Category Archives: The Columns

Getting Baked {Ceri's Column}

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When we celebrate, we eat cakes. It’s pretty damn universal. Almost every culture on the planet stakes its claim for having the best cakey offerings. It can be quite competitive. I’m shocked there hasn’t been a war over it yet. The Great Fruitcake Wars. The Eccles cake incident. The Cupcake Rebellion of 2010. That’d be awesome. I’d fight.

Of course, being more Welsh than a wool hat full of leeks makes me thoroughly defensive of our baked, boiled and griddled offerings. Our goodies are far tastier, heartier and far worse for you than anyone else’s. The jewel in our crumbly crown is the amazingly addictive Welshcake, or Pice ar y man (Pick Arr Er Marn) as I call them. Stick your scones where the sun doesn’t shine, pics rule.

But other countries have good stuff too! Here are my personal faves…

1. Punschkrapfen (Austria) – This beauty is a concoction of chocolate nougat, apricot jam, crumbly cake and rum (yes RUM!) My lord it’s good.

2. Churos (Spain/Mexico) – Hispanicy/Americany Doughnuty heavenly thing…y. I had my first Churo in California about 10 years ago. If I ever go to live in the States, I’d write “Churos” as my “Primary reason for applying for your Green Card”

3. Puff Puff (Nigeria) – A rip off of the superior Churo. I just included it for the name really.

4. Twinkies (USA) – Guilty pleasures are always the best.

5. Opera Cake (France) – Oh France you opulent fucker. Layers of almond sponge soaked in coffee layered with ganache and butter cream and glazed in dark chocolate. Hasn’t really got much to do with Opera in my book, but who gives a crap when you’re eating ganache in such large quantities?

6. Mochi with red bean paste (Japan) – Nippon, you rule.

7. Jaffa Cakes (UK…well Scotland really) – Is it a cake? Is it a biscuit? It’s a fucking cake you idiot.

So there we have it. My list. What’d be on yours? Give me your faves and why below. I don’t get many comments. Do it. Now. Ta

by Ceri Phillips

The Sin of Envy…and Some Other Sins {Ceri's Column}

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Man alive, that green-eyed monster is an awfully selective beast. He lives just above my cerebellum, right next door to the gnomes that run my conscience and sense of shame. He occasionally feeds on the gnomes and wotsits but mostly on the painfully huge talents of others.

There’s many a person who turns me a grassy hue when I consider their ability or achievements. Seth “I created, voice and often write for my own selection of massively successful animated sitcoms that is watched by millions worldwide” MacFarlane is one. Matthew “So yeah my voice is kind of samey in my songs but I seem to shit innovative modern rock classics without any need for laxative AND play my axe better than anyone in the rockesphere right now” Bellamy is another. Rick “Holy shit I’m lucky that everyone is Rick Rolling each other or I’d have probably stuck my head in the oven a loooong time ago” Astley is not one.

There are a few people around who don’t stir the beast in my bonce. For some reason, Eddie Izzard and Robert DeNiro don’t. I admire them, I wish I possessed a trillionth of their respective talents but I don’t envy them. They’re…too good.

Robert Plant – Too good

Bill Hicks – (was) Too good

That bloke on E4…y’know, the voice-over dude – Too good

Richard Dawkins – a fundamentalist atheist and painfully over-exposed pop “philosopher” who’s stunning lack of logic, understanding of the basic tenets of Religious language and an annoyingly snappy dresser….shit I’m well off course here.

What the hell was my point?

Oh yes…uh…Usain Bolt – Too good. Yeah, that’ll do.

Smut {Ceri's Column}

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People-watching and eave’s dropping are things I should do more often. These border-line peeping-Tomish pastimes often yield little snippets of gold…hold on, what the fuck is a “snippet of gold”? Is that possible? Am I mixing my damn turns of phrase again… anyway; it’s a great tool for a comedy writer. I try not to look suspicious or blatant or paedophilic when engaging in this important activity. Just the other day I was inadvertently listening to a most wonderful moment.

I was busy loitering in the park, pretending to read a newspaper. I spied a gentleman speaking on his mobile phone. It was clamped so tightly to his ear hole that he must have booked a one way ticket to brain tumourville. He was deeply embroiled in a spat with his significant other. I think her name was Melanie…shit man, he said “Mel”…could’ve been Melville. That doesn’t matter.

“No. No. Look I…no, you’re twisting my words, Mel. Now you’re just lying, for Christ’s sake! Look, she doesn’t even come by anymore. She said her hours have changed and I just don’t see her. No, I do not have her number. So what if she’s pretty? Oh my god, YOU just said she was pretty! Don’t get fucked off just because I agreed you stupid idiot.”

