Random Quote #81

So many books, so little time.

Frank Zappa

Z Is For Zombies

OK so this post is slightly cheating given that I have already covered this in a Random Thought at the beginning of the year...

But I wanted to elaborate on that post.

So I discovered that in the UK there is a place you can go to... Zombie Boot Camp. Where you are trained up to fight zombies... so you will be prepared when the zombie apocalypse comes.



In my random thought I said that there were two probable scenarios if I took part in this.

1. We would discover that I was incredibly good at it. At the end of the day I would emerge triumphant from the mass of bodies. My kills marked in blood on my face kind of like Predator on Predator Vs Alien. Or done in a tally up my arm or something.

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And it would be concluded that I would have been fantastic in the armed forces.

Which would not be good given that the zombies are actually actors and you are using paintball guns, so I would have battered them to death - I'd probably get carted away by the police for that.



Or scenario number 2:

2. Everybody would have a fantastically brilliant day. They'd all really enjoy themselves. Oh how the paint would fly!
Then after it was all over everyone would be gathered together for a debrief.

"Is everyone here?" *speaker looks around* "Where's Chippy? Has anyone seen Chippy?"

They'd all start hunting high and low for me. wondering if I'd been injured or taken ill.

"Shush everyone. Can you hear that? What is it?"

And then they would find me in a cupboard curled up in the foetal position whimpering about zombies coming to get me.


So these two scenarios end with me either in prison or psychologically scarred... so maybe I should give it a miss.


P.S. My local paintball centre actually has someone who dresses up as Predator - he has a more powerful gun and shoots you if he sees you move.

Y is For You've Got Mail & Yes Man

I was just going to go with You've Got Mail for this post... but then I thought I'd include Yes Man too... for those who are not fans of rom coms.

You've Got Mail is my favourite rom com. The only word I can ever think to describe it is lovely. Plain and simple. Basically two people fall in love online... but it turns out they can't stand each other in real life... but they don't realise that they know each other online... if that makes sense.

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You've Got Mail is a remake of The Shop Around The Corner - a modernisation as email is used instead of handwritten letters.

Some people will argue until they are blue in the face that The Shop Around The Corner is better than You've Got Mail... but I prefer the latter.

Now I was going to post a clip of my favourite part of You've Got Mail... however that part is right at the end of the film and if you haven't seen it... well I don't want to spoil it for you. So here is the trailer to wet your appetite.

So on to Yes Man. It is a very funny film. It is Jim Carrey back to his best (Fun With Dick And Jane was... crap to put it bluntly).

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The story is very simple - a guy starts saying 'yes' to everything. And Zooey Deschanel is in it as well! I think Zooey is adorable and I love her in New Girl.

Now I was going to post a clip of the Red Bull scene here... but it would seem that you can't embed the YouTube clips that are both decent and in English. There were embeddable, decent clips in French, Italian, Czech and Spanish. And there were embeddable, poor quality clips in English. But I couldn't find any that were good quality and in English... that I could actually post here.

So you'll have to make do with the trailer...

Only one more A To Z post to go until the 2012 challenge is complete...

X Is For X-ray

I have never broken a bone *knocks on wood*

But I have had three sets of x-rays taken in the past... all of my head.

not actually my x-ray - source

The first time I had my head x-rayed was when I was about nine years old. I don't actually remember having the x-rays taken.

A kid accidentally head butted me in the playground and I ended up going to hospital with concussion. Don't really remember a lot about it until I woke up in hospital a few hours later.

But I was told that there were x-rays involved.

The second set of x-rays was when I was about fourteen I think - at the dentist. At the time the dental x-rays involved a machine, in a separate room, that moved around your head... whilst the dentist hid behind the door... which I found quite funny.

The most recent  x-rays were also at the dentist... I'm not sure why - my dentist just said it was to check that everything was alright out of sight.

But the dental x-ray machine has come a long way since I was fourteen (*coughs* twelve years ago) and now it is a machine that is in the same room that you have your check up in. It was attached to the light contraption thing and they just line up with your jaw... but they still hide behind the door :)

W Is For Water

I am one of those slightly odd people who don't like the taste of water.

