Bopping with the Quo

Have you ever had mornings when it's all just too much effort? When you just don't want to be wherever you've got to go, and gravity keeps dragging you back into bed? When even opening your eyes is a bit beyond you?

Yeah, me too. There used to be coffee, but I'm decaf now. But there is another answer - Status Quo.

It's easy, you just switch on the CD player, and wait. And soon, you'll be starting to move (on a particularly bad day, this may just be a gentle nodding of the head). Once the music really kicks in, you'll be bopping through your early morning routine. You won't be able to help yourself - it even works on somebody like me, with no natural rhythm. (Careful with the kettle, though, bad things can happen!)

And when you leave the house, you'll have a little extra spring in your step. Guaranteed.

Parklife

Here's something that always makes me smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIEsmGzo2UE&ob=av2e

DVD Box Sets

Do you remember the old days, when the best you could get was a video cassette with three selected episodes from a TV series? Remember how it always left you wanting more? Or remember the even older days, when you’d see something once, and then hope that maybe they’d repeat it one day?

Not any more. Now you can have every single episode of a series at your fingertips. And extras, probably. Maybe even out-takes. What more could a mildly obsessive TV watcher ask for?

And if you’re prepared to exercise a bit of patience, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune, either. From a combination of charity shops and second hand shops, I managed to get the first four series of ‘The X Files’ for about £20. That’s one episode every day for three months, at a cost of 25p per episode.

I’m also expanding my appreciation of 90s cult TV, by giving in to a friend’s recommendation and taking a look at ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. It’s good stuff – always trust your friends. ‘Buffy’ has a lot to answer for, though – specifically, those endless shelves of ‘Dark Romance’ books in every bookshop you come across. (Dark Romance? I suppose that ‘Bitey Boyfriends’ wouldn’t sound cool enough?)

Also, DVD box sets are great for a nostalgia trip. For years, I couldn’t even get anybody to believe that there used to be a kids programme called ‘Mary, Mungo and Midge’, about a girl, her dog and her mouse. Now, I can sit them down and show them a couple of episodes.

Although, to be honest, that’s not on DVD, it’s on a video I got for 25p in a charity shop. That’s another great thing about DVDs – thanks to them, you can now pick up videos for next to nothing!

Making Food

The foods I'm thinking about are bread and yoghurt. I have to admit, I do mine the easy way, with a bread maker and a yoghurt maker. They can be made with an oven and a thermos flask, but I suspect that this would require more skill and judgment than I've got, food-wise.

The big plus is that you know what's going into your food. When I started making bread I followed the instructions to the letter, and the amount of salt and sugar I was using was incredible. By cutting it way down, my bread was tasting much better, and was also way healthier.

And then, having mastered the basics, you can start to tinker. Examples - for a healthier yoghurt I use lactose-free milk, and if I want it thicker I put more yoghurt in the mix. So, healthier food, made to your own specifications. Couldn't be better!

And then there are the add-on benefits. There really isn't much to beat the smell of baking breads. And there's something oddly soothing about stirring a pan of milk. Partly the motion, partly the smell, partly the need to slow down while you're doing it. Just don't let it boil over though - there's nothing restful about that!

MP3 Player Shuffle Function

You know, when you’re listening to the radio, the buzz you get when they play a much-loved song that you haven’t heard for ages? Well, this is the 21^st Century version of that. Seriously, I think that this could be technology’s finest moment.

Just think about it – I have an 8GB MP3 player, which holds about 2000 songs. With an average song length of 3 ½ minutes, it would take almost 5 solid days to listen to them back to back. And mine is quite a small player by modern standards… so it’s inevitable that there are going to be songs on there that you haven’t heard for ages, possibly even years.

But how can you even go looking for a song, when you don’t know which song you really want to hear? Simple – let the technology bring it to you. It’s uncanny, with the amount of choice available, how often the player will pick exactly the song that you want, or need, to hear at that moment.

And there’s nothing quite like a favourite song, heard unexpectedly, to bring back a flood of happy memories, from the time when it became important to you. You can’t get that if you actively search out a song – but you can if you switch on your MP3 player, activate the shuffle function, and then just wait for a happy accident to happen.

Little Victories

I'll explain what brought this one to mind - I've owned, for about a year, a raincoat that folds up into its' own pocket, and today, for the first time ever, I managed to get it folded into that pocket. And sad though it may be, it gave me a small feeling of triumph.

So that's what I'm talking about - the small, pointless, meaningless things that nonetheless make you feel good when you achieve them. When I was a kid I was never able to master the yo-yo, but when I tried it again as an adult, I finally got it!

Life can be full of these - fooling someone with a magic trick, getting your sandwich ingredients just right, finding the perfect birthday card for a friend...

Like I said, small and pointless little things - they won't change your life, but they may make you smile for a bit.

Fat Free Raspberry Iced Smoothie Lollies

I don’t think I really need to say any more, do I?