There was a pause

“Did you come? Cool. See you after work.”

After I was done sniggering, I thought, “Hang on, he’s in a park. What is he a ranger?” As he got up to walk passed me, I saw a badge on his shirt confirming this. Shit.

by Ceri Phillips

Downward Facing Cat {Miscuit Tin}

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The downward facing dog cat is not a yoga pose I’d personally chose to do whilst precariously perched on a balcony ledge. That doesn’t deter this chilled kitten… Kawaii!!!!

Cyclops Turtle {Misc-uity}

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I don’t know wether to say “aww” or “euurgh” and I’m desperately trying to resist any one eyed reptile jokes. This cute/weird little critter/monster only has one eye and isn’t it adorable how it keeps falling asleep!!

The Whisky and The Unknown {Ceri's Column}

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Sceptical losers like me are amongst the most easily frightened of folk. I mean, when you don’t immediately “believe” in every little unexplained or unexplored phenomena that you hear about, it is horrifying when it comes and slaps you in the gob…basically, I’m a bit of a wuss. I mean, your mind can play tricks on you. Not nasty, put-a-turd-in-my-car’s-air-conditioner sort of a trick. Annoyingly scary tricks.

Right, let’s get on with it! Submitted for your approval, the case of Mr. C. Phillips and a slit in the fabric of time. I think.

I’m an avid reader of the Fortean Times (a top quality publication, read it!). I’m an enjoyer of all things macabre and outlandish.

I was getting rather drunk in one of my favourite haunts in Swansea. I’d just finished regaling a fellow Fortean with factoids regarding a spooky cluster of events that occurred prior to the 9/11 attacks, (nothing “paranormal”, just statistical anomalies), and listened to tales of his grandmother’s apparent sixth-sense. So the evening had already acquired an air of the bizarre. I departed the bar with thoughts of faces appearing in smoke clouds dramatic peaks in miscarriages of male babies and Mike’s gran whirling around in my impressionable young mind. Then, out of the corner of my now very bleary eye, I spied the strangest of events.

A young lady, ready for a classic night of debauchery on Wind Street, (Swansea’s famed, puke-washed drinking centre) sauntered past me in full French maid’s garb. “Got a light?” she asked. I obliged and she walked off into the distance. Thirty seconds later, an IDENTICAL girl (in the same clothing, same height, face etc), sauntered past. “Got a light?” she asked. “No fucking way!” I exclaimed. She gave me a decidedly disgruntled look, murmured an expletive and walked off.

SHITTING HELL! I was a bit scared. Had I just witnessed a case of inter-dimensional mingling or even seen a real-life doppelganger headed to assassinate the other…or something? I sat aghast in my cab home, wondering how exactly to word my letter to the “It happened to me…” column of the Fortean Times. Surely I could get it into the September Issue?!

Then a thought struck me…well, a one word thought struck me.

 Twins.

Fucking twins. Buggering bloody balls!

Eight glasses of Laphroaig and a few tall tales and I became a “believer”. Man, the human mind can be complex. 

Or I’m thicker than Chupacabra shit.

by Ceri Phillips

Ceri: Portrait of an Inadvertent Killer {Ceri's Column}

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I killed the most beautiful butterfly today. Wow, that sentence makes my look like a soon-to-be serial killer. I didn’t mean to. It was fluttering along, maybe trying to find a new home, maybe trying to find a mate. Probably just fluttering aimlessly. The problem was, it was fluttering 1.5 meters above the M4 motorway.

I wasn’t fluttering. I was moving at a positively super-sonic pace (late for some bollocks, again). I was also encased in my 2 tonnes of steel and fibreglass and whatever the hell they make the cup-holder from.

The colourful mass left on my windscreen really was horrific. I mean, it was like the aftermath of a clown’s suicide jump…I assume. Fragments of red and yellow wing were still visible through the dark gunk, (butterfly lung, ass and uvula).

My next action, on reflection, was quite sick when you think about it…and you have nothing else to do. I pulled a tiny lever and the corpse was washed away in an instance. The remnants of such a beautiful little creature treated as equal to fluff, stains and those bits of crap that get in the way of our otherwise squeaky clean world. I’m a killer. I’m a bastard.

I mean, I couldn’t avoid killing it. The insurance folk wouldn’t accept “I swerved into the tanker to avoid a butterfly” as a valid reason to write off my car and maybe write off a limb or two. But my reaction, or lack of, makes me a killer. And a bastard.

But that spider I Hoovered deserved it. I hope the fucker rots in spider hell…great, now I’ll dream of being in spider hell tonight.

Shitter.

by Ceri Phillips

Puts the Aww in Koala {Miscuity}

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Look at his little ears wiggle around!!! So cute!!