Convenience

Walking through the city I came across a convenience store advertising banner. I am reluctant to say that advertising had an effect on me. I pride myself on the unlikely outcome that this form of spiritual diminishment has no effect on me at all.

But I will admit to this one. As I walked past this banner ad I was drawn to it. Convenience stores have proliferated and provide succour to the sugar junkie craving the wonderful hit of sucrose or the similar craving of the faux-sweetness of phenylalanine or sorbitol (that excellent disclaimer on the sides of packaging: excess consumption may have a laxative effect - of course products containing sugar dont have to add that they may raise insulin to levels that may facilitate diabetes later in life).

Back to the advertisement. Somebody walking past the convenience store was asked to make a rather unusual impulse purchase. The common chocolate bar or confectionary bag or soft-drink special - no there will be none of that. Damn those cliches of modern living. Death to those lowly snack foods. Perish the thought of providing minimal income to the manufacturer who would have to sell many thousands of packets to make a shareholder-pleasing profit.

Now I really have raised the expectations of this item of food that could be popped in for.

So it is time to say what it was. To reveal the final piece of the puzzle. To tell the secret that made me sit in front of my computer and write my first blog entry for months.

It reminds me very much of the time I sat in front of the computer and spent hours searching for the terra cotta colour on a drawing program. Then I created a series of parallel lines that overlapped each other. Some vertical and others horizontal. Then I coloured the gaps in between that terra cotta colour. But that seemed cheap.

So I expanded the width of the lines shaping the rectangles and searched again for the appropriate colour to shade those lines. A sort of non-descript grey colour. The mortar was complete and very unlifelike. A brickwall. Two-dimensional. Like most brickwalls. And like every other virtual brickwall I have ever seen, it felt exactly the same when I banged my head against it. It had the plastic feel of a laptop screen but the same effect.

Meanwhile, back in Mawson Station Antarctica, I got back to the point. Banging my actual head against a virtual brick wall even though most brickwalls are two dimensional like my computer screen and should realistcally feel much the same has nothing to do with what I saw but I thought riffing on something would feel good.

Turns out, it isnt. It feels like self-indulgence of the purest kind.

So, what was the item of food that caused this abuse of the time of my band of loyal followers?

A 24-hour convenience store offered by a banner advertisement:

Black Forest Cherry Gateaux.

And I didnt succumb. How could I not? Why I didnt slide it inside my pocket and consume it whilst on the bus trip home? Cannot explain that really.

And before anybody asks, no they were not selling slices. Convenient whole gateaux. $14.95 I believe.

A Queen and a Pavarotti for a log of heaven.

Tom