Hot Fuzz, Lent

[pozorvlak]

Hot Fuzz is the best thing the Spaced team have done yet. Far better, IMHBCO, than the frankly disappointing Shaun of the Dead. Go see. Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once!

In case you've missed the publicity, Simon Pegg plays Sgt Nicholas Angel, a tough, hard-hitting supercop from London. An expert in firearms, special tactics, high-speed driving, and community relations, he's reassigned to the sleepy village of Sandford for making everyone else's arrest records look bad. There, the by-the-book, politically-correct, married-to-the-force Angel is partnered with PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), a drunken slob with a love of high-octane cop movies. Angel settles uneasily into a life of policing church fetes, but is Sandford really as sleepy as it seems? Trailer here (also highly recommended)

In other news, I am going to try to give up alcohol, caffeine and chips for Lent. Previous experience suggests that caffeine's going to be the big one: much of yesterday was spent in a haze of tiredness and headaches, and I think I'm due for about a week of this (though I didn't get much sleep on Tuesday night, so maybe the rest of the week will be better), followed by five weeks of dying for a cup of tea. I have yet to find a hot drink with the right qualities - all the alternatives lack, well, body.

Comments

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Marmite dissolved in hot water? Or are you one of the people who don't like Marmite? I remember not. It's got body, anyway.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Yes, Marmite is a great hot drink, and in fact I had one this morning. As a substitute for tea, it's OK, but it doesn't do a good job of replacing tea entirely.

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

No, this is true. I tend to drink it mostly when ill, in my attempts to find things to drink with as many different nutrients as possible.

[susannahf.livejournal.com]

Have you tried red bush (roobiboos) tea. It doesn't taste like tea tea, but it is caffeine free and more tea-like than most other caffeine-free options. I'm particularly fond of the vanilla-flavoured variety myself. Whittard's have a reasonable selection, and will often let you try before you buy. Their website claims 2 shops in glasgow (Buchannan St and Glasgow Fort). You may not actually want to buy from there though - supermarkets often stock red tea and may be considerably cheaper (and provide bag rather than leaf form if that's your preference).

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

And also - if you don't get an aromatic flavoured variety, but just straight roobois, then you can still have it with milk in! Making it a far more tea-like experience than any other substitutes!

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm aware of (and quite like) rooibos tea. Again, it's a nice drink considered as an adjunct to tea, but does a poor job of substituting for it - not enough body*, and it's seriously diuretic.

You can put milk in Marmite, btw. It works pretty well.

* "body" isn't quite the right word - I'm looking for a word that describes tea's ability to grab you by the alimentary canal and demand to be taken seriously.

[susannahf.livejournal.com]

I hear that "decaffeinated tea" exists. I have never knowingly drunk it, so can't possibly comment on its "body", or, indeed, drinkability (I'm guessing that a significant amount of chemical jiggery pokery is required to separate out the caffeine). I'm not sure it's the solution to your problem, but maybe it would help stave off the pangs?

[elvum.livejournal.com]

It's fine. The caffeine is extracted with water. It would pass for normal teabag tea in all but the most rigorous of side-by-side tests.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I had bad, but extremely vague, memories of decaf tea, but if it's acceptable to your refined palate, it's almost certainly good enough for mine. I'll look out for some.

[Meanwhile, I went and bought some rooibos tea and some lemon-and-ginger tea yesterday]

[(Anonymous)]

Clipper do the decaf tea that I found acceptable, IIRC.

[mrkgnao.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, Hot Fuzz is brilliant!

I didn't realise you were a religious type? *ignorant*

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I used to be, but now I'm just a guy who drinks too much tea, beer and coffee, and eats too many chips. Lent seemed like a good block of time in which to try this. In fact, I know it is, because I've done something similar for the last few years. I should probably try giving up meat, for environmental reasons, but I'm saving that for next year.

[green-jedi.livejournal.com]

Hot Fuzz looks absolutely brilliant, I saw the trailer on Apple Trailers a few weeks back, and I can't wait for it to come out!!!

[r-e-mercia.livejournal.com]

Don't give up caffeine it's a bloody stupid idea. You will turn into a grouchy mumbly half-awake old fart with no sense of humour and a thumping headache for 5 weeks. Then when you have some caffeine on Easter Sunday, you will become a hyperactive over-awake short-tempered lunatic with a headache for the next 5 weeks. Caffeineis not giveuppable. It is a way of life. More than that, it may be...the secret...to life, itself!

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

When I gave up caffeine for Lent a couple of years ago, I found that the headaches went away after about a week, and the falling-asleep-in-the-middle-of-the-afternoon thing largely went with them.

[r-e-mercia.livejournal.com]

Noooo! BAD!!!! Tea of joy!!!!

Meat

[aftnn.org (from livejournal.com)]

You could try giving up meat, around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to livestock rearing and feed production.

Re: Meat

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

What, you think I'm not being ambitious enough already? :-)

The meat idea had occurred to me already (see my response to mrkgnao, above), but struck me as overambitious, and less personally urgent than the caffeine, which is getting a bit out of control. And I don't eat that much meat anyway - I don't think I ate any yesterday, for instance. Hmmm. Maybe I'll eat the stuff I've got in at the moment, and then not buy any more. We'll see.

Re: Meat

[totherme.livejournal.com]

A halfway house of course, is to eat only happy meat. I know several people who aren't vegetarian on the grounds that if everyone was, most farm animals would be extinct, and they like farm animals - but who do refuse to eat meat that has been treated poorly. Often this means doing slightly non-trivial research into the farms the meat comes from, since many official definitions like "Free Range" are apparently loopholeable...

[wholepint.livejournal.com]

Damn. I can't see Hot Fuzz till next week. *waits on tenterhooks*

I give up Lent for Lent every year. Or not, seeing as I'm not Christian.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

dynix and I have a pact: every year, she gives up drinking for Lent, and I give up smoking for Ramadan :-)