Ed Fucking Sheeran and the Nando's restaurant group.

More and more recently I have been seeing and hearing the name "Ed Sheeran". This particular individual was first brought to my attention during a period I can roughly pin down as 'some time this summer' by a couple of different people who tried to show me or link me to a video of him 'jamming' with a man called Example (who looks alot like Luke Edwards). From what I've seen Mr Sheeran looks and sounds like any run of the mill busker, he sings and plays the acoustic guitar in no unusual or exotic fasion. I wasn't really bothered by this at the time, I thought "well theres the next big fad lets just wait for it to ripen and come to fruition". Well now it has and to be perfectly honest its starting to get annoying. Wonder and amazement at this ginger specimen is becoming more and more common and as with almost every passing musical fad it is entirely unjust. I'm not saying Sheeran isn't talented, far from it and who would I be to make that judgment? What I am however saying is is that the ability to sing in tune and play the guitar is nothing new or uncommon. There are millions of people worldwide who can do it just as well and I would go as far as to say that a capacity for the musical may well be one of the most common basic human traits, most people just don't know they can do it or never fully explore their potential. However credit where its due, whatever four leafed clover or obsessive compulsive avoidence of cracked pavements, black cats and ladders is fueling the man's wave of good luck seems to be doing its job perfectly. This time next year he will be sitting on a pile of cash big enough to fund his own private island and he is already rapidly becoming a household name. He'll have a few passing years in the spotlight and then he will become just another of society's has beens. Well best of luck I say, if everyone doesnt blow their cash on him they will just end up blowing it all on some other lucky individual.

Mmm Chicken.... 

All these thoughts of Ed 'Nothing out of the ordinary' Sheeran's Nando's jam has got me thinking about the restaurant. A few weeks before Christmas I (a Nando's noob) and several friends (also Nando's noobs) decided to pop in for lunch while Christmas shopping. If I'm honest when I left I felt a bit disapointed. The chicken was not as gorgeous or amazingly flavoursome as I had hoped it would be and each time is has come up in conversation since I (and Rob if he's present) have voiced our belief that it is over-rated. However a conversation yesterday with Wardy (a regular Nando's goer) has changed my opinion from negative back up to undecided. When I asked him what he liked about it he described how he puts on a certain flavoured sauce of his preference then the "hot" peri-peri sauce. I may have missed the entire point of Nando's but when I went I was unaware of the customisable options and now I feel as if I may have been robbed of the potential enjoyment of my meal. I'd like to return to Nando's for round two except this time in the company of some more experienced companians to guide me correctly through the chickeny experience. No complaints about about the "bottomless" drinks though, infinite soft drinks is fine by me.