Shasha, on returning from her holidays, has brought back with her a fondness for the six-stringed swinging. She bought herself an acoustic guitar on Thursday (plus carrier bag, which I must say she holds quite professionally) and promptly tore her way through her first lesson book (Guitar for Absolute Beginners). She now borrowed two more from the library and intends to torture, er please me with even more scratchings vaguely in some Q-minor key. Oh how I long to hear more of Kostas’ renditions of that timeless classic, ‘The house of the rising sun’. (Atleast, that’s what I think the song was; I only heard it a couple thousand times).

United have been comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Chelsea, who secured their Premiership title for the second time. And deservedly so. But more worryingly Rooney seems to have picked up a telling injury which puts England’s chances at half of what they previously were. Which is less than zero.

And to round it all off, here’s a very insightful view into cartoon making from Autology.

I realise now that all the major companies that are waiting to recruit me must only be holding back because they assume that after the Herculean effort required to pass my Masters, I was in need of a well-deserved rest. Of course that is true, but I am now willing to take on a job that is not too demanding of me physically and mentally. A spacious corner office with a couple of secretaries and a large expense account should do me just fine, methinks. Not to mention the usual perks like a chaffeur, free stationery (to take home if I choose) and a whopping huge mother of a leather chair.
So step forward you multinational companies, you devourers of man and nature, don’t be intimidated, I am available.
Please?

Nuclear supporter: Lord Ingham. Anti-nuclear protester: Mr Ginham. Anagrams yet?

This is the modern day celebrity: “I’m not gonna confuse Harvey than what he already is”. Jordan, back to school for you.

“With enough people repeating the word ‘democracy’, democracy it must be”

I like watching Bremner, Bird and Fortune. But all I take on board is the factual content, because, like other journalists in these modern times, they do tend to over-exaggerate. Which reminds me of Taj, a friend in India who pretty much introduced me to the joys or motorcycling, but more importantly developed a whole tradition of telling tall tales of feats accomplished on motorbikes when there’s no-one around to collaborate them.

To paraphrase something I heard – “It’s possible the world was made round so that we don’t see too far down the road”

Watching the snooker on telly, you realise how much of human communication relies not just on content of speech, but body language too. I guess we all have been confronted by this problem while texting a message to someone we don’t know all that well; should we joke?, will they understand it?, etc. Hence the popularity of smileys to clarify the situation. The commentators on the television speak authoritatively about what options are left to a snooker player, and what balls it is wise to play because the white ball ends up in such-and-such a position, and a miss will still entail a difficult pot for the opponent. What I noticed is that a lot of their confident statements like “Yes, the pink will go on its spot, but the red next to it will still go in the middle pocket” are based not as much on their experience of positions and angles as ex-players, as on the fact that they are in the hall watching the players prepare to take the pot on. Which signals to them that, at the very least in the players’ eyes, the ball can be played.

Thinking upon it, I wonder whether the use of smileys in textual communication is indicative of the communicator’s inability to verbalise their message adequately. Is it possible that the more smileys and similar shortcuts one uses, the less capability they have to express themselves in plain words? Or is it that the communicator is actually a highly gregarious animal to whom the message is more than just words, and the presence of smileys is essential because the message is more personal?

Oh, and I think I might be the first to spot a mistake in an advertisement, thanks to the amount of time I spend in front of the telly combined with the intense scrutiny I put ads under. Some Oxy cleaning powder is advertised as being able to clean jam, ink and grass stains from white shirts, so you get crystal clear whites. I don’t have to clean these stains from my whites because I don’t eat grass and ink, and I put my jam on bread. Now I don’t know what the brand is because I am not susceptible to brand-recognition programming when it comes to household sanitation products; I’m not a woman. (I’m loving it! tm). But apparently a lot of housewives are walking around under the mis-impression (un-impression??) that their whites are white. But these whites are not crystal white. Which leaves their children permanently scarred and prone to deeds of misconduct like speaking in the classroom and thinking and suchlike. Alarums!! I’m aghast at the thought! Apart from beating them to correct this, (worked with me; I no longer think), the only solution is to make their whites crystal white. Anyhow, towards the end of this ad, the screen splits into four quarters showing four different white items of clothing. Only two of these are relevant to our discussion (my discourse, actually). While the seductive female voice (in truth an eighty year-old with a colostomy) says “white cuffs and white socks” in that order, the screen zooms in on socks first, and then the cuffs!! (both equally bog-standard, by the way). Lo and behold. The truth is thus revealed. Let it not be said that I keep my immense knowledge from the world.

Since I’m away on holiday for a week, I ordered my computer to think up stuff and keep my blog going. So here, I hand temporary charge over to my computer C3BO.

C3BO:
Well, hi there folks. I thought I’d never get a chance to display my talents with that inferior human being taking responsibilty for the perfect prose that appears on this blog. Do you think he knows how to spell ‘Mississippi’, or ‘queue’??

I’m on HOLIDAY

On Saturday we,we and we went to Alstonefield in the Peak district, Derbyshire, to take a long walk across some fields and dales to Hartington and back. The landscape was beautiful, the wind bracing and wholesome. The perfect antidote to Friday night’s debauchery thanks to Adam’s birthday celebrations. I had a good time with people very close to my heart.

The overriding emotion I feel at the moment of writing is one of sadness and pity. We saw a little white cat with black splotches on the road of a derelict farmhouse, barely more than a kitten. It had a tumour on its right eye the size of a large marble. All the while we were walking across those fields, we saw sheep quite accustomed to human presence standing up and trotting away from us, yet this little cat just sat there mewling in the middle of the disused road, asking for something. I think it wanted someone to put it out of its misery. I would’ve broken down right there except for the fact that grown men don’t cry; it took me a while to catch my breath. I didn’t even dare examine it, because I knew immediately that there was nothing I could do anyhow. My sister habitually brought stray cats and other animals home, and it was my part to play the callous, sensible person who had to play the card of reason. And some did die, causing grief all round. I will never know for certain what will happen to that poor, trusting sonofabitch that has dominated my thoughts. I hope it dies peacefully. But I’d like to think somebody with more balls than me picked it up and took care of it.

Sorry for such a downer.