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Well that isn't strictly true. I will drink bottled water... but I don't like tap water.

The only way that I will drink tap water is if it has been boiled and then had a teabag and some milk stuck in it.

Or if I add some sort of squash type stuff to it like this...

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Who else is odd like me?

V Is For Vampire

I was a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer so I was over the whole vampire thing long before Twilight and True Blood.

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In fact *drops voice to a whisper* I have never seen nor read any of the Twilight films/books... or True Blood series/books.

And I feel that I have no interest in reading them. I think the reason I have no interest in reading the Twilight series is because everybody else has read them... or is reading them... or is talking about them.

So I hate to p*ss off the Twilight fans but Robert Pattinson will always be Cedric Diggory to me.

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But I have come across this video... which I have to say is the nearest I have got to Twilight... and I like it.

Fans of Edward might want to look away now.

U Is For Umbrella

I hate windy weather.

I don't mind the rain, I don't mind the snow. But I hate it when it is windy.

Wind is the arch nemesis of the umbrella... and I've been through quite a few.

Numerous black umbrellas, a purple one and one with butterflies all over it - all lost to the wind. All ripped to shreds. You think you have found one that can withstand it. You feel the wind trying to prise it out of your grasp. The wind blows it inside out. But it seems to withstand all that is thrown at it. But it is not to be. Something snaps in the end.

There are only three that haven't succumbed to the wind.

One such umbrella was black with big multi-coloured raindrops on it. I put it in my bag when I was going to an airshow just in case (I always like to be prepared) and I've never seen it since. It must have fallen out of my bag or something.

Then there was a the black glittery umbrella... don't know where it went. It must have realised it's fate and done a runner before the wind could get it.

My current umbrella is this one:

It's a grey and off white damask pattern and the reason it has survived is because it rarely gets used. I now walk home from work and go prepared with waterproof coat and trousers in bag.

So the umbrella is only there for brief windless showers during the summer months.

So who knows when my umbrella and the wind will next do battle!

Random Quote #80

This is Sparta!

King Leonidas, 300 - (2006)

T Is For Tea

I like to drink tea. Apart from the occasional mocha I don't like to drink coffee. And even then I prefer it when it is more chocolate then coffee.

I do like the smell of coffee though... but anyway back to tea.

I've tried various types of tea...

• Green - not overly keen. I can drink the 'lighter' version of it... but I have to drink it while it is really hot. The second it starts to go cold it becomes too bitter - I will literally gag. I've also tried flavoured green teas - jasmine, apple (I swear the jasmine made my hay fever worse).
• White - it's OK... better than trying to drink green anyway
• Vanilla Chai tea - unusual to start with when you are used to everyday tea but not unpleasant in flavour.
• Chocolate Puerh tea - again unusual but not bad - I was drawn to the 'chocolate' bit
• Peppermint - this tea doesn't seem to taste of anything to me - it has an after taste. Like I had just brushed my teeth. But this is another tea when I have to drink it really hot.
• Lemon and Ginger - this was another one of those where it doesn't seem to taste of anything but has an after taste

But I always come back to black tea - milk no sugar.

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My uncle can drink his tea practically straight out of the kettle - I swear he has an asbestos throat.

I find that I can only drink tea when it is that hot when I'm ill... don't know why.

It drives me up the wall though when people ask me how I have my tea. I say no sugar to which their response is 'because you're sweet enough'.

I've got a keyring that says 'I only look sweet and innocent' on it - maybe I should show that to them in future?

S Is For Spam

And I'm not talking about the tinned meat... although I do like that sort of Spam... it's very nice in sandwiches. I could probably write an entire post about eating Spam...

But that's not what I was talking about. Spam - the crap that infiltrates your emails and tries to plant itself on your blog comments.

I'd never really had spam on my blog comments... until I changed the settings for the A To Z Challenge so that anyone could comment. Now I know some of the regulars are probably thinking that you haven't seen any spam. That's because it doesn't actually appear on my blog... I just get emails telling me that a comment was added... but when you look for it it has gone.

