More Sheese, Vicar?

In which a correspondent is nauseated

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:32 am on December 7th, 2008.
Filed under: Dear Diary.

Regular readers might remember that a few days back, in a rant about vegan food, I mentioned a vegan cheese substitute product I came across called “Sheese”, a kind of oil-water-soya paste packed to the gunnels with artificial flavouring to make it vaguely cheeselike.

Well, since I wrote that, I’ve had an email from someone I know in Glasgow, who, coincidentally, has encountered some of the ingredients that go into the stuff. They came into contact with one of their “brown cardboard barrows”, in which the “flavouring” mentioned in the ingredients list arrives at the factory. Their advice: avoid it.

Because the manufacturers, Bute Island Foods, are on an island,* they can’t get their supplies delivered straight to their factory, and have to pick it up from a Glasgow warehouse, where my source was visiting and happened to bump into it And it is, on their account, foul. It comes, I’m told, in sealed barrows, but despite the seal they smell so awful that my source couldn’t bear to be near them; they made him/her gag and want to throw up.

They said:

It’s like cheese powder that you buy in a packet to make cheese sauce, but I swear the smell was awful and the barrows were sealed. Honestly, I can’t even begin to tell you how bad the smell was.

So, there you go. Me, I’m going to stay eating real, low-on-the-additives food – and that includes real milk and real cheese, never mind how much “cow torture” I’m told it causes.

* well, obviously…

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Keyword noise: Bute, Bute Island Food, disgusting, food, foul, inedible, nausea, Rothesay, Scotland, sheese, soya, vegan, vegetarian

We love enthusiatic amateurs

In which there’s work to do, to take our minds off disgusting art

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:39 pm on December 12th, 2006.
Filed under: Artistic, The Office.

Today, the boss spent the afternoon over at our warehouse. It’s fifty miles away, so it does at least keep him well out of our hair, with no risk of him suddenly popping down to find me and Big Dave playing poker,* or The Good-Looking One From Accounts skiving behind my desk.**

Right after he left to come back over to Head Office, one of the warehouse staff phoned:

“Your boss was on my computer for ages fiddling about with stuff. And now it doesn’t work.”

Oh, hurrah. That was the rest of the afternoon gone, then – working out just what he’d done. I realised what he’d been trying to do; and had to work back from there to sort out what he actually did.

Ah, well. To change the subject: have you ever been browsing the web and thought: why the hell would anyone want to do that? Tonight I came across: spermcube.*** It’s all in the name of art, apparently. If you want to know more reasons why it’s a bad idea – other than just “ewww” – read this.

* for our collection of spare computer case screws. I reckon I’m about 15% up on him at the moment.

** if she kneels next to my chair, and the door is shut, you can’t see her through the window.

*** link via Rod Begbie, who I remember being a prolific Sinisterine back in the day

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Keyword noise: art, Big Dave, breakage, colleagues, computing, disgusting, IT, IT support, office, work

Resentment will always pass

In which we remember someone we wish we could forget

Written by Forest Pines; published at 8:43 pm on October 4th, 2006.
Filed under: Dear Diary.

Wandering around the web this morning, I came across something written by a special friend. In it, she said, she always listens to how people describe their exes. After all, most relationships end eventually; if they’re bitching about their ex now, they’ll be saying it about their current partner sooner or later.*

She wasn’t talking about me, but it did set me thinking. Most of my exes are lovely people who I’m still on good terms with,** but there is one who I have many many horror stories about, and I often tell them to people.

She was someone I lived with for several years, who – in my opinion – took horrible advantage of me when we split up. She moved as far as our spare bedroom, and stayed there for another 18 months until she finally moved in with her next long-term partner. During that time, one thing I hadn’t realised earlier became painfully apparent: she couldn’t look after herself. She might be able to dress and feed herself, but she couldn’t clean, couldn’t keep tidy, couldn’t handle money.

I tried to resist the instinct to still look after her, but it was something I had to do to avoid living in a stinking pit of filth myself. I had to wash up the half-eaten meals that did make it out of her bedroom, so I still had some crockery to use myself. I had to clear her laundry piles out of the bathroom before the cat pissed on them (if possible). I had to clear rotting, half-used pints of milk out of the fridge, and mouldy half-used packets of food from the cupboards. Moreover, I had to pay the rent, in the months when she had spent all her paycheque on clothes, CDs and nights out. I didn’t realise, then, that the household bills in her name were going by unpaid; although I did see the debt collection letters she refused to open piling up, and answered the phone to debt collectors looking for her.

The horror stories are all from this period. The times I would deliberately play loud music I knew she hated to drown out the noise of her having sex. The rumours I heard about her shagging random strangers whilst working her shift. The plates of food that sat, growing mould, for six months or more, as I waited to see if she really would ever do any cleaning herself. I tell them to people because, told properly, they become good pub-conversation anecdotes; but they don’t really express how difficult our lives were then, and what a disgusting state she lived in.

It’s been five years nearly since I last saw her, since that period ended, and I’m only just starting to be able to tell that story in terms other than pub-friendly anecdote. This, in fact, is a first attempt. I pity her, more than anything. Her off-the-rails period was triggered by the death of her mother, and it clearly left her unable to cope. I’m still angry about the money she left owing me,*** and I’ll probably always be angry about that. At heart, though, I pity her inability to look after herself properly.

* I can’t link to it, because it’s not there any more.

** and I’m not just saying that because several are regular readers

*** it built up into four figures over that 18-month period

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Keyword noise: disgusting, ex-partner, exes, hygiene, relationships