Funny Friday

Being a My Kitchen Rules fan, today's Funny Friday theme is . . . chefs.

Caution: risque content included.

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They told me straight away at the interview that I wasn't suitable for the job.

"You haven't had any experience in the restaurant business as a Sous Chef, have you?" they said.

"How could you tell?" I asked.

"Well," came the reply, "the eagle feathers and warpaint."

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"So Jamie, why are you called The Naked Chef?"

"One day I turned up at the studio without any cloves"

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I just bought a complete set of chef's knives for two hundred quid.

But I'm confused, which one is the best for piercing the film on my microwaveable meal?

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I brought a date to my place last night.

I said, "I hope you like Indian food."

Surprised, she giggled, "Bit of a chef, are we?"

"No," I replied, "I got a take away last night and it's still under the bed."

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I've just seen a show called 'Iron Chef' on the TV schedules.

Not having seen it, I can only assume it's a fly-on-the-wall documentary about women.

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There was a man with a restaurant near a construction site. The construction workers usually had their lunches in there, their favourite meal being beef soup.

But one day the chef ran out of meat, and in his panicked state he ran out the door in the hope of finding a ride to town. After noticing that there were no vehicles nearby he sadly started walking back to his restaurant. Upon nearing the construction site he saw a sheep tied up on a pole nearby. He was so happy that he untied the sheep and proceeded to his place.

At lunchtime the construction workers walked in and ordered their favorite soup.

During the meal, the guys started exclaiming in delight that the soup tasted extremely good, and asked what was the reason for that. The chef was pleased and proceeded to tell them about his predicament and how he used mutton from the sheep instead. Everyone stopped eating with a dazed look on their faces.

The chef asked, "What's the matter boys, did I screw up the cooking?"

"No." replied the foreman of the construction team, "you cooked up the screwing."

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Corn Corner:

Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!

I'm not surprised, sir, our chef used to be a tailor.

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Many years ago, a baker's assistant called Richard the Pourer, whose job it was to pour the dough mixture in the making of sausage rolls, noted that he was running low on one of the necessary spices, sent his apprentice to the store to buy more.

Unfortunately, upon arriving at the shop the young man realised that he had forgotten the name of the ingredient. All he could do was to tell the shopkeeper that it was: "For Richard the Pourer, for batter for wurst."

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20 Perfectly Timed Photographs

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of photojournalism. He is also renowned for the concept of The Decisive Moment, that there is a moment that is the best for taking a photograph that takes into account subject matter and composition. 

In his words:

"Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. ... The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.” 

On another occasion: 

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression." 

The photographs below illustrate that philosophy. They are from a website called “Perfectly Timed Photographs”, where members of the public can send photographs taken at just the right moment. It’s at 

http://perfectlytimedphotos.com/

More perfectly timed pics in future posts.

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People: Giotto

Italian painter and architect Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337) is today regarded as the first of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. According to his biographer, Giorgio Vasari(1511-1574), Giotto deserted the then prevalent Byzantine style, initiating instead "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years."

There is an interesting anecdote about Giotto recounted in Vasari’s bio.  In Vasari's words (I have added the paragraphing):

After this he was called to Assisi by Fra Giovanni di Muro, at that time general of the order of S. Francis, and painted in fresco in the upper church thirtytwo stories from the life and deeds of S. Francis, which brought him great fame. It is no wonder therefore that Pope Benedict sent one of his courtiers into Tuscany to see what sort of a man he was and what his works were like, for the Pope was planning to have some paintings made in S Peter's. 

This courtier, on his way to see Giotto and to find out what other masters of painting and mosaic there were in Florence, spoke with many masters in Sienna, and then, having received some drawings from them, he came to Florence. And one morning going into the workshop of Giotto, who was at his labours, he showed him the mind of the Pope, and at last asked him to give him a little drawing to send to his Holiness.  

Giotto, who was a man of courteous manners, immediately took a sheet of paper, and with a pen dipped in red, fixing his arm firmly against his side to make a compass of it, with a turn of his hand he made a circle so perfect that it was a marvel to see it Having done it, he turned smiling to the courtier and said, "Here is the drawing." But he, thinking he was being laughed at, asked, "Am I to have no other drawing than this?" "This is enough and too much," replied Giotto, "send it with the others and see if it will be understood."  

The messenger, seeing that he could get nothing else, departed ill pleased, not doubting that he had been made a fool of. However, sending the other drawings to the Pope with the names of those who had made them, he sent also Giotto's, relating how he had made the circle without moving his arm and without compasses, which when the Pope and many of his courtiers understood, they saw that Giotto must surpass greatly all the other painters of his time.  

This thing being told, there arose from it a proverb which is still used about men of coarse clay, "You are rounder than the O of Giotto," which proverb is not only good because of the occasion from which it sprang, but also still more for its significance, which consists in its ambiguity, tondo, "round," meaning in Tuscany not only a perfect circle, but also slowness and heaviness of mind.

Find it hard to imagine someone drawing a perfect freehand circle?

