Blisters and Gay Tour Guides

Day two started with a very early jaunt to the Apple store to retrieve my 'special' iPad2 from the very special specialist called Emilia (yes Paul she was very fit, and no doubt you would hang out of the back of it, knowing you).

We then hot-footed it to our OnBoard tour bus pick up, to meet our New York Jon Inman with his very gay red umbrella and interest in all things fashiony and Steel. It was a great tour and we got a snapshot of the whole city including a boat across to the Statue of Liberty. After soaking up the atmosphere and seeing the Brooklyn Bridge close up, my darling wife summarised the spectacle perfectly 'I can see now why Miranda had such a big issue with moving across to Brooklyn in SATC'. Such cultural insight I think you'll agree.

After the tour we wandered around the extremely garish Times Square and then after a quick change walked down Broadway to our posh restaurant. after eating scrumptious fine dining fare we walked the hour back to our hotel admiring the madness of Times Square with full size minis on billboards. It's so bright at night that even a blind one such as I can see.

We collapsed and woke early again on our actual anniversary. 10 years. Quite a feat and one we celebrated in the best possible way.

Surprising her indoors is never easy, in fact pretty impossible. If she gets a sniff of something dodgy them she's like an annoying 5yr old who won't stop bugging you till you let on. But amazingly I managed to keep the big surprise of the helicopter trip a secret till we were literally five minutes away.

It was an amazing experience and definitely something to store in my brain box as very special days, which also includes our wedding day (well she is going to be reading this) and the day I discovered if I pull my pee pee a lot it makes me feel kinda special funny in a good way.

After this we took a blister busting 'stroll' up through the financial district, to the World Trade area and then across Brooklyn Bridge. We ate at Grimaldi's Pizzeria, heralded as having the best pizzas in the whole state.. And I can honestly say it was the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Quite magnificent.

After this gastric phenomenon we decided to get the subway back uptown to Grand Central, such am iconic and beautiful place. I felt like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, except I didn't have my fabulous melting face disguises, which I'd lent to Worzel Gummidge.

And now I sit relaxing in a Fifth Avenue store nursing my sore tootsies whilst the misses starts to shop till she drops.

Concrete Jungle...

In the city that never sleeps it's now 8:50pm and The Wife is snoring next to me in our luxurious extra comfortable Queen bed. I'm not far behind, it has been a he'll of a day.
But we made it. The Mazin's are in NYC.

It all started at 7am when our friendly reliable cabbie Steve picked us up to Heathrow. FF 90 minutes we arrive at Terminal 3, and at check-in The Dilemma was offered.

'We have an over-booked flight, if you don't mind taking the later flight to NY at 5pm we will give you 2 free return tickets to anywhere in the world, to be used in the next 18 months.'

So naturally when put on the spot we turned them down. You may think we were mad, but having spent a further 2 hours at Terminal 3, the thought of spending an extra 6 hours there was not worth any free flight. Its not called Terminal for nothing you know. It's where Unicorns go to die.

So we got a free upgraded seat with extra legroom and danced merrily through to the departure gate, which is just a herding pen for humans. But I discovered that I have the magic Staff of Ultimate Power... Well my white stick, which so far has proved exceptionally useful when getting ahead of able bodied norms, particularly when I use this with my rather excellent Joey impression and do some convincing shoulder munching. It's amazing what you can get when people think you're a 'Special'.

The flight was smooth and very enjoyable, despite being over 7 hours. For travellers used to flying via FlyLo it was a new experience for us not to be spat on or rudely shoved into a space no human should really fit. I enjoyed the food, there's something about airline food. Maybe it's just the way you have to unwrap it from tinfoil, but it's just so lovely eating your lunch 3 miles in the air the novelty is yet to wear off.

In-flight entertainment although brilliant, I managed to watch 30 minutes of 2 dire films - step forward Morning Glory and Hereafter. Instead I watched 2 episodes of the rather brilliant The Trip with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. I was snorting with laughter. Marvellous.

Security at JFK was horrific, until an angel from security spotted my SoUP and dragged me and The Wife to the front of the queue. Sorry norms- who's Special now eh? Oh still me.

Then after a quick luggage pick-up and more security (I think it's time we told those Yanks that there's no point trying to close that stable door when those horses bolted 10 years ago) we got in a cab and met our driver. Or rather The World's Grumpiest Yellow Cab Driver (TM). Just what you need after hours and hours of travelling is another painful journey with a grumpy bugger, but by this point I just didn't care anymore.

