Tiddly Pots: The Solution to Chocolate Cravings?

So, how is the post-Christmas diet progressing? Ok, sorry I asked…

I’ve never felt the need to embark on a strict diet as such, but I am aware that, on a bad day or when feeling particularly stressed, I can consume enough naughty sugary treats to constitute self-harm. The blame for this indulgence is usually shifted to my hormones, my stress levels, the need to ‘keep my blood sugar regulated’ or simply the feeble excuse that I am female and therefore genetically encoded to seek out the cocoa bean. But never on the honest fact that I have minimal willpower. And with Valentine’s Day just round the corner, my self-control status has been updated to ‘critical’, not because I will be inundated with boxes of chocolates from admirers but because, as a sad singleton, I will no doubt spend the evening of the 14th Feb drowning my sorrows with my other sad singleton friends, accompanied by a large glass of red wine and the largest, extravagant box of choccies that we can source from the nearest supermarket *insert soft focus, slow-mo shots and melancholy soundtrack here*

But I think that I have discovered the solution to my chocolate addiction (hurrah!) and consequently, as a woman, I am obliged by the unwritten laws of lady-dom to share this wonderful breakthrough with my fellow chocolate bingers and all women trying to shed a few pounds. The secret is this: I’m making the grave mistake of misinterpreting a simple craving for the taste of chocolate for the need to consume an entire bar of chocolate. It’s not genuine hunger that I am experiencing, but an addiction to the taste of chocolate. Eureka!

I was mulling this theory over last week when the confectionary cavalry arrived to confirm my suspicions in the form of Tiddly Pots from Hotel Chocolat. Tiddly Pots are small but generously filled pots of chocolate buttons, available in three varieties; milk chocolate, white chocolate and caramel. The little buttons are creamy, tasty and rich enough to promptly quench the chocolate cravings and I find that after only a few of the treats I can pop the lid back on the pot and put it back into the cupboard for later. My oestrogen levels have never been so easily satisfied and no wrestling with stubborn willpower is required! My hero! And whenever the evil chocolate cravings creep up on me late at night, rather than breaking into a huge bar of choc I just pop a button on my tongue and my guilt levels immediately plummet. Even the little tub (and the name ‘Tiddly’, awwww) is so cute that it’s hard to resist buying one when passing the shop.

Ok, so Tiddly pot buttons are still choccy and therefore very naughty when trying to diet, but they are the perfect way to cut down and I’m a firm believer that total abstinence breeds obsession. And if switching from whole bars to a few buttons of HC choccy helps me to fit into my new dress just that little bit easier then I will be enormously grateful…and maybe celebrate with one of their speciality chocolate slabs.

(What?! A gal can’t be guilt-free forever…)

The Jesus-monkey and the DIY Bible

Earlier this week two of my colleagues, both biblical scholars, started a very silly – but very funny - discussion prompted by this infamous photo of Jesus’ face in an Ikea toilet door in Glasgow…


Colleague A agreed that that ‘face’ in the door looked very Jesus-like, but Colleague B thought that it resembled an Orangutan. I watched their conversation on my Facebook page with great amusement and suggested that this might well be a physical manifestation of the Jesus-monkey (based on evidence in Mark chapter two which states that Jesus tied a tyre to a tree and unpeeled a banana with his toes).

Colleague B is currently involved in the production of electronic transcriptions of biblical manuscripts and so, with this in mind, Colleague A pointed out to Colleague B that she is sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Photoshop. Maybe at some point in her work, Colleague B could, with a surreptitious click of the mouse, slip a reference to a Jesus-monkey into the manuscript that she is working on and we could sit back and watch the academics scratching their heads when the final transcription is published. And why stop there? Imagine the fun that could be had! Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a drunk Llama, the three kings could become three gangster rappers, hamburgers and lager at the Last Supper (Tizer for Judas, of course). Hours of fun. And not only could we edit the existing text, we could also insert and remove material to suit our own particular causes or beliefs. I’m sure that The Geek Muse revised version of the Ten Commandments would be very…ermm…interesting!

Unfortunately, no matter how many chocolate cookies or neck massages are bestowed upon her, my co-worker is resisting our mischievous attempts to corrupt her research and cause mass outrage in the religious communities, so we can only dream of the chaos and hysteria that could have been. But here’s the question that I’ve been asking everyone since this whole conversation started: If you could Photoshop an ancient manuscript of the Bible, bury it, ‘discover’ it in a few years time and have it accepted as THE authoritative text, what material would you insert or remove and/or which verses would you edit?

WeVee: Bringing Birmingham’s history to life

WeVee is a new website and online video editing tool which allows you to interact with clips from the West Midlands collection of archive film for the first time. The WeVee experience gives the user the opportunity to view clips from the region’s fantastic archive collection of film and video, edit them to music tracks and compose their own short ‘mash-up’. The user can then share their WeVees, not just on the WeVee gallery, but across social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, giving users the opportunity to create a visual and audio identity.

