British Food Section

Just in case you're interested, I took a quick photo of the British food section at the supermarket I regularly frequent.  Sorry it's not a very good photo - I took it in a rush, because I was very self-conscious of how stupid I looked taking this photo.  And as you can tell, I guess it's more of a European food section than a British food section - there is a load of stuff there that I don't recognize.

But if you look closely, you'll see digestives, wine gums, custard powder, aero chocolate bars, mustard, salad cream, hp sauce, baked beans and ribena among the offerings.  A disappointingly paltry selection - most of which I won't bother with.  And if you look even closer, you'll be shocked by how expensive all these things are. 

Disgrace

It was bad enough that Trump granted clemency to all the rioters who stormed the Capitol.  Now he's created a slush fund - funded by tax-payer money - that could hand payouts to these criminals.  It's absolutely disgusting, and an utter disgrace.  I guess I'm no longer surprised by the level of corruption and abuse of power of this administration, but the sheer scale of it is still shocking.  And it's exposed just how messed up the American political system is, when it has apparently been so easily undermined by the actions of this administration.  No wonder global perception of the US is currently at record lows.  And no wonder that I'm also questioning whether I want to continue living here.        

Frequency

It's, apparently, getting tougher and tougher for me to maintain daily entries in this blog.  I forgot to post anything yesterday.  This seems to be occurring more regularly.  Perhaps this says something about my life right now - interpret that however you want.  Perhaps this says something about my motivation to do this blog.  It is making me question whether I want to maintain a daily blog.  It might be easier if it's every other day, or weekly, or even if I just bring this blog to an end.  But, for the time being, I shall endeavor to keep doing it daily.  But be warned that the quality of my entries might not be very good.  Like this one.  

Gratitude

In the space of a few days, I've been awarded 3 of what our company calls gratitude awards from different people.  Finally some recognition, no matter how minor, of the amount of hard work I've been doing recently.  Clearly someone has said something, and surprisingly I don't think it was me, although I was definitely feeling underappreciated.  The total monetary value of these awards only comes to about $400.  So not exactly the big bonus I really deserve.  The way this thing works now is that you get awarded points, and then you go to this online store where you can spend these points.  Since the selection of gifts in this store is so poor, I just spend it on gift vouchers for myself.  In this case, I got $400 of Lego gift cards because I know I'm about to make a big purchase (the next Lord of the Rings set).           

Gas Pump

I was at the gas station today, and noticed this sticker on the gas pump pointing towards the display and the exorbitant amount of money it costs to fill up your car nowadays.

I approve.  Simple but effective.  Since Trump wants to get his image on as much as he can, we should see this sticker on every single gas pump in the country. 

Nearly Forgot

Just going to bed, and nearly forgot I hadn't done a blog entry today.  I got distracted this evening by something I've been doing way too much recently, and something I really need to cut out.  And that is mindless scrolling through YouTube shorts.  A classic symptom of digital addiction, with the inevitable result of brain rot.  Nope, not good.  If it goes a step further and I start properly doomscrolling all the time - then I will really start to worry.

Backyard Highlights

Here are some highlights from my trail cam over the last few months.  A good selection of the usual suspects, plus I might have finally uncovered photographic evidence of aliens (I'll let you guess which photo that is - if you squint it looks like a face).