Everyone likes a fluffy muffin

Well, today I went on an exciting adventure to Leeds’ 8th biggest shopping mall, the Merrion Centre, to sample the delights of a coffee and bun at one of those random, makeshift shacks that like to erect themselves overnight in indoor ‘ultimate shopping experience’ circuses up and down the country.

The aim of this visit was to sample the food and make sure it was ‘of acceptable temperature, taste and quality’. And I have to say that my muffin was exceedingly better than anything Mr. Kipling ever whipped up.

There must be an art to muffin making. There’s a whole isle for them in supermarkets nowadays (cos I’m now old enough to say the word ‘nowadays’), but most of them look like shit. Most of them are products of the bastard consumerist companies that have driven this country into the mire it is currently in (or something like that). Smarties. Dairy Milk. Skittles. All colourfully packaged to sell to the demanding child. Smarties. Dairy Milk. Skittles. All pumped with ridiculous crap sweeteners and a lottery of E-numbers. Smarties. Dairy Milk. Skittles. The supermarket isle looks like the dessert section of Peter Kay’s repeating buffet.

How the hell these buns are sold at all is a mystery. Why would you want to buy tiny Smarties buns for over £2 when you can get a fresh, homemade one for £1.50? I just don’t understand how people can be so influenced by packaging that they will buy a product that was probably made in China from recycled newspapers and plastic bags months ago.

Thankfully, it made my muffin taste even sweeter. To know it’s had the care of being hand-mixed, hand-poured and oven baked in a kiln you can see in front of your eyes. I’ve got to say, I do like fresh muffins.

There was something about this muffin which was extra special however. It reminded me of the extravagantly greasy doughnuts you buy at tacky English seaside resorts, where you can almost see through the other side of the thing because of the grease content. It had the frothy, cloud-like texture that is far from the froth you get on a badly poured pint. But it had also been cooked to perfection, where the crust was crispy enough to break off, but didn’t shred the roof of your mouth and leave your tongue disabled for 3 weeks.

The fact that it had layers of texture and taste put it far above the lump of coal you often get in the pre-packaged supermarket. What really confuses me is that a fresh, well-made, nicely presented muffin can cost less than a tasteless, semi-carbonated, often chewy, mound of leather.

But then again, I’m here to judge, not to act!

Lincoln and Market Rasen (aka Royston Vasey)

Yesterday marked a new way of looking at the world for me. We are used to watching documentaries of people in high-waist, crème shorts peering through the undergrowth of a Congolese jungle, watching nomads live as they did thousands of years ago.

The way they walk is unique, the way they talk is peculiar, and the way they socialise is far from our own standards of interaction.

Unfortunately, the cost of this privilege in the flesh (quite literally in some cases) is in excess of most people’s budgets, and so we only get to see these fascinating civilisations on screen, unless you know where to look domestically.

I think I may have just about found a culture so diverse and dissimilar to our own, that a documentary on it would fly through BBC commissioning offices.

On a rather gluttonous mystery shopping adventure around Lincolnshire, I arrived on the single-carriage cardboard box train, which are rife in this part of the country, to a place called Market Rasen.

Now, Market Rasen has some interesting facts about it. First, it has a racecourse. And second, the town is named after the close-by River Rase. Well, wasn’t that intriguing. It’s all Wikipedia will tell you anyway. Unfortunately, my outlook on the town was, how shall I say, a little more ‘extensive’.

I arrived in Market Rasen very thankfully, as I saw the supermarket just by the station, and so knew I wouldn’t be around for long. What I had not done was check the train timetables; I was stuck for two hours.

‘Well,’ I thought ‘I might as well look around and see what’s here, since I’ve come so far’. So, I set off back past the train station and into town. The first thing that struck me as odd was a sign by the station; it had two arrows, one for the racecourse, and another for the toilets. ‘Looks like there’s a lot to do in this place’, I thought.

But I gave my prejudices a nudge and told myself I had nothing better to do, so I followed the road and found another sign, simply saying ‘shops’. ‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘a little shopping spree in Lincolnshire surely can’t be turned down’, and so I decided to try and buy some gloves, seeing as it’s getting towards spring and so the obvious thing to do is to buy winter clothing (nice one Joe).

