Thursday, 10 March 2011
Suffer the Little Children
Don't those boys look excited? They must be so thrilled that their school is complying with the government to reach some sort of wonderfully important target. Poor Jonah - I bet he wishes he'd been there with them:
Drive Time
I’ve always been a hopeless driver. When I did my test, I passed, but I didn’t impress. The inspector said to me at the end of it, ‘You’re not a very good driver, but you're almost ridiculously safe. I am giving you your licence, but only because you gave way to every single vehicle on the route.' 'Thank you,' I said, recognising the truth of what he'd told me and not wanting to say or do anything that might make him change his mind.
He handed me the bit of paper I needed and opened the car door to get out. Just before he did get out though, he turned and delivered his parting shot. 'Just remember, ' he said, 'I don’t want to see your name in the death notices.' I nodded and promised I'd do my best not to disappoint him. I've been trying to keep my side of the bargain ever since.
I haven’t improved though - in fact, since I had my eyes tested recently, I have, possibly, got worse. The trouble is that I asked the optometrist if I had reached the point where I should start wearing glasses when I'm driving yet. ‘Not quite,’ he replied after considering the question for a minute. ‘You’re borderline, you see - you’re at the stage where you should think about it.’ So I do – while I’m driving.
I hadn't really realised this until the other day when I was belting down the highway towards my mother's farm. 'Why do you keep taking your glasses off and putting them on again,' my husband, who was sitting beside me, asked all of a sudden. I slid the things back over my ears and then almost immediately removed them. 'I’m just thinking about whether or not I need them,' I told him. Putting them on again, I explained about the optometrist and what he'd said. It didn’t seem to my husband to be an entirely reasonable explanation. 'Either you do or you don’t,' he said, and at the next opportunity he took over from me behind the wheel.
'By the way,' he asked me, as he nosed the car back out into the traffic, 'Why did you draw over almost into the gutter every time anyone went past us before?.' 'Well you know in films when cars pass and the window winds down and there's a sawn-off shotgun pointing in the driver's face?' 'Yeees, I suppose so.' 'Obviously, I'm anxious to avoid having my face blown off.'
My husband glanced at me then, with a vexed expression. 'So we have to stop going to the movies now, is that it?' he asked. 'We can still go to rom-coms', I said, 'provided they are gunfree.' He was overtaking a semi trailer at that moment, and so I was crouched low in my seat, out of bullet range. I couldn't see his face from that position, but I'm fairly sure I heard him groan.
I’ve always been a hopeless driver. When I did my test, I passed, but I didn’t impress. The inspector said to me at the end of it, ‘You’re not a very good driver, but you're almost ridiculously safe. I am giving you your licence, but only because you gave way to every single vehicle on the route.' 'Thank you,' I said, recognising the truth of what he'd told me and not wanting to say or do anything that might make him change his mind.
He handed me the bit of paper I needed and opened the car door to get out. Just before he did get out though, he turned and delivered his parting shot. 'Just remember, ' he said, 'I don’t want to see your name in the death notices.' I nodded and promised I'd do my best not to disappoint him. I've been trying to keep my side of the bargain ever since.
I haven’t improved though - in fact, since I had my eyes tested recently, I have, possibly, got worse. The trouble is that I asked the optometrist if I had reached the point where I should start wearing glasses when I'm driving yet. ‘Not quite,’ he replied after considering the question for a minute. ‘You’re borderline, you see - you’re at the stage where you should think about it.’ So I do – while I’m driving.
I hadn't really realised this until the other day when I was belting down the highway towards my mother's farm. 'Why do you keep taking your glasses off and putting them on again,' my husband, who was sitting beside me, asked all of a sudden. I slid the things back over my ears and then almost immediately removed them. 'I’m just thinking about whether or not I need them,' I told him. Putting them on again, I explained about the optometrist and what he'd said. It didn’t seem to my husband to be an entirely reasonable explanation. 'Either you do or you don’t,' he said, and at the next opportunity he took over from me behind the wheel.
