Sunday, 16 December 2007

Dilemmas of a lazy blogger

I seem to be building up a lot of posts in draft mode and never getting around to finishing and publishing them. Let's delete some and post others. I'm not sure about my all time top 100 albums. By the time I've finished that one, Kate Bush will have released another album! As for the review of "The Play Wot I Wrote" which I started months ago, I'll think I shall give up on that. At least the recording of Radio 4's "Just A Minute" was recent enough for me to remember, so I will try again. Anyway, here is a post I wrote several weeks ago and never hit the publish button . . . .


Two modern day dilemmas.

1) The Key.

The back door key is a silly shape. It has a prong sticking out on the edge that you insert into the hole. Over time the prong gets more and more bent inwards, until the key stops working. Before it gets to this stage I took it to a key cutters and asked if they could re-cut the key, with the bent prong in a straight position. The key cutter got to work using the duplicating machine as much as possible before finished it off by hand. The result looked similar enough so I got out my money. "No" said the key cutter chappy, "try it and if it doesn't work, then throw it away. If it does work then come back and pay".
When I got back home I tried it and it worked perfectly.
Given that it might well be a month before I'm back in that town and able to pay them, should I eventually pay them? Will the key-cutters just think I'm a right plonker for paying for something that they may well have forgotten about and I could have had for free?

2) The Bike.

I'm driving along and I see a car ahead with its hazard warning lights on, parked just before a bend. Just as I take this in, the two cars between me and the parked car both started signalling left and started to pull in behind the parked car. Just as I was starting to curse about the stupidity of parking just before a bend, I suddenly realised that I was passing a person lying on the grass verge with a crumpled bicycle next to them.

My thoughts for the next couple of seconds went like this:
Man down! Stop and assist!
But wait, that explains why those three cars have stopped here, and people are now getting out of their cars. If I stopped as well that would be four cars parked before that corner. Also I have no medical training and no working mobile phone. I didn't even see how the fallen fellow came to be there. What use will I be?
Oh blow it, carry on.

Trouble is, I spent most of the remaining journey home feeling guilty about not stopping.
Was I right for not stopping?

Saturday, 15 December 2007

A bit of bush

At the end of the film "The Golden Compass" you can hear a rare outing of
Kate Bush. Yep, she has once more plunged into her underused and dusty
studio and knocked out a song called "Lyra" for the end of the movie. It
features a nice vocal by Kate over some rather lazy hazy backing which
ultimately does very little. I suppose if you consider it as ambient music, it sort of works, but otherwise is hardly something to jump up and down
excitedly about.

OK, so it is something new by Kate Bush, perhaps I will do
a bit of jumping up and down after all, but very small jumps, in slippers,
on the carpet.

Meanwhile Sky News reports that by recording this new track, Kate Bush now
has "a taste for recording" and "fans are being told to expect a new
offering from Bush, but probably not until late next year". Pardon me while
I rock with mirth. I'm sure Kate may well be thinking about recording
some more material sometime eventually, but let's not get excited for a few more years yet.
 


Kate hard at work in her high-tech studio.

Saturday, 8 December 2007

Just the thing for Kitschmas

Ship of Fools have just the things to buy your loved ones for Christmas, including this great calendar.

Speaking of this unspeakable time of year, .T. and I did a "oh no it is December and we need to get some things from King's Lynn, so let's get there by 9am so we can avoid the mad people" trip today. Although for this time of year it was quite calm, even by 11am when we left. I was rather saddened by the sight of the former Fopp (still with its signs up) now housing a cheap Christmas store and I gawped at the grotty grotto that has appeared. (Mum to small child: "Ooh, do you think Father Christmas is in there?" Small child: "Don't be silly mum".)

Also overheard when passing new trendy wine bar LXIX, "Is that pronounced licks?"

Sunday, 11 November 2007

Eat Poop U Cat

I've not heard of Eat Poop U Cat before, but it is an advanced (and fun) variation on Chinese Whispers.

Still waking at 6am. Still no idea why. Still knackered. I wouldn't mind if I could just roll over and fall asleep again, but usually Mr. Bladder starts to demand attention, followed by that itch in the middle of the back, followed by the tap-dancing sparrow in the gutter, followed by Lewis Hamilton practising in the road, followed by that panic that you hadn't actually set the alarm but find out that you did and now it is only 10 minutes before you have to get up so you might as well anyway. Bah.

Friday, 9 November 2007

6am

I'm not getting enough sleep at the moment. For some reason I keep waking up at 6am, even at weekends. In that twearly part of the morning, my mind does start to wander. This morning I was thinking, if you had a Klein Bottle bank, would you have to take your bottles to it, or are they already in it? I then tried to count sheep jumping into a Klein Bottle. All this thinking made me thirsty so I had to get up in the end.

How to feel young again

There I was feeling rather middle-aged when on the radio, they starting talking about a new social network aimed at middle-aged people who find the likes of facebook and myspace a bit too young-people orientated. They then said it was aimed at the over 50s.
Yey! you have to be over 50 to be middle aged, so I'm still a youngster for a few more years yet.