Shaken not stirred

OUR roving sports reporter Wathanovski has been dropping some Seismic stories of late - in fact, there is a good chance that the next time he is scheduled for a trip abroad, the country he is heading for will be evacuated.
Just over a month ago Wathanovski travelled to Iceland with the Wales football squad for a friendly international. After landing on terra ferma he suddenly found the terra was not so ferma after all. In fact, the island recorded an earthquake at 6.5 on the Richter Scale - not small by any means. Just like any good reporter he was straight on the phone to give us the news and it appeared as the lead story on the next day's Snail.
Move forward to last week and this time Wathanovski was saying Ola to Spain, joining Swansea City on their pre-season trip to Barcelona. Ordering a drink from the bar he shot out onto the terrace to soak up a bit of costa Sun. Sipping away, he suddenly noticed the rest of his entourage were standing up, casting their eyes around in confusion.
Staring up to the balcony, the Swansea City players had also emerged to scour the horizon.
"Did you feel that?" said one of Wathanovski's cohorts.
Staring deeply into his San Miguel he wondered whether their drinks had been spiked.
"No, what's up?"
"Well, it felt pretty much to me like an earthquake," said his fellow hack.
And he was right. This one wasn't so strong, probably about 3.5, in a volcanic area of Spain.
One wonders if the earth moves for the teacher when Wathanovski is at home, too.

Meantime, the wonderful Withers has asked me to clarify one of my more recent blog entries. I am happy to do so. Apparently it wasn't his head from which I shot the balloon apple at my engagement party, but that of Gareth the Builder. I'm happy to correct the mistake which was, I confess, the result of me remembering very little about the whole affair. I can now say, though, that I have the pictures to prove he was right.
However, I am informed from more than one source that the Wonderful One was in true teeth-breaking form on Saturday night at Gavin "the beard" Allen's birthday party on Saturday night. On the same day the Prince of Darkness was greeted by two young ladies who claimed he was the spitting image of Hugh Grant, the British actor with a hankering for American down-at-heel prostitutes.
Turning on all his bashful charm the Prince was ready to lap this up as a compliment. The girls, however, made their excuses and left. Perhaps they noticed the vodka-tainted saliva dripping from his fangs.

The clean desk policy at the new Thomson Towers begins tonight. Apparently if you leave ANYTHING on your desk it will be cleared away, according to AP Fazza. Already people are talking about bringing in their old lawnmowers, TV sets and green bin bags for immediate disposal.
For myself, I have been informed I have a whole cupboard in which to store things. I am thinking of putting Withers in there.

On Tuesday I took a well-earned day off to spend with Wren. We decided to go and see the new Batman film The Dark Knight. Well worth watching.

On Saturday night, feeling rather peckish after a longer than usual WoS shift, I raided my cookbooks and came up with a recipe for Tomato noodles with Fried Egg.
Ingredients:
Two servings of dried egg noodles
Vegetable Oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 chopped shallots
1/2 tsp of chilli powder
1 tsp paprika
A diced carrot
4 ozs button mushrooms, quartered
1/2 cup peas (frozen, but thawed)
1 tsp tomato ketchup
2 tsp tomato puree
salt and black pepper
butter, for frying
2 eggs

What I did:
Cook the noodles in salted water, then after four minutes rinse with cold water and leave to stand.
Heat oil in wok then add garlic, shallots, chilli powder and paprika.
Stir fry for a minute, then add carrots, mushrooms and peas.
Continue to stir fry until veg is cooked. Stir in the ketchup and puree.
Add the noodles and cook, stirring over medium heat until the dish is heated through.
Meanwhile, fry the eggs in the melted butter in a frying pan.
Season the noodles, divide onto plates and top with an egg each or, in my case, put the whole lot on one plate and scoff away merrily.