My New Hero!

Mark Malkoff, an American comedian/film maker moved in to Ikea for a week while his house was being fumigated! He didn't leave Ikea for a whole week! Wow!

You can find out all about it at http://www.marklivesinikea.com/

There are lots of videos about the stuff he got up to, including a date he organises with his wife who didn't want to move into Ikea, and then thought he loved Ikea more than he loved her... (which he didn't deny!)

And, as if that isn't enough, he also visited all 171 branches of Starbucks in Manhattan in one day. He also bought something at each one... I'm assuming they weren't all cups of coffee. The caffeine in 171 coffees all consumed in 24 hours could have an interesting effect.... perhaps that's how he managed to visit every branch? By making himself really hyperactive?

Anyway, find out about that at http://www.171starbucks.com/

But yeah....Ikea and Starbucks are, like, my FAVOURITE places on the planet.

In my opinion, the real wonders of the world.

I mean, were the pyramids flat packed? No.

Could you get an iced-decaf-triple-grande-java chip-frappuccino with whipped cream and chocolate flakes at the Temple of Artemis? I think not.

And I'd choose that twin tailed mermaid in the Starbucks logo than that statue of Zeus any day!

Furthermore, it would appear that Starbucks coffee has life saving properties. ; )

Wow.

I just realised something else

A 'Hobson's Choice' is (according to Wikipedia) 'a free choice in which only one option is offered, and one may refuse to take that option. The choice is therefore between taking the option or not taking it. The phrase is said to originate from Thomas Hobson (1544–1630), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England, who, in order to rotate the use of his horses, offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door—or taking none at all'.

Wikipedia also says that a 'Hobson's Choice' is different from
'a true choice between two (or more) options
blackmail (do something, or have some unpleasant fact about your past revealed)
extortion (do something or suffer unpleasant consequences of some other sort)
a Catch-22 situation (all choices yield equivalent results)'.

The reason this surprised me so much is that 'Hobsons' is also the name of a company which 'specialises in student intelligence, recruitment, and enrolment management'. I know this because we had to fill out questionnaires for them at School a few years ago, and they have been sending me spam ever since. I should have fake e-mailed them, but it all seemed very official and serious, and I didn't have the guts to do it at the time. (Though I remember having to list 3 possible career options and I could only think of 2, so I ticked the 'armed forces' box as the third. Do you think it skewed their graphs? I wonder if I was an anomaly, suspended, all alone, above the line of best fit).

Is it just me, or is 'Hobsons' a slightly odd name to give such a company? I don't really know about everything they do, but all the spam they've sent me and all their magazines that have been thrust at me have been about going to university. Are they implying that a university degree is the only real option post 18? Is it brainwashing?

Their website says that they have 8 offices around the world. So if I really have uncovered some sort of conspiracy, we should act fast, before a big man behind a big desk dials a number on his big telephone and we are all caught in a big trap and...um....live lives of big oppression under a big dictator.


Argh. You see.... this is why it takes me ages to write an essay. I get side tracked so easily.

Though it's amazing what learning another language can teach you about your own. =)

In French, 'Hobson's Choice' is 'choix qui n'en est pas un'.
...so...erm....yeah....basically they don't have a word for it....

Be careful what you wish for...

I'm in the middle of writing an essay at the moment, 'L'euthanasie est une forme de meurtre' ('euthanasia is a form of murder' for those of you who couldn't guess that!) and I was looking up words in a dictionary...... and it struck me that there is a difference between a 'dying wish' and a 'death wish'. Quite a big difference.
I'd used the wrong one at first, and then read through what I had written, saw the ambiguity, and thought I'd better check it. Good thing too - it would have changed the whole message of my essay!



_________
In case you were wondering, I won't be writing about Christmas and New Year, because they weren't fantastic. I got that famous bug - before it was famous - and threw up 17 times on Christmas Day. Yes, apparently it is possible to throw up that many times without eating anything. It just gets progressively more painful as time goes on.
They saved my Christmas Dinner, and I had it in a panini for tea on Boxing Day, as I was feeling much better by then.