Poison

[cosmolinguist]

"You're making me poison myself!"

I was unperturbed by his allegation. "Oh, you'll be fine."

I myself had been looking forward to this since I first heard about it Monday. I'd even (unintentionally) psyched myself up for it by reading Don't Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock, the Super Size Me guy.

The reason for my delight, and Andrew's dread, was the same. Vegetables. We were on our way to the Greenhouse, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant.

By the time everyone found the place, there were fifteen or so of us. A couple of them were new to me; in one case I only realzed this when one of the new people said I'm irrtum's doppelgänger. "But she has different glasses. And she's cuter!" I said.

belladonnalin and I had massive difficulties figuring out what to order: so many things looked so tantalizing. Andrew was having massive difficulties for the opposite reason. He quickly surveyed the entire menu and declared that he was getting a garlic baguette and chips.

He ended up with vegan fish as well as the chips, which really impressed me. I was glad to see him trying something new, even if it was only because his hunger had won out over his distrust of interesting food. "Food shouldn't be interesting!" he kept insisting. "Food is fuel." I ignored him, and ate my chili and rice with much gusto (also with a pint of bitter, which belladonnalin and sablin1975 ordered for me; they chose well). He ate most of the "fish," but gave up with just enough left that the half-dozen or so of us who wanted to try it could do so.

demiurgician and irrtum told us about their day in Eccles, with its cheap sweets, oddly-named tram stops, and the resulting complicated system of hand signals to indicate degrees of Scottishness. It's even better than it sounds, I promise.

After this we piled on a bus and made it to belladonnalin's local just in time to be let in. The karaoke soon commenced with Andrew singing "Monster Mash" in his Vivian Stanshall voice, which was great. And I sang "I'm the Urban Spaceman"! Not particularly well, but I had a great time doing it.

As I was singing an old drunk guy (they're all old drunk guys in this pub, except for the few drunk women) with no teeth apparently told Andrew, who was standing there watching me, "This must be your influence on her; she's too young for this!" Andrew explained that it was his influence, but he was only 26. The guy refused to believe this and asked to see his driver's license, but of course he doesn't have one of those.

When Andrew came back to sing his next song, I heard this guy say something to his mates that involved the words "twenty-six" in it. Then I realized that this made me just the victim of an old lech. Figures.

Later I did "Parklife" with irrtum; she did all the difficult, talking-very-fast bits, and I did "Parklife!" and the chorus. That was fun; I wonder if I can talk her into doing it again.

Comments

[ivana-duboise.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Now I must listen to The Bonzo Dog Band.

[xianrex.livejournal.com]

O my gourd. I know where I'm eating when I'm in That England.

Never seen so many sausages and HAGGIS.

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

This comment has nothing to do with your post :-)

Of course the shooting by the cops of the dude in the subway over there has made the news big time over here. Which leads to my question.

British police carry guns now? I didn't think they carried them. Enlighten me.

[cosmolinguist]

They don't usually. I'm actually a terrible person to ask (don't you have any real Britishes you could put this question to? :-)) but I gather that some in London are sometimes armed. I got this impression by hearing once that some of them aren't even happy about this.

Yesterday I mentioned to Andrew that, as horrible as this is, it's still true that anyone getting shot is a bigger news story here than it is the in the states, because obviously it's so much rarer (more rare?). He said that's becoming less true. That's a shame.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

British police are only armed under special circumstances. Unfortunately, the definition of 'special circumstances' keeps getting slightly broader. Having said that, though, I've still never seen an armed policeman in this country, only in forn parts, and that's something I'm very happy about.

[irrtum.livejournal.com]

She will definitely do it again, though she will have to practise high-speed glottal stops in order to improve her mockney.

[cosmolinguist]

See, I told you that was the hard part!

[riddley-walker.livejournal.com]

advertising has really done it's job if yr boy thinks vegitables are poisonous!
yikes.

[cosmolinguist]

He calls everything he doesn't like "poison," and he's never liked vegetables. Except, oddly, sprouts. He told me yesterday sprouts are better than mushrooms because mushrooms pretend to be meat--by having the texture and appearance of meat, sometimes--and at least with sprouts you know you're getting vegetable.

[riddley-walker.livejournal.com]

ah, ok i get it. i kinda like taht, "argh, it's poison!"
heh.
he likes sprouts? huh. well you can always frow yr own sprouts and throw all kinds of beans and seeds in there. the tuff i grow has broccoli, some beans, alfalfa, raddish and other things i can't remember in it.

he likes his vegitables honest and direct huh?
i'm suprised he got the faux meat then. i mostly stay away from that stuff because i kinda like my food honest too. curries aqre good cuz they don't pretend to be anything else and there is the whole manly factor of ordering them very hot and then seeing who can actually eat them.
;D
he's not one of those guys who thinks eating veggies is "feminine" is he? he doesn't seem the type to fall for that kind of psych conditioning from what you said but still, that stuff is pretty pervasive these days.
i was reading this article about how grade school age boys here in the US now tend to think of doing well in school as "feminine" and what the effects of that are.
scary.
anyways, i'm tangenting again.
does he take vitamins? that might keep him from jaundice, scurvy and the gout

[cosmolinguist]

he likes his vegitables honest and direct huh?

Yeah, and actually I do too, and indeed said so here in Andrew's rendition of events. I'm perfectly happy to let the vegetables retain their true nature.

Besides, I told Andrew the first thing I learned from eating my vegan friends' cooking: if it sounds too good to be true, vegan, you don't ask what's in it. :-)

I love curry, but he doesn't go near it, because he won't eat anything spicy and of course doesn't approve of vegetables, so. He took me to what he said is the best curryhouse in the world or something and got fried chicken and chips there, the little heathen. Oh, and lots of poppadoms.

Happily, though, my Andrew is not the type to dislike (or like) anything because he should; he could care less about what's expected of him, regarding everything good or bad to precisely the degree that he's decided it should be liked or disliked, and he continues to be baffled by things like his siblings' insistence that t-shirts can be improved by the brand name on them or that there's any reason to spend £200 on a handbag.

I hadn't heard anything formally stating that "good in school" now equals "feminine," but it doesn't surprise me. One of my high school teachers pointed out that girls tend to do better overall, not because they're smarter but because they're more organized, which is really a large part of what it really takes to get good grades.

And I don't have to worry about him not getting scurvy; his uncle has written books about how most people need a lot more vitamin C than they're getting; it can do a lot more for you than keep you from dying, if you take enough.

[riddley-walker.livejournal.com]

yeah i usually like my food honest too, so i understood. i don't even like processed foods or premade packaged stuff. that's where i get picky about things.

the only reason for a 200pound handbag is if it was made incredebly well, by magic elves, and lasts for at least ten generations.
you know? i don't mind paying for real quality, but often the brand names people recognize aren't about quality at all.
branding is so weird.
someties i think my whole country is existing in this sparkling dreamworld superimposed on what in reality is just piles of crap and trash, and it makes me a bit sad and worried.
i try not to dwell on it though.

[sablin1975.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm useful for something.Nice to see a girl who appreciates bitter.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh yes; I love it. My family, inasmuch as they understand this at all, wonder how I ended up so freakish. Perhaps it's good I ended up in England after all, then!