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    Tony Slade

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    Stop all the clocks for Daylight NO Time

      Tony Slade  |    Nov 4, 2019 9:44:59 AM  |    Malibu

    'I propose for 10 and a half months of the year we have American Work Time, when we do our jobs and then, every August, we have American No Time'

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    What Does a Steak, and a Clean Office Have in Common?

      Tony Slade  |    Oct 21, 2019 2:14:06 PM  |    Malibu

    Someone once said to me that one day, somebody must have been out fishing and said “I’m a bit hungry, I think I’m going to eat an oyster”. And it must have been a bold man that first did so.

    The thing about eating oysters is that there wasn't a first man who did it. We evolved into doing it. Kissing each other on each cheek - was first done by some old roué in France who said: "Come here my dear; let me show you my new discovery. Now, close your eyes..." and so kissing each other on each cheek was invented. Possibly.

    Oysters are not my thing particularly. I love fish but just not oysters. When I order a seafood grill at The Lure in Camarillo, Laura, our favorite server knows without having to ask me, to substitute the oysters for scallops. As much as I don’t like oysters. It's not oysters that were the big foolish mouth-adventure for mankind; the real idiot was the first man to eat a well-done steak. We are so familiar and comfortable with cooked food; we can barely comprehend how strange it must have tasted.

    Nobody has the faintest idea when the first steak was grilled; actually, a lot of people have faint ideas, and they range from 10,000 to 2.5m years ago. But imagine, all you have ever eaten is raw meat. Burnt meat must have been truly disgusting. Everything about it is alien. The temperature, the texture and the taste. Our palates are a combination of acquired instinct; poisons taste bitter, mother's milk is sweet and learnt cultural and aesthetic prejudice, like the Chinese don't drink milk, the Jewish don't eat pork, and everyone in peep-toe heels likes champagne apparently.

    So, burnt meat won't have been an eureka moment, but the benefits of cooked meat aren't about aesthetics. Nicety follows necessity. If you roast your meat, it's easier and faster to eat. You can consume more, and this is all-important for little naked men who are competing with a host of predators and scavengers that come with integral butchery sets in their mouths or claws. Cooked meat allowed us to absorb the protein we needed to make big brains and come up with other good ideas after flame-grilled sirloin.

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    Hopefully It Never Happens to You...

      Tony Slade  |    Sep 25, 2019 4:49:44 PM  |    Thousand Oaks,  |    Camarillo,  |    Malibu

    Besides terminal illnesses such as cancer, particularly in children, homelessness is one of the facts of life I detest the most. I understand that it must be very scary to find yourself with no friends or no family to turn to and nowhere to stay. I think often about how terrible that moment must be when you realize, for the first time, that you really have no bed that night. It sends a shiver down my spine.

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    The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway...

      Tony Slade  |    Sep 16, 2019 4:33:21 PM  |    Camarillo,  |    Malibu

    My daughter really should have been born a Disney. She loves everything about Disney. Her first memory I’m sure is not of her mum or me, but of watching Elsa and Ana sing their hearts out in the bloody freezing cold. For her birthday each year, everything is usually Disney Princess themed. And I don’t mind, she really loves it and besides what parent doesn’t want to see their children so happy? There are far worse things in life than a Disney Princess.

     

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    An Unexpected Weekend Away

      Tony Slade  |    Sep 11, 2019 12:23:23 PM  |    Malibu

    Thanks Mum, I'd Rather Not

    My mum and step-dad are visiting us from the UK at the moment and they treated us to a weekend away and volunteered to look after our daughter too. “Great, a weekend away” most normal people would say but not me.

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    I Can't Clean like My Wife, Neither Can You

      Tony Slade  |    Jun 17, 2019 2:36:35 PM  |    Malibu

    Sunshine and Weekend Confidence

    Last weekend the June Gloom lifted, the sun shone, the trees were ablaze with blossom and yet, despite the cloudless skies, not that many people in my neighborhood thought: “Right. I shall take a chair and a beer into my garden and spend the afternoon enjoying the long-awaited seasonal warmth or I will ride off to the beach with a picnic in the trunk.”

    This is because sunshine releases endorphins that causes everyone to think they are capable of doing Household chores or DIY projects.

    I’m no different normally, which is why on the first really warm weekend of the season last year, I was known to jump out of bed with a renewed vigor and rather than enjoying the weather, I decided I was going to build a gazebo.

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