Recent posts

Weasel poo coffee – as posh as pig’s arseholes

We are a coffee granule free zone. But I do have half a kilo of some stuff that passed out of a Weasel’s backside. At least in Vietnam they call it weasel. It is a civet and the beans are poohed out, it having eaten the coffee berries. Some poor bugger collects the droppings and (hopefully) washes them before roasting. It makes a very, very dark coloured bean and a very strong dark coffee. J says it even tastes of […]

Not sure about the cheese

Can’t decide between the goat penis and the beef penis. Oh, and I’m not sure about the oyster and cheese. But the tank of live scorpions was pretty impressive.

Goat, veal, pork or duck?

“Like dried baby goat. Or perhaps – I know – like veal, like the veal of a baby suckling calf, only drier.” This is how Princess Mary of Denmark’s royal father-in-law Prince Henrik describes dog meat. The Hairy Bikers couldn’t decide whether it tasted like Pork or Duck. J warned me off this delicacy so I can’t tell you what I thought of the taste. I may have eaten it without knowing. I just don’t know. What I can tell […]

Missing ingredient makes the chai

Sometimes you just need something to calm you down… when you’ve become hot under the collar over teabags. When two interviewees postponed today. As a matter a fact, I’m hot under the collar now. So it was that I though I had to buy chai, that calming hippy dippy Indian spiced tea. Three local supermarkets later and I had none and was too bothered to drive or ride across town to buy it. The best selection was at the local […]

Drink within your means

How much should you pay for wine? Or let’s put it this way: How much more than the cost of food should wine be? In Melbourne the cost of a main course in a restaurant is fast catching up with the cost of wine. If I’m feeling poor I may spend $40 to $50 on a bottle in a restaurant. Feeling rich and I may double the figure. To put this into context in the kinds of restaurants where I’m […]

Weekend toadstool mushroom blogging

Someone was trying to be helpful. True those bloody Zucchini were overgrown. But under their leaves hid my winter crops – horseradish and jerusalem artichokes. J just ripped them out and I’m left with a barren patch of earth. No herbs. Just a few weeds and grass sprouts now. So I have had to go further afield to find something for Weekend Herb Blogging, which Kalyn has handed over to DMBLGIT winner Ilva at Lucullian Delights to host this southern […]

Cut costs, not staff

There are ways to improve revenue performance, if only CFOs had time to look for them. CFO. 01 May 2006 For the first time since 1987, companies are starting to see annual productivity gains slow. Dr Frank Gelber, chief economist at BIS Shrapnel, said last year that Australian companies have cut back the fat to the point that there were no more efficiency gains to be had. He said this means companies face cost increases and either rising prices or […]

Hybrid markets: Raising the capital bar

After Orica’s success, it seems like hybrid capital raisings are driving the whole M&A market this year. CFO. 01 May 2006 The Australian stockmarket is at an all-time high. The mergers and acquisitions business is booming, and the boom is bringing a wave of new capital-raising to the market. But if 2006 is to be known for anything, it will be the year of the hybrid step-up preference security (SPS). The twist that has caught the market’s interest is that […]