’t remember much, save for a texturally weird feeling, and a flavour that wasn’t bad, but not especially amazing either. I dare say it was quite adventurous for me at the time, but it’s also not something I’d go back to. I’d be more interested in the deer or the roo! The ostrich would also be on the list of desirables.

In another take on the idea of adventurous eating, the past 10 years or so have seen me experiment more with spicy food. I had something of an aversion to vindaloos and the like, but I have grown better at handling them. There are still limits – my wife has sometimes brought home insanely hot noodles that made me cry – but I’m definitely better with the spice. It’s certainly fair to say that I’ve managed to be better at trying out new foods. If I had to pin down one to declare as the most adventurous, then purely because it’s still quite unusual here in the UK, I’ll go with kangaroo. It isn’t the most exotic in terms of style or flavour, but you don’t find it on these shores very often. Then again, the same could be said of ostrich!

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Welcome back to the Meerkat Muse, which as of the morning of the 6th of November is quite muted. Why might that be? Cast your minds back to the 5th of November…

The Tangerine Tyrant Takes Control

Despite four years of failure in his first term, despite plenty of failure as a businessman and as a man, and despite his own clear cognitive decay, Donald Trump has become president for a second time. The likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un are probably still holding victory celebrations of their own, which should tell you precisely why Trump is bad for the USA, and bad for the world.

I am speechless. Words have completely failed me. It’s like half of America exists in a bubble, a rose-tinted bubble, with only the most cursory of gestures made to acknowledge Trump’s faults, if indeed his worshippers can bring themselves to do even that. Here is a man who lied about election fraud, incited a riot to subvert an election, whose blunders cost countless lives during covid (not to mention tanking the economy), a man who pays porn stars hush money to cover up affairs, a man with a history of racism and sexism. This man illegally took state secrets home with him too. He should be in prison, yet half of America has been so successfully duped by his deceit and rhetoric that they’ve put him back in The White House. It’s as absurd as it is insane, and there will devastating consequences for the world.

It is tempting to conclude the world is a dumpster fire right now, and it certainly is, but it’s always darkest before the dawn. Those of us who value freedom, equality, compassion and kindness need to stick together, and be the bulwark against hate.

Pointless Early Starts

The 6th of November was Collection Day, so to speak. Having gotten my daughter a new bed and desk, I had to get rid of the old ones. Cue arranging a collection with the local council, then hauling the frame, mattress, desk (and whilst I was at it, an old lawn mower) out to the kerb. I took a photo of the assembled items, and also stuck the council’s reference number onto each item, so there should have been no grounds for doubt as to what was being collected, nor any concerns that it wasn’t ready to pick up. Not that I don’t trust the council, but I don’t trust the council! They have no excuse not to take it, but I am quite cynical where they’re concerned.

Sure enough, I was proven right! Having been directed to have the items out by 7.30am, which I did, they wound up still sitting there come the evening. Would I have a fight on my hands with the council? I had originally been told I would get an email by the 8th, explaining the outcome of my collection request. Considering how it appeared to have failed through the inaction of the council, I was preparing my response in advance. In some ways, following the wake of the events of the 5th, I was spoiling for a fight, and the council might have made the mistake of giving me one. Sure enough, an email came in that stated the items were not as described, or inaccessible.

Since neither of these conditions were true, I phoned the council to make that point, and was subsequently assured the matter would be escalated. Watch this space…

Bears and Buffets

Back on the 8th, my wife, daughter and I enjoyed a trip to the new cinema, where we had the luxury seats, and after some confusion about seat numbers, settled in to watch Paddington in Peru. I have found all the Paddington films to be absolutely charming, very sweet, and at various points, very funny! They are the perfect family films, with plenty of warmth, as befits the titular character. We followed this film with a visit to a local all-you-can-eat buffet, and I proceeded to stuff my face quite substantially! I did however go off the beaten track a little, going more for the Indian selections, though some steamed pork buns, a bit of salmon-wrapped vegetable sushi, some Korean pork, and some sweet and sour chicken did find its way to my plate. So did a lot of jelly, a steamed custard bun, some bananas and custard, some pavlova, and a generous helping of ice cream.

