Remember, remember the fifth of November

I think I'll go for the sub and sparkler combo.

Fireworks shops pop up around mid-October to supply people with pyrotechnics for Guy Fawkes Night. No one seems to consider the fact that it would be more appropriate to celebrate Guy Fawkes’ failed attempt to blow up Parliament by NOT blowing up things. And don’t say this wouldn’t be as much fun, because how much fun can it be to hang out outside on a cold, wet November night?

A nice, quiet explosive-free evening indoors - that's my kind of party. Here's to you, Guy.

Self check yourself

I recently read that Tesco is opening its first self-checkout store in the UK. This seems like a spectacularly bad idea, not because of job losses or a possible increase in food theft, but because self-checkout machines waste more time than they save.

I occasionally pick up a few things at the busy Sainsbury's supermarket on Buchanan Street. Though I should know better by now, I often use the self checkout in the hope of beating the queues, turning food shopping into a battle between me and the infuriatingly polite checkout machine.

On a recent visit, I touched a button on the screen to indicate that I had my own bag.

"Please place your bag in the bagging area," the machine said kindly. I put down my Envirosack.

"Please place your bag in the bagging area," it repeated. I picked up the bag and slammed it back down.

"Please wait for an attendant to verify your bag," I looked around and the sole attendant was helping another woman who, like me, was failing at buying her food.

"Please wait for an attendant to verify your bag." Now the attendant was helping someone else. I seethed.

"Please wait for an attendant to verify your bag." Finally, the attendant came over and swiped his employee card, allowing me to continue checking out.

I scanned my first two items without a problem - and then I got to the pepper.

When you buy loose items like fruits and vegetables, you have to choose which category they belong to on the screen and indicate how many you have. I looked through the vegetables section. No pepper. I checked it again. Definitely no pepper.

I must have looked confused because the attendant came over and asked I needed help.

"I can't find the pepper," I said lamely.

"It's in the salad section," he said, pointing to the screen. And sure enough, there it was. Not a vegetable. A salad.

I paid with my debit card, put the card back in my wallet and put the wallet in my bag.

"Please take your items from the bagging area," the machine said as I struggled with my bag zipper.

"Please take your items from the bagging area," it instead again.

"Damn it, will you calm down?" I shouted.

Shoppers turned and stared. I grabbed my bag and rushed out of the store. The self-checkout machine had won - again.

Just people

I went to Denmark last weekend to meet up with my university friends Bjarke and Simrit. While Bjarke made dinner on Saturday night, Simrit and I went down to the corner shop to pick up a bottle of wine.

Since I'd already had a few glasses and was unfamiliar with the exchange rate, I tried to pay the shop assistant the equivalent of £80 for an £8 bottle of wine. He gathered that I was a foreigner.

"Where are you from?" he asked in English.

"New York," I replied.

"Ah, America. Afghanistan," he said, pointing to himself.

Shit.

"She’s against the war! We're both against the war!" Simrit yelled. This was typical Simrit – a tiny girl with a huge personality, Simrit speaks at maximum volume pretty all the time.

I nodded uncomfortably, because really, what do you say in this kind of situation? Sorry my country invaded your country and killed thousands of civilians?

"How long have you been in Denmark?" Simrit asked.

"Ten years," he replied.

"So were you in Afghanistan the last time the Americans were there?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I was already here."

I must have looked uneasy because he turned to me and smiled.

"Governments do one thing even when people want another. We have no say. You and me, we're just people. It's okay." And he reached out and shook my hand.

Two countries at war. Two opposing sides. Two people, just people, shaking hands

Jeezo

Best headline of the week: 'Jesus's face' spotted on the toilet door in Ikea Glasgow.

People have reported seeing a vision of the Son of God in the bog at the Swedish superstore. Well, it's either Jesus or Gandalf. Or Benny Anderson from ABBA. Anyway, it's a long-haired beardy man who kind of looks like he's melting.

Also great - this smiling squirrel in Kelvingrove Park. I gave him a walnut and he was happy.