These days there are even World Championships in freehand circle drawing, check out some amazing examples by clicking on the following links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHtOkxHx2wQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAhfZUZiwSE

See some of the competitors, competition and winner of the 2007 World Championship:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1J5ANnq0T8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv0XCqtQaeQ

Does anyone else think he looks like Voldemort?

One final comment:

Giotto’s sending of a circle on a piece of paper to the Pope to evidence his artistic skill reminds me of an equally brief communication between Victor Hugo and his agent. Nervous about the release of a new work, Hugo left on a holiday so as to be away from the scene of a possible flop. Curiosity got the better of him and he sent a letter to his agent that said simply “?”. His agent, advising that the work was a success, wrote back “!”.

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Cottee's

Long before Aussie kids swigged Coca Cola and Pepsi there was Cottee’s.

The Cottee’s business was started by dairy farmer Spencer Milton Cottee (1864-1944) in 1927. 

According to the Cottee’s website, Spencer Cottee grew passionfruit in addition to his dairying activities, with such success that he often had large quantities left over. Not wanting to waste it, he began creating the drink that remains well known today, Passiona. It too was a success so in the 1920’s Cottee began to make other flavours of drinks as well. Demand forced the opening of a second factory with the business expanding into a second factory as well as diversifying by also going into the manufacture of jams, jellies and peanut butter. During World War 2 Cottee assisted the war effort by sending specially produced jams and juices rich in vitamins to Australian soldiers serving overseas. The orange peels left over became Cottee’s Marmalade. The 50’s and 60’s saw the company continue to grow. 1970 witnessed the company merging with General Food Corp USA to become Cottee’s General Food Limited, which was acquired by Cadbury Schweppes in 1984 which in turn was acquired by Asahi Breweries in 2009. 

Its products remain popular and the 1980's jingle “My dad picks the fruit that goes to Cottee’s to make the cordial that I like best” is part of the psyche of every Aussie kid and adult from those days. (How many readers used to sing the bastardised version: “My dad picks his nose that goes to Snottee’s to make the cordial that I like best”).

Some early pics:

Spencer Cottee at rear, with moustache

So why am I telling you all of this?

Because the Cottee’s speech ad that is currently on the Teev is one of my favourites.

There are two slightly different versions, below is the text and a link to each.

Each ad finishes with the voiceover "There's a lot to celebrate when you're a kid. Lucky Cottee's makes a lot."

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#1

Speaker: Listen, although these days may seem commonplace, with the clarity of hindsight they'll crystallise in our minds as our best! Jessica..

Jessica: Yeah?

Speaker: At your wedding to Nozzah we shall all set sail on the warm winds of nostalgia back to this happy place. The friendships. The adventures. 

All: Yeah!

Speaker: The fun. 

All: Yeah! (One of the boys blows a raspberry on his arm).

Speaker: But, we are not adults yet. 

All: No!

(All clink glasses containing Cottee’s Cordial). 

All: To the best days of our lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITsQ6rNvNKk

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Speaker: Listen, although these days may seem commonplace, in years to come they will crystallise in our minds as our best! Jessica . . .

Jessica: Yeah?

Speaker: At your wedding to Nozzah we shall all look back to the friendships, the adventures . . .

All: Yeah!

Speaker: The fun. 

All: Yeah!

Speaker: But, we are not adults yet. 

All: No!

(All clink glasses containing Cottee’s Cordial). 

All: To the best days of our lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YzZfe-_wQE

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Monday's Mixed Bag

A potpourri of items to start the week:

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A valentine by Alex to Jodie on Valentine’s Day last week published in the Launceston Examiner in Tasmania:

Wonder if Alex is still sleeping on the couch.

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Btw, according to the Online Dictionary, the word "potpourri" has the following meanings:

1. a collection of mixed flower petals dried and preserved in a pot to scent the air

2. a collection of unrelated or disparate items; miscellany

3. (Music, other) a medley of popular tunes

4. (Cookery) a stew of meat and vegetables

The Online Etymology Dictionary says this about the word:

• The word dates from the 1610's and means "mixed meats served in a stew." The word comes from the Spanish “olla podrida”, meaning “rotten pot”, a reference to the meats in the stew. The French borrowed it and translated it to pot pourri, the word “pourri” meaning "to rot".

• The notion of it being a medley led to it being applied to a mixture of dried flower and spices, first recorded in English in 1749.

• The sense of a "miscellaneous collection" is recorded from 1855.

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Son Thomas thought I was unfair to spiders in last week’s Funny Friday and brought the following to my attention:

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Given the couple of Hitler and Churchill posts last week, it is apt to repost the following:

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Some Winter Olympics Facts and Trivia

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The first winter Olympics were held in 1924 at Chamonix, France.

10,004 people paid to watch the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix.

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No Winter Olympics has ever been held in the Southern Hemisphere.

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The first Winter Olympics saw 16 nations compete in 16 events.

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Winter Olympics have 7 categories of sports, namely biathlon, bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, luge, skating and skiing.

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The last time Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year was in 1992. The Summer Olympics were held in Barcelona, Spain and the Winter Games were in Albertville, France.