After driving for more than 45 minutes through what looked like the North Circular with US road signs, we went through a tunnel and arrived in Manhattan.

Even though it was sleeting it still looked fantastic. We arrived at our hotel, and I got called Sir 3 times in the first 5 minutes with no air of sarcasm whatsoever. After a quick trip out to the Westway Diner for some dinner we tredged through the now settled snow and ice back to our hotel, for a well deserved night of sleep whilst everyone else can stay up in this snowstorm!

To be continued......

P.s due to an unknown technical hitch photos are not appearing in this blog so will be posted direct on FB

Did you Smash It?

I don't know about you - but I can't bear Female People, or Fat People, White People, Black People, Yellow People, Pink People, Small People, Large People, Annoying People, Kind People, Jealous People, Inane People.. the list goes on. In fact I can't bear ANYONE. 

So sack me. Gary - you're fired for being Peoplist. OK Gary, thanks. I'd like to apologise to all the people I've offended. Although I hate you all, I'm actually nice to your face. 

As we go along in life, our natural instinct is to be wary of others, we are just animals really. 

Spot the odd one in

Seriously though, it's all very very silly isn't it. As a 30 something I grew up in the 70s and 80s a time when Mind Your Language was one of the biggest and best shows on television. For those uninitiated with this 'sit-com' it basically consisted of every racial stereotype imaginable sitting in a room having the piss taken out of them, for all of us to laugh at. Also Jim Davidson was one of the 'funniest' comedians on the box, and of course it was more common for women to be called 'love' and 'pet'. The biggest TV quiz show of the time was the classic Bullseye, never a more misogynistic show would be seen in our lifetime. So after being impregnated with such racially dodgy views for so many years, is it any wonder that there's so many Daily Mail readers today? 

Accordingly, my hatred of people runs deep and Andy Gray and Richard 'Manimal' Keys fall into the category of abhorrent small-minded, dysfunctional grunts that I particularly detest. Yet I for one was heartily dismayed that they've been fired/forced out. I mean their personal views had no bearing on what they do in their day to day job, which is talking to men about other men moving a spherical orb around a large area covered in grass, trying to make sure the orb lands between two sticks, and being able to do this more times than the other men in the allotted time-frame earlier agreed upon. 

Women ARE the better species. It's a FACT. They are better at everything that men can do. They've proved it time and time again. I'm an excellent single tasker. I can do one thing at a time pretty well. I'm managing to type this blog quite fast. Now I've stopped to drink my tea. .... Now I've stopped drinking my tea, I can carry on.... Sorry phone rang. Back again. 
But I watch my other half in disbelief as she cradles the phone between her neck having a deep conversation whilst cleaning the kitchen, making dinner, sending an email, arranging her birthday list, surfing the internet and gobbling me off.

How does she do it? 

Simply because she's much better than me at pretty much everything. 
So it's understandable that us Men cling on to football. It's one of the last things that Men still do better than Women. Women can't play football. That's a fact. Anyone who's ever watched a women's football match will know. So please let us have this. Don't take this away from us. 

Thousands and thousands of men abandon their wives, children and families for 90 minutes on a Saturday to spend time with other men, talking about how good their team is in playing with the aforementioned spherical orb. It's not big, it's not clever, but it is still one of the few places where Men can feel superior to Women. I know there are many women that love football as much as men (probably the same proportion of straight men who enjoy talking about periods and buying make-up), but it is still very much dominated by men for men. So was it really such a surprise to find that two of the main people involved in the broadcasting of football, think that women should 'know their limits' and talk about 'fluffy kittens'. Of course not. It's thanks to the morally outraged Daily Mail readers, who were brought up on a daily regime of racism, sexism and bad TV that find this behaviour despicable. 

Quick joke in keeping with the theme:
Q. What do you call a useful woman? 

A. A dead one. 


How funny is that. Ha HA HAAAAA HAAAA. What - you mean it's sexist? You don't find it funny? 

Well you'd be interested to know that on QI, Jo Brand said exactly that joke replacing the women part with men, and of course she got a big laugh. How is that possible? 

See - I've just done a To Kill A Mockingbird on you. Or for our younger readers A Time To Kill. Why is that acceptable in our society now, as long as men are being ridiculed? It's an interesting question. I'm not going to get all philosophical here, but really cements my earlier argument that women are the greater species and are actually in control. 

