Why don't you WAIT till I get off the tube before barging on??

I am so sick of people barging on past me when I get off the tube.

What is wrong with you people??

It's not only common courtesy, it actually makes life a lot easier for yourself, because a few weeks a go I stopped caring and now barge straight back. So if you behave like that, you may get a bruised shoulder for a few days.

I don't care who you are: bloody well wait till I get off, especially when I'm the ONLY person getting off.

So you may have received an e-mail many years ago, back when e-mail began, about the infamous Neiman-Marcus Cookie recipe.

The story goes that a woman went into Neiman Marcus and loved the cookies so much that she asked for recipe, costing her only two fifty. Later, when looking at her visa statement, she realises she's been charged $250, rather than the $2.50 she assumed (perhaps check the amount before you sign or enter your pin, lady?), and after not getting any love or refund from Neiman Marcus Customer Services, she proceeded to distribute the recipe globally via e-mail to get back at them.

Urban myth? Perhaps. Who cares?

Tonight, after receiving the e-mail for the upteenth time (you know, from your friends who start forwarding all the chain e-mails you saw years ago, and think it's current), I finally decided to try the recipe out.

And well, they are terrific! We only made half recipe, and it was enough for about 50 cookies, depending on how big you make them of course.

Don't use a roasting dish, cause they don't harden up propely - cookie tray all the way. Hey, that rhymes.

Also, pregnant women love them!

NEIMAN-MARCUS COOKIES

The below quantities make approx 112 cookies.

Recipe may be halved.

INGREDIENTS

butter	2 cups	500 ml
chocolate chips	680 g	24 oz
flour	4 cups	1000 ml
brown sugar	2 cups	500 ml
bicarbonate soda	2 tsp	10 ml
salt	1 tsp	5 ml
sugar	2 cups	500 ml
cadbury chocolate, grated	500g	18 oz
blended oatmeal	5 cups	1250 ml
eggs, beaten	4
baking powder	2 tsp	10 ml
vanilla essence	2 tsp	10 ml
nuts, chopped ( optional )	3 cups	375 ml

METHOD

• Measure oatmeal, blend in a blender to a fine powder
• Cream the butter and both sugars
• Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and bicarbonate soda
• Pre-heat oven to 180°c
• Add chocolate chips, grated chocolate, and nuts
• Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet
• Bake for 10 minutes

Tropic Thunder

I liked this movie. It was quite funny, and a clever story (let's face it, it would be hard to come up with something original these days).

All-star cast making fun of themselves and Hollywood in general.

And it's been said before, but I did like Tom Cruise's role in the film, and him taking it is kind of a step up from all the Scientology slack he's been copping lately.

Enjoyable, over-the-top and a little bit violent.

Eden Lake

What a terrible, awful movie this is.

I'm not talking about direction, lighting, soundtrack, acting etc. - technically it was fine. But it's an awful story, and I don't like these types of movies that are simply violent for the sake of being violent.

"Don't watch those types of films then" would be the obvious response to that.

Having said that, if all movies had a hollywood ending (and let's face it, perhaps a few too many do), then it would get quite mundane.

Still, if you want some cringe-worthy movie time, settle down for some squinting, turn-away, 'oh god that's awful' Eden Lake.

Negotiate to get a good deal on your mobile contract - or anything!

If you're on a contract with your mobile phone provider, and your contract is coming up to renewal, it's most likely you can get a good bargain - just haggle with your network provider.

I'm saving £300 a year at the moment, and have been for the last 3 years. More on that later.

How it works: You'll often get a text telling you that you're eligible for a great handset upgrade. What that really means is: 'please stay with us, we need your business, and we'll give you a free phone if you keep paying us a monthly rate'.

Fine... if you want a new phone, the only way may be to sign on again for another 12 or 18 months. But don't accept the first deal they throw at you. The competition is fierce, and they know it.

To get a better deal, ring up your provider and simply TELL them you want a better deal. Make sure you get put through to their 'disconnections' department. Those guys have much more power, and will be able to offer you a much better deal. They're actually better known as 'customer retention' department if you talk to anyone working there. It's their job to keep you at almost any cost.

Sometimes you have to threaten to leave. Say it's too expensive and you're going to go back on to pay as you go (prepay), or a competitor. This is a bluff on your part.

They may then offer you a better deal, or even go to get your PUK code (cancellation code so you can go to another provider). But chances are they'll come back with an even better 'one last chance' deal before giving you a PUK code.

Each year, I have rung up my provider (O2) and asked for a better deal. Each time, I have ended up with a £30 per month deal (200 texts + 200 minutes) for only £5 a month. This saves me £300 per year. I mean, that is a lot of money!

The only down-side to my deal is that I don't get a new handset out of it. I don't care about getting a new phone though. My phone texts, calls, can take pictures (albeit not fantastic), play radio, play MP3s... That's all I need. I don't need the new technology.

But if you want the handset, you can keep trying for more... bundles of free texts, more minutes per month, discount on handset, shorter contract. Try everything! If it comes down to the wire and you're not sure, just say you'll think about it some more and end the call. You can always call up the next day, and perhaps get another operator who will be more generous, or try a different tactic.