I kicked myself as I walked into the first shop, having not realised it was a charity shop before I’d passed the door. For I did not, in any means, want to buy second hand gloves. But out of respect for the shop, I meaninglessly plodded around the place, blankly looking at utterly pointless figurines of dolphins and gnomes and all that faded, lifeless shit old people put on the mantelpieces.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” Ah shit, they’ve seen me. Thinking on my feet, I said I was looking for gloves, which I shouldn’t have done because the old lady behind the counter picked up a box of them; not paired, but single gloves (lesson to self, don’t think on your feet). I seriously wanted to stop her and ask why the hell would anyone want to buy a single glove, and why would they go to a second hand shop to get them? Who on Earth wants someone else’s mouldy sweat congealed on the inside crevices of their mitts?

Eventually, I managed to sneak a question in on the whereabouts of any clothes shops in the town. I wish I hadn’t. The woman gave me a list of bloody charity shops instead! ‘Help the Aged’ was just round the corner, but if I wanted a good set of gloves I should try ‘The Lincolnshire Cat Trust’ (There are too many things wrong with this last one to even begin trying to understand).

Having slowly backed out of the shop, I turned and headed for the high street, hoping to find a vaguely respectable shop. But I was wrong to even consider it. The town looked as though it was gearing for a mass-evacuation. The buildings that weren’t shut were either knitwear outlets, tearooms or, you guessed it, charity shops. The whole town is run on the bloody things! I looked for a good half hour for a clothes shop suitable for someone under 50, and found nothing. The only clothes you can get are second hand from charity shops, it’s as though the town simply recycle all their stuff again and again.

I eventually stumbled upon the ‘market square’, and this made me laugh. The market consisted of two plant sellers, one of who was sat in the front seat of his car, with a tray of annuals on his bonnet. What is the point in that? That’s not a career, that’s not a living. Selling annuals at 75p a pop on you car bonnet does not consist of aiding the economy! You can’t even tax that!

There was also a solitary burger van, presumably anticipating the hunger of the crowd that must be racing to get to the car bonnet flower man. A sign was stood by the side of the van; ‘Top Chef Touring the Nation’. Now, I am no expert in the catering industry, nor is food-tasting a speciality of mine. However, even the calorie-uneducated proletariats such as myself can see that Derek the hairy, 18 stone meat flipper is not a ‘top chef’!

I decided to leave the market square after seeing a portly family plod towards the burger van, licking their lips are they went, and went back up the road towards the station, having killed bugger-all time at all.

On my way back to the station, I saw two old gimmers sawing some wood outside a run-down theatre hall. It looks like the average age of the workforce in this town was about 60, and being that chavs were rife at 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday, it looked like they were supporting the younger folk, rather than the other way round.

Much alike the Congolese nomads, the people of Market Rasen seemed different in their ways. I mean, I’m not having a go or anything, but every person seemed to have a limp, or massive glasses, or generally just looked knackered. I admit hypocrisy here on the fact that I am physically defunct myself, but still, why are these people out? What are they doing apart from moving from one charity shop to another to see if any new tea cosies have arrived (I say new, in reality anything with under 4 stains on it will do).

Finally I get to Lincoln, and set off on a trek to my next supermarket. Lincoln itself is a very nice city indeed. The cathedral dominates the skyline, the old town is wonderfully scenic, and the chavs shout “suck on it” as you walk past.

I was so tempted to turn to this 11 year old sewer dweller and ask exactly what he had wanted me to suck, and on what should I be performing this act? I also wanted to ask ‘what are you?’ Unfortunately, polysyllabic words and full sentences can be dreadfully challenging for sub-species, and so I left it.

So this is what I came away with from my experience of a day in Lincolnshire. The knowledge of a town run on its own recycling of goods, its charity shops and the resiliently hardworking 60+ year olds, and a hopeful thought for the future; that our children, and their children, and theirs after that, will have to put up with nauseating little shits who swagger the streets, expostulating with such elegant poetry as ‘suck on it’.

Well, looks like the untouched Congolese rainforest communities are relatively more civilised than a hopefully soon-to-be untouched community just outside Lincoln.

Friday the 13th.... oooooooooooo!

Ask most people at my uni what they do if they have a day off, and they would respond with a sneaky smile, and a suggestion of having a ‘big night out’, and use that valuable free day to recover from it.