The video content is mainly from the West Midlands area and includes interesting archive footage such as Malcolm X’s visit to the Midlands in 1965, Stanley Matthew’s final appearance at Stoke City Football ground, protests and riots in the 1970s, footage from the Cadbury chocolate factory and excerpts of life in the Bournville village. You can access archive footage from as early as 1901 to as recent as last year.

In view of the recent Cabdurys takeover bid, I thought it appropriate to post a user’s WeVee of life in Bourneville and at the Cadburys factory (on a personal note – don’t you DARE let this quintessentially British industry die, UK….)



I was delighted to be invited to trial the WeVee website before it was launched on 21st January 2010. The site looked amazing – very fresh, clear and simple to use – and the store of archive footage was fascinating. I spent a good hour or so watching the videos on the site. However the video editing element of the site had more bugs than the Amazon rainforest. The editing interface was very frustrating to use and the vids themselves could be quite jerky at times which played havoc when trying to edit to the precise second. There were very few options for editing the audio and I was unable to specify a start and end time for the track. I was also limited to using one track for the entire sequence rather than mixing in two or three tracks. I was assured that these problems would be ironed out by the launch date, but they were still there when I tried to create a new WeVee last night and, once again, I got very frustrated with the software and gave up. The website seems to be very, very temperamental. In fact, a friend of mine commented just today when trying to register on the site that ‘it’s easier to get herpes in a convent than get into it’.

Birmingham is well overdue a website with instant access to archival film of past events and I would certainly use WeVee to explore and learn more about the region’s history. This aspect of the project is highly commendable. Unfortunately, although I am fiercely in favour of promoting advances in media development in the region, particularly with regards to music, I’m struggling with the audio mashup part of the project. Editing together clips of footage to create music video mashups sounds fun but I suspect that it has little more than novelty value, so I would question the longevity of this aspect of the website. And the shortcomings of the editing software means that it’s certainly not for the serious music video editor and more suited to kids mucking about with it in their bedrooms. In some ways it saddens me that new projects such as these comprise a great idea in order to attract ‘the youth market’. I would have preferred to see a fresh-looking, user-friendly archive that explores Birmingham’s history in a new and dynamic way through video and audio footage without the seemingly random ‘youth appeal’ awkwardly bolted on.

But, it’s good fun and certainly worth checking out if you have some spare time on your hands. Find out more at http://www.wevee.co.uk/

Snowmen beware, the Daleks are here!

Continuing with today's sci-fi theme…

We’re snowed in pretty bad here and snow, like late nights, is one of those things in life that is very enjoyable when you are a child but a bloody pain when you become an adult.

Fortunately light relief has come in the form of a number of sci-fi fans who now find themselves with too much time on their hands and are clearly dizzy on a fusion of the freezing temperatures and the residual excitement of the conclusion of the recent Doctor Who series. This combination can only lead to one thing…

…SNOW DALEKS!!!

Star Wars Burlesque Show

Sci-fi geek brains all over the world are exploding right now.

Performance art troupe Devil`s Playground performed a Star Wars Burlesque show at club Bordello in Los Angeles on Saturday night (9th January 2010). More photos by Shannon Cottrell (including the ‘stormtrooper’ Courtney Cruz, right) and further info about the show can be found at LA Weekly. The troupe will be repeating the performance on March 13 2010 in Los Angeles at a venue to be determined. Have fun geek guys, I’m off to buy a ton of shares in Kleenex before the sales go through the roof...


Warning: Adult Content

Guitar Hero: Geriatric Edition

Join me in worshipping the awesomeness of 73 year old rock chick, Mary Ho from Singapore. When she’s not looking after her seven grandchildren, she’s riffing her way through music from guitar legends such as Carlos Santana and BB King. There’s more info about Mary on her website Grandma Mary Rocks. Here she is with 'I Need Your Love So Bad'...






Who says that the elderly can’t rock out?!

\m/ \m/

Biting the Bullet: Yummy Chocolate Weaponry

Who knew that the collision of the divergent worlds of men and women could bring about such fantastic results?!

Chocolate Weapons is a website selling chocolate grenades, guns and ammunition. What a perfect indulgence for those Lara Crofts with a sweet tooth amongst us! Ok, guns and grenades may not be to everyone’s ‘taste’ and choccy isn’t great for the post-Christmas diet, but girls - we can convince ourselves that consuming vast amounts of chocolate ammunition is acceptable because we are contributing, albeit in a purely symbolic and particularly delicious way, to the world-wide peace effort…

…any flimsy excuse usually works for me…

A New Year, A New Doctor Who

I watched an entire episode of Doctor Who on Friday night. Are you proud of me??

