Word of Mouth

Well how about this then. Threshers is making this offer, good until mid-December, and they're not telling anybody about it. It was let loose on some blog somewhere (I'm going to try and find out where and when I do I will be sure and let you know - if you get there before me please tell me!) and now they're sitting back and seeing what happens. I'd love a look at the stats they will collate.

(Download coupon)

Monday night is tidy-up night

because, on Tuesday morning, the cleaner comes. Oh Frabjous Day! I lurch from Tuesday to Tuesday, wondering how on earth the place gets into such a state, but for a few precious hours every Tuesday just after Sue has finished life is perfect.

I know, I know, why on earth do I tidy up for the cleaner. Easy - I want her to clean. She can only vacuum the floor if she can find it. Some days even I can't find the floor, and I know whereabouts its supposed to be - I live here after all. It's not that I can't be tidy, it's pretty much that I won't. I tried tidying away a pair of trousers the other week, and a wasp, which had made its ridiculously unseasonal home in the folds thereof, stung me. On my finger. It really hurt! That'll teach me to tidy - HAH! Whereas cleaning - that's an art the mastery of which has spent years eluding me.

All I want for Christmas is - a place for everything, and everything in its place. In a house as unkempt as mine, I go crazy if something - a book of stamps, say, or the sticky tape, is left lying about, because dammit, they have their place! In the top drawer in the little Lock'n'lock box! In the other drawer with the plastic bag clips! Not lying about on the work surface piled in with a dirty great pile of other stuff!

But you know what they say - if an untidy desk is the sign of an untidy mind, what's an empty desk the sign of? . . .

And V is worth 4

Playing Scrabble, when through stupidity or desperation I open up a Triple Word for my opponent, it is my habit to type 'present 4 u' in the chat line. I imagine that this makes it seem as if I have a plan, as if my playing is so good I can afford to be kind, as if, in short, its what I wanted to do all along.

Thanks to who or whatever was watching over me last night, and stopped my fingers from typing my usual line.

The word I had just laid was VULVA.

Comedy or Bust

Well bust in this case. Dragged along to the Comedy Bunker because 'We saw Paul Chowdhury support Omid Djalili and he was so-oo-o funny and now he's the main act and it'll be great!' , it became apparent that 10 minutes' support act doth not a great 45 minute set make.The 10 minutes were quite amusing, but with the rest of the set devoted to getting a 17 year old boy from the audience to eat what turned out to be pulverised chewing tobacco was - well, can you imagine a boring car crash?

He calls himself Britain's finest Asian stand-up. Is this allowed? Sure being Asian allows him to be funny about race in a way not open to palefaces, but the 'Asian' adjective makes him either desperate or crap. Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar are safe on their pinnacles - of course it's been one shared pinnacle for a while now. Wish them joy.

On the other hand, the support for this debacle was Shappi Khorsandi, who did a good job. Hmm - I bet she would be a great main act - I wonder when she'll be back . . . ?

Blogger culpa, Blogger maxima culpa . . .

Somehow the word verification for this blog got turned off. No idea how. Must have been when I was posting last night, but I didn't go near that bit of the dashboard. So now there is a pile of steaming yeeuch as the first comment on my Casino Royale post. And of course the glorious First Nations sees it when she comments* for the first time on this blog. Is this why people have been jumping ship? It's bloody catch-as-catch-can out there.

I am SO CROSS!

* And it's not really a comment - it's that she may be gracious enough to accept my Meme tag. Still don't know how I had the nerve . . .


UPDATE During my (unavailing) efforts to get the fucker off the comments I switched Moderate Comments to ON. And left it there. It's OFF again now. Argh.

Casino Royale

I've just seen it, and Significant Other doesn't go 'til Wednesday - O the power! That's one evening out I could destroy with a word. OK a few words. Like

That Eva Green is one odd-looking woman. As is the Lollipop-head he tangles with early in the movie. I have to fall back on criticizing they way they look as there was no glint of personality to distract me. No wonder Craig is so stilted in the romantic scenes - he can't pretend hard enough that they are even slightly attractive. Who could?

The editing is rubbish. The Baccarat game in particular has no flow, jumping from beginning to end to beginning of sessions so you have no idea of how much time is elapsing, and consequently no proper build-up of tension.