Not me. Unfortunately, on the doomed day of Friday the 13th, I decided to book two mystery shops to the arse end of nowhere, that being North Lincolnshire.

Usually I book mystery shopping visits to local areas in and around Leeds, ones that I can get to without hours of sifting through ‘easy to read’ bloody timetables for trains that, in reality, don’t actually exist.

But on this day, whilst everyone else on my course who has a beloved 3-day weekend snoozed through the majority of their hangovers, I decided to head off on a mission to Tescos… and with very little idea of how to get there.

My first point of call was the town of Gainsborough, described on Google Maps as ‘a quaint town in between Doncaster and Lincoln’. Well, if you could struggle to equate ‘quaint’ to meaning inaccessible then I’d tend to agree with you.

After a delayed train from Leeds to Doncaster, I finally seat myself upon the Gainsborough, single carriage, only just post steam engined, box. Sat there, with my poetry essay out, an old man peering over my shoulder.

I actually felt a sense of personal pride having this probable Crimean War veteran leering over me, looking at my poetry anthology. He was probably best buddies with old Tennyson himself. I felt I was standing up against the stereotype of youth, sat there analysing a love ballad rather than defacing the carriage windows with my hood up.

Eventually I got to Gainsborough, and set off on a two-kilometre trek to the Tesco, having made the mistake of over confidence by booking a visit nowhere near a train station.

For anyone who doesn’t know, my ‘job’ in these Tescos is primarily to purchase alcohol, and see if they serve me without asking for ID. Unfortunately, this guy didn’t ID me. I have no idea what happens after I write in my report that ‘x was impolite, indifferent and irresponsive of my custom’, but then again, it’s my job to show who isn’t doing their job. (Not quite as bastardry as a lawyer).

After leaving Tesco with what I eventually found out was some rancid Czech lager, I headed off to another train station in Gainsborough; Gainsborough Central. Now, I thought, the Central station is going to be packed with people all brawling to get onto a tumult of trains. But, of course, it wasn’t. It was barely even a station to be honest. In fact, the pre-1940s bridge across the single line and the abundant vegetation pouring from the concrete platform suggested this station was, how can I say, un-fucking-used!

Great, so I was stuck in North Lincolnshire, at 2pm, with no quick means of getting to my next stop, Brigg.

I only accepted to do the Brigg shop because I thought it was close, and quick to get to. Au contraire Joe, you idiot, only two bus journeys later, one providing the delightful vocal range of two infant children and a, how can I put this politely, dreadfully skilled mother, to contend with.

Eventually I get to Brigg, and it seems my luck has changed. I accidentally pressed the stop button and felt obliged to get off, unbeknownst to me that the Tesco I was looking for was right in front of me.

So, one good shop later, and carrying considerably more booze than I did before I entered the store, I turned my sights back on home. (Not literally of course, I would have been heading in the wrong direction from the train station if I had of done).

Eventually I find the train station, even though everyone I asked seemed to know bugger all about it. And to be fair, they had a point. Trains barely ran from there anymore, and not today!

Great, so I was going to have to spend over my mileage budget in order to get home. So, down to the information desk where I find out that, of course, North Lincolnshire buses don’t run after 5 o’clock. Which is excellent news for me, as I’m now stuck in the middle of Brigg(!?) with £10 worth of alcohol on me and a poetry anthology.

I was resigned to the fact that maybe mystery shopping in the Shire was not for me, until a guy overheard my conversation with the information lady, and offered to give me a lift back to Scunthorpe.

Legend! A free lift with Ian, the Under 9s football coach of Appleby Froddingham Saints. On the plus side he was a football nut, on the down side he was a Liverpool fan. But beggars can’t be choosers, especially ones stranded in fucking Middle-Earth, and so I gladly took the ride.

He left me at Scunthorpe train station, which, to its credit looked professional, and to its detriment was rife with chavs. (At this point I’d just like to mention that, ‘chavs’ has just come up as red on my spell checker. MS Word is so not with the times man!)

Gladly, I get a train back to old Donny and then to Leeds station, a place that I’m beginning to know quite well now. It seems that there are good people in the world. Even though the North Lincolnshire public transport system is useless, at least their local hitchhike system is in perfect working order. Big thanks to Ian, the coach of Appleby Foddingham Saints Under 9s.

I’m never going to Brigg again.