If music be the food of love...

There's not getting away from it, I love food. Isn't it just one of the best things ever?

I love eating. Now there's a shock for you! I just love food and consequently eat a lot. All the time. "How do you keep that svelte figure, Jason?" I hear you cry...well it's not easy, must be my metabolism or something.

During my miserable years at Nielsen - most days, unless by some stroke of luck Dogger and Dave were both out of the office on the same day, I frequently sought solace in the canteen. When that was shut, the vending machines. Somehow the unbearable mind-numbing tedium of it all could be made just that little bit bearable with a packet of Brannigan's Roast Beef and Mustard crisps - whatever happened to them?

In fact what happened to a lot of old crisp brands? - swallowed up and altered by the Walkers Machine, slowly conquering the Crisps & Snacks market by stealth.

There were loads of brands of crisps around when I was a kid - hedgehog, Tudor etc. Maybe they still exist but in a supermarket you've basically got Walkers or Supermarket Own Label.

A pity as today I had a packet of Golden Wonder Cheese & Onion crisps in Nash's to go with my roll and Sausage Roll chaser. It's one of the few places you can get Golden Wonder and I believe they are vastly superior to Walkers in flavour and content. Sadly they do not have a multi-million advertising campaign behind them or Gary Lineker to help. And have largely disappeared from the shelves to become a niche brand.

Better than Walkers - Bicester Blogger says so!

Well anyway, eating was a good way of surviving the daily drudgery at Nielsen, so much so that one year at my annual review during a particularly miserable spell in the Client Service team I thought I would see if I could inject a little humour into my somewhat humourless boss's day. This person had been employed as part of the "new blood" coming into the business  as it was referred to - I shall not give his name but if I say "South African", if you were there you will no who I meant - and recall that he did not last very long.

When asked what I considered to be "My strengths", I leaned back in my chair, chewing the end of a pen, making a real show of carefully considering the question, before uttering the word "Eating".

Now I thought this was very funny, but he did not. In fact my attempts at humour in the office rarely met with any sort of positive response. I don't know what was the matter with these people, I thought we went there to have a laugh, but some of these people seemed to think we were there to work or something.

Anyway I thought maybe he just didn't get the joke first time round so when he asked what my weaknesses were I gave the same response. Which I thought was very funny. Well the result of this was I got "underperforming" on my review (the only time ever!), at which point I jumped ship and moved to the Foodservice department which was much more relaxed - you could say work was considered "optional" in that team, it also had the advantage of being much nearer to the vending machines.

As for the South African grinning Chesire cat, the powers that be realised shortly afterwards that he was in fact despite the sharp suits and permanent smile actually completely useless and sacked him.

One of the people I worked with in Client Service, Jon Merry always seemed to find it incredibly humorous to ask me every day what I had had for tea the previous evening. Whatever I said he would burst out laughing.

Jon Merry

So Jon - in the unlikely event you are reading, tonight we had Gammon Steaks which I bought from Aldi and they were delicious. Pineapple or Egg? Went for egg on this occasion. And of course, home made chips, crinkle cut with a little gadget I bought from a hardware store near Ladbrokes in Headington one cold lunchtime when all racing was abandoned back in the winter of '93.

This is another thing that always seems to astound people. I'm sorry but what's such hard work about peeling and cutting up your own potatoes and frying them yourself. As for oven chips, grim - always have been and always will. And on holiday this year at the caravan park in a rare moment of desperation I actually bought for the first time ever some McCain Micro Chips - never again.

Strictly for the Jeremy Kyle set.

Anyway - my chips are the best - not my words - Ollie's - "My Daddy makes the best chips in the world".

As we are on food, I am in mind of the phrase "Music is the food of love".

Perhaps it is - but I think we are all very personal in our music choices. And we'd all desperately like to share our love of certain artists/ songs with our friends, but it's something so difficult to share.

What do I mean? Well recommend a film, book, TV show, restaurant to a friend and chances are they will try it, as you will try their recommendations. But we all have very clear ideas about the songs/ bands that are special to us and will tend to stick to them.

That's why I said before - pointless those people self-indulgently posting their song links on facebook because no-one cares. Hence why they get no likes/ comments. I rarely do it, but last night decided to post one as one of my all time favourite bands, St Etienne has just released a new album. Why did I do this? To prove a point. No-one cares. We are very much each to our own when it comes to music.

I love sharing times, laughs, experiences with friends - the one thing I have always found so difficult to share is my music. I have a fairly distinctive type of music I like - it's invariably indie, British, pop and rock, and this music doesn't get much of a look in these days - a quick glance at the Top 40 will tell you all you need to know. But then I guess it was always that way to some extent - for most of the bands I ever liked getting a couple of weeks in the bottom half of the Top 40 was an achievement.

I wish I could share more of my music with people, but you can't force people to like something. With me, I guess a lot has always about wanting to be understood - and if I can say to someone "Listen to this song - it says so much about me", and they can actually listen and get me, that means so much.

I have always liked songs to tell a story and that's why I always loved bands like The Smiths, Divine Comedy and of course Saint Etienne as that was/ is what they do. The lyrics of most chart music is utterly predictable drivel - but that's what sells. I can only conclude it is down to a general lack of imagination or intelligence on behalf of the general public.

Sarah Cracknell (lead singer with Saint Etienne) has herself astounded me on occasion with her lyrics, I sometimes think maybe we were separated at birth. Anyway who can include a line in a song about sitting in a cafe at 10am on a Tuesday morning reading the Racing Post has got to have some connection with me. The first song on the new album is even more spooky. She talks about listening to the charts back in the 70s at 12:45 on a Tuesday lunchtime and memorising the positions, the same with the football league tables - and numerous other spooky co-incidences within this song. I tell you this woman is my long lost sister!

Thanks Sarah! I know there's someone else out there like me!

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Jason xx