Some mysteries (AM)

Who has driven past this building before?

Hang on a second. You might not recognise it from that picture.
What about this one:

You know it, right? It's the Mission to Seafarers on Flinders Street, way up the end past Spencer Street. You know, near Bunjil.

Bunjil. 

Anyway, everyone has driven past it millions of times and wondered what it is, especially that domey bit. It was one of life's mysteries, like what a baby pigeon looks like and where they are all hiding.  (Seriously, where are they?) I read an article about this building once and discovered that it was some sort of club for people who sail the seven seas. A place for seamen to go when they are in port. And one of the rooms has a dome! It became less of a mystery, but my curiosity remained.
On Saturday, I had the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity because of this Open House thing they do these days.
I headed there on my bike because god know where the eff you could park around there. I joined the queue out the front and at this point, was feeling pretty excited. While waiting in the queue I read the reading paraphernalia they were handing out. Turns out the domed room used to be a gym. An old school gym for the seamen. How do you like that! After about ten minutes they let me in and all sense of mystery/curiosity/interest waned. It is basically like an RSL. And the domed room is like the hall in the RSL, but with a domed roof and a lot of paintings of ships. I can imagine the gym that they might have had in there back in the day and gee, it does not make me want to work out. It makes me want to walk out. Ha! But seriously folks. I had an ok time wandering around the place, but I think I preferred it when it was a mystery and I could imagine it being extremely great.

Another mystery you may be wondering about is why MSC was silent on Thursday, and then half appeared on Saturday. I guess there's no one single reason, but here are some of the factors that influenced it:

• J is in the Northern Hemisphere with sporadic internet access
• K (that's me) is in the Southern Hemisphere with sporadic access to her (my) brain
• K didn't look at MSC over the weekend and didn't realise that J had posted until THIS MORNING but had already decided to write about the Mission to Seafarers and couldn't back down
• There are probably some other reasons too but none of them spring to mind. 

What's going on? (PM)

How embarrassing that Miss Soft Crab has been embroiled in the fake Global knives racket, which is not actually a thing. This is a genuine blog readers, G.E.N.U.I.N.E! Accept no substitute!


I don't want to ruin the mood or anything, but maybe J passed over that horrifying murder in the French alps last week too quickly. You know the one - dead bodies found by the side of the road. Terrorised children found cowering. Your basic worst nightmare.

Perhaps this news story has really shaken the English people to their core, and at a time when they are super vulnerable because they probably let their guards down due to all the great things that have happened to them lately -  the royal wedding, the diamond jubilee, the olympics and that concert in Hyde Park where Blur played.

Maybe they feel so upset about it all that they have gone on the interwebs en masse  to remind themselves that France is a wonderful place, full of adorable things and attractive people, onc onc onc and naturally, Miss Soft Crab is there for them.

Assuming this is the reason, here's a little something for you, England. Hang in there, you guys.

We've never discussed it before, but Romain Duris is un grand hunk

French Bulldog, amongst the flowers. I can't stop looking at this guy. Look at his face! And imagine how warm his fur would be. He looks amenable to living in an apartment, don't you think?

What's going on? (AM)

Something strange has been happening at Miss Soft Crab lately. People have been visiting this site waaaaayyy more than usual. I’m not under any delusion that we have more readers, I think that for some strange reason people are searching for something and that something is bringing them here. What I have deduced is that: a) people are coming here from the UK; and b) they are looking for French things. Look across the water UK people! The Frenchies are right there!

How do I know who these people are and what they are looking for? Because we have bulk traffic coming from www.google.uk and because in the last week the term 'French things' has brought 120 views here! Does that sound like a lot to you? Well it is! In the days when only Ewan McGregor fans came here, the top search terms were things like 'Ewan McGregor smiling' with 13 page views coming off the back of that. The post French Friday has had 850 page views in the last week! Does that sound like a lot to you? Well it is! That is usually about two-thirds of our entire weekly blog traffic and now just one post has brought that here? WTF?

So I tried to figure out what was going on.I typed 'English interest in France' into Google but all it gave me was a bunch of sites about interest rates and a news story about 3 British citizens who were inexplicably shot dead in France. I'm pretty sure none of that has to do with Miss Soft Crab. THEN I typed 'French things' into Google, thinking that maybe people were typing it in for a reason. But all I got was the same lame things I got last time (Gauloise, French accents, balconies). But I did discover that if you image search French things you get that adorable picture you see above and it links to our post, even though I totally stole that image off the internet. And I do feel bad about that. So one small part of the puzzle is solved, but I still don't understand why people are so interested in French things right now.

On the other hand I do understand why a person may search 'Olympic hunk'. Although we have never written about Olympic hunks here, that search term has brought 3 people this way. I guess we probably use the word hunk more than any other website, so no surprises there, really.

Oh, and one more thing that brought people here in the last week was the phrase 'fake Global knife'. Um excuse me, but any Global knives you see pictured on this blog are the real thing! Ok?!