Like i said, I stuffed my face!

Late Arrivals

I swear I seem to write a segment like this in every Muse. Once again owing to lone-trading on a Sunday, I was once again treated to people coming in with little time left on the clock, so to speak. Whilst I am generally understanding of this during the week, when it happens on a weekend it greatly frustrates me. Our opening hours are a known quantity, easily obtainable via various means, so why is it that people still turn up quite late, every single Saturday and Sunday? Why must I remind people of the obvious, namely that those of us working in shops are humans too, and that we want to go home on time?

Technology Woes

My household seems to have some awful luck regarding laptops. Earlier in the year, a very good laptop decided to randomly die, completely out of the blue. The secondary laptop suffers from a faulty power connector, which was repaired but remains inconsistent, to the point where it’s virtually unusable now. I wouldn’t mind if we were careless people, but we’re not. The tech seems to die without much prompting, which is mightily frustrating. It hinders activity, such as editing my books. It makes working on this website more of a challenge. It hampers my wife’s surveys. It’s also a costly exercise in replacing them.

Might it be that our modern-day devices have built-in obsolescence? It would be illegal for this to be the case, but it certainly feels like they do. Even if they don’t, the rapid development of computers means they can seem obsolete within a short span of time, and after a few years they can seem like they are grinding to a halt, assuming they haven’t failed completely.

The Collection Saga Continues

A week after the arranged collection of several items failed, the council had another opportunity to carry out the collection, and it once again failed. Once again, the items were in an easily-accessible location, as per the original instructions. This time I made sure there were no other items bundled in with our collection from other households, lest the council try to use this as an excuse. It turns out I got my dates wrong, and it would be the following week for the collection. D’oh!

The Schism Takes Shape

The sequel to The Awakening is coming along. I am in the grinding process of editing, but I feel like I’ve made some good progress with this over the past week. It helps that there’s a new laptop in the house, one with a reliable power connection, so I can crack on in earnest! There is definitely a feeling of satisfaction of bringing the project towards completion, and I look forward to carrying on with editing it. Alongside this, I am busily working on other writing projects. The creative juices are flowing! I am 25% of the way through The Schism, and aiming to have the edits done before the end of 2024, which should be more than doable.

It all feels very exciting!

Jackets, Continued

You may recall that in the previous Muse, I wrote of a problem with a Linkin Park jacket. It had a glaring flaw, namely the misspelt name of the late Chester Bennington. After a bit of wrangling, I was able to convince the retailer to send out another jacket, which arrived last week. Had they fixed their mistake? No. The mistake is also exactly the same as it was before, so it seems my correspondence with them has been entirely for nought. The next step in this process is to seek a full refund, because as it stands the jacket is unwearable. It also seems to be of generally poorer quality than the first one. I’ve contacted the seller once again, expressing my desire for my money back, and now it’s a case of waiting and seeing. Will they honour my request?

Aaaaaaargh!

I arrived at work the other morning to an horrendous sight. The glass on one of the bannisters had blown over night, coating one of the staircases in cubes of safety glass. Needless to say, this was not a great find, first thing on a Monday! There wasn’t much I could do, other than clean it up. I could certainly do without any form of repeat of this, any time soon! I suspect the glass must have been knocked at some point, though how and when is up for debate.

The Cold Creeps In

There’s no denying that as we reach the middle of November, the mercury has plummeted. Alas, it’s the time of year that any last semblance of warmth vanishes. In fact, just to remind us of this, it snowed for a bit yesterday! Still, we’ll blink and winter will be over. The sunny days always return, and until then, there will plenty of things to enjoy as November gives way to December. I shall leave you all with that thought, as I bid farewell to this Muse. Until next time, all you lovely meerkats!

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Earlier this year, my wife, daughter and I, along with my parents, my brother and his family, enjoyed a holiday to the sunny Italian island of Sicily. The weather was beautiful, the food was quite frankly amazing, and the trip was much-needed. It was also a horribly early start on the day we flew, but that’s life!

My dad took this lovely pic of the hotel pool.
He also took this pic from the beautiful old town of Taormina.

