Be Excellent To Each Other

OK, I mentioned in another thread that I was mugged today. This upset me somewhat as you might imagine, but it was my lovely bestest friend since five years old's birthday meal today (just she and I, she's having a big bash, but we thought we'd have a lovely catch up) so I showered today's horribleness away and tried not to let it spoil the evening.

We had a lovely time. We went to a place called Nandos/Nando's that does spicy chicken and seemingly little else. We chatted and laughed and had a wonderful time, it really cheered me up until an explosion of glass happened all around my chair. Two blokes got in the worst fight I have ever, ever seen, people were screaming, there was glass, clothing, fabric everywhere. They were really knocking seven bells out of each other, a few people tried to step in but got hurt. Jackie was shouting orders and legal stuff at them (she's a solicitor) whilst I was now at the other end of the room, trying to stay away from the mirrors. Eventually the black guy was knocked out (or raher senseless, he was moaning a bit and still moving slightly but couldn't stand or move beyond the odd kind of squirm) after he was hit over the head with a bottle of sauce that was on the floor and the big asian guy was pulled off him by his friends.

My coat and bag were full of glass and then I got a little upset so Jackie and I sat in the car a little while before she bought us home. After I was mugged I went out and bought a new hat whilst trying to scramble together a present for Jackie. Only £12 from Accesorize, but it was lovely and a treat to myself for a crappy day. The hat seems to have been lost in the brawl.

So fed up with the world now. I don't know if it is just an exceedingly crappy day or because I have been out more places than usual today I am just seeing a lot more of the true picture of things.

Tomorrow I am staying indoors

I STILL LOVE YOU MIMI

Even without my new hat?

But more importantly, how the fuck have you apparently not heard of Nandos?

I'll send you a new hat in the post. A BETTER hat. Are you in London for a while?

Hugs, Mimi. Hugs.

Holy cow. I'm thinking this is just particularly unlucky, but you have my special permission to make whatever sweeping statement you like and then append a "nowadays" to it. And that is usually a bad word.

They also do a veggieburger which is not bad.

Hugs 4 mimi

Really sorry to hear about this Mimi.
Thinking of you loads.

(the sauces at Nandos are ace)

And a deadly weapon, it seems.

Gah, nasty day, sympathies.

As an aside, if there is one thing I would not want smashed over my head, it's a bottle of peri-peri sauce. Chilli sauce in head cuts? NO THANKYOU.

I think I have heard someone talk about it before, but never seen one. There isn't one near by here or Lancaster, though I have been to Chiquitos which it reminded me of. The only thing that I thought odd was that you had to queue at the till after you were given a table The food was nice, though.

I didn't see the veggie option, Kalmar. It just all looked like chicken (I had chicken!) with different levels of spice. I had hot and it was indeed hot.

I am indeed. Will it be made of aubergines

Thanks Plisskin



JBR - how abouts: Nowadays 90% of people are gardened criminals. Build bigger prisons.

No, but really, I think there is an attitude around some parts where people pick fights because someone looks at them in the wrong way, even though most of the time that is nonsense. I was accused of this when I was at the doctors surgery once, of all places, but I was actually looking at the clock about 4-5 ft above the girl's head because I had train tickets booked.

Ah, Jackie was so good, though. She spoke to the Asian guy after he was dragged off and said that she had dealt with someone involved with a (new word for me alert) 'affray' this afternoon and they got 18 weeks in jail. When we left the police had another guy altogether in teh car, so something may have spilled outside afterwards.

The sauce bottle he was hit with has a kind of creamy orange coloured sauce in, it was rectangular and looked pretty damn heavy.

Fixed for how I read that.

Bigger allotments, surely?

Cripes Meems, just... wow. Sympathies and Innerneh hugs n stuff. Tomorrow's got to be better, right?

gardened criminals?! I blame their roots.

Hehe, yeah, it did look like nice sauce! Yep, Dimrill - that's it exactly - I was supposed to be going to Wembley to deposit some money in someone's bank tomorrow, but I am going to spend the whole day at home instead. As long as there are no daddy long legs in the house (when I got in from the meal I walked in the room and there was one dancing drunkenly along the ceiling. I regret to say he was hoovered up.

Gardened criminals, hehe.