Whisawrafussaboot?

A translation company recently placed an ad in the Herald for a Glaswegian translator. The job, which pays up to £140 a day, involves translating Glaswegian slang for foreign business people who struggle to understand the local dialect.

They've received over 300 applications since the story appeared on the front page of BBC News yesterday, some of which were written in Glaswegian. You can listen to an audio version of a Glaswegian application on the BBC website. Job adverts don't usually make the news, but how often do you see an ad for a job where you can get away with calling your potential new employers "bamsticks"?

At first I thought the whole thing was laughable. A Glaswegian translator? Sure, Glaswegians use the odd slang word here and there, but they're not unintelligible. Then I read the list of Glasgow patter that accompanied the original BBC article and realised I wasn't familiar with half the words. I've been living here for nearly four years but I didn’t know that a "cludgie" is a toilet, a "Hampden roar" is a score or a "Scooby" is a clue (rhymes with Scooby Doo). If someone had started talking to me about their "stookie" I would have been horrified because it sounds like something rude. It's not. It means cast.

I don’t parliamo Glasgow. Not even close.

Say cheez!

I have a relatively healthy diet. I eat muesli with soy milk for breakfast. I make a point of having fresh fruit with my lunch every day. I've even tried to convince myself that seeds don't taste like a pet store smells. My workmates munch on crisps their desks while I make my way through a bag of sunflower seeds that remind me of a bird cage.

But sometimes I crave junk food. And lately, I've really been craving American junk food. The Brits have their fair share of unhealthy nibbles, but no one does fatty, nutritionally-deficient, highly-addictive snack foods like the Americans.

The greatest American contribution to the snack world is "cheez". Cheezy foods contain very little actual cheese and don't taste much like the real thing, but they're oddly moreish. All of my favourite American snack foods are cheezy.

Goldfish


My friend Elizabeth recently sent me a bag of these smiling fish snacks. Half the fish were pretzel flavour and the other half were "flavor-blasted xtra cheddar", which means that they're cheezy with extra powdered cheez on top. I ate the whole bag by myself in two days.

Combos


I loved Combos as a kid. Whenever my dad would buy me a bag I’d hide it from my brother in my room, savouring each cheez-filled pretzel log.

There is no finer combination than pretzels and cheez. I'm also a big fan of Snyder's Cheddar Cheese Pretzel Pieces. I found them in Inverness once and nearly wept with cheezy delight.

Cheez Doodles


These cheez-flavoured corn snacks are BAKED. That's what the new bag says – BAKED. This is supposed to trick you into thinking that bright orange snacks that include the word "cheez" in their name can be healthy.


White Cheddar Cheez-Its


I'm not sure what makes these powdery little cheez crackers so good, but I bet it's the MSG!

Does anyone else secretly love cheez? What are your favourite snack foods?

With Friends like these...

When I moved to Stirling to do my postgraduate degree in 2004, I went to a party for international students during my first week. At one point I introduced myself to a Chinese student who asked where I was from. When I said New York, his face lit up.

"New York? Central Perk! Friends!"

I resisted the urge to smack myself in the forehead. He grinned. "I love that show."

I was never a huge Friends fan – I watched it occasionally and sometimes enjoyed it, but generally I didn't think about it much. The last episode, which I don't think I ever saw, aired in 2004. And then it was over – but not in Britain.

There is at least one episode of Friends on every time I turn on the TV. Apparently it's possible to watch Friends up to 12 times a day in Britain. And that's not enough for some people - 256,000 copies of the complete 10-season box set were sold in the UK last year.

London recently honoured the 15 year anniversary of the pilot episode of Friends by building a replica of the Central Perk in Soho. For two weeks it dispensed coffee and nostalgia to die hard British Friends fans, who got to sit on a big orange couch and pretend that they were on the telly circa 1994, minus the silly layered hair and mock turtlenecks.

Help me out here – what is it about these six New Yorkers that British people love so much?