In an attempt to make my blog mildly interesting I've decided to start using song lyrics as titles for each section, with the lyrics having a vague link to the subject in that section. How exciting is that?!
No prizes I'm afraid, it's just for fun. Answers at the end.
Come Up To Meet You, Tell You I'm Sorry
Things have been a little quiet on the blog front this week, but for that I can make no apologies. I have, you see, been undertaking an important scientific experiment, one that with hindsight should have been conducted in isolation but we live and learn don't we?
"What, pray tell" I hear you clamour "have you been experimentating on?"
Patience, I say, for the story shall unfold presently. But first be warned: if you are of a squeamish or nervous disposition then you may wish to stop reading now.
You may wish to stop reading regardless of whether or not you are of a squeamish or nervous disposition, but that's entirely besides the point. And a little rude, might I add!
Here we go.
My current anti-perspirant of choice is L'Oreal Men Expert Invincible Sport Absorbing Anti-Perspirant. Yes, it was on special offer in Tesco, and it was in a bright yellow container so caught the eye. Besides having a name that hardly rolls off the tongue (insert your own roll-on anti-perspirant joke here) L'Oreal make a couple of bold claims about their Men Expert Invincible Sport Absorbing Anti-Perspirant
Claim the first. It is an 'XXL' Roll-On. L'Oreal does not make clear the bases on which it describes it's Men Expert Invincible Sport Absorbing Anti-Perspirant as being 'XXL' but in the two obvious measures, roll-on head size (perhaps slightly on the large side, but in no way even XL let alone XXL) and container volume (a measly 50ml), I can with some certainty refute their claims.
This first claim was not the subject of my scientific endeavours however, oh no, it was merely an aperitif, an amuse bouche if you will, to whet the appetite.
Claim the second. L'Oreal Men Expert Invincible Sport Absorbing Anti-Perspirant boldly states that it provides a 96 hour non-stop dry feel. 96 hours!
(Remember the vidiprinter in the Grandstand days of Final Score where they used to write out in words any big scores? If they were reporting on Anti-Perspirant claims (perhaps on a slow, weather affected winter day) this would have read: L'Oreal 96 hours (ninety-six) Applications 1)
So yes, if you haven't already put two and two together, I decided to test this 96 hour non-stop dry feel claim. Ah the opportunities lockdown presents us, who'd have thought such an endeavour possible in the days of public transportation and face to face a working?
And why did this prevent me writing blog updates? Well if you're going to do something, you need to do it properly. And I'm sure you all agree, 4 days worth of half hourly sniff tests (in three anatomically strategic locations) is mentally and emotionally draining for both myself and the wife. Yep, I had to rope the wife in too, as not all the anatomical locations were in easy reach of my nose and I didn't want to resort to scratching and sniffing.
Spoiler alert: I could have, if I had been less committed to the scientific cause, stopped well before the 96 hours but no, I had started so I intended to finish.
And finish I did. In a fug filled stupor of malodoured exhaustion.
L'Oreal: you lied.
Post-Experiment Findings
On closer inspection following my first post experiment cleansing, and with no little disappointment, I realised that my L'Oreal Men Expert Invincible Sport Absorbing Anti-Perspirant actually makes no claims about being malodour free for 96 hours, just that you would be dry. This feels a little bit of a cop out for an anti-perspirant really, I'm imagining the meeting where they decided to proceed to full scale production:
R&D Technician One: But boss, you smell bad after just 24 hours!
R&D Boss: But are you dry?
R&D Technician Two: well, yes but ..
R&D Boss: Job done, roll on production
R&D Technician One: yes, great pun boss again (*rolls eyes) but we're developing anti-perspirant, people expect not to smell
R&D Technician Two: He's right boss, and then there is the stickiness and ...
R&D Boss: Sticky isn't wet, not wet equals dry, don't mention smell on the label and go to production. Or you're fired!
R&D Technicians one and two: yes boss
I'll have to chalk this episode down as experience, and remember to read the packaging properly in future.
As to the 96 hour non-stop dry feel? The jury is out. Sticky, I think, comes some way between dry and moist, but I'm not certain there is an actual scale I can refer to. Sorry.
Disclaimer. This of course isn't entirely true. I had to utilise both my spouse and the scratch and sniff methodologies, she's less committed to the pursuit of science than I am as I found out at 2.30 one morning when she woke to find me dangling my .... no, let's leave that there.
One Dream, One Soul, One Prize, One Goal
Eva has discovered a trick with the TV. It could, nay it will, be a life saver.
In a burst of mid afternoon excitement she discovered that if you press and hold the power button on the Sky remote for a couple of seconds it turns off the sky box and the TV all in one go. We've been using two remotes for over a year, and are constantly losing one of them.
Although we initially thanked her for her discovery, she smugly banged on about it for ages so I ended up telling her off for not working it out earlier, no good comes from over praising children after all.
Oh Aye and Up She Rises
The wife did the shopping today and out of the blue has changed her alcohol tipple of choice from white wine to spiced rum. I can only assume therefore that she is either having it away with a pirate or she is planning on running off to sea and is getting in some rum drinking practice before she departs.
As we don't get many pirates around here, and the wife has only left the Victory estate a couple of times a week for the last few weeks (and then only for shopping expeditions) my guess is that it's the running away to sea option she's following. She does pick up accents and dialects very quickly though, so I'll pay attention to see if any pirate chatter creeps in over the next few days.
I Swear It's Everywhere, It's Everything
I've worked out what's wrong. It's so simple, so obvious, I don't know how I've never worked it out before. It's the only logical conclusion really.
Every time one of the kids wants to speak to me and I'm somewhere else in the house they will start talking to me before they get into the room I am in. So often I will hear something like " .... isn't that right, Dad?" or " ... said I had to ask you" and I have no idea what on earth they are talking about.
Sometimes I just go with the flow and say yes, or no, or make some other random stuff up, but this can backfire so is reserved only for times when I really can't be bothered.
Conversely, the wife often waits until I am leaving a room until she starts to speak to me. It is always dangerous to guess an answer to a wife question as, frankly, she comes up with as many wacky ideas as the kids but has far more clout in the forcing through changes/making decisions, so I have to stop what I'm doing, smile and listen attentively. Ish.
The conclusion? I must live in a parallel universe that closely resembles, but is slightly out of line with, the universes the wife and the kids inhabit. How they then communicate with each other when they must be even further apart in time is still a mystery though, I'll ponder some more and get back to you.
We Move Like Cagey Tigers
You have to be very careful what you feed long haired cats because everything (literally, everything) gets stuck in their fur. And if they eat something that doesn't agree with them ... urff.
And cats don't like being pinned down and cleaned.
And I really hope that it was a smear of mud on my knee afterwards, but I suspect not.
And the lyrics?
"Come Up To Meet You, Tell You I'm Sorry" The Scientist, Coldplay
"One Dream, One Soul, One Prize, One Goal" It's a Kind of Magic, Queen
"Oh Aye and Up She Rises", Traditional Sea Shanty
"I Swear It's Everywhere, It's Everything" Parallel Universe, Red Hot Chilli Peppers
"We Move Like Cagey Tigers" The Lovecats, The Cure
How many did you get right?
0 - Must try harder
1-4 - Good effort
5 - You googled, didn't you!
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