Tips On Grocery Shopping.

I have been told never to go grocery shopping whilst you are hungry, you inevitably buy more and you buy things you want to eat then and not during the week-I learnt this well a few weeks back staggering home from a gatecrashed party in wimbledon when my good (obscenely spoilt) friend insisted and walking to the 24 hour tesco nearby to buy ready meals: 2 hours, a bleeding blister from my deckshoes, and £30 worth of shite tesco ready meals later and we've woken my entire household with our inebriated attempts at microwaving. I wake up the next day to a hairy, sweaty and snoring teenager half on the sofa bed and about £24 worth of uneaten or halfeaten ready meals around us, do not ever go shopping when hungry or drunk and especially not when both!

I deviate, my original point is that from an early age I have consistently been fooled by my mothers promises that we are only stopping in to waitrose to buy a loaf of bread, instead of walking up to the house (five minute walk tops) I will wait or go in to hurry her up. Everytime we will come up with a weeks shopping and a further disgruntled grammar school student. This was beautifully illustrated this afternoon, my mother asked me to go buy us ice-cream-I was rather tired from working and being in the sun and wanted to sit down-she then said she would drive me down to get it. At this point she said we will drop into waitrose instead of parking so I can go to the tesco express on the other side of the road, this change of plan instituted because it 'will be quicker'. We go in to buy ice-creams, between us we reasonably decide that we DO need creme fraiche to make my mean guacomole, avocados and tomatoes. Immediately I find myself reading the best before dates on bouquets of flowers for my mother and wondering the hell just happened in the last two seconds, did I dream the previous conversation?!? 32 minutes later I found myself at the checkout till with £46 of food including: pastrami, olives, chorizo, wine, flowers, flower-pattern plastic bowls, spinach and the aforementioned necessary items. I beseech you to just write a list of what you NEED and for gods sake wait till you've eaten before you go food shopping.

I used to find this problem would occur when going to the pub after country walks with my parents. Being too young to have an interest in beer (oh how the mighty have fallen) I would sit sulkily watching my father take sips of his drink and calculating the approximate volume drunk per sip and by calculating the sips per minute I could then estimate our rough departure time (I wanted to play sodding computer games at home alright!) You should have seen my face as another round was bought, at least they would have the courtesy to buy me off with a packet of McCoys; not only would they keep me detained from my busy childhood schedule of sweets, computer games and tantrums for an extra half an hour but the bastards would eat half the packet of crisps they had bought me! Of course now this problem has been solved in the same way that an increasing number of my problems seemed to be solved, with a lovely, refreshing pint.

P.S. Similar childhood stories are welcomed below.

Nature and Scumbags

I just got in from walking the dog round my local park; there were several youths of about 17 years playing aggressively on the newy installed equipment (a zipwire and everything!) -irritated parents (and one disgruntled grammar school student) watched them. The young lads were engaged in jejune and pathetic attempts of masculinity and bids to woo their scantily clad (wouldn't your father be proud) female companions; so selfishly absorbed in their pursuits that they failed even to notice the awkwardness of young children who wanted to play but obviously were so intimidated that they remained in the boring corner of the playground. Not that it was just the children who seemed intimidated, parents seemed reluctant to say anything and I confess I did not say anything as it seemed so pointless. A volley of poorly expressed verbal abuse and the inevitable 'Do you want beef?' or 'Would you like to fight?' as expressed in english. Of course this would provide just another chance to prove their masculinity (how terribly insecure, who gives a shit!) and my nervous response of 'No I don't want a fight I just want you to stop embarassing my generation with your thuggish and cringeworthy behaviour and let these poor children enjoy an idylic sunday evening playing in the sunshine'.

Despite this incident I did manage to enjoy a pleasant evening in the park and I have to conclude that if A Levels go Pete Tong then I have no qualms about absconding to Spain to pick grapes and enjoy the sunshine- the best things in life really are free.