Cheeky little number

I bought a bottle of red wine tonight with a cheeky title "Fat Bastard".

A Marketing ploy?. Most definitely. But one I fell for. The lable on the back of the bottle reads something like....

Thierry Boudinaud, a renowned winemaker who had crafted wines from California to France, from Chile to South Africa was sitting in a cold damp wine cellar one winter day when the door burst open. It was Guy Anderson his dear friend from London who had just arrived to sample the recent vintage. “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey” Guy bellowed with a big smile on his face. “Now Thierry let’s find out what gems we have this year.”
Guy was a rebel in the wine industry believing that quality was paramount in a wine but that the average consumer hated the traditional intimidation heaped on them by most of the wine industry. The two had collaborated before and this was yet another chance to drink wine, catch up on family and enjoy a few days together. After tasting hundreds of barrel samples both were pleased with the quality, but not blown away.

The next day after sleeping in past noon due to the late night before, Thierry thought he would have Guy try an experimental wine he had in a few barrels in the back of the cellar. “Dis is a experiment wine we left it on de lees. We try it no?” “Sure Thierry, you know how hard it is to get me to try a new wine.” Both friends had no idea that leaving the wine in barrel on the lees (yeast cells) would result is such a dramatic difference from the wine they tried the day before. It had a wonderful color and rich, round palate. Both men stood and stared at each other for what seemed like five minutes until Thierry exclaimed “now zat iz what you call eh phet bast-ard”

So a cheeky marketing ploy, web-site set up with tee-shirts to buy on-line etc. surely a good wine. I would guess so but hang on I forgot how it tasted after reading the web-site bumph.

No hang on it's coming back to me now it tasted like 3.99 bottle of red wine. You Daft Bastards!

Hoegy Drought

My drink of choice if I am going to a bar is usually Hoegaarden. Last night we went for a 'Ruby' and did a mini bar-crawl on the way back to our regular to finish the night of with a game of darts. I was very disappointed to find in all 3 bars no Hoegy was available on tap.

By the 3rd bar I had got so incensed that I asked the Landlord why? 'Dodgy beer' came the reply. Apparently Hoegaarden have closed their brewery in 'Hoegaarden', a small Belgian village inbetween Maastricht and Brussels. The new brewery is in Jupille, where Jupiler beer is made in South Belgium.

Problem is they are having teething troubles getting the first batches of Hoegy right at the new brewery and therefore due to the popularity of this beer it has quickly become a drought.

It is not only here in Holand and Belgium which was the original market for the beer but now it has been marketed so well the problem has extended to the UK where Hoegy lovers are wondering what the hell is going on.

Fortunately here in Maastricht we produce another fine 'white beer' which during the Hoegaarden explosion on to the world market has been incompetently slow at 'taking a piece of the pie'. So 'white beer' is still on the menu if you want a 'Wieckse Witte' formally brewed on the side of the Maas in Maastricht, but now by Heineken.

How much for your chuddy

The Schmidt 'Hot Jet' Chuddy destroyer

I watched a documentary tonight about 'chuddy'. Wrigleys owned 98% of the market in the UK till Cadburys decided to get in on the deal. And with the release of "Trident Splash" they have quickly cornered a 15% chunk of the market. Wrigleys are not that 'bovvered' though as the chuddy sales have also increased by 15% since it's launch 6 months ago.

The documentry showed the Wrigley's PhD doctor emphasing the health bonuses of chewing a petro-chemical product. Helps with mastication, aiding dental care, helps with mental awareness. etc. etc. No wonder Sir Alex Ferguson is a staunch user of the product.

The documentary went on to tell of the hidden costs of a piece of 'Chud'. Most local councils are having to invest in a peice of German hardware to clean the streets from 'post-masticated chud bombs'. This vehicle costs £100,000. Plus it doesn't do the job properly so council employees are having to follow it around with high pressure water machines to clean up the rest of the gum.

It has been estimated that 80% of chewed gum is left on the streets. Chewing gum was brought to the UK by our American friends during the war. I think we should go back to our original chew of choice the Liquorice-root. I recently went into a dutch health shop to purchase a few sticks and they cost 20 Euro-cents. They last a lot longer than Cadbury's 'Splash'. Also they don't require any German Hardware.

The Cadburys company has launched a big advertising campaign to help it's attack on Wrigleys. The marketing 'bods' came up with the phrase 'Mastication for the Nation'. But they do have a banner on the bottom of their site promoting 'Resposable Mastication', i.e Put your Petro-chemical based product in the Petro-chemical based bin liner so our Petro-chemical vehicles can despose of them properly in a land-fill site.

Bus Stop Dorris

Recently in Maastricht and apparently the rest of Holland almost all the bust stop advertising plackards have shown a very distracting photo of a young lady in lingerie. I was quite surprised by how distracting this poster was as it was on many major roads and all over the city.

A bit of research on t'internet and I found out that the lady in question is Dorien Rose, who was playboy 'playmate' of the year 2005. She actually lives locally and recently started presenting on local Limburg TV and starred in a dutch film 'Purgatory'.

Special Skills
Horseback riding, yoga, singing, street dance, salsa, swimming, golf, tennis, pole-dancing, aerobics.

Languages
Dutch, German, English (Accents: American, English, Scottish), basic French.

She writes on her website:

15-04-2007 Commotion around Sapph Lingerie campaign
Since Wednesday I’ve been receiving a lot of positive feedback about my Sapph Lingerie posters around the country. But it couldn’t be prevented that there are some critics who say that these pictures are ‘Too sexy and not realistic for the common woman’ and ‘Irresponsible because of the distraction on the road’. These are just some reactions about the posters. Some are even taped over the female parts of my body. I think it’s quite funny because we predicted and hoped that this would happen even though I think this reaction is a bit exaggerated. But everybody is allowed to have an opinion and there is no such thing as bad publicity. Because everybody is talking about the campaign it’s known all over the country and that happened within a few days. And Sapph is only a few months old! Because of the rising fame and street gossip owner of Sapph, Rob Heilbron and I went to the Sapph Beach Club in Scheveningen to talk to the press (MTV, The Press and others) to explain our concept and clarify why this situation has been an advantage for the awareness of Sapph. I guess I want to thank all the people who taped over my body and in this way contributed to our success!

You tell 'em girl!

Crap Service

Beter Bed, A crap company

2 months ago we went and bought a bed from 'Beter Bed' (Best Beds) in Maastricht. The sales guy was pretty nice and we soon found a bed to our liking and the major selling point for us was that it would be delivered and constructed by Beter Bed for free.

I was extremely surprised to hear that it would take over two months before delivery. But because of the extra incentive that they would construct it we decided to go for it.

They arrived this morning, two burley guys, shot it all in flat packs into the bedroom in 10 minutes and buggered off. I was out shopping so it was up to the other half to ask why they wouldn't put it together. They said their delivery note said delivery only.

I rang Beter Bed and asked what was going on. They said there was a mistake and that with such a bed they would never suggest, or expect, 'self-build' and tried to give some tips on constructing the bed as if we wanted them to do it it would not be possible for another 4-6 weeks. He did offer us a matress cover for free though, How Kind!.

So 4-5 hours later we had managed to get the bed together, bar a few securing brakets, which the instructions described so badly we decided to wait for the free matress cover to check out how they should be fitted.

While we were constructing the bed the bottom base fell on our cat and he went into 'spook house' for the rest of the day. Which ended up him falling into the pond. So I mailed the wonderful 'Beter Bed' and asked for some compensation rather than a 10-Euro mattress cover. 100 Euros at least for sweets for the puss who is still in a sulk.