unimportant, unfocused ranting

The cinnamon grahams fiasco continues! Except they’re not referring to it as a fiasco, because they don’t see anything wrong in what they’re doing! Which is what annoys me most of all!

Here’s what’s going down. This is a quote from the back of the box:
“Why not email us at curiously.different@cpuk.nestle.com to tell us how you would describe the taste.”

It wasn’t so bad when they were doing it themselves, but now they’re involving the general public and asking them to participate, and I think that’s taking it a little too far, don’t you?

I decided to send an e-mail to the people in charge, to try and sort this mess out.

————

TO:  curiously.different@cpuk.nestle.com

FROM: Tom

SUBJECT: Indescribable? Really? You sure?

Hello Nestle,

It was with much dismay that I read the back of my box of cinnamon grahams this morning as I munched on them, and what I read turned what was normally a delicious cinnamonny* way to start my day into what could only be described as what LIES would taste like if covered with milk and served in a bowl made of DECEIT.

You see, I found it hard to comprehend that you were not only describing the so-called ‘indescribable’ taste right there in the same sentence (”toasted cinnamon squares”) but also asking the general cinnamon-graham-eating public to enter into this mind-numbing vortex of trying to describe the indescribable. As such, I thought I’d recommend a few alternative slogans for your marvellous cereal:

- the as-of-yet indescribable taste of cereal x
- the fairly easy to describe, yet orally complex, taste of toasted cinnamon squares
- the indescribably delicious taste of toasted cinnamon squares
- toasted cinnamon squares that have a taste that is somewhat hard to pigeonhole.

I appreciate that none of these roll off the tongue quite as conveniently as ‘the indescribable taste of toasted cinnamon squares’, however I feel that once adopting one of the above slogans, your loyal customer fan base will no longer be worried (and dare I say it, verging on vexed) about the conundrum you present them with.

indescribably yours,
Tom Milsom

*is that right? You’re the experts!

—–

No reply as of yet. I’ll wait it out and see what happens.

Yup, this is actually a picture that my close friend and member of my (non-obsessive) fan club Alex Sims painted of me! She is an awesome artist and a really lovely person, and you can find her stuff here!

Okay, so so many things have been happening recently it is unreal, and while I normally disagree with the principle of actually writing about what has happened to one in their blog, because it’s usually so damn boring, I hope I’ll be able to entertain you as I regale you with tales of what the hell happened to me, and hopefully it will also fill you in as to why I haven’t posted on here in a tinier version of forever, and it also may inspire Frank Monea to write once again on these hallowed pages, and grace us with his words! I’ve been a huge fan of Frank Monea ever since I was very very young, and he has always inspired me, and I have always aspired to such great heights of talent as posessed by Frank. I see some of you, (*cough*Ina*cough*Rhian*cough*) have taken to being quite harsh with Frank. I’d ask you to leave him alone, because as one of my heroes, it hurts me to see you offending such a great man as Frank. Frank, if you were offended, please come back. I miss you.

Okay, so things that have happened — well, for one thing, me and my ukulele (thanks, frank!) have been wreaking a kind of mini-acoustic havoc in Reigate College, starting with my success at the Reigate College Battle of the Bands. I won that, and then partook in the Open Air Festival a few weeks later, performing mostly my own songs. Since then I’ve got myself a wonderful bunch of new friends, two fan clubs and a portrait. All in all, it’s been a great few weeks.

Now as for these fan clubs, there are two, as I said. One is peculiarly obsessive, and has done such things as attempted to create a religion around me (although it were a half-arsed attempt, let’s be honest, seeing as they were blatantly attempting to simply modify the framework of Christianity, most notably with the lord’s prayer with my name in it). After this creeped me out, a second, not obsessive fan club was set up. This is currently the larger one, and indeed it’s the one I would ask you to join if you feel the need to do such a thing, however it is the obsessive one that is more pro-active, actually filming an interview with me and recording a solo session of me and my ukulele performing uncertainty to put on the Tom Milsom Fan Club bebo page. Well exactly, that’s what I said too, but they didn’t listen.

You see, as it happens I’ve gone through a bit of a phase recently. Turns out I can actually write halfway decent songs, not like Happy Days if any of you have stuck around with me long enough to remember that, but about proper things like love and friendship and relationships and lobsters. I’ve been coming up with lines like “And if I had a pound/for every time you turned me down/I’d have one pound fifty/in my bank account right now”, and people are really starting to get into it, which is lovely… for eight years I’ve been playing and learning music, and to now be at a stage where I can write songs that people actually like is really lovely.

I’ll be performing at the big battle of the bands… essentially it’s the next round and the Reigate College BotB was just warmup… and I don’t know where or when it is, but when I do, I’ll post it on here and you’re all welcome to come along, but for now, goodnight my friends, and I will certainly try to talk to you soon.