Sold my car, bought an Innocent Smoothie.

Since I was young I’ve had a fascination with Moldova.

I think this video goes a long way to explaining why.

What’s better than a freshly baked croissant for breakfast? A croissant where the pastry is flaky and still warm, the ham is straight off the bone and the cheese is melted to perfection. I can almost taste that bad boy now. Mmmmmm, sounds good huh? But now there’s an oily film on the top of my imaginary latte. But I digress.

Unless you’re spending a night in a swanky hotel, how is it that you can get hold of a piping hot croissant first thing in the morning? I mean, it’s not as if there’s a sort of shop like a butcher shop or a grocer shop that sells bread and bread type products is there. I wish!

And who knows how to make those little bastards from scratch huh? I mean, what’s in a croissant? Is there fish in there? What sort of herbs should you use? Can they be steamed or should they be boiled? Doesn’t boiling kill a lot of the vitamins in a croissant? How do you make them so high? So many questions. Who knows that shit? Am I right? Am I right?

Anyway, back in Helsinki they’ve got the whole issue of home-cooked croissants sussed. Never again will you need to stay in a posh hotel just to get a croissant fix. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce, croissants in a can (see picture above).

Yes, after years of laboratory testing the good people at Danerolles (that’s Danish for fuck you France) have managed to apply can technology (the very same technology that was applied to little hot dogs in the 70’s) to the humble croissant. And I for one, just couldn’t be happier. Really!

So it’s that time of year again – the end of it.

My body’s in decline as we inch toward the shank of the party season and the rejuvenation that January promises. Just one more day, just one more day. This December has been particularly taxing. After spending last December in the sunny clime of an Australian summer, I’m back in Europe, and the cold, dark top of it to boot.

The shortest day of the year (December 21st-ish) in Helsinki has just passed – a day when the sun poked it’s head up at about 10.30, lazily arced across the horizon for a few hours and disappeared sometime just before 3. It’s playing havoc with my sleep patterns. Some nights I’m still racking up eleven hours. I’m yet to determine whether it’s a good or bad thing. I’m just praying that come June, there’s not some sort of weird calender-based compensation which sees me having to get by on 3 hours a night!

So on a personal note 2008 was a bit of a hoot – it started off with a mad, visa-renewing dash with Heidi to China, Hong Kong and Macau and ended with a freighter trip from Australia to Italy (past our friendly machine-gun totting, tanker stealing, Somalian friends in the Gulf of Aden – I slept pretty well in the Red Sea after that little episode, just let me tell ya) and an overland jaunt via Eastern Europe to Finland. All good fun, though I think on the travel side things have got to slow down a touch in ‘09. Just like Roger Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon, I’m getting too old for this shit.

So, 2009 huh. We should be brimming with optimism right? I was optimistic this time last year and now look what’s happened! World markets in free-fall, big business bailouts (I’m crap at business too, where’s my billions?), violence on the streets of Lhasa, Mumbai in flames, cyclones in Burma and earthquakes in Sichuan. As I type, Gaza is being bombed back to the Stone Age and over in Iraq, the war that ended back in ‘03 mysteriously rolls on.

But there’s been some positives – our man Obama heading for the big house (yes he can), that li’l prick Johny Howard finally ousted from power down under (ok, technically that was December 2006 but for the sake of flow) and small indications that, following some minor hiccups, David and Victoria Beckham have finally settled into the LA lifestyle. You little ripper!

So on to 2009. Well for starters, it’s going to be shorter than 2008 by a whole second – a leap-second – but that’s about as far as I’m willing to take it on the prophecy front. As for brash predictions on a world scale, I’m steering well clear. Based on years past, I got no idea. But it can’t be a step backwards from ‘08, can it? I’ll start with a touch of optimism again and we can take it from there.

Whatever happens, I wish you all a happy new year for 2009 and hope you’ll drop by from time to time, sign up to my feed, leave a comment or 2 and help me get this Astray Buffet thing off the ground.

Remember, party hard but respect the fish!

Cartwright P. Moocjheenie

Every once in a while I get an overwhelming desire to get my life in order. At most, these phases last a week and generally they’re very productive periods that set me up for the protracted lazy periods in between.

I begin with lists. Plenty of lists. I’ll resurrect my backpack account, I’ll update online calendars, spreadsheets sprout like newly sown lawn, bills get paid and I’ll start writing letters and emails with an almost evangelical zeal.

This last week has been just such a week. It was while writing a particularly lengthy letter to my friends (don’t slip on the sarcasm) at Paypal that I recalled a favourite book that I haven’t come across in a while.

I beg you all to read, “The Timewaster Letters” by Robin Cooper (aka Robert Popper) who corresponds with all manner of organisations requesting or suggesting the bizarre, the obscure and the downright dubious.

The comedic genius lies not only in Robert’s letters but in the replies he receives. It’s a simple idea, executed brilliantly and something only a Brit could ever hope to get away with.

Take a peek at a letter or two online and then go on over to Amazon and grab yourself a copy. I got a list to get back to.