Greekings from the Lum side,
I've never really got M &Ms marketing. They portray them as lovable little characters in appealing colours that we are meant to scoff down like a big cruel giant, consuming families and whole communities of them , and feel good about it.
There is a wise cracking one, full of street marts ( an undoubted pain in the arse) and one that I'll call a retard (that you wouldn't ask to babysit). That got me thinking M&M stood for Mice and Men, these things are like the original Lennie and George, perhaps George strangled a Smartie at some point and they are on the run from the confectionery Interpol. The idea of that might well be true, but actually the letters stand for the founders of Hersheys, Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, I'm guessing Bruce is the dim one.
This pointless preamble is really to introduce my visit to M&M World. In the heart of London's Theatre Land, its like 4 floors of chocolatey whores in there. These candy characters are selling everything, I expected to see a manky curtain in the corner where Sue, the green one, who I think is a girl, though her name is the only thing that gives that away, will be waiting, fag in hand, cheap shoes and the promise of a happy ending.
The place was heaving with people, lapping it up, buying key-rings, plates, t-shirts, there was even a pair of sunglasses with diamantes on the side which would normally say D&G, but instead said M&M, and they wanted £120 for them. Who would buy them, Bertie Bassets trashy daughter Britney?
There were big dispensers so you could fill up a little polythene bag of the same tasting sweety, granted, you could have a chocolate one, or a peanut one, but that still adds up to a variety of 2 sweeties. The dispensers had a lever on them that you pulled with your bag placed underneath to catch a portion. I thought, not unreasonably in my mind, that each pull would measure out a standard weight, but no, they just keep coming, spewing out like the Wizard of Oz's vomit. I discretely discarded that bulging bag and gingerly selected another group of jolly little candy people. It was £5, and I felt as if I'd been coshed and had my pockets rifled.
At the back, deep down on the lowest floor, there was an area behind a glass wall, where laboured a white coated teenager in what was hilariously called the colour lab or something, like there coming up with new colours, or is it an M&M farm, where the young M&Ms are born and raised in batteries ready for the big day they get selected and poured into a bag and onto a weighing scale.
One exciting piece of news I'm sure you'll be delighted for me to share with you. In this Olympic year, I managed to set my own personal best in a discipline that I have a particular aptitude for.
It happened a good few Saturdays ago, I had offered to take the train down to Tunbridge Wells to help a friend with some heavy lifting when they moved flat. I'm never going to set any PBs for heavy lifting, so that's not it.
Afterwards, we had a few beers, taking the opportunity to enjoy a few out side the city walls for a change. Again, not a personal best, it was a fairly conservative session with me begging my leave at around 22:30. This in theory gave me plenty of time for the 55 minute journey to London, getting me there in time for the last tubes home. So, imagine my delight and surprise to be shaken awake by the guard at 01:30 about 4 miles from where I had started, in Tonbridge, Kent. I had slept for 3 hours and covered some 80 miles sound asleep on the train. Take into account the 1 hour the train was stationary at Charing Cross in London, where the guard was obviously not as diligent in his duties and it all adds up to a new personal record.
I thought I had actually been carried on the train all the way to Hastings on the Kent coast and back, but an interrogation of my phones wherabouts history, showed that was not the case and I had to stick to 80 miles.
Normally, being deposited at a foreign train station in the early hours would mean no more than a search for the bus stop and to enter the night bus lottery, but I was off the night bus radar and a taxi would have been hundreds....probably. I decided to walk about Tonbridge and think about what I could do, if worst comes to worst, just walking for 5 hours will mean the first train of the morning will be due. Trouble was, Tonbridge isn't that big, and after the 3 or 4th time up and down the high street I was frankly bored and I imagined I was attracting the kind of attention John Rambo would get if he ambled into town.
It was about the coldest night of the year and about -10 degrees, I was actually beginning to get a bit anxious. I remembered that educational film from when I was a kid about how to recognise the onset of hypothermia. Sitting down and falling asleep if I remember is not a good idea. In the end, with my feet going numb and breathing getting painful, I decided to hail the one cab in town and find a hotel. The Premier Inn, £65 for the night, for about 4 hours sleep. So there you go, 80 miles and £65, I think pips the mileage from Glasgow to Perth in what was my previous best. I'm quite happy to retire now, from my sleeping on trains career.
