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‘Twas the festive season of 2008 when my housemate, Tanay, and I found ourselves in ASDA doing our weekly shop. We wandered the aisles, knocking item after item in to our trolley when we discovered the Christmas foods on offer. Stuffed turkeys, Christmas pudding, chocolate Yule logs, gingerbread men and mince pies decorated the aisles surrounded by tinsel and baubles. One box in particular proclaimed to be ‘extra special’. It was this box that Tanay delightfully picked up. As he examined the wording of the package, a wide-eyed grin built up on his face.
For lack of anything better to do, I entertained myself by watching his odd antics, but soon grew bored. I returned to looking at the nutritional content of wholemeal pitta bread. Suddenly, my attention was snatched away by the sound of cardboard ripping. Tanay had opened the side of the box. He seized one of the mince pies (nearly crushing it) and bit a great chunk out of it. He chewed and chewed like a starving little boy. Then, slowly, he frowned and his chewing ground to a halt. In that moment, I saw all the happiness of a boy at Christmas dissolve in to disappointment and disbelief. He was alone now, and all was quiet but for a few crumbs of mince pie that hit the floor.
‘I thought there was meat in these…’
The tone of his voice said it all - he felt betrayed. Betrayed by the companies that bellowed hollow promises of ‘mince’ pies. Betrayed by the people who built up his childhood dream of a mince pie - a pie with a sweet pastry crust that hid a spicy filling of minced meat within - a dream that had been crushed the moment he put that mass-produced tart in his mouth.
Only now have we come back to avenge this misnomer, to give to the people what was promised to them, to put our lives on the line (considering our cooking skills) for the sake of a dream that was one man’s mince pie.
Continue reading ‘One Man’s Mince Pie’
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Barcelona Olympics, 1992
The crack of pistol fire whipped the athletes into a sudden sprint. Redmond surged forward, running long athletic strides. The hunger for a medal sent adrenaline streaming through his veins.
50 metres flashed by - the lungs beat out air like the bellows of a blacksmith.
100 metres - the heart pounds like a hammer [...]
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The English Nomad has returned from his Middle Eastern holiday in Lebanon, without even experiencing a single bomb threat - disappointing some would say.Before I arrived, I had stored images in the back of my head of tanks blasting off metal rounds, the rattling of gunfire, and cars being hurled into the air by gargantuan [...]
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The image most foreigners have of a genuine English pub is a cesspit of unsavoury characters guffawing through crooked, yellow teeth over an unsteady pint. Usually in this image, the beer gets sloshed over the table every few seconds as Bill (the local pub hooligan for this example) repeatedly slams his plump, hairy paw on [...]
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Welcome to the sequel of the much acclaimed ‘There Are 5 Types Of Exams…’ article. I first contemplated writing one along the lines of the different types of women, but soon decided against it in the interest of my health.
For some, it is a place of pain and misery, of endless struggle and excruciating [...]
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No, Harry does not make a surprise visit to North Cyprus in the latest book. And neither do any of the other characters either. And, nope, there are no spoilers of any sort for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I have yet to read (but am looking forward to immensely).
I was in North [...]
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I watched him.
Retrieving books from the endless row of shelves, poring over them with the mind of a scholar, and settling them down on the red mahogany tables when his arm muscles ached from holding a book too close. His almond brown eyes travelled the width of the paper; they were sunk beneath two jet [...]
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To those of you who had faith in my application to Cambridge to study Mathematics, I thank you. However, on the 16th of January I received a very thin and ominous letter stamped ‘Cambridge’ on the top. I subconsciously knew the decision they had reached.
I ripped open the letter, unfolded one of two pages and [...]
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Firstly, Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all!
Secondly, and more importantly, to all ye who had little faith in our beach + barbecue + camping plan: we did it! (albeit at the very last minute - we clearly weren’t designed with organisation in mind)
Setting everything up was a bit of a pain in [...]
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Ask anyone about Choueifat, and they’ll probably keel over and clog an artery when it comes to talking about exams. In the majority of our secondary years, we spend every week doing a multiple choice test on nearly every subject we take. In addition to that, we have to take three full-fledged written + multiple [...]