For those of you unfamiliar with Luton Airport, it would be fair to say you aren’t missing much. We got there at around 4am, for a 7am flight, and dealt with all the usual rigours of air travel. This meerkat does not mind flying to a point, but I will confess that as I get older I get more anxious about it. The check-in and security stuff at the airport doesn’t heighten my nerves, but it doesn’t soothe them either. Ultimately it’s faintly ridiculous of me, because flying is statistically the safest form of travel, but there’s always a twinge of worry about being so high up in the air in a pressurised tube for any length of time. Mind you, the flight did give me the chance to take some spectacular aerial pictures:

The view of the mountains was unrivalled.
Mount Etna casts a powerful shadow across Sicily.

So, onto the trip. The first thing we did when we reached our hotel, a lovely resort called Hotel Caesar Palace, was grab some lunch, as we arrived just in time for it. As is rather normal for hotels of this nature, it was a buffet, with various options, and these options got rotated across the course of the week. There was always something interesting and fresh, and given Sicily is an Italian island, there were plenty of pasta options!

There were plenty of amazing dessert options!

As is befitting a Mediterranean holiday, we spent a fair bit of time poolside, and in the pool as well. I for one certainly appreciated the opportunity to regularly cool off, considering the impressive 30C+ temperatures that we encountered, every single day! In the evenings my wife, daughter and I largely withdrew to our room, as the night life was quite loud, and my daughter in particular does not care for loud noises. Still, we did occasionally venture out, and we all took full advantage of the all-inclusive drinks!

It goes without saying that we did not confine ourselves to the hotel. On a couple of occasions family trips were had to the nearby town of Naxos. Here I scooped up some souvenirs, and we also took a couple of trips to the beach. Mediterranean waters tend to be amazing, and the beach here was no exception. Crisp, clear blue sea met with white sandy beaches, and I had a couple of swims in the serene waters. Somehow, it always feels more refreshing than a hotel pool, though there’s always the question of sand in awkward places afterwards!

Did I mention the desserts were great?

A couple of trips stand out. Firstly, we all took a visit to the old, rustic town of Taormina. This involved a winding bus ride up a hill, and more than once I was left to wonder how the driver managed to navigate the twisting roads, but he managed, and we arrived safely! Taormina is a stunning town, filled with reminders of European history, and also home to some very impressive, very expensive shops. In fact, at least one shop had an armed security guard outside, to emphasise just how expensive it was!

How’s that for a view?
The history of the town was evident everywhere we went.
Sicily’s strong Christian roots could be seen all over Taormina.
Authentic Italian ricotta ravioli!
Great care was taken to ensure shops looked appealing.

The other trip that will live in my memory is the dolphin spotting. My parents opted out of this one, but the rest of us made our way to Naxos, where I was expecting a different kind of boat! We stepped onto a glorified inflatable, and guess which unlucky meerkat did not get a proper seat?! I was perched on the side, assured I was perfectly safe, but on a fast, bumpy boat like this… I clung on to the bars pretty tightly!

Did we see dolphins? Yes, though getting pictures of them was tough. As you might imagine, they tend to leap in and out of the water whenever they like, and do not pose for photos! Still, it was quite incredible to see dolphins – which I consider to be remarkable and beautiful animals – in their natural element. I’ve swam with dolphins before, in a controlled environment in Portugal, and that will always be a treasured experience, but seeing them in the wild is something else.

As it did from pretty much everywhere, Mount Etna loomed large in the distance.
A rare picture of me in my human form! Yes, it’s a Timon t-shirt, and yes, the yellow with yellow is intentional.

Afterwards my brother’s family and mine went to a nearby restaurant, and I gauged myself on pizza. Did I mention the food by the way?

Oooh look, more hotel desserts!

Some final pics:

One day, it looked like a Greek arch was growing out of Etna herself!
Do you want pasta? Italian supermarkets are devoted to it!
Everywhere you went, the view was gorgeous.

The most telling way to answer if a holiday was good or not is to ask ‘would I go back?’ In the case of Sicily, the answer is a clear and happy yes! Thus concludes this meerkat’s Italian adventure 🙂

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