Lang May Yer Lum Reek.
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| Hey George, Did you bury the body good? |
There is a wise cracking one, full of street marts ( an undoubted pain in the arse) and one that I'll call a retard (that you wouldn't ask to babysit). That got me thinking M&M stood for Mice and Men, these things are like the original Lennie and George, perhaps George strangled a Smartie at some point and they are on the run from the confectionery Interpol. The idea of that might well be true, but actually the letters stand for the founders of Hersheys, Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, I'm guessing Bruce is the dim one.
This pointless preamble is really to introduce my visit to M&M World. In the heart of London's Theatre Land, its like 4 floors of chocolatey whores in there. These candy characters are selling everything, I expected to see a manky curtain in the corner where Sue, the green one, who I think is a girl, though her name is the only thing that gives that away, will be waiting, fag in hand, cheap shoes and the promise of a happy ending.
The place was heaving with people, lapping it up, buying key-rings, plates, t-shirts, there was even a pair of sunglasses with diamantes on the side which would normally say D&G, but instead said M&M, and they wanted £120 for them. Who would buy them, Bertie Bassets trashy daughter Britney?
There were big dispensers so you could fill up a little polythene bag of the same tasting sweety, granted, you could have a chocolate one, or a peanut one, but that still adds up to a variety of 2 sweeties. The dispensers had a lever on them that you pulled with your bag placed underneath to catch a portion. I thought, not unreasonably in my mind, that each pull would measure out a standard weight, but no, they just keep coming, spewing out like the Wizard of Oz's vomit. I discretely discarded that bulging bag and gingerly selected another group of jolly little candy people. It was £5, and I felt as if I'd been coshed and had my pockets rifled.
At the back, deep down on the lowest floor, there was an area behind a glass wall, where laboured a white coated teenager in what was hilariously called the colour lab or something, like there coming up with new colours, or is it an M&M farm, where the young M&Ms are born and raised in batteries ready for the big day they get selected and poured into a bag and onto a weighing scale.
One exciting piece of news I'm sure you'll be delighted for me to share with you. In this Olympic year, I managed to set my own personal best in a discipline that I have a particular aptitude for.
It happened a good few Saturdays ago, I had offered to take the train down to Tunbridge Wells to help a friend with some heavy lifting when they moved flat. I'm never going to set any PBs for heavy lifting, so that's not it.
Afterwards, we had a few beers, taking the opportunity to enjoy a few out side the city walls for a change. Again, not a personal best, it was a fairly conservative session with me begging my leave at around 22:30. This in theory gave me plenty of time for the 55 minute journey to London, getting me there in time for the last tubes home. So, imagine my delight and surprise to be shaken awake by the guard at 01:30 about 4 miles from where I had started, in Tonbridge, Kent. I had slept for 3 hours and covered some 80 miles sound asleep on the train. Take into account the 1 hour the train was stationary at Charing Cross in London, where the guard was obviously not as diligent in his duties and it all adds up to a new personal record.
I thought I had actually been carried on the train all the way to Hastings on the Kent coast and back, but an interrogation of my phones wherabouts history, showed that was not the case and I had to stick to 80 miles.
Normally, being deposited at a foreign train station in the early hours would mean no more than a search for the bus stop and to enter the night bus lottery, but I was off the night bus radar and a taxi would have been hundreds....probably. I decided to walk about Tonbridge and think about what I could do, if worst comes to worst, just walking for 5 hours will mean the first train of the morning will be due. Trouble was, Tonbridge isn't that big, and after the 3 or 4th time up and down the high street I was frankly bored and I imagined I was attracting the kind of attention John Rambo would get if he ambled into town.
It was about the coldest night of the year and about -10 degrees, I was actually beginning to get a bit anxious. I remembered that educational film from when I was a kid about how to recognise the onset of hypothermia. Sitting down and falling asleep if I remember is not a good idea. In the end, with my feet going numb and breathing getting painful, I decided to hail the one cab in town and find a hotel. The Premier Inn, £65 for the night, for about 4 hours sleep. So there you go, 80 miles and £65, I think pips the mileage from Glasgow to Perth in what was my previous best. I'm quite happy to retire now, from my sleeping on trains career.
Lang May Yer Lum Reek.
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