The thing is, most people have a mobile phone now. So the mobile service providers have to fight to KEEP business, as opposed to getting NEW business.

Be courteous, coy, and a bit cheeky. Don't be aggressive, but do quote other providers deals and ask them to to better. It might help for you to do a bit of quick research and see what the other companies so you can use this as 'ammunition' to get a better deal.

The money I save monthly on my mobile bill pays for my Internet for the whole year, with £60 to spare on top of that!

Happy bargaining. Remember, if you don't ask, you don't get.

Family Guy still on form

Did anyone see the latest Family Guy? We loved it.

Still on form then, as we are well into the 6th season, and Wikipedia showing more episodes being released in the next few weeks.

Also heard that Cleveland is getting his own spin-off show (The Cleveland Show), which will replace King of the Hill. This leaves Fox's Sunday night line-up with 3 out of 4 shows created by Seth MacFarlane, the odd one out being The Simpsons.

American Dad still being produced, but the last few episodes I feel have not been up to scratch.

And don't get me started on Futurama's 'Bender's Game' 3-episodes-in-1 snore-fest. Man oh man, I nearly fell asleep during that.

I'm building a chicken house

Welcome winter! The rain, the darkness, the cold. But i have a lot of time on my hands and an overactive imagination. So I have decided to build a chicken house. I looked online for some ready made ones, but they are all over £350!! It's a chicken for goodness sake. And those things aren't even luxury chicken hotels with full en suite jacuzzi baths. They are basically wooden boxes.
So the first thing i need is some wood for the frame. Now for some reason the demented mutants who owned the house before me decided to decorate the kitchen ceiling in semi mock tudor style. Of course that means artex patterns with dodgy bits of black painted wood strips pinned with 3000 rusty nails, half hammered in at no useful angle and with no apparent thought or purpose. The whole thing looks like i'd built it. After a ocuple of gin and tonics. (Let's face it, that would be the only reason something like that would come into fruition. It always seems like a good idea at the time.) I've tried to get the wood strips off, but they wont budge. Time to bring in the husband!

Mouse catching adventures

I recently had a major mouse problem. Little swines were getting in every room, behinf the walls, in the cupboards, it was awful. Now i'm a live and let live kind of girl until something starts stealing my cookies then its every hormone raging chocoholic for themsleves. Of course the first thing to try is the nice fluffy humae traps that wont kill them. You have to o this first in order to feel justified when you have to throw them out with the rubbish and get the ones that work a little more viciously, but a lot more effectively. I built several of my own. Laughable attempts. So i spent fifteen quid on some ready made ones. They sucked. At one point the mice were walking up the trap as far as they could without getting caught and just giving up on on the rest  of the bait. Clever. I didnt catch a single mouse.
Next stop is of course poison. This will kill some of them, but get slow working poison. These mice will eat a little bit to test it first. The problem with this method is that you will end up with large amounts of decomposing mouse bodies everywhere you cant reach them. A smell to accompany your dinner parties it is not.
The next step is of course the nastier side of mouse traps. The ones that snap their necks or glue them to the floor and leave them to die of starvation if you dont get home from the pub in time to shovel them to death or put them in the freezer. Horrible, but sometimes necessary. After all, you didnt invite them, they pee everywhere and eat your stuff. (Please dont try and bargain with the mice by leaving out tesco own brand cookies and trying to hide your taset the difference double chocolate chips - they arent fooled and it merely provides them with the means to mock you.) The trouble with the snapper traps is that they work on a couple and then they get wise to it or learn where to step so they ca lick the bait off, but still not set off the trap.
My most successful mouse genocide day was when i caught four in one day, two in the same trap. I honestly believe you could be a vegan tree hugger, but after being outsmarted by them for three weeks you'll be shouting for joy and puttig their heads on little cocktail stick spikes to warn off other. I managed to corner one in between the open bathroom door and the wall. Trouble was, as soon as i tried to close the bathroom door to catch it, it tried to run through the gap and i got its jugular caught. Ah, the site of a twitching mouse with blood spurting from its neck all over my walls. That'll give you nightmares. Then i caught one in a glue trap and put it in the freezer. (There has been much office debating on this, but i am a firm believer that hyperthermia sends you to sleep first and is a painless way to go. I could be wrong.) The last two happened with a snap trap. Two mice were stading carefully in the trap licking off the peanut butter and no doubt snickering to themselves about how clever they are for outsmarting those stupid humans. Until a well aimed throw with the remote control sent them off to mouse heaven.
Once you have gotten rid of the mice, clean everything thoroughly with bleach and put peepermint oil everywhere. They hate the stuff.
Happy mousing!

Babies have flat heads these days

My friend has recently had a baby. I'm pregnant so I was over there the other day learning how to change a nappy. She was telling me how she was worried about the shape of the child's head. Sounds like a slightly over paranoid motherly reaction, but apparently not. The health visitor said that yes, indeed the baby's head is flat at the back, but its because now days we tell people to lay the baby to sleep on its back. This means that where we have rounded heads, all our children will have flat heads. Its perfectly normal and nothing to worry about. My concern is, how will this affect the hat industry. Will hat shapes change? Will vintage hats become obsolete? Too early to tell probably..

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