How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

Those Mufti people of Aden sure knew a good thing when they tasted it: ah, coffee. ''I love coffee, I love tea, I love the java jive and it loves me...''

Now, if only we weren't out of espresso, I could've just whipped up a cup in the machine in no time instead of having to empty the dishwasher in order to get the dirty dishes in the sink out of the way so I could actually get proper access to the water tap, water being an essential ingredient of coffee. But it was a good thing I did the dishes, it being takeout Indian food last night from Indira, the McDonald's of our block (Farmer Street), takeout because we're a couple of lazy slobs.

Er, I'm a lazy slob, the husband is just lazy. Well, actually he isn't, he worked one of those nasty 13-hour days yesterday, starting at 7:30 a.m. (And he's working again this morning. Ah, the painful life of being an arbiter of fashion). Me, I just didn't feel like cooking because, well, I didn't feel like cooking.

The thing about Indira food is that, like McDonald's, it has a rather insistent stink about it that is extraordinarily appealing as you remove the chicken pista korma and chicken butter masala and naan bread from the various containers and paper bags and heap it all on your plate. But once eaten, that stink loses its glamor. And especially if you consumed a bottle of really good 1995 Chateauneuf du Pape over the course of the evening as well, the combined odors of oil and stale wine the next morning are not pretty.

All of which is to reiterate that it was a noble thing doing those dishes. - by Francis S.