I wouldn't have know that it was spam if I hadn't have copied and pasted the comment to Google and translated it... it was in Russian.

The junk folder on my emails is usually full of online casino invitations, messages from banks and the occasional pharmaceutical related email (I'm female therefore I don't have much use for that sort of thing ;) ).

The messages from banks usually tell me that my online account is going to be closed unless I click this dodgy link and give them all my personal information. In a lot of these cases I don't even have an account with that particular bank.

I'm not trying to help these cretins (I can't believe I spelt that right first time!) but it would help if they could spell - posibile? Imformation? You seriously believe that a real bank wouldn't spell check these things?

But occasionally you get some real gems that make you laugh. I've had the odd one or two telling me about some long lost estranged relative who had died... and I'm the first living relation he has been able to find... but the inheritance is all tied up in probate and things... and I just have to give them a huge chunk of my hard earned cash and they can unlock it... and then I'll never hear from them again!

But the funniest one I've ever received is one that I actually mentioned in this random thought. I actually laughed out loud at it. Back in November 2011 I received an email from the financial adviser of...

Wait for it...

Colonel Gaddafi's son!

Apparently he had fled his country and was having trouble getting at the cash he's hidden away in a secret account and was I mug enough to give him money... I'd be made a partner and get loads of money out of it... I think not somehow.

I laugh about these things but I feel sorry for the people who are taken in by some of the more convincing ones.

Has anyone else had any entertaining spam?

R Is For Re-he-he-he-he-he-heal-ly

OK this is a very very lame title for a post written purely so that I could talk about one of my favourite Scrubs characters - Dr Cox.

Without him and The Janitor Scrubs wouldn't have been as much of a success.


(And you wouldn't have thought that it would be hard to find a photo of just Dr Cox and The Janitor but you'd be wrong.)


Anyway it is at about this time that the uber Scrubs fans have got the joke in the title and moved on. And everyone else is thinking 'huh?'


Dr Cox is known for sometimes ridiculously over elongating his words. There is one episode where they are going to have a talent competition and Dr Cox says that all he can do is turn a two syllable word in to an eight syllable word... and then proceeds to do just that with the word 'really' - as I have attempted to do in the title (it took me ages to try and work out how many 'hes' I needed for that!)


So now the lame ass link to the letter 'R' is out of the way on to the best bit - Dr Cox quotes. I narrowed down my favourite Dr Cox moments down to just five otherwise you'd all be here forever!

And I know what some of you are thinking... why didn't she just put this post as 'S For Scrubs' tomorrow? Well I've already got another post lined up for tomorrow... and I re-he-he-he-he-he-heal-ly wanted to do a post about some of Dr Cox's finest moments.

Oh... you weren't thinking that? Cos you'd forgotten about the tenuous link because you were laughing so much... OK forget I said anything - just go back to watching Dr Cox videos :)

Q Is For QI

I like QI.

QI is a British panel show where you get points for being quite interesting (which is what QI stands for).

It is hosted by Stephen Fry... always has Alan Davies as a guest... and has at least three other celebrity guests... usually comedians or comedy actors of some type (but not always).

I think the basic premise of QI is that everything you think you know is b*llocks. Stephen asks a question, someone comes out with the obvious answer which is wrong and they lose points for it. The obvious answer is not always the correct one (occasionally it is though).

And they have unusual buzzers!

Some people don't like QI and I think that's because they don't understand it. To me QI is not about who wins or how you score points... it is funny and interesting.

It entertains you whilst at the same time it teaches you something... without you consciously knowing it most of the time.

I love this clip about who had the first driving licence...

And here are a couple more to keep you entertained (and maybe you'll learn something from them as well).

P Is For Pirate

A blatant excuse to put up photos of Johnny Depp :)

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And as though I don't spoil you enough here are 25 of Captain Jack Sparrow's quotes (I didn't count them so if it turns out there are more or less than 25 don't blame me... and clearly you weren't enjoying the video enough if you were counting).

