blue is back

and so am i.

much as I’d like to blame slavedrivers inc and its unyielding yoke, truth is, my extended disappearance from flogosphere simply involves a combination of inertia, laziness and procrastination. oh well, I’m sure you missed me.

the smarties advert makes me laugh. every single time. “WE’RE NOT IN” they holler behind the closed door, the sheepish looking yellow smartie sent out to get rid of the blue smartie with that earnest look on his face. it’s hilarious. even now as I am typing this I’m chuckling.

so the blue smartie is back. the press release states that the blue colouring has been derived from some seaweed compound. no more evil e-numbers. okay. bully for the clever smartie makers. I never understood how a blue smartie is appetizing – what’s wrong with just regular chocolate coloured chocolate.

speaking of chocolate. i now find myself in Brussels where I’ll be for the next three months. I promise not to visit and rave about Pierre Marcolini every day even though it looks like it’s just a 10 minute walk from where I’ll be at work. despite all my grand plans to make a beeline for Pierre Marcolini since I arrived early this afternoon, I’ve yet to have been near a chocolate truffle, mostly because the afternoon so far has been spent at a police station with some rather very amusing policemen and on the phone with not so amusing credit card helplines. my only crime was to stop at Quick for a drink and to read the city map where I was duly distracted by a flurry of french while my wallet was extracted from my bag. the annoyance of having to replace my stolen credit cards aside, the whole experience was surreal. a trip in a speeding police car to the station, I was offered and goaded into accepting cigarettes by the two rather dishy policemen as they gave me innumerable tips on protecting personal property and not talking to strangers, quizzed about my dating history and told to hold onto my seat as they sped down the street, deliberately speeding up where there was a speed hump which resulted in the tiny police car being airborne for a few seconds. at the police station, my two police escorts proceeded to greet every male officer in the station with a kiss before handing me a photo album of various male suspects from which I was expected to identify the pickpocketers. my blingberry was made fun of, as was my t-shirt and a slightly filthy joke was made about loaded guns. it was all harmless banter though and for my troubles, I now have a police report in french which names me as the victime and the two policemen have successfully instilled in me a general attitude of paranoia.

oh well. c’est la vie. G’s meeting me for dinner and rescuing me with a stash of emergency cash which will tide me over till my replacement cards come. hopefully the rest of the three months will bode much better than this. I think it’s off to Pierre Marcolini for some cheer up chocolate with my emergency cash.