I have to relate a very funny thing that happened in London.
At Jubilee Market in Covent Garden, there was this stall that was selling posters and postcards and pictures and so on, and I decided I'd look for a BNL picture for Chit. So I ask the guy - do you have any Barenaked Ladies stuff? He gives me a strange look, and says no he doesn't. And I go - Nothing? No posters or anything? And then slowly he says that he might have something, and goes to have a look.
He pulls out a poster of a naked woman.
And I'm like - No, I meant the band! And he gives this relieved laugh and says no, sorry, that he doesn't have.
And I was just cracking up. It was a hilarious episode!
And another thing - Vivien's gross passport.
I asked to see her passport, and she refused, and I asked why, and she said "It's gross." And I asked why it was gross. And she said "it's just gross." And I said, "What's so gross about it?" And she said, "because it's gross." And I say, "that isn't an answer to the question in any way, grammatical or otherwise!" And by way of explanation, in all seriousness, she says "it's gross because it's gross which is what's so gross about it." It became quite the quotable quote.
Vivien again: If chickens were vegetables, I would generally be a vegetarian!
Another oft-heard Vivien phrase: "Eh you're damn mean ah!"
Bernasty says that Vivien is verbally suicidal.
At one point, someone retorted to Vivien's "damn mean" thing, that she was just "stating the facts" so whenever someone imitated Vivien and said someone was mean, the common retort, however nonsensical in the context, was that one was just stating the facts.
Shoojee about fraud: "It gets you to hell but it also gets you places."
Mark the guide: They're always building new bridges in London.
Me: That's because London bridge is always falling down.
Oh and I took tongs along, because I had these Indian food packets (another source of much amusement - It's not big enough! Which I will relate after this) and had to dump the whole packet into boiling water, so the tongs were to take the packets out of the boiling water.
Anyway, one day Thong (Eugene) asked me: "Aparna, why did you bring thongs?"
And I'm just astounded, and I say: "Why did I bring THONGS? What possessed you to ask me that?"
Thong: "Sorry! Tongs, I mean. Tongs."
... Sheesh.
Anyway, the thing about the Indian food: at YHA London there was no kitchen, so I was trying to figure out sort of container I could use to boil the packets in. We considered cup noodle cups, and the kettle itself. Nothing was big enough, and during the long discussion of possible cooking methods, I could be commonly heard saying "But it's not big enough!" and Bernasty suddenly realised that it was quite hilarious. We finally ended up plugging the washbasin and dumping boiling water in with the food packets.
In Winchester, we went down to the bar three times to bring back loads of large bowls and utensils and made lots of pasta, and I made a packet of soup which turned out really pasty. But then I realised that for that particular packet, I was supposed to open it and dump the contents into boiling water, not put the whole packet into boiling water. So I finally mixed in some boiling water, and it was essentially a very gross soup which I then had to go around begging people to eat. My class is going to open a cafe in the future, and I most certainly will not be going anywhere near the kitchen. I will be in charge of PR.
In Bath, there was a nice big kitchen for the use of the people staying at YHA, so we made the remaining 7 packets of Indian food, and the rasam rice was a big hit. It was a good thing, too, that there was so much Indian food, because on that day we'd all spent enormous amounts of money so we decided to save money on dinner. And not to worry, I didn't do much of the cooking - Vivien and Shoojee were the instant-Indian-food-making experts.
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