P.S. Next year Johnny Depp will be fifty - clearly he sold his soul to the devil at some point... cos he doesn't look nearly fifty... maybe I'm just biased...

O Is For Ocean

Danny Ocean that is. As played by George Clooney.

Okay so I'm clutching at straws now. I could not think of anything to post about. So I headed over to my DVD collection to see what I had beginning with 'O'.

I only have four films beginning with O... and they all star George Clooney.

They are Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen and One Fine Day.

So I thought I'd share the trailer's for the Ocean's trilogy... even if you don't like George Clooney there must be someone in the star studded cast that you like... Brad Pitt? Matt Damon?

Random Thought #79

My cheques have baby farm animals on them b*tch.

Jess

Season 1, Episode 11 - Jess & Julia, New Girl (2012)

N Is For Nielsen

On Saturday I posted a clip from Robin Hood: Men In Tights and then I turn the TV on and lo and behold there's another Mel Brooks film on - Dracula: Dead And Loving It - starring Leslie Nielsen.

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I think it's a great film and Nielsen is brilliant as Dracula.

 Enjoy!

M Is For Manly Men!

So the first thing that came to mind when I thought of the letter 'M' was men.

Which quickly became manly men.

Examples Of Manly Men

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However the phrase 'manly men' also brought something else to mind...

Altogether now - 'We're men. Manly men!'

L Is For Losing Interest

Don't worry I'm not losing interest in the A To Z Challenge... it's nothing like that.

I watch a lot of TV... probably too much... but sometimes I find myself losing interest with certain series.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with said series, if you want to watch it then you've clearly got a longer attention span than me.

It seemed to start about three years ago with the UK soap Hollyoaks. I used to be an avid viewer... but I suddenly found myself thinking of watching Hollyoaks as a chore. Which surely TV shouldn't be about... unless you are a TV critic... but then you are probably getting paid... or exposure... or something.

Anyway we're not supposed to be discussing TV critics so back to me.

So I stopped watching Hollyoaks (although I did have to look it up when I saw that Warren was mysteriously back from the dead).

Warren! - source

Then I stopped watching House round about the end of season 5... I don't know why. I missed a couple of episodes and then that was that. Although again I had to look it up, when I heard that House was in prison.

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Then I completely lost interest in Desperate Housewives half way through the final series - and I've seen nor heard anything that has inspired me to look it up.

And now I'm on the very edge of losing interest in Dexter and CSI:NY... although I'm not 100% sure about Dexter. I can't get the channel that Dexter is shown on in the UK... so I usually rent it when it comes out on DVD. So I might give it another chance and rent the first disc of season 5... we'll have to see.

I didn't used to be like this - I made it through all seven series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer... even though the last series wasn't brilliant.

In other news I am still loving New Girl, Mad Men, The Mentalist, Once Upon A Time... the list goes on!

But the question is how long will I love them before my attention is taken elsewhere?

K Is For Keep On Running

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will already know that my mind works in mysterious ways.

When other people think of the letter 'K' they think of... well I don't know what they think of... they are other people after all and not me. But this was the first thing that sprang to my mind when I thought of 'K'.

Keep On Running - Spencer Davis Group

Enjoy!

J Is For Jump (For My Love)

I swear to you this is the first thing that came to mind when I thought of the letter 'J'.

This is the scene from Love Actually when the Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) is dancing to Jump (For My Love).

If it doesn't at least make you smile... well... you are probably not a Hugh Grant fan... or you are just a misery!!! ;)

And watch to end - the words 'dignity at all times' spring to mind!

I Is For Ice Cream

I would like to declare that my favourite flavour of ice cream is MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP!

Nom nom nom!

My second favourite would probably have to be vanilla... but it has to be really good quality vanilla ice cream.

So what's your favourite flavour of ice cream? :)

Random Quote #78

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

Katharine Hepburn

H Is For Hairy Hat Man

I could actually read before I started school (just simple stuff - I wasn't reading Shakespeare or anything like that) but I will always remember the characters they used to teach us from Letterland.

