Noozleland: Donna and the bus…

I met a friend from work on Friday. She works in our Dublin office and I haven’t seen her for over 18 months. She was in our London office as she has taken a new job and was coming to meet some people here before going back.
So we are chatting and catching up when she throws in the old so where you in Wellington in December on a bus going towards town?
She was on the same bus but wasn’t sure it was me as we hadn’t seen each other in ages and didn’t expect to see me there.
Weird how small the worl is!

Somebody doesn’t like Quorn

Reading The Guardian on my way home from work I noticed an advert for ‘QuornComplaints.com‘. I eat a lot of Quorn so I thought I’d go and have a look. The advertiser was Center for Science in the Public Interest. Although they don’t seem to be very scientific or impartial.

Quorn states on it’s packaging that it is ?mushroom in origin,? and ?made from a small, unassuming member of the mushroom family.?
Mushrooms are fungus so you would assume Quorn is a fungus of some sort? right? Okay well not the ‘Center for Science in the Public Interest’
They state on their site “Bah! It is made from a fungus found in a British dirt sample, and grown in huge fermentation vats. The fungus that makes up Quorn, Fusarium venenatum, has nothing to do with mushrooms. It is about as closely related to mushrooms as an octopus is related to humans.”

So let’s see then this group of ‘scientists’ don’t think that two types of fungus are similar then? I think I’ll stop reading there and just put them in the too much time and an axe to grind camp of websites then.

Weird transitory friendships

It’s weird how someone can be such a complete part of your life one day and then suddenly they aren’t. It was brought home by a conversation with a very old friend of mine recently and I’ve been thinking about it. Moping you might say.
Once there was not a time when he was not included in my plans, current and future. Not for any reason like being a partner or anything. Just because he was a very good friend and it just seemed right he was part of my life.
Neither of us seem to have noticed when it was that we suddenly made plans without each other. Maybe it wasn’t sudden. Neither of us seem sure. All we know is that when we were younger we thought we would always be a part of each others lives. Now we have grown up we seem not to be.
I know friendship is transitory but sometimes I forget.

I love the internet

I forgot I needed a visa for my trip to Australia later this month so I zipped along to the Australian Immigration website for details of electronic visas. They let you apply online and within 2 minutes I have a visa 🙂 Fab or what? It’s also environmentally friendly.
“Your ETA has been recorded on our database. It will be available for checking by your airline at check-in and for Australian immigration authorities on your arrival in Australia. You do not need a visa label in your passport.”

Australia Day Festivities

Saturday Night I went to a friends house in Balham for a party. It was a very antipodean affair aimed at celebrating Australia Day.
It took me back to the heady days of student parties. Lots of empty beer cans and plastic glasses littering every available flat surface. Vodka Jelly welcome wagons and lots and lots of drunken people.
I arrived with another antipodean friend from Melbourne who is going out home next week. He’ll be meeting up with me in Sydney for Mardi Gras and then I’ll be travelling to Melbourne to see him for a few days.
I figure I should see a bit more of Oz this time around.
They had hired a DJ at this party too – very swish affair it was 😉 Well actually Dave the DJ came as part of a package – his girlfriend was one of the party people! I’ve decided I like Dave though – he was using an iBook and iTunes mixing with CD’s and other cool stuff. He brought his own lighting and crab laser. So I may be asking him to come to mine in a fortnight – he can hook my cube up with his iBook and have lots of fun 😉