You can look around our TV schedules now to find programmes for women, aimed at women - ostracising men on a daily basis. Anything from Loose Women through to some fashion twonk. So ultimately the one time when men had a bit of a dig at women, stating that women don't know the offside rule (again in general terms this is indeed a fact. I barely understand it, and have tried to explain it to many women and failed). 

So to all you sexist bitches out there. Let us have our football and ironically claim how you should be 'doing the washing up' or 'ironing our clothes' whilst we cower in the corner waiting for the few hours on a Saturday when we can feel like MEN. 

THE BLOG IS BACK!

Yes I know,  it's been a while. But I'm back. To spread the word of our lord Baby Jesus to you all and make you all BELIEVE... err sorry, let's start again shall we. 

I'm back. .... (silence)......(tumbleweed blows past)
Hello ... (hello... hello... echo .... )
Oh well, I care that the blog is back, even if no-one else does. 

So what's happened to Rev Food I hear you cry. Well after spending some time lounging and eating as we all do over the festive season, it's time to get cracking again. 

My diet has calmed down to a more normal level, I still love my bird seed and Alpen with rice milk (mmm you should try it), and have stayed away from the demon fizzy soft drinks and smoking. I've also started walking again. It's been too bloody cold to do any outdoor activities, but now it's nearly February it's time to get on with it again. 

So I hope that all the festive excesses have stopped and everyone has started thinking about how to get back onto the healthy regime. I'm always amazed how many people suddenly join gyms and go on intensive post-new year diets, all for it to fail miserably before the end of January. I mean January is such a horrible month to do anything so drastic. The days are short, the weather is horrible and generally everyone is in a grump, so why subject yourself to what is clearly torture? It makes much more sense to ease yourself in to a healthy regime and start building up exercise. The Spring is a much more sensible time to start and get things going. Now that the dreaded 'most miserable' day of the year is over, it's only going to get better from now. 

So you'll all be delighted to hear that Rev Food is back, looking down on all the fatties and 'tsking' and shaking his head in that 'I'm better than you way' that the Rev loves to do. Not really fatties, I love you really (no, actually I don't). 

When One was younger One was also a DICK

Talking in the 3rd person, that's actually one of my pet hates. Have you discovered this fairly recent phenomennonononon which seems to have sneaked up on us over the past few years into everyday language, since the start of The Apprentice. it's basically that annoying habit of people talking about themselves in the 3rd person. Anyone who does this is a DICK. Rev Food thinks that people who talk about themselves in the 3rd person are DICKS. So stop it now. This also goes for people who use the word 'One' at the beginning of a sentence. It doesn't make you sound big or clever, just more DICKISH. So if you are a DICK, then by all means carry-on,just don't be surprised why everyone hates you.

See - I bet you're glad that I'm back. It was nice to have a bit of a break, as in the last 2 months there's been a lot more things that I've found have annoyed me, so that the blog will have lots of new fresh targets to vent my spleen. 

New Year Resolutions are another pointless exercise in my book. Why bother? Come on - hands up who made these so called resolutions? See that's a lot of you. Now keep your hands up everyone who keeps these resolutions for the year. See - no-one, apart from that weird looking kid at the back - who I think has some deformity that means he can't lower his arm. So why do we do them? It's just another social conformity that we all feel the 'need' to be a part of. 

Don't get me wrong,  I have also spent many years also making these resolutions. I think the best one i made was: This year I will make an effort to be nicer to people. That one lasted about 3 hours. So come on people stop being sheep, wake up and smell the roses. Why do you need a particular date to tell you when to make a change? 

This brings me onto my final spleen venting for this blog day, Valentines Day. Probably the most pointless and idiotic day in the entire calendar. Even more pointless than St Swithin's Day. I will post more about this despicable creation nearer the time, as I feel it needs it's own blog write up. I'd like to think I'm a romantic, I love my wife and my family. I try and treat them all and show my love and appreciation for them on a regular basis. So WHY OH WHY do I have to send a friggin card and flowers on some day in February because the 'Man' tells me to. I think there's actually nothing sadder than seeing couples go out on a 'romantic' meal on Valentine's night to spend the entire meal sitting in silence, as they feel they should be making an effort, whist inwardly they hate themselves and everything their lives stand for. OK - I'm guessing the last bit. 

I feel I have so much more to say, but for now I think enough is enough. There's only so much steam that can come out of my ears in one sitting. I need a cup of Jasmine tea and a lie-down to calm myself.