Wanted: two drinking buds for dad, $14/hour

by Iva Skoch on

The poor performance of the dollar can have its advantages. Especially if you get paid in pounds…and beer. Backpackers looking for a seasonal job opportunity, listen up.

The son of an elderly British widower who could not find a drinking buddy has provided him with two new companions after advertising the post at a rate of £7 ($14) an hour, plus expenses, The Guardian reports. When he moved from a flat to a care home 20 miles from his old stomping ground of Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire, Jack Hammond, 88, a radar technician during the second world war, struggled to find someone suitable to have a beer with.

As a last resort his son Mike, 56, put a notice in the post office asking for someone with similar interests or background to accompany his dad, a former charge engineer at a Lancashire power station, to the Compass Inn in Winsor, twice a week for a couple of hours.

He was so inundated with offers – including one from a 16-year-old – that he had to interview candidates by phone before asking a shortlist of three to join him and Jack for a trial drink.

I hope my kids look out for me like this.

The English breakfast: Good enough to die for?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Ask English travelers what they miss most about home, and before they mention mom or dad or friends or their bed, they’ll probably say a classic English breakfast. Over at the Times Online, Giles Coren explains how– delicious though it may be– the 3,000 calorie monster breakfast currently offered by one restaurant chain is slowly killing those audacious enough to consume it.

The English breakfast is often seen as England’s national dish, and it’s a major point of pride among most of the English I’ve spoken with. As Coren puts it: “The French have their croissant and coffee, the Greeks their sheep cheese and olives, but our morning plateful is honest and shiny and pink. Just like we are.”

So how do you squeeze 3,000 calories into a breakfast? Easy. Load the plate with meat, eggs, baked beans, bread, and lots of grease. Keep going. No, still not enough. There you go.

From the article: “The current £7.25 “Olympic” breakfast at Little Chef comprises: ‘two rashers of crisp backbacon, British outdoor-reared pork sausage, two griddled eggs, whole-cup mushrooms, crispy sauté potatoes, fresh griddled tomato, Heinz baked beans and toasted or fried extra-thick bloomer bread.'”

So you eat that for breakfast Monday morning and you’re hungry again, when, Thursday night?

Once again, life imitates The Onion.

Two men found guilty of harassing Dave the dolphin

by Iva Skoch on

There are drunks and there are drunks. Some people drink themselves into depression, others get silly. Some apparently like to harass dolphins.

Two British men, Michael Jukes, 27, and Daniel Buck, 26, were today found guilty of harassing a dolphin when they frolicked in the sea with it after leaving a party in the early hours of the morning, The Guardian reports. Specifically, they were found guilty of intentionally or recklessly disturbing a wild animal under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Dover magistrates court heard how the pair had “touched and stroked” Dave the dolphin as they went for a late-night swim at Sandgate, near Folkestone, Kent, in June last year. The bottlenose dolphin was a popular tourist attraction for visitors to the Kent coast, but a lack of recent sightings has led to speculation that Dave has since died.

A witness to the incident on June 9 last year heard one of the men shout: “People pay hundreds of pounds to do this in Florida, and I’m doing it in Folkestone.”

People must “pay” when they do this in the UK, too, as those chaps learned the hard way. They were ordered to complete 120 hours of work in the community within the next 12 months, and pay £350 ($700) each in costs.







Halal Inn — Britain’s first Islamic pub. Huh?

by Abha Malpani on

Britain’s first Islamic pub “Halal Inn” recently opened its doors in Oldham. It’s being marketed as a “pub” that offers everything any pub would, except alcohol. So…urrr…it’s a cafe, no? A cafe where you can play pool, listen to Islamic music, eat Asian food. So it’s a cafe targeted to the Muslim population in Oldham.

Fine. It’s great to have hangouts that adhere to certain cultural/religious rules, it offers diversity — I’m happy that people are building places catering to specific lifestyles.

Non-Muslims may not understand how significant this place may be for Muslims, but why can’t they market it like that then? I mean: it’s not a pub (so don’t call it one); it’s not for non-Muslim people — if it was an open establishment welcoming everyone who wants to go out and not drink, they would not call it “Halal Inn”; the article says that although everyone is welcome, the crowd is predominantly male.

So to rephrase: Britain has opened its first Islamic cafe for Muslim men. Good for them. But why is this place being glorified to deceive? It’s not a novel concept, in fact, it’s not even a clear concept.

Instead of trying to modernize and open a clearly Islamic idea by tagging it an “pub”, they would have been better off (and more successful) if they made it into a full-fledged cultural cafe, perhaps more “Arab” style than Muslim. Sheesha, Arabic music, ethnic decor, typical Islamic food, Arabic tea from a big mud pot, etc; then it would have a concept, serve the Muslim population, and be of cultural interest to a much wider audience.