There was Annie Apple and Bouncy Ben and a whole load of other characters... 24 other characters to be exact!

But the one I remember the most vividly was Hairy Hat Man (who is now known as Harry Hat Man).

I think it was just his name - he had one of the more unusual names I'll admit.

And looking at Amazon it looks as though the old books are still available... where he is still Hairy... not Harry.

Source - Amazon.co.uk

Just thought I'd share the first thing that came to mind when I thought of the letter 'H'. Which I might add almost got posted yesterday... until I remembered that we skip Sundays in the A To Z Challenge (except the first one this year). If I hadn't have remembered before yesterday I would probably have got to the 26th April and been unable to understand why I had fallen short of the 30th!

And in other news I've come across another blogfest. Don't panic... it's not taking place until May. Alex J Cavanagh is hosting the First Loves Blogfest on 14th May.

All you have to do is:

"First Loves Blogfest - on May 14, post your first loves – first movie, first song/band, first book, and first person. Four loves, one blogfest!"

To go and sign up click here.

G Is For Ghostbusters

I love the film Ghostbusters - it never gets old no matter how many times I watch it. The sequel is good but the first one is the best.

There is supposedly a third one being made soon... and I can't help but think that it will be all special effects and just not quite as good as the original... or as good as the fans will expect it to be. But we can but hope.

When I was growing up I was a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan (they were Hero Turtles in the UK). But my second favourite was The Real Ghostbusters... and the Ghostbusters films (the cartoon was called The Real Ghostbusters because there was another cartoon called The Ghostbusters that looked kind of Scooby Doo like).

I had the toys... I had the books... and even now I have a Ghostbusters t-shirt... and the special edition double box set of the films that also includes two episodes from The Real Ghostbusters. And I have the games for the PS3 and the Nintendo DS - although the PS3 version is better I must admit.

(I also have Ninja Turtles t-shirt and DVD of the cartoon - the original cartoon I might add... from the 80s)

And it has a cool theme tune!

(This is the trailer for the 15th anniversary release of the DVD... and video - you don't see many of those nowadays. Of course Ghostbusters is 28 years old this year...)

F Is For Fantastic French Food

Well I have to admit I struggled with the letter 'F' - my first thought was... well it was not a good word let's put it that way. And I didn't think I could do a post on that!

My second thought was Fireman Sam... which was (and I think still is) a UK kids TV show. And again I didn't think I could write a post on that (we are going from one extreme to the other - one's an expletive, the other's a children's TV character!).

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 So just as I was about to start pulling my hair out my brain tapped me on the shoulder (metaphorically you understand) and pointed out the TV to me and what programme I was watching.

So my post for the letter F is about food... but not just any food. The programme I've become obsessed with is The Little Paris Kitchen: Cooking With Rachel Khoo.

Rachel Khoo (who I discovered via Betty Bee - check out her interview with Rachel here) was born in the UK and moved to Paris to study at Le Cordon Bleu. And in the programme she shows you how to cook French food simply (sometimes with a twist) in the smallest restaurant in Paris - her apartment!!!

And with every episode I watch I end up more or less drooling over the food (and it doesn't seem to matter what she cooks I still drool over it). I've always loved Italian and Chinese food but maybe I need to add French food to the list.

She has a cookbook out that has over a hundred recipes in it and she also has a blog.

And I've tracked down a video to make you drool! (it's on the BBC iplayer at the moment - details of when it is on TV can be found here - don't know if it is available outside UK though)

Nom, nom, nom!

E Is For Elephant

Just a short post today.

Is it just me or are the pink elephants on Dumbo creepy?

D Is For Dolly Cool

Now my regular readers may or may not remember that wwwwaaaaayyyyyy back in November I posted that I had been to the Whitby Goth Weekend.

And anyone who read that post may or may not remember me mentioning that I had bought some jewellery from Dolly Cool that I would blog about before the end of the year. *blushes*

So I'm a couple of months (four to be exact!) late on that deadline - but better late than never.

