What's wrong with this advert?

Something about this advert has upset some right-wing US bloggers; so much so that Dunkin Donuts has been forced to drop the advert.

The woman in the picture is US celebrity chef and she has been accused of "mainstreaming violence" and supporting terrorists. Can you guess what it is??

It's her scarf!! Arrrggghhh!!! It's just a scarf! Apparently, because it looks like a traditional Arab keffiyeh; she must be supporting muslim extremists. Because, you know, keffiyeh = terrorist.

The crazy thing is, Dunkin Donuts gave in to these ridiculous people. Truly, I despair.

New Shoes....

I got some shoes from Terra Plana a few days ago and have been wearing them every day. Their shoes are really comfortable; plus there was £10 off for bringing in an old pair of shoes.

For once, I was practical and bought a pair that I can walk around in all day.

I'm looking forward to tramping around Barcelona in these honeys. There are lots of little design quirks, eg the soles, which are just so cool.
I like it!

Creme Brulee

When we were in Paris, Mr K-E and I loved to eat Creme Brulee. It's a kind of egg custard pudding. So when I saw it on the Ocado (Waitrose's online shop) website, we ordered it as part of our normal monthly shop.



Verdict: Not bad, but we couldn't get that crispy top in our grill. I think you need the powerful professional kitchen grills or a blowtorch.

Breaking and Entering

I have taken some photos but the camera battery is dead and we can't find the charger...ggrrr!! So we can't download the photos. Of course, Mr K-E and I are blaming each other. No photos for the time being, I'm afraid. Not that they are that exciting to be honest.

On Friday night I met Mr K-E met on the South Bank and listened to some free jazz, then had dinner at an Italian restaurant, Strada. By the time we got home it nearly eleven, and I had just shut the front door when I heard knocking outside. It was our neighbour from the basement flat, poor thing, she had just come back from Paris and she had left her house keys there. Her flatmate was away, so she was really stuck.

Luckily, we had a key for her back gate. Mr K-E sprang to action with his DIY tools, he put on his gloves, smashed a window pane with his hammer, carefully picked out the glass, reached his hand in and managed to open her door. What a hero!

Madonna

I'm watching Madonna on TV, it's her performance from the BBC's Big Weekend and my feelings are mixed. I have been a Madonna fan since I was 10 and spent many, many hours dancing to La Isla Bonita when I was a teenager.

The show was going really well; then she decides to play the guitar. It's obvious that she's not a natural musician. She has to concentrate so hard that she is practically standing still throughout the whole song. Her singing which is dodgy at the best of times goes completely tuneless ...

Madonna, please - leave the guitars to guitarists. Stick to the jaw-dropping dance routines, the edgy clothes, the fantastic staging...that's why we love you.

The Economy Bites Back

Ok, so it was inevitable that the credit crunch would affect my work sooner or later. Sigh.

Today one of our biggest clients pulled the plug on our biggest development. 13 people had been working flat out on it, so it has created a big hole in our workload. To be honest, it's not such a big deal because there's more than enough work to go around. We heard the news at 11:30 and by 3pm, two other team leaders had called my Boss to ask if they could have his available resource. Hahahaha, we aren't people in megacorp, we are "resource".

It's just a shame that it won't launch as we have done so much work on it. Market conditions, investors getting nervous, etc etc....

Fish and Rice

Home food, comfort food, soul food: I grew up eating fish and rice and it's one of my all-time favourite meals.

Salmon Teriyaki with homemade teriyake sauce.

Easy peasy teriyaki sauce: 50% soy sauce, 50% sake, a teaspoon or so of sugar (depends on how much sauce you are making) plus one lump of ginger. Heat it up and you are ready to go.

Summer Dresses

The weather has been hot hot hot and I have decided that this will be the summer of the dress. No more will black trousers rule my wardrobe!

From left:

A loose Marimekko dress which ties at the back. I really like this because it's loose, I can just throw it on for work, the colour and print is pretty and the styling is unusual. I'm a big fan of Marimekko; the Finnish design is just so cool. (Mr K-E's comment was: Looks like Margaret Thatcher! It's a "kind" of style, extreme yet weirdly conservative. My response: Who wears dresses around here, you or me?)

Roland Mouret inspired dress from FullCircle, another one of my favourite labels.

The polka-dot dress is from Eucalyptus. I have a few dresses from Eucalyptus and they seem to fit me really well. This one isn't for work though, too much exposure, if you know what I mean.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my Mummy who is in Brunei. I hope you had a nice day. Sorry I couldn't speak to you because I was out shopping :) while Mr K-E was doing DIY.

Remember this? Hahahaha!



(Sorry everyone, private joke between me and my mother. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there.)

Ratings?

Am I the most unobservant person ever, or is there now a new "ratings" bar at the end of all my posts? What is this all about? Arrgghhh. How do I get rid of it?

Hiding Stuff

Today I came home from work to find a card pushed through the letterbox. Hooray, I thought, my Amazon stuff has arrived, I'll go to the post office on Saturday morning to pick it up.

On closer inspection, I was aghast to find that instead of the normal "this package is too large for your letterbox, please collect from the post office" message; the box for "...this package has been left..." had been ticked. The delivery man had filled out in handwriting - in the white box in the garden next to the brown bin.

Aaarrgghh, I ran into the garden and checked in the box and whew, it was was there. BUT...

• where does this delivery man think we are? This is South London, where someone could have seen him hide the package and then run off with it 5 minutes later. Hey, I don't even want to speak to my neighbours, let alone trust them.
• that white box was rubbish that the council hasn't collected. Aarrgghh, what if the council had collected today..with my books and CD in it?

Oh well, I am probably making a fuss about nothing; everything did arrive safely after all. I put on the Justin Timberlake album straightaway. Aaahh, Justin makes everything better.

Noooooo!

I can't believe that Ken Livingstone could lose to that comedy politician Boris Johnson. The Evening Standard has declared Boris the winner but the votes are still being counted. Who are these people voting for Boris? The common theory is that it's the "doughnut" vote, i.e. the people living outside the city centre. Oh, and a small enclave in Kensington and Chelsea.

My support for Ken can be summed in one word : buses.

It's all those bastard car drivers, I'm telling you.