..was the day India threw off the shackles of British rule and became independent. India was now able to make its own mistakes without foreign interference. Now that it had British electricity networks, railways and other trifling stuff.
Anyhoo, my sister’s now in London, she’s played her auditions yesterday, so we all shall keep our fingers crossed. She has to beat 14 other hopefuls for a scholarship, and by her own admission she didn’t do the music-reading part of the test very well, so we’ll have to hope for a miracle. That, or we’ll have to sabotage the other 14 with food poisoning like (apparently, allegedly, supposedly, according to Bob) Arsenal did to Tottenham in May in order to gain fourth place.
I (along with some friends including Yannis Aivalakis from London) will be taking a look tomorrow at the first game England will play under new manager Steve McLaren against Greece, and Ioannis is having a house-heating party on Thursday now that the shelves are up (I don’t know if he’s got a sofa yet). It’s funny how ordinarily, upon walking into a new house with shelves on the wall, one would not hesitate to lean against them bringing one’s full weight to bear upon them. But having drilled the holes ourselves, and having screwed the brackets in ourselves, we are treating the shelves with considerably more delicacy.

Trouble by Ray LaMontagne

Trouble…
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble
Trouble been doggin’ my soul since the day I was born
Worry…
Worry, worry, worry, worry
Worry just will not seem to leave my mind alone
We’ll I’ve been…
saved by a woman
I’ve been…
saved by a woman
I’ve been…
saved by a woman
She won’t let me go
She won’t let me go now
She won’t let me go
She won’t let me go now

Trouble…
Oh, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble
Feels like every time I get back on my feet
she come around and knock me down again
Worry…
Oh, worry, worry, worry, worry
Sometimes I swear it feels like this worry is my only friend
We’ll I’ve been saved…
by a woman
I’ve been saved…
by a woman
I’ve been saved…
by a woman
She won’t let me go
She won’t let me go now
She won’t let me go
She won’t let me go now

Oh…, Ahhhh….
Ohhhh
She good to me now
She gave me love and affection
She good tell me now
She gave me love and affection
I Said I love her
Yes I love her
I said I love her
I said I love…
She good to me now
She’s good to me
She’s good to me

Need I say more?

I rented a DVD about gardening from the library on Friday, hoping to get some good viewing on trailing bougainvilleas and positively pristine petunias over the weekend. The DVD was labelled ‘Constant Gardening’ or something, which I supposed alluded to the fact that gardening is an all-season activity and that, even in winter, there are things that need to be done around the garden. Imagine my surprise when I saw that it had nothing to do with gardening whatsoever (except for some shots of lovely nasturtiums) but some sick people in Africa and a drug called Dypraxa! Whatever!!
Living With A Curse continues as I failed my driving test again, this time with TWO serious errors. This, my avid readers will note, is one more than last time, leading to all kinds of projections of doom for my forthcoming attempts. I managed to get a serious fault while turning in the road, because apparently this car came and stopped while I was turning around, and I should’ve spent the rest of my fast-fading life waiting for him to do something. In fact, she (yes, once again I’m lumped with an anal bitch) had this half-tonne of an Inspector in the back marking her performance, so I was doomed from the start. She was bound to prove her vigilance and high standards by failing me. And why do I always have to get fat people in the car!! Atleast I didn’t get any hesitation points this time – I was wellying the accelerator all the way. Of course, the second serious fault was for emerging from a side road into a main road, because apparently in real life people just either sit there till there’s an earthquake that stops the trafiic flow, or get out and push their car round the corner carefully!! You’ve got to spot the gap and make a move, or did I learn nothing from all the accidents I’ve had??

As usual spent all day browsing and now have to cram all my thoughts into ten minutes of a blog. Anyway, we’ve all booked tickets to watch England play Greece in a friendly at Old Trafford, the 16th of August at 19:45 for those who don’t know. We’ll be sitting with the In-gerrr-land fans, of course, and making fun of Greek names like Hapa-hapalous and whatnot.
Ioannis moves on Friday, we’ll get to sniff around his new house (I just remembered taking my dog Suzy to new places and how she had to investigate every corner before squatting in one and letting flow. I’ll be doing pretty much the same then).
Applied to some jobs that I didn’t even want, not that there’s any risk I’m gonna get offered them. Not looking fwd to weekend with no money in my pocket, but I managed to coerce Ioannis into free driving lessons for Sunday, so I’ll be ready (in a very vague sense of the term) come Monday.