Fuck

Right! I'm going to get to work building you a bubble, Mimi, which you'll stay inside and float merrily through life unharmed and happy as a bee.

It will have velcro on top for you to attach a hat of your choosing each day, and possibly some rainbow turrets for shooting joy into the sky.

Oh, I want one - I love the detail of the velcro hat attachment and rainbow turrets. This is the happiest thought ever. I think I may paint it in the morning!

I'll never complain about having a bad day again*. Hope you're alright, Meems.

*I probably will. Probably tomorrow.

PS I love Nando's more than I should. The sauces are "awesome".

Jesus fuck Mimi. Biggest Interweb-sympathies++.

You seem to have the worst luck of all the people I think I've ever internet-met. Here's hoping it picks up pretty sharpish as you deserve it.

Artist's impression of the Mimi-hat-rainbow-gun bubble:



Must remember to quit job and become freelance artist.

Poor The Mimi.



That's a horrible day... but at least you didn't get about ten goals stuffed past you (despite playing pretty damn well) as you played in goal for a shockingly incompetent football team.

Actually, no, yours is worse.



Rest assured that not everyone and not all of London is a bad thing. You should spend time in Greenwich/Blackheath, as only nice things ever happen there. FACT.

It was a pity that you weren't mugged after the Nandos fight, then the mugger would have got a fistful of broken glass from your bag instead.

A picture of this calibre almost makes getting mugged worth it. Almost

And yes I did quote it so it would exist on the page twice.

So sorry to hear about all this, Jesus, what a day you've had.

My Whipit coach is only a whistle away Meems.

x

Well, I keep thinking it could have been worse, I might have got seriously hurt in either incident, and I might have lost more money than I did, and hopefully tomorrow will be far better than today. Also, I now have a great new avatar that made me smile so broadly I am quite giddy

Haha, some people on the internet, but specifically the bezzies, really are the most lovely, thoughtful chaps and chapesses there are.

I loaded up my garden to a lovely princess swan from Rev Owen's lovely missus, and a garden centre's worth of brand new seeds from Goddess Jasmine, so I've been winding down by planting those and playing a nice light hearted game and listening to Simon and Garfunkel.

Craig said to tell you guys what happened as soon as I got back home this afternoon, he said it would make me feel better to get it all out and just tell people, but I didn't for a while, apart from in a PM to someone, and then later on I mentioned it in another thread, but then after being at the restaurant I just needed, not a rant, but just to say 'argh, I am unhappy because of these people and their actions' and it is true, I feel much better for saying it, but especially for the time that you have all taken to send internet hugs and pictures of giant Mimi Bubbles with rainbow cannons and hat attachments.

Really, everyone here is so great, and close enough to call friends, so thank you so much BETEO folks for being so kind and thoughtful

I only just replied in the other thread, but it makes me aggrieved to hear about your shitty day Mimi, it really does.

You have inspired me to try and do more with my own time though. You always seem to be reporting on the different journeys you have been on and exciting places you have been, and it makes me realise how often I stay shut up indoors.

Not that I advocate all the badness that happens to you, but stay happy, you.

Well, Harrow and Brent Cross aren't the most exciting places, but I love the museums - see, that's the nice part of London, I could go there every day and still there is more, more more to see! I love stuff!

Do you know the best thing about museums? Packed lunches - they make you feel like a kid on school trip - a little sandwich cut up and a packet of crisps and a banana, om nom nom. Oh, and one of those little mini savoury egg things. I recently got a new little compartmented lunch box as a gift, and I love that so much!

Pics or it didn't happen.

What a crap day. I do hope you're feeling all calm and chipper again, Mimi. The mugging is making me quite visibly angry, actually. It happened to a good friend of mine a few months ago, too, and I was seething with impotent rage. I really wished I could've been there to run after the lousy bastard T2000-style and relieve him of his yoinking arm, and I'm one of the world's foremost rainbow-cannon-toting softies.

Since you lost your hat, why not treat yourself to lots of Irn-Bru and soft, posh cookies?

One of those guys wishes he was as fucking hard as me.

Both of them, perhaps.

Actually, the tougher, fitter looking one came off much worse for wear.