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USA has hosted the most number of Winter Olympics with 4. It is followed by France with 3.

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Norway has won the most medals at Winter Olympics with a total of 303. The Norwegians also have a record 107 Winter Olympics gold medals.

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There have been four deaths at Winter Olympics. Two lugers and two skiers, both died during practice sessions.

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Artificial snow was first used during Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, USA in 1980.

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Norwegian cross country skier, Bjorn Daehli has won the most medals at Winter Olympics. In the three Winter Olympics he has competed, Daehli has won 12 medals including 8 gold medals.

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Cross country skier Raisa Smetanina (USSR) is the winningest woman medalist, taking 10 medals (four gold; five silver; one bronze).

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American athlete, Eddie Eagan is the only person in Olympic history to have one gold medals at both Summer and Winter Olympics.  He won a summer gold in 1920 in boxing and a winter gold in 1932 in the 4 man bobsled.

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The opening ceremony of the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, USA was organized by Walt Disney.

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Great Britain won the Gold at the Curling event at the 1924 Winter Games, although it wasn’t recognized until 2006, 82 years later.  This was because the Glasgow Herald filed a claim on behalf of the families of the team that the sport had been an official category and not a demonstration sport.

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Sochi Facts and Trivia . . . 

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Most expensive ever

Sochi is an all-time bank-buster, costing a staggering $51 billion – enough to pave the town’s streets in caviar, and more than four times its original budget of $12 billion.

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Winter warmer

Sochi isn’t halfway up a mountain; it’s actually a subtropical resort town where temperatures rarely drop below 12 C. Events that need snow – like, nearly all of them – will be staged an hour’s drive away in the Krasnaya Polyana mountains. Sochi is the warmest city to ever host Winter Olympics. It is also the longest city in Europe, spanning over 90 miles along the shores of the Black Sea.

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BMW bobsleds

The luxury car maker knows a bit about speed, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that they’ve constructed the USA team’s carbon-fibre wrapped bobsled. No word on whether it could do donuts in the Olympic village car park.

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Going for gold

When you win gold in Sochi, you’ve really won silver. That’s because 2014 winners’ medals contain 516 grams of silver and just six grams of gold. But the $122,000 Russia’s pledged to each winner might soften the blow.

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Richest athlete

Rad US snowboarder Shaun White has an estimated worth of $20 million, mainly earned from various pre-Sochi endorsements – including Red Bull.

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Out of this world

Olympians winning gold medals on February 15 will be rewarded with gold medals made of Chelyabinsk meteor fragments. Why? The date is exactly a year after the space rock crashed into a lake in the Ural Mountains in central Russia.

70kg chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteorite pulled from Lake Chebarkul in Russia’s Ural Mountains 

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Torch travels

The Sochi Olympic torch has covered more kilometres than a Qantas pilot. All up, 14,000 people carried the flame, using many modes of transportation, over 65,000 kilometres for 123 days across 2900 cities and villages. The torch also went into space on board the International Space Station..

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Strong words

The Olympic motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius”, which means “Faster, Higher, Stronger” for those who didn’t get their Masters in Latin.

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Stadium of light

The roof of the Fisht Stadium, built especially for these games, is covered in more than 30,000 LEDs, which flash different colours at night. At Sochi, it’ll be home to the hockey matches, before being used as a venue for football’s 2018 World Cup.

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Women ski-jumpers

Twelve new events debut at Sochi, including, after much lobbying, the women’s ski jump. Until recently, females were discouraged from taking part in the sport because it was (falsely) believed the hard landings would damage their uterus,

Germany’s varina Vogt wins the Olympic gold in the first Women’s Ski Jump event

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Maria Sharapova

Sochi has been home to the tennis star, Maria Sharapova. She moved to the Russian town when she was 2 and played tennis in a local park.

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Mascots

Mascots for the Sochi Winter Olympics are a polar bear, a hare and a leopard.

Sochi 2014 XXII. Olympic Winter Games / XI. Paralympic Winter Games

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Competing countries

88 countries will take part in Sochi Olympics. Some nations will make their debut, including Zimbabwe and Paraguay.

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Jamaican Bobsled Team

The Jamaican two-man bobsled team will be taking part at Sochi, the first time it has qualified since the 2002 Salt Lake Games, despite trying in 2006 and 2010. From a news item:

. . . 46-year-old Winston Watts, back at the Games after a 12-year absence, and brakeman Marvin Dixon, the Jamaican duo seeking to summon the spirit that inspired "Cool Runnings", the Hollywood movie based on the exploits of their ground-breaking predecessors from the 1988 Calgary Games. The team needed an Internet campaign to help raise the initial funds to finance their trip to Russia which produced about $80,000, with more cash flowing in from sponsors and their federation. The campaign had such success that Watts and Dixon had to plead with their fans to stop sending money, fearing they would be damned as greedy opportunists if they didn't call a halt. True to their roller-coaster build-up to Sochi, the Jamaican duo then arrived without their luggage and equipment, lost in transit between New York's JFK and the host city.

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