Exploding Mentos.

I stood for some minutes today before a small display of Mentos, trying for the life of me to remember what it was that a waggish sort could combine with Mentos to create a breed of fountain-like explosion. I knew only that it was something I'd recently had cause to look up on Wikipedia. But that barely narrowed it down. Whitstable? Marmite? Jane Austen's Persuasian? Alan Rickman? It's like that thing that happens when you drop potassium into a bowl of water, only with Mentos and something else. I think it'd be a fairly fine idea to make speedboats out of potassium, but then again, I've never had one of those ideas where you're so confident of its brilliance that you actually believe it's okay to wake people up in the middle of the night.

(Starsky and, it goes without saying, Hutch, have chased villains around the same bally theatre two nights in a row now. Today they're chasing a vampire. Hutch was asking for a list of people with blood fetishes earlier, and Starsky was wearing a clove of garlic around his neck. I don't have the words to explain quite how much I love Starsky. Hutch agrees with me. Bravo still claims to have been entertaining men since 1985.)

I bought the Mentos in the end, then I got onto a very crowded train and stood in the stairwell where they warn you not to stand because the doors open inwards. I asked fairly politely if the people wouldn't mind moving slightly further into the train so I wouldn't get my face smashed in by the doors (that open inwards) every time we came to a station, but it turns out they would rather mind, actually, so we let that line of thinking drop quietly. It doesn't make for a comfortable journey, ticking off sturdy people with whom you're obliged for the duration to stand shoulder to shoulder. Especially not when you're being smashed in the face every ten minutes or so by the inwards-opening doors.

(It should be noted that there are two adverts currently showing that contain anthropomorphised baked beans, and they both make me want to cry slightly. I miss those adverts for the dancing robot car. The ice-skating one isn't a patch on it.)

Having paid a train-fuelled visit, I returned home and contemplated the Mentos again. Sometimes I ate them. I felt they might make a change from cough sweets. I contemplated dropping them in the buttercup syrup – I fed buttercup syrup into Wikipedia the day before yesterday – but how to explain the resultant mint-in-a-bottle to those less scientifically minded? I sucked a mug of hot chocolate through one, but no part of my head exploded.

(I don't like that new Virgin trains advert at all. The one that likes to resurrect racist Hollywood stereotypes. What happened to that one with Cary Grant in? I think all adverts ought to have Cary Grant in, or at least many more of them. When I'm not wanting with all my being and all my ribs to turn briefly into a seagull, I'm willing Cary Grant to walk into the room, with a hat on.)

I hope it's Marmite. I'm in possession of Marmite, and Mentos now, so I could have a bit of an experiment. But I fear it's coke. And I shan't buy coke. I can't swallow fizz and it don't freeze well.

Exploding Mentos.

I stood for some minutes today before a small display of Mentos, trying for the life of me to remember what it was that a waggish sort could combine with Mentos to create a breed of fountain-like explosion. I knew only that it was something I'd recently had cause to look up on Wikipedia. But that barely narrowed it down. Whitstable? Marmite? Jane Austen's Persuasian? Alan Rickman? It's like that thing that happens when you drop potassium into a bowl of water, only with Mentos and something else. I think it'd be a fairly fine idea to make speedboats out of potassium, but then again, I've never had one of those ideas where you're so confident of its brilliance that you actually believe it's okay to wake people up in the middle of the night.

(Starsky and, it goes without saying, Hutch, have chased villains around the same bally theatre two nights in a row now. Today they're chasing a vampire. Hutch was asking for a list of people with blood fetishes earlier, and Starsky was wearing a clove of garlic around his neck. I don't have the words to explain quite how much I love Starsky. Hutch agrees with me. Bravo still claims to have been entertaining men since 1985.)

I bought the Mentos in the end, then I got onto a very crowded train and stood in the stairwell where they warn you not to stand because the doors open inwards. I asked fairly politely if the people wouldn't mind moving slightly further into the train so I wouldn't get my face smashed in by the doors (that open inwards) every time we came to a station, but it turns out they would rather mind, actually, so we let that line of thinking drop quietly. It doesn't make for a comfortable journey, ticking off sturdy people with whom you're obliged for the duration to stand shoulder to shoulder. Especially not when you're being smashed in the face every ten minutes or so by the inwards-opening doors.

(It should be noted that there are two adverts currently showing that contain anthropomorphised baked beans, and they both make me want to cry slightly. I miss those adverts for the dancing robot car. The ice-skating one isn't a patch on it.)

Having paid a train-fuelled visit, I returned home and contemplated the Mentos again. Sometimes I ate them. I felt they might make a change from cough sweets. I contemplated dropping them in the buttercup syrup – I fed buttercup syrup into Wikipedia the day before yesterday – but how to explain the resultant mint-in-a-bottle to those less scientifically minded? I sucked a mug of hot chocolate through one, but no part of my head exploded.

(I don't like that new Virgin trains advert at all. The one that likes to resurrect racist Hollywood stereotypes. What happened to that one with Cary Grant in? I think all adverts ought to have Cary Grant in, or at least many more of them. When I'm not wanting with all my being and all my ribs to turn briefly into a seagull, I'm willing Cary Grant to walk into the room, with a hat on.)

I hope it's Marmite. I'm in possession of Marmite, and Mentos now, so I could have a bit of an experiment. But I fear it's coke. And I shan't buy coke. I can't swallow fizz and it don't freeze well.