October 2006

3 Oct. Strip 50.
Ketchup.
I’ve mentioned squeezy ketchup bottles before. I think they should be made compulsory in all diners. I can’t cope with the tiny glass Heinz bottles you get in the States. Once, In a Denny’s in Lubbock, I’d reached a state of Zen with the ketchup coming out of the bottle at a tectonic speed, when a passing waitress lost patience with me, snatched the bottle out of my hand, shook it, and then blopped all over my food with the contents. I can’t remember what I was eating, as it was 50% ketchup by the time she’d finished.

9 Oct. Strip 55.
Boots.
This equates to Walgreen or Osco in the States, a chain of drug stores that has suffered from mission creep and now sells everything else as well. It’s rationalised on healthcare in the last ten years, but it used to sell ironmongery, records and even ran a lending library at one point. It’s a real drugs firm too, and until it ran out a few years ago it held the patent to Aspirin.

23 Oct. Strip 67.
Dressing up.
Remember ‘Are You Being Served?’, the sitcom which is inexplicably popular in the US? (What is it with crap British sitcoms and the States anyway - I find it hard to believe that Hyacinth Bucket is a cult figure over there.) Anyway, every second episode, Grace Broth-ers would hold a special themed event like ‘Bavarian Week’ and everyone would have to dress up in costume. And John Inman’s costume would always out-camp everyone else’s and scare Mrs Slocombe’s pussy. This is my tribute to that apparently innocent period of British TV.

27 Oct. Strip 71.
Marmite.
A thick yeasty sludge sold as a spread to go on toast or in sandwiches. The adverts for the stuff make a great deal of the fact that you either love it or hate it. Wrong. You either hate it or you’re lying.

30 Oct. Strip 73.
Halloween
Halloween doesn’t exist in Britain in the same way that it does in the States. Woolworths tries its best to sell us the flammable nylon costumes and the grab bags of trick or treat candy but we just cant get into the whole business of festooning the house with garlands of pumpkins for most of October. We certainly haven’t got the hang of ‘Trick or Treat’. And long may that continue.