I can't sleep now, I think this is perhaps why

Them. Me. Wuin=me. Grim... = win. Hoo-rah!

Hoorah!

Hoooooooooooo-rah!

Blimey, that's a terrible, terrible day! Hugs and kisses to you, Mimi. Hope tomorrow is full of sunshine, rainbows and lots of Pinata.

Oh man, I know how you feel. It's something you can't really understand until it happens, and it's terrifying when it happens and disquieting after it's all over.

The whole 'you looked at me funny' is an attitude that only TOTAL ABSOLUTE SUBHUMAN C*NTWITS take, and they all need to be euthanised as they will not EVER contribute ANYTHING useful to civilization.

Still, you seem to be 'getting on with it' and that I found was the best thing for it.

How the fuck did a fight erupt in Nandos? "Oi, you spilt my chicken!"? I can understand it in a pub where twats are wasted, but in a family-orientated food restaurant it really beggars belief.

Check your peems, Meems.

Family oriented? Not my fucking family, I promise you.

My local Nandos (I'd sooner eat MS-DOS) is in the 'brewery quarter' of Cardiff - every town has one of these now, a sort of converted mill (or brewery) which has been done up rather than knocked down (good) and filled with homogenised chain pubs and bars which attract feckless tards as staff and patrons (bad). I was dragged in there once by my wife and mother in law, who didn't want to go to the nice steak restaurant on St Mary's St. They were of to see Brian Ferry and this was my mum-in-law's birthday treat meal.

The steak was identical is size, colour and texture to my black DSLite, the house red tasted like men and the entire serving staff consisted of the kind of blank-faced barely communicative mouth breathers who run around past your table at speeds unconducive to relaxing, despite the restaurant being half empty (Wales were beating England in the rugby), take three quarters of an hour to cremate a steak and stick a cunt's salad* on the side pour some salt and maybe a little harpic into the house red and dump them unceremoniously on the table whilst not making eye contact or managing anything more than 'there you go'.

Of course, they'll swoop past in either thirty seconds or two hours "isevryfinkorlrightwivyermeel?". Why wouldn't it be?

Staff aside, while in there and other chain places in town centres/trading estates, I never quite relax. Always seems like the patrons are quite capable of 'escalating things'. Maybe this is from always working around trouble these last few years, or maybe not, but I avoid the nandos of this world at all costs these days, happily ditching my mates on a night out halfway though if they want to go to SquareBar, or anywhere chainy like that. Certainly, even on a good night, I'll move to independant places before half ten if I don't go home.

When one city centre is the same as the next, why bother respecting your environment when you can just move a few miles down the road and start again when you've destroyed this one? Anyone in Cardiff who thinks these places are decent family restaurants, post here and I'll pass your ip addreses to social services. Your children (sorry 'KIDS') deserve better.

* Cunt's salad = lettuce, a bit of tomato and maybe a little bit of purple onion if you are lucky, no dressing. I'm not sure why the chef doesn't just come out and piss in my face rather than bother serving this crap, I'd be less offended.

I've been to the one in Nottingham once and found it quite adequate.

"you looking at my bird?"

"Your bird's fowl"

"Got 10p for chips?"

I had a slightly different subhuman approach me with a 'do you brawl?' comment before smacking me in the mouth. It's like they need some kind of icebreaker before kicking off.

Sorry to hear about your day Mimi. Today has to be a better one though.

Look everyone, it's Michael Ironside from Starship Troopers.

I cannot believe you have taken my terrible picture and avatared it Mimi, but it made me laugh this morning I have the creative capacity of a squashed banana.

You look a bit like one, too.

I can't help but find that comment slightly amusing.

It's almost like a cheerful invitaton to some good-natured fisticuffs. Except it wasn't.

bloody hell Mimsical. that all literally sucks the most ever.

I can only hope the mugger dies in a fire.

Crumbs - bad luck Mimi. Here's hoping you win the lottery or find a kitten or discover you've inherited a candyfloss factory in the Bahamas or something to make up.

I've never seen a fight in a Nandos, but I think I did once sit next to a couple in Pizza Express who seemed to be undergoing total marital breakdown, which was depressing and awkward.

Well, you can't blame them. If the posh meal I had been promised turned out to be at Pizza Express, I'd consider divorce as well.