'By the way,' he asked me, as he nosed the car back out into the traffic, 'Why did you draw over almost into the gutter every time anyone went past us before?.' 'Well you know in films when cars pass and the window winds down and there's a sawn-off shotgun pointing in the driver's face?' 'Yeees, I suppose so.' 'Obviously, I'm anxious to avoid having my face blown off.'
My husband glanced at me then, with a vexed expression. 'So we have to stop going to the movies now, is that it?' he asked. 'We can still go to rom-coms', I said, 'provided they are gunfree.' He was overtaking a semi trailer at that moment, and so I was crouched low in my seat, out of bullet range. I couldn't see his face from that position, but I'm fairly sure I heard him groan.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Playtime
There is one thing that justifies the existence of Twitter, for me - the hashtag games. I've already mentioned the one a while ago that involved Poetry Retractions. There have been others since then - #Cheese Films (The Gouda, the Bad and the Ugly; Brie-ing There); #Pathetic Claims to Fame ('My cousin's husband's band played at Prince Andrew's wedding; 'I used to know someone who knew someone who was married to the man who invented Kettle Chips'; #UKtownsongs (All Things Brighton Beautiful); #Fishsongs (Salmon Enchanted Evening) et cetera et cetera.
They are all fun, but there's one thing wrong with them - they are unpredictable; you never know when there'll be a new one. Luckily though, in the Twitter playground, there is one reliable constant. It is a silly but addictive word game called Artwiculate.
Each day a new word is put up on the Artwiculate website and players have to think up an amusing - if possible - phrase that contains that word. Then they need to vote for other people's contributions, by retweeting them.
Recent examples of Artwiculate words have included Roseate, for which the winning entry was, 'I ordered far too many pink spoons. Now I can't afford to pay my roseate spoonbill'; Mendacity ('Is mendacity when you just lie there?'); Ungulate, (which means a hooved animal), for which the winning contribution was, 'Ungulate? Shoddy', (although I also very much liked, 'An ungulate-o-phile sadomasochist necrophiliac is definitely flogging a dead horse', and 'I called my ex-wife's mother an undomesticated ungulate. She bridled'); and Immotile, (which means unable to move), for which the winning phrase was, 'Immotile? STILL?'
If you are an infantile time waster like me, I cannot recommend Artwiculate highly enough.
They are all fun, but there's one thing wrong with them - they are unpredictable; you never know when there'll be a new one. Luckily though, in the Twitter playground, there is one reliable constant. It is a silly but addictive word game called Artwiculate.
Each day a new word is put up on the Artwiculate website and players have to think up an amusing - if possible - phrase that contains that word. Then they need to vote for other people's contributions, by retweeting them.
Recent examples of Artwiculate words have included Roseate, for which the winning entry was, 'I ordered far too many pink spoons. Now I can't afford to pay my roseate spoonbill'; Mendacity ('Is mendacity when you just lie there?'); Ungulate, (which means a hooved animal), for which the winning contribution was, 'Ungulate? Shoddy', (although I also very much liked, 'An ungulate-o-phile sadomasochist necrophiliac is definitely flogging a dead horse', and 'I called my ex-wife's mother an undomesticated ungulate. She bridled'); and Immotile, (which means unable to move), for which the winning phrase was, 'Immotile? STILL?'
If you are an infantile time waster like me, I cannot recommend Artwiculate highly enough.
Monday, 7 March 2011
There are Cynics out There
Or perhaps the person who wrote this letter to the Weekend Australian really believes Gaddafi could take some advice from our current Prime Minister:
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Sticking with the Day Job
I did explain the other day that I'm not very good at taking pictures. Afterwards, I realised I'd produced nothing to prove my claim. Never mind - downloading pictures from my camera to my computer yesterday evening, I found this fine example of my oeuvre. I took it for a kangaroo-mad child I know in England. I think I can rest my case:
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Memories
I love Google. I just asked it a fairly inane question. I'm not going to say what it was, as it was actually more than 'fairly inane' - 'embarrassingly stupid' would be a more accurate description really.