Had a quiet day at Sha’s place. I really wanted to be with her (use her Internet connection) so we spent the rainy day indoors, and I managed to bring my hotmail account down from 27 pages to just 13. Of course, not all the emails were deleted, I just moved them fro the inbox to special folders.
My (second) driving test is coming up, just days away but I’ve decided not to mention it because of the darned luck it brought me last time. Some voodoo curse thing or something. So I won’t mention that it’s on the 7th, and we’ll just leave it at that, all right?

This is how all the men in this book regard women. Zorba is off on one of his speeches again, complete with exclamations and curses. The author narrates:-

“May God sanctify my grandad’s bones!” he said. “He knew a thing or two about women. He liked them a lot, poor wretch, and they led him a regular dance in his lifetime. ‘By all the good things I wish you, Alexis, my boy,’ he’d say, ‘beware of women! When God took Adam’s rib out to create woman – curse that minute! – the devil turned into a serpent, and pff! he snatched the rib and ran off with it…. God dashed after him and caught him, but he slipped out of his fingers and God was left with just the devil’s horns in his hands. “A good housekeeper,” said God, “can sew even with a spoon. Well, I’ll create woman with the devil’s horns!” And he did; and that’s how the devil got us all, Alexis my boy. No matter where you touch a woman, you touch the devil’s horns. Beware of her, my boy! She also stole the apples in the garden of Eden; she shoved them down her bodice, and now she goes out and about, strutting all over the place. A plague on her! Eat any of those apples and you’re lost; don’t eat any and you’ll still be lost! What advice can I give you, then, my boy? Do as you please!’ That’s what my old grandad said to me. But how could you expect me to grow up sensible? I went the same way as he did – I went to the devil!”

Going to our usual Sunday BBQ at Jessy’s; there’s loads of food piled since last time. It might have gone a bit smelly, but if it’s good enough for bluebottle fly babies, then I say it’s good enough for me! Apologies for disappearing off the radar again, certain breweries are responsible for that.

Been playing with Sha, Jill, Adam and Simon since 2 p.m. We finished at 6.12 p.m. This gave us the idea of doing a 24-hr sponsored badminton marathon for charity – A Badmin-thon! Absolutely knackered now. Going to Sainsbury’s to get some ready cook food, then we’ll jump in a cab home.
Oh, there’s a telly ad for sofas or something that has copied Bob Dylan’s famous music video for the song ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ where he sings the song while showing large placards one by one with some of the lyrics on them. I wonder how many people make the association though.

My friend called me up today, he’s been hyper ever since the Israelis started their mass murder, but today apparently they were bombing his village where he was born and he was sat in front of telly watching it. I didn’t know what I could do about it, and felt mildly angered because what could I say? I’m sickened, not by the Israelis anymore, because we all know they are barely civilised, but by the cowardly behaviour of everybody else who need to step in and give them a good hiding. These are typical schoolyard bullies that we expect our children to be able to handle at school, but we ourselves mumble and shuffle our feet and then turn a blind eye to.

Going to Red Chili today!! We’re finally getting rid of Adam; he’s moving down to London because there are no women left to molest here in Manchester. Aww, bless. So we have to send him off tonight. After which I’ll be seeing him tomorrow for badminton, so I’d better keep a rein on those crocodile tears tonight. I just applied to Bill Gates’ (ex)company. Downside is, if I’m accepted, the job’s based in Reading. Where IS that place? Seriously, being based in Manchester and not being willing to travel on account of all the material junk that has accumulated around me (drum kit, tv, cds, clothes, friends, etc.) has hampered my prospects no end. All the jobs in Manchester sem to be recruitment or secretarial. And I’m too good for that! Believe me, I am!