Conversations With Ben #19: Frank's Hot Sauce

Rol: The 80s were great.

Ben: Were they?

I was only there for 8 and a bit months and I spent it all crying so it couldn't have been that good.

They must have been tears of joy.

The Hoff bringing down the wall, Tyson winning a fight, all joyous.

Just tested positive for Covid!

Oh shit. Sorry, man. How you feeling?

I always feel shit, so no change really. 

The joke is good. The font, awful.

I thought that too.

It looks like it belongs on some late 90s/early 00s branding.

Like groovy chick or whatever it was called.

I'm not a big expert on fonts.

I still like Comic Sans.

Which I know is abhorrent to font purists

It's a personal thing. I think the comic sans hatred is a bit of a shit bandwagon.

It's not my favourite, but I accept it's usefulness.

I dislike Times New Roman but some stuff I write has to be sent in it. I usually write in Calibri first.

Then send as TNR.

Or Ariel depending on what they want.

If I'm feeling quirky, I write in Tahoma.

Not all the time, otherwise it'd lose the fun, obviously.

Which font is this?

I think it's Varsity?

What about this?

Not sure. It could be Ariel bold?

Probably not. There's not enough identifiable about it that makes it unique

It's definitely not Ariel

The kerning is all wrong.

This? 

Not sure.

I could carry this on all night, but I'm wary of driving the joke into the ground.

What joke?

Still, I expected a better punchline than "not sure".

I aim to disappoint.

Sam asked me today "how do you know Ben?"

I said, "He used to be a teacher, like me."

Sam asked, "What is he now?"

I had to think for a long time...

Eventually I said, "an intellectual".

Sociologist.

That came out before I was born, grandad.

I am aware of it, though.

Point is still valid.

Hey, go blame Durkheim, the French bastard named it!

That's the intellectual response.

I thought the intellectual response would be to go on about the term -ology and how it's applied?

Either way you'd lose me.

What did Sam understand by "intellectual"?

More than he would have done about sociologist.

Although when he asked, "an intellectual in what?", I was stuffed.

It completely falls apart when you dig deeper but the simple explanation is that a biologist studies and tries to understand the natural world, a sociologist studies and tries to understand the behaviour and actions of groups of people, societies and the way they interact.

I'm feeling more typically covid now.

I still don't have 100% taste back.

Not really hit my taste, but I don't have much appetite.

Yeah, when I had it, I found dates and peanut butter were best for energy.

You can just have a few teaspoons of peanut butter or a few dates.

Good energy without really eating.

I'd rather have a few teaspoons of horseshit.

Have some dates at least.

I'm not sure I'm allowed to go dating at the moment

I'm sorry. I thought were cultured enough to know it's also a fruit.

It's a berry that tastes like caramel.

Just don't support the Israeli state by buying theirs.

I also can't go out to buy anything.

I'll send you some dates.

Just looked and I can only send you a kilo of them.

No good.

My taste & smell officially went AWOL today. Not sure why it took them so long.

Frank's Hot Sauce became my lifeline to flavour.

It's a mild one.

That's quite vinegary.

But it was the only thing I could taste.

Kept me sane during a month or so of nothing else.

You feeling alright other than that? Not got worse?

No worse. Just think it's weird taste & smell has been fine for the past 5 days then disappears late today.

It's such an odd thing anyway.

I've got a colleague who's not had any taste for the past 8 months.

Yeah, but is that just because he refuses to listen to your Manchester Orchestra records?

That was very funny.

They're not even from Manchester.

At 17 they were really into the Manchester scene.

Oasis or Simply Red?