Category: miscellaneous

Fiftee thhree yeerz uggoe tuddae. Related: English to Truespel translator.
I’m glad that never caught on.

I can’t say that I’m hugely enthusiastic about the prospects for the weekend.

I spent all of yesterday evening, until 11pm, painting. I made good progress in that I finished the walls in the living room and hall, and made a good start on the bedroom. But this weekend holds little prospect of doing much else other than shifting furniture and wielding a paintbrush. Whoopee.

And, as you might have guessed, it’s all sapped my rant juices. Sorry. I might get on with ranting if I get fed up with painting (really quite likely). I know that you like a good rant.

Anyone for beer?

• catching up on my Global House Connection listening. Constantin’s show for February 15th was a stormer;
• discovering the wonder that is the memory stick (how handy!);
• printing hundreds of application forms for my events.

Life on the edge, I tells ya. Anyone for beer tonight?

Last night, on something a whim, we went to see Lost in Translation, which we agreed was extremely good indeed. The cinematography, acting, plot and script were all very good – it was easy to understand the sensation of isolation that the principal characters were experiencing in Tokyo. It also succeeded in being romantic without being even slightly saccharine, a rarity in cinema these days where it seems that everything has to have some gratuitous sex scene and some schmaltzy ending.
What particularly stood out for us was the soundtrack, which was superbly dark and featured Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Air and Squarepusher – with just enough shoegazing to make me feel all nostalgic for large parts of my CD collection that sit languishing in storage.

I’m currently sitting in the Hotel Loire in Saumur which is on an island in the middle of the Loire. I’m overlooking the river which is gliding glassily past my window, whilst on the opposite bank, the chateau is beautifully illuminated and is surrounded by many attractive old buildings.
Sometimes this job has its compensations (assuming you ignore the fact that I’m dog-tired, feel like throttling one of my clients, have sore feet and shoulders and am missing Hels like mad, of course).

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of the Bash Street Kids in the Beano. Somewhere lurking about in this office are a couple of Bash Street annuals, and I’m tempted to take the afternoon off to sit and read them (if only there was time to do that!).
There were Beanos around the house from before I was born (my brother was a reader) right up until I was in my early 20s, and the Bash Street Kids were amongst my favourites (along with the utterly fantastic Calamity James, with the trademark "rivets" style of drawing that including incredible levels of detail in the background). I think the strength of the Bash Street stories is that all the characters – the nine kids, Cuthbert Cringeworthy, Teacher, Head, Olive, Janitor and Winston the Cat – all had strong personalities that were easy to recognise and could be brought to the fore for any particular storyline. It is testament to the quality of the writing and drawing that they are still popular 50 years after their inception. I’m laughing just thinking about the story lines (do you remember the one where the kids entered the tall ships race in the ship owned by Head’s friend, Captain Horatio Cornplaster? Or the one where Teacher reenacted the Battle of Trafalgar on the boating pond?).
Rest assured that any child of mine will be brought up on the Beano.

One of the steps in making my flat ready for sale is the redecoration of the entire place. Sadly, my beloved ivory is giving way to white, which gives quite a stark appearance but does make the flat seem lighter – or at least the hallway does, as that is the only room to be completely painted so far. It needs a second coat, but the effect is plain to see. I think that with the addition of a few cheap prints on the wall to lend a little colour, it’ll make the flat seem clean, smart and bright – hopefully characteristics that will help to tempt a potential purchaser into parting with his/her cash.
Incidentally, the much-neglected radio grayblog makes excellent background for painting to.

I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here… has been attracting audiences in the order of twelve million viewers. How long is the programme? 30 minutes? Let’s do some mathematics:

684 years. Think about it. Surely humankind could put this time to better use? Just think – if everyone sat down for half an hour, just once a year, and did something useful, or at least thought about something useful, the world would surely be a better place. I’m not expecting Celebrity viewers to solve the world’s ills, but surely their collective brain power could do something useful like inventing a method for opening tin cans that means that the sauce in my chopped tomatoes doesn’t splatter all over the kitchen worktop. Then again, they probably couldn’t even manage that. Mind you, the heat from their brains all simultaneously struggling to think could be enough to heat a small town without the use of fossil fuels.

This week I will, undoubtedly, be extremely busy. I’ve just looked down my to-do list, and it is both lengthy and urgent. It also involves a sizeable number of tasks that will take considerably more than a few minutes to complete. Oh well, best get on with it.
In the meantime, get hyperactive with this completely mad Squirrel Game, which, for reasons I can not fathom, features one of those Japanese cartoon girl characters showing her panties. Hmm.

Open question: if your boss (use your imagination if you don’t have a boss) refused to honour a verbal agreement that he had made with you, and made this refusal clear in an embarrassing manner in front of your colleagues, and generally gave you little or no support and acted like a total arsehole, what would you do? Consider also that you have little recourse to anyone more senior than your boss because he acts in an autonomous manner within the particular company location where you are employed, and that the second-in-command is very much in league with him.
Also consider that you can not reasonably throw in the towel as the job is quite well paid and you do not believe that you could easily find an equivalent position elsewhere. Consider further that the cumulative stress inherant with the current situation is having an adverse impact on your health.
Suggestions?