So I bought some jewellery from Dolly Cool... and her jewellery is very cool. She has a blog and an online shop.

I bought two necklaces from her which I will now show you:

I wore the second necklace to the Christmas party for where I work and I got quite a few compliments on it - it is quite unusual... and very cool.

Dolly Cool makes a lot of different types of jewellery so do go and have a look at her shop via the link above.

C Is For Call Of Duty

Well I've at least got the attention of the video game playing blog readers out there.

Now I'll be honest here the first thing that came in to my head when I thought of the letter C was 'crap'. Then after about twenty seconds of my brain chanting 'crap'at me I finally had a second thought beginning with C - Call Of Duty - which is a first person shooter game available on various consoles.

Yes I am female and I play Call Of Duty... mainly Modern Warfare 3 but I also like Black Ops and the other Call Of Duty games as well.

Now for those of you who don't play Call Of Duty and are still actually reading I'll give you some abbreviations for some of the more recent popular Call Of Duty games (so to all the COD fans reading this - don't get your knickers in a twist if I miss some of the games out - OK?).

So we've already had our first abbreviation - COD.

COD = Call Of Duty
COD MW = Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
COD MW2 = Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
COD MW3 = Do I really need to spell out what this one means given the two previous ones? OK I'll tell you anyway - Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
CODBLOPS = Call Of Duty: Black Ops

Technically Black Ops should be further up the list... but I had a pattern going with the Modern Warfares!

So now non Call Of Duty players will understand some of what the Call Of Duty players are talking about.

And now for the COD players who have been sat there bored rigid with me explaining abbreviations that they already knew. Are there any of you still there?

Well for sitting through all that I have a video for you - Lego CODBLOPS Zombies! (CODBLOPS Zombies is an actual video game for the non COD players out there)

I think this video is great - and it really captures some of the things you encounter when playing online.

Random Quote #77

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers.

Dave Barry

B Is For Butterfly

It always cheers me up when I see a butterfly... flutter by.

I've had three random quotes in the past that have included butterflies that I thought I'd reshare with you:


Butterflies are not insects, they are self-propelled flowers.

Robert A. Heinlein


 If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.

Unknown


 Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly.

Unknown


 Now I tried to find a decent video of some pretty butterflies but all I seemed to get was music videos... but then I found this video - so now you can make your own butterflies. They just won't flutter by... not withoutsome help anyway.

A Is For Apple... How Original!

So here we are the first day of the Blogging From A To Z Challenge. It only seems like two minutes that I was doing this last year! For more information visit the A To Z Challenge blog.

This year I have decided to just write about what randomly comes in to my head when I think of each letter.

And with ‘A’ it was apples… not totally original I know, seen as apple is usually the world used to start teaching us the alphabet at school. My second thought was ants. But I’ve no clue what to write about when it comes to ants – apart from I like how they march along in Tom & Jerry cartoons.

skip ahead to 5.31 to see the ants... or just watch the whole cartoon - it's up to you.

Anyway back to apples – I thought I’d tell you about a little peculiarity in my family (to be honest there are a lot of peculiarities in my family!)

I do not like to eat apples in their natural state. But I will eat them in pie… or crumble… or sauce. I’ll eat apple flavoured sweets and cakes. And I’ll even drink apple juice. But I don’t like eating fresh, non processed apples.

Now my brother is the opposite of me. He doesn’t like apple pie or anything like that (although I think he will drink the juice). But he is perfectly happy to eat the aforementioned natural, non processed apples.

There is something similar with my brother and sister and lemons. My sister will not eat anything lemon flavoured whatsoever except for Lemon Meringue Pie. My brother is the exact opposite and won’t eat lemon meringue but will eat anything else vaguely lemon flavoured.

And my brother and I are the same with strawberries just with a slight difference. Both me and my brother will eat strawberry jam and strawberry flavoured things… but neither of us will eat normal strawberries.

(So for my legions of admirers don’t send me strawberries be they chocolate coated or otherwise. Because I won’t eat them. You can send chocolate though ;) )