It may surprise you to learn that I’m no rabid Doctor Who fan. I love old school Doctor Who episodes, but to be honest I struggled with the revival of the popular series. I found it difficult to warm to David Tennant’s ‘Doctor’ and the casting of Catherine Tate was the final nail in the coffin (watching the woman ‘act’ had me scratching at my eyes within seconds). And gone were the days when you could miss a few episodes, drop in again at random and enjoy the plot of a stand-alone episode. I felt alienated by the ongoing storylines, interwoven plotlines and the elaborate mythology that had been built up around the characters. But I also realised that many cult shows with large fanbases need to do this in order to keep the fans coming back for more, so unless I was willing to watch the show religiously and become an uber-fan then I should stay away. So I stopped watching.

It was the final outing of David Tennant’s Doctor on Friday afternoon (1st January 2010) and I watched the momentous series finale out of curiosity (ok, ok, there was nothing else on the TV and the remote was far too remote for me to find it). I must say that it was excellent. John Simm was fantastic as ‘The Master’ and Bernard Cribbins can do no wrong in my book. Both kept me thoroughly entertained. I’m still unsure about Tennant’s Doctor though. I realise that The Doctor is traditionally somewhat unhinged and childlike, but Tennant has a tendency to lapse into extreme silliness at times that can get quite irritating. But, having said that, he seemed to have settled comfortably into the role and wasn’t half as annoying as I remember. In fact, he had me sucking up the teary eyes in the final scenes. And the new Doctor, played by Matt Smith, looks perfect for the part. He has the wide-eyed, almost maniacal, eccentric, Oxbridge educated, thoroughly British charm that I associate with the character of The Doctor.

So now I’m seriously giving thought to watching the new series later this year and maybe catching up with the missed episodes from the Tennant years to see whether I have been mistaken and missed out on a very enjoyable treat. Maybe 2010 is the year that I rediscover Doctor Who…(on the condition, of course, that Catherine Tate stays off the bill!)

Ulnar nerve injury? Don’t panic!

This might seem a very random post, but let me explain. I’ve decided to start the New Year on a good deed…

To my regular readers I doubt that this will have any relevance to you, so you can move along, nothing to see here folks. However if you have stumbled across this post when searching for ‘ulnar nerve damage’ or ‘ulnar nerve injury’ then please read on.

Back in August I found myself sat at my computer keyboard in the middle of the night desperately Googling ‘ulnar nerve damage’. I had broken both bones in my lower right arm clean through and suffered considerable damage to the three major nerves in the arm. As a result most of my right hand was numb (most noticeably the back of my hand and the back of my thumb), I had lost my grip and I could not bend my wrist backwards. My little finger and ring finger were clawed and I could not straighten them (see right). The doc told me that I had damaged my ulnar nerve and this had resulted in a condition known as ‘ulnar claw’. I was also suffering from ‘wrist drop’, otherwise known amusingly as Saturday Night Palsy.

Googling the symptoms was a terrifying experience. There was talk of further surgery, permanent loss of feeling and two scary sounding tests called a nerve conduction study (ECS) and an electromyography (EMG). My anxiety wasn’t helped by expressions such as ‘irreversible damage’ and ‘permanent disfiguration’ that were being banded about during my visits to the fracture clinic.

But then as time passed things started to look up. I had an ECS and an EMG test and the results showed that all three major nerves were badly damaged but they were showing signs of attempted re-growth. Sure enough, feeling started to return in my thumb and the two clawed fingers began to straighten out, albeit painfully slowly, with the help of physiotherapy. Eventually the sensation returned in the back of my hand and my grip improved. I invested in some squishy balls and putty and maintained a strict balance between exercising the hand so that it didn’t seize up completely and resting it in a wrist guard in order to give it a break and allow time for the nerves to recover. It was a difficult balancing act, but it seemed to be effective. Five months later, my fingers are almost completely straight again and I can bend my wrist back further each day. Although my hand has improved much more successfully than I had expected, it is still not 100% ‘in working order’. For example, I can feel contact with the skin on the back of my hand but it feels as though there is a thin barrier over the skin, much like cling film, that is numbing the sensation. But the sensitivity and movement improves a little more each day and the doctors are hopeful. It is still early days.

Researching into an injury on the Internet can be a pretty daunting and scary experience, so I just wanted to fire a little ray of hope out there into the blogosphere. I’m not a medical doctor so I can’t promise that another person’s injury will recover as quickly or as successfully as mine, but please don’t be scared or disheartened by a pessimistic diagnosis. The expression ‘time is a great healer’ is very cheesy but it is also very true. I have been told on numerous occasions that nerves take a long time to recover from an injury and I’ve discovered that this is certainly the case. It’s very frustrating if you’re the kind of person who expects immediate results, but hang in there. Don’t be afraid, take the tests, persevere with the physiotherapy exercises and remain hopeful.