The internet is for porn.

Had one of those annoying television/broadband/phone package salesmen on the doorstep today. Quite apart from the fact that it was inconvenient because I had a student in the house, we are really not interested in changing our phone company, internet service provider or "energy provider" (gas & electricity). I tried to get rid of him immediately, but unfortunately he was one of those who can't take a hint. And I don't like shutting the door in people's faces, because I was brought up properly, etc.

So we had a surreal conversation in which first he didn't believe that we don't watch television. Then he wanted to know who we got our broadband from. Then he wanted to know if it included porn.

To which my reaction could only have been "!!!".

So I said "We don't download any porn in this household, thank you". Which is true. Richard downloads many photos of sweaty paintballers in "action shots", and videos of machines doing what machines do, and photos of engineers working on their machines, but very few pictures of naked girlies. And the closest I get to porn are the occasional nekkid pictures of friends on their livejournals. Which I'm sure doesn't count, because I actually know them and they're not selling it for money.

So he replied, "No, I mean PORN!". And did the time-honoured, Sims 2-style action of American Sign Language "I love you"/rock fans' METAL!! hand (\m/) held against the ear to indicate a telephone. And thus I realised, belatedly, that he was from one of the ethnicities that pronounce the soft "ph" sound in English as a hard "p".

"Um," I said. "There's a big difference between the phone and porn. And you should really learn that if you're going to go round knocking on people's doors, or you'll seriously offend someone."

other things done recently

After writing this long list of things I'd done, I spent the rest of the evening making black beans that tasted good, adapted from Kake's black bean soup recipe. (Same basic deal without the evil cilantro or onion, extra garlic to replace the onion, and made with less water.) Unfortunately, I'd forgotten how long dried beans take to cook, and I didn't want anyone eating them until they were quite thoroughly done. All red and black beans are poisonous until they've been cooked properly, but that should be dealt with by 10 minutes of rapid boiling. The problem was more that any undercooked pulse can give a person horrible belly ache, and I've had this too often (from other people's cooking - school lentil roasts argh argh) to ever want to experience it again. Meanwhile, there was a hungry and grumpy wuzzie pacing up and down moaning about how hungry he was. Stress!

Note to self: Seriously do soak beans overnight before cooking them! Or boil them rapidly for the whole 40 minutes, rather than just for 10 minutes followed by 30 minutes simmering. But also remember that while it's a hassle, it's thoroughly worth cooking a big pot of beans, because then that's two or three dinners sorted out.

( Sleep and insect bites. )

( Cycling in Richmond Park. Strange trees and bunnies. )