And then they call a patently Italian bloke 'Mathis'! I ask you - for a start you wipe the name from your consciuosness as soon as you hear it, because - well, the bloke's Italian! He's not going to be called 'Mathis'! Remind self to get ears checked. (As if SO hadn't been suggesting it for a while now.) And then, o bugger, someone called 'Mathis' all of a sudden gets even more important plot-wise, and you are left thinking 'Mathis? Which one's Mathis?'

The shoot-em-ups are terrific, really visceral. The opening sequence is edge-of-the-seat, the external shots of the Venetian house are tremendous, the airport sequence had me not knowing which way it was going to go - a very unusual feeling for a Bond movie.

Craig does a perfectly servicable job, and I saw what Wyndham meant by the gayness of it all, though I'ld have put it more in the S&M line. I read the book when I was about 14, about a quarter of a million years ago, and the one thing I remember is the seatless-chair bit. I found it shocking then, and - yup, it all came flooding back.

Not another Sunday

I was going to do something pithy about how I reckon Philip Pullman is a closet theist - so tightly closeted that even he doesn't know. But that's going to have to wait until I finish the trilogy. I should have finished Desolation Island before I got to Northern Lights, but lost the book, and only found it again halfway through Subtle Knife. Now I'm in the uncomfortable position of having two gripping reads on the go at once.

And I had to start Northern Lights because my mate Janie, who only reads biography and history, wanted a reason to read something out of her normal run. She suggested I start a book group, and as she is a person of deeply held Christian belief, I suggested the Pullman(!) for the first meeting. Which happened last Thursday. I wish it had been more of a success than it was. Only three of us were prepared to do much talking, and when you leave deliberate gaps for other attendees to leap in, and they don't, then you rather run, however unwillingly, out of steam. Nevertheless, the next book has been suggested - Claire Tomalin's Samual Pepys.

I got back to Desolation Island, as I will have to time my reading of the end of Subtle Knife quite carefully - last time I read it I wept aloud, and if it happens again I don't think I'd care for an audience.

Watched Master and Commander this evening - didn't hate it nearly as much as I thought I might. Actually liked it quite a lot. Though I would still recommend the books heartily - exciting, atmospheric, thrilling, and occasionally hilarious. Realdoc, if you read this, I don't know how I could have not added Dr Stephen Maturin as my vote for Best Fictional Doctor. And he worked without an anaesthetist.

Meme

1. I grew up in South Africa (we left at the insistence of my mother, who deeply disagreed with the prevailing politics), which means I cannot not notice the colour of someone's skin. I bitterly resent that.

2. I play classical guitar to a not-very-advanced level. Which, considering how long I've been doing it, is downright embarrassing.

3. I am the laziest person I know. By a long way.

4. I had a same-sex romance which lasted about 18 months. Ended in tears, but while it was going - yowza.

5. A favourite thing is toasted granary bread with a bit of butter, spread with Bovril and raspberry jam. Excuse me a moment . . .

*wiping buttery crumbs from fingers*
PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL POSTS
'Remember that it isn't always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it.'

I tag Marsha Klein, the Blind Flaneur, and First Nations. As none of them come anywhere near this blog, I better go leave comments on theirs. Before I lose my nerve.

ps - Blast! I did a day's work as an extra on 'Tom and Viv'! I only just remembered. It was in the dance-hall sequence and we got to wear original WWI clothes.

Memes again, with a bit of Scrabble

By rights this should be BiB's post, but as he won't, I will. Oh, where to start, where to start . . .

I was tagged by Realdoc in the current meme-go-round. I've been thinking not only about the five things (it's a tricky one as already discussed) (isn't it the Jesuits who have the Four Last Things? Major meme-ing there) but also whom I might tag in turn. I asked BiB if I might tag him, and made a suggestion as to one of the five things he might offer, but he declined. Remember that last bit, it's going to crop up again. Not the declining, the suggestion.

AT THE SAME TIME, BiB has been making ingenious plans for a radical life-make-over, part of which depended on him learning the German for 'Fucked if I know'. Bizarre but crucial. Then the ingenious plan had a rewrite, this time relocating to Pyongyang, but this meant acquiring the Korean for 'Fucked if I know'.

