The booklet cost £2.50 and I gave the lady at the desk a £5 note. A proper one with a picture of Dame May Whitty on the back of it. The lady at the desk rummaged in the coin tray for a considerable time. A good half of the tray was covered in pound coins and there was a mound of fifty pence pieces just to one side. But still she rummaged in the coin tray for a considerable time. Reluctantly she palmed a fifty pence piece then rummaged a bit more. In the end she gave me an assortment of 10p coins, some 5p coins, a twenty and the fifty pence piece. Scores of pound coins to give as change and she gave me two hundredweight of half-chewed threepenny bits. You have to wonder about some people.
We were having the seat up/down argument the other day. We must have been bored: usually we only argue about sensible things like whether or not Michael Portillo is wearing a merkin on "This Week." Herself says the seat must be down but the lid up. I say that both seat and lid should be down to prevent unpleasant aerosol events in the bathroom. Herself says the seat must be down but the lid up.
The reason she says that is fair enough, I suppose. She claims that pop festivals gave her haemarroids. She reckons it was Glastonbury as done it. After three days eating Pieminster pies and drinking strong fire water she braved the bogs. A hour or so later, when she got to the end of the queue she went in. And came straight back out again. And didn't go to the toilet until she got back home a couple of days later.
Which is why she always insists on the lid staying up: "I like to know what I'm running away from before it's close enough to growl at me!"
Psychiatrists at the University of Gaberdene have determined that people agreeing with two or more of the following statements may find themselves belabouring under a lucrative clinical condition:
I was mulling over the differences between our colonial cousins in the Unites States and us over here in Wonderland. I've been doing this a lot lately what with one thing or another. We get to hear about the contumelies and brouhahas of the American body politic and I've enough friends, acquaintances and colleagues over there for me to have news feeds full of their various arguments for and against one or other course of action.
Over here, we tend to forget that the United States is a foreign country. And a very different one at that. The idea that it's the same as us but bigger, or worthy somehow of being patronised as a younger sibling with lots of big ideas that could easily be transplanted over here is, of course, a nonsense. We struggle to get our heads around the Tea Party and they struggle to understand our love of socialised health care. They have the constitutional right to bear arms, we have the constitutional right to make fists in our pockets so long as we don't make a fuss about it. This last point came home to me the first time I went to visit friends in the Wild West and we went shopping. Standing in the queue for the till I glanced at the mither merchandise. Where we'd have had sweeties or chocolates or copies of "Hello" magazine ("Dame Flora Robson shows off her amazing baby bump! Exclusive pictures inside!") they were displaying shotgun cartridges and boxes of bullets.
We need to respect our differences, they're what makes the world what it is. And we need to be careful when we try to transplant ideologies from one place to another that they're both viable and appropriate in their new environment.
We were watching "It Shouldn't Happen To An Australian Zoo Vet" or somesuch on the Discovery Channel. Much time was spent on the business of giving a giant tortoise a barium enema. Isn't that brilliant? A world full of pain and misery and there are still people willing to go about the place giving tortoises barium enemas.
What a glorious and wonderful thing it would be to have that on your curriculum vitae: "I have the ability to give give tortoises the shits."
The quiet English Sunday is an opportunity for sober reflection of the big issues of life and the prolonged digestion of the issues and outcomes of our current affairs media.
Today we have mulled over:
Anyway, I found the razor. It had somehow fallen to the back of the bookcase, behind the Giles annuals.
Questions a gentleman must not answer on a Sunday morning:
"Do you think I need a new saddle?"
"Would those boots make my legs look short?"
"That would look better in pink, wouldn't it?"
Sorry, I've been neglectful. Stuff. You know how it is. And some other stuff. Yes, I'm surprised, too. I'll catch up this week. Meanwhile...
You've got to feel sorry for King Kong...
Much though I get on reasonably well with women on a general level once every so often I'm reminded that they're not like the rest of us. A case in point: freckles.
The entrance to the station was decorated by a line of plastic flowers, a dead frog and a home-made notice depicting a photograph of a tortoise with the caption
On the intersection with Deansgate a crowd had gathered.
Back in the old days, cameras were mechanical devices. You pressed the button and a mechanical iris engaged to set the width of the lens diaphragm and a shutter opened and closed at the required speed for the exposure. A Leica made a lovely, gentle hiss (I borrowed one once) and my industrial-strength Zenit made a loud clunk. Possibly because it was made out of the combine harvesters that were remaindered during the Kazakh famines of the 1930s. The Zenit was the entry-level SLR; it was about a quarter of the price of the next cheapest model on the market.
Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.
The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.
The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.
The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.
I must have been doing the cat's shoelaces
when this lot came a-calling.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
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