Monday coffee at the Pasarela Centre
This Monday morning coffee came from Olive Garden in the Pasarela Centre in Los Cristianos, and I was joined by Gordon.
I had originally been considering something involving crumpets, but Gordon’s arrival changed the plan. He was looking at the Scottish breakfast, while I decided that the English breakfast seemed like the proper alternative.
Naturally, we both described these enormous breakfasts as the diet versions.
A breakfast menu that keeps going
Olive Garden has an unusually large digital menu. It includes New York-style bagels, sourdough crumpets, English muffins, pancakes, croissants, sandwiches, hot dogs and several different all-day breakfasts.
There were bagels filled with bacon, sausage, cheese and eggs, as well as larger club versions with chicken, ham and salad. The crumpet section included everything from butter and jam to poached eggs, bacon and full breakfasts served across several large crumpets.
The English muffins came with another collection of breakfast combinations, including eggs Benedict and a Scottish version with bacon, lorne sausage, black pudding and a tattie scone.
Choosing something was becoming more difficult rather than easier.
Loaded potatoes and enormous breakfast dishes
One of the more unusual options was a baked potato served in a bucket and loaded with beans, cheese and either an English, Scottish or Irish breakfast topping.
Then came the St Louis Slinger: an Angus burger with hash browns, fried eggs, chilli, onion and cheese, served with chips. The menu itself warned that you needed to be hungry for it.
There were also pastrami towers, loaded pancake sandwiches and southern-fried chicken served on either a muffin or a waffle.
At that point, even Gordon started considering changing his order.
English versus Scottish breakfast
We eventually reached the traditional breakfast section.
Gordon ordered the extreme Scottish breakfast, including lorne sausage, bacon, eggs, beans, tattie scone and black pudding. I ordered the mega extreme English breakfast with sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, hash browns and toast.
Gordon chose a mixture of brown and white toast, while I abandoned any suggestion of healthy eating and stayed with white bread.
A new Freaky Friday song
During the live chat, I introduced a new song created for Freaky Friday.
Catherine had been experimenting with the Suno AI music generator and sent me a song based on Freaky Friday with Tim and Webby at Nebula. I liked it enough to spend several hours creating a short video to accompany it.
We published the video during the livestream and played it for the viewers. The reaction was very positive, although there was some discussion about the AI version of Webby and whether the cinematic “golden hour” lighting made the video slightly too dark.
The song may now have to be performed live, which means everyone needs to learn the words.
Behind the livestream audio
The premiere also led to a short explanation of the livestream audio system.
The mixing desk has an audio-follow-video setting. This means a microphone can become active only when its associated camera is being shown.
Using separate microphones with cameras running at different resolutions can create a very slight delay between the audio signals. For this programme, both microphones were therefore being handled through the same camera.
This avoids the doubled sound but means I have to remember to switch the microphone to global mode when showing a website or another external video source.
Gordon’s journey on the 471
Before the food arrived, Gordon described his journey on the 471 bus.
The bus was extremely busy, with people competing for seats and passengers carrying bags through the crowded aisle. Gordon’s sister was offered a seat, and Gordon managed to find one a few minutes later.
The journey towards the Rosa Centre took around 45 to 50 minutes, with much of the time spent travelling through the hills and residential areas.
The breakfasts finally arrive
Just as the bus story was finishing, the Scottish breakfast arrived, followed by the English breakfast.
The plates were large enough to provide the obvious photograph and thumbnail moment. Gordon positioned his toast, the breakfasts were held up for the camera and we decided to finish the livestream rather than make everyone watch us eat.
The programme ended with a reminder about Balcony Banter and an upcoming discussion with Clio about public healthcare and private health insurance in Tenerife.