AT A VERY SIMILAR TIME, BiB and I coincided at online Scrabble. ( You have to know I will never be good enough to play this man. His 'rating' is ENORMOUS - biggest one I've ever seen, no word of a lie. The one and only game we had was a pity game. In more ways than one.) During our respective games we chatted, and - oh bugger, I can't remember what actually led up to it, but he was all for storming the Romanian embassy demanding blood. I wondered idly what the Romanian for 'Fucked if I know' was, and he said 'fuckinescu'. I lost it. I laughed so much my forehead hit the keyboard hard enough to leave attractive plaid indentations.

ANYWAY. My suggestion to BiB was that one of his five things might be that he had amassed the largest collection of translations for the phrase 'Fucked if I know' in existence. Any linguists out there who can offer others?

Sunday again

. . . and look what I found. Under the link for FREE MUSIC are five items, four of which are hymns, two of which are among my favourites. And crummily enough, one of which is not complete! The shade of J.S. Bach is probably taking this very calmly, sub specie aeternitatis and all, but I am spitting. Of course I mailed them about it, but if you wouldn't mind mailing too, then maybe together we can make a difference! Yay! Together we are One! Shoulder to Shoulder! We Are The Champions! usw usw usw.

3:46, and 9:10 and 3:43

RealDoc, this is for you.

Everyone, this raised a smile. More of the same here.

'Mi chiamo MEME'

I've been tagged by RealDoc in this meme merry-go-round that's exploding over the known blogworld like a rash. I'm supposed to post Five Things About Me (and then tag three other bloggers.) Fine by me - besides being as flattered as all-get-out, there is nothing I like better than to go on and on about li'l ol' ME (thinks: is that the origin of the word? it was Richard Dawkins after all*). One of the few hours in my life the memory of which still shines (not that I've had a particularly grim life, far from it, but after a good few years memories recede, textures get rubbed flat, colours blur) was a 'second interview' for an IT company. Now, most 'second interviews' are conducted by the Personnel Department of the company offering the job you are seeking, and all these lovely people-type people are doing is making sure that if you are an actual axe-murderer that the axe stays in the handbag. This particular IT company was teeny-tiny - a man, a woman (who I discovered far too late in the day were partners in more ways than one, but that's a whole other head-game) and, heaven help me, a Girl Friday. Certainly no Personnel Department. Instead, I found myself being interviewed by a brass-plate, deep-leather-armchair, teetering-piles-of-books, bearded psycho-pick-your-own-suffix (who I discovered far too late probably in the same day was the actual shrink of the male partner who had been in intensive therapy for years, but that's part of the same head-game). It was the closest by a LONG way I had ever come to a practitioner of this or any related psycho-PYOS so I had no idea of how to play it. In the event, it consisted of a 'chat' consisting of me talking about myself, and him paying so much attention that every question he asked was specifically designed to get me to talk about myself some more. It was heaven. So, Five Things About Me should be easy-peasy**.

But how is it metic? (Neologism there - no idea what the adjective from Meme is. I tried 'mimetic' first, but that means something different). A meme tells you how to do something, how to bake a cake or celebrate mass or play pelota, none of which I am competent to do (well, my cakes are OK I guess, but I think I beat the mixture too long after I've added the flour)***. Oh hang on, maybe that could be a meme - 'I bake cakes, but I think they are too tough - maybe I beat the mixture too long after I've added the flour.' *hastily* that one doesn't count, I was only f'r-instancing. Also it's dull. Oh bugger -

Maybe Five Things About Me is not going to be easy-peasy after all, as the unwritten adjective is 'blogworthy'. Ah - this is where I get to use 'mimetic' in the sense of art framing nature by selectively representing it.

I think I'll have to get back to you on this one . . .

*nope - Wikipedia says 'a shortening of the Greek "mimeme" (something imitated).

** Bugger - I've used up my annual allocation of hyphens in this post alone

*** Anyone got any spare parentheses they can lend me? Just 'til the end of the year. . .

Freecycle

Have we all heard of this? Great that the western world came up with this, embarrassing that it has to. Please all sign up and save the planet.