Anyway, instead of giving me an answer, Google led me, comfortingly, ('don't worry dear, there are one or two others out there, who are nearly as foolish as you'), to some even more idiotic questions: 'What is that thing called under the hood of the car', 'Why can't I get married until 60 days after my divorce in Alabama' and 'What's that rock song that goes, "Something, something, something, something"?'
I think that last one proves that Samuel Beckett was above all a realist. Nowadays, of course Winnie in Happy Days wouldn't need to ask the audience, 'What is it, that unforgettable line?' She could turn to the Internet, the removable hard drive default memory of the connected world.
(PS I've just been pointed in the direction of a whole collection of other idiots' questions here .)
Anyway, instead of giving me an answer, Google led me, comfortingly, ('don't worry dear, there are one or two others out there, who are nearly as foolish as you'), to some even more idiotic questions: 'What is that thing called under the hood of the car', 'Why can't I get married until 60 days after my divorce in Alabama' and 'What's that rock song that goes, "Something, something, something, something"?'
I think that last one proves that Samuel Beckett was above all a realist. Nowadays, of course Winnie in Happy Days wouldn't need to ask the audience, 'What is it, that unforgettable line?' She could turn to the Internet, the removable hard drive default memory of the connected world.
(PS I've just been pointed in the direction of a whole collection of other idiots' questions here .)
Friday, 4 March 2011
Hurray
Yesterday I discovered something that made me absurdly pleased. Adam and Joe are coming back.
For anyone who doesn't know, Adam and Joe run a very silly radio programme on Saturday mornings in England, in which they talk rubbish and compete with each other to make up ridiculous songs. You can find their attempts to write a theme tune for the film A Quantum of Solace here ('You may have bags of solace, but I don't want 'em/I just want a quantum,') and you can find Adam's song about the sadness of coming back from your summer holidays ('Can't you leave me here, drinking cans of Frenchie beer, lying in the summer sun, having semi-nudie fun? Why can't the bad times just be never and the good times last forever?) here.
If you too - as they used to say in the advertisements - are depressed by the modern world, appalled by the carnage in Libya or simply looking for something a bit more light hearted than the usual Radio National diet of documentaries - living with a prosthetic limb, racism in rural neighbourhoods, the decline of the spotted stink beetle 's habitat - tune in to Adam and Joe or download their podcasts: as my oldest daughter has just skyped me to say, 'I can't wait for stories like the one where Adam washes his hands in the water from a toilet on a train, because the tap was broken,' (ah memories).
If listening to Adam and Joe doesn't make the world seem a little less miserable, I will eat not only my hat but any number of pieces of clothing, out of sheer surprise.
(And, of course, if you are already an Adam and Joe listener, all I can say is: ' Stephen?')
For anyone who doesn't know, Adam and Joe run a very silly radio programme on Saturday mornings in England, in which they talk rubbish and compete with each other to make up ridiculous songs. You can find their attempts to write a theme tune for the film A Quantum of Solace here ('You may have bags of solace, but I don't want 'em/I just want a quantum,') and you can find Adam's song about the sadness of coming back from your summer holidays ('Can't you leave me here, drinking cans of Frenchie beer, lying in the summer sun, having semi-nudie fun? Why can't the bad times just be never and the good times last forever?) here.
If you too - as they used to say in the advertisements - are depressed by the modern world, appalled by the carnage in Libya or simply looking for something a bit more light hearted than the usual Radio National diet of documentaries - living with a prosthetic limb, racism in rural neighbourhoods, the decline of the spotted stink beetle 's habitat - tune in to Adam and Joe or download their podcasts: as my oldest daughter has just skyped me to say, 'I can't wait for stories like the one where Adam washes his hands in the water from a toilet on a train, because the tap was broken,' (ah memories).
If listening to Adam and Joe doesn't make the world seem a little less miserable, I will eat not only my hat but any number of pieces of clothing, out of sheer surprise.
(And, of course, if you are already an Adam and Joe listener, all I can say is: ' Stephen?')
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