I quite like Jamie Oliver. He's not become a pretentious tosser like most chefs who make it big, and he speaks like a local boy, and swears quite a bit. Oh, and I think his wife has got big tits. (That last point was irrelevant, I admit, but I'm stuck here in bloody China and so think about such tings quite a lot)
Anyway, since I've never once cooked anything in my apartment, unless you count 'creating' a bowl of 'Cheerios' or making toast, both of which I do quite a lot. I have a cooker and one of those fancy microwaves that can brown stuff on the outside at the same time as blast it with radiation from the inside, so the skin on a cat would be crispy. If you wanted to cook a cat.
Anyway, I felt creative today, and so bought some cheese slices and some 'ham' (after my trip to Mongolia, I suspect that could be anything from mongoose to budgerigar) because I remember watching Jamie do a trick with a toaster....
So, when I got back - quite excited, I confess - I half cooked the toast, and (here's the clever bit), then turned the taster on its side, took the bread out and put it back in with the cheese on top. Hey presto - cheese toasties!!! Well, not quite....
Firstly, as I slid it in, the cheese stuck to the element, because I was in such a rush, and didn't take care (room for another childish gag there) but I was so excited, I pushed the lever down anyway, and before I knew it, there was smoke everywhere. And then the room plunged into darkness - I'd blown a bloody fuse. Before I could call reception and gt a man up to switch me back on, I naturally had to scrape it all out, so opened the door into the corridor so I could see. Several people passed and looked in, and I suspect some thought "so that's the bastard who plays prog rock very loud all night, and watches films with lots of groaning in".
I rang reception and 'spoke' to someone who clearly thought I'd just landed from Mars - the reception girls had gone, and I'd got Wangchungching the night porter. I repeated my room number 72,000 times, and he eventually got the message (adding "FIRE!" possibly helped. A man arrived, and some of the gathering audience in the corridor muttered "fire?" - I felt like Basil Fawlty saying "no fire - false alarm - Jamie Oliver in the house" . After jabbering into his walkie-talkie (they love using them - makes them feel important) another man arrived, with a screwdriver, pretending to be the pilot of Thunderbird 1 and pushing through the crowd. He opened the fuse box, threw the switch and hey presto, the lights were on, and closely followed by Pink Floyd and 'One of these days' blasting out. It could have been worse - it could have been one of the grunting films....
He turned his attention to the toaster, and having been to the University of Shaolin Kung Fu Early Learning, waved his screwdriver about looked at me as if to say "You been f*cking about with this toaster?", at which point - knowing he spoke as much English as I do Chinese, said "I saw it on the telly", with an absolute straight face. He jabbered to mission control again, and after a moment or two - that seemed like hours - as he poked around inside the toaster, and I noticed the tell-tale signs of melted cheese on his sonic screwdriver, another man arrived in Thunderbird 2, with anew toaster inside pod 6. He left with a look that said "You've had bloody cheese in there - I'm watching you, pal!"
So - I'm now sat here with my Cheerios (safer), still playing Pink Floyd (about to play air-guitar to the solo in 'Comfortably Numb') and contemplating sending an email to Jamie Oliver asking for compensation. A photo of his wife's tits will suffice. Or she could SKYPE me and we could talk face to face...
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