Workmen and Wicker Men.

Some guy from down the road invaded the ground in front of my house at dusk tonight. He’d come to do a job for the woman next door and stayed up his ladder until darkness fell.

Twilights are very special to me and I don’t like having them invaded. And I shall be particularly unhappy if he invades again tomorrow night because tomorrow night is one of the big nights of the year. It’s Beltane Eve tomorrow and readers of longstanding will remember that I have a fire on Beltane Eve. It’s a very private affair and attendance is strictly by invitation. Not that I ever issue invitations, of course, because there’s nobody to invite. (Well, actually, there is one person who would be more than welcome to share my Beltane Eve fire, but it certainly isn’t the man from down the road.)

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the esteem in which I hold Beltane Eve, I admit that I don’t do the job properly. My pagan proclivities, such as they are, don’t stretch to lighting the fire at sunset and keeping it lit until sunrise on May 1^st. Bed is precious and strictly for the purpose of sleeping these days. Neither do I toast marshmallows, bake potatoes, or roast policemen on it.

A Head for Hospitality.

You see, this is what I do. I’m walking across a car park having a conversation with some disembodied person who’s taken up residence inside my head about just how deep the question ‘Who am I?’ goes, when I think: ‘This should go onto the blog.’ Only it doesn’t because it’s all vanished into the mist by the time I next sit in front of my computer.

So then I ask the question: ‘If Americans can claim they sent a man to the moon fifty years ago, how come they haven’t invented a memory stick which plugs into your ear and records your conversations with disembodied persons?’ Are there no laboratories? Are there no software houses?

Tonight’s episode of House was about a blogger. She and her husband/boyfriend, or whatever he was, were arguing over the fact that their private life was being made public for complete strangers to read. ‘How fortuitous that I don’t have a partner,’ I thought. ‘How convenient that I was never the marrying kind.’ And then there was further discussion about whether you can get to know a person better over the internet than you can by meeting them in the flesh.

It all went over my head, of course, because nearly everybody I can claim to know talks to me across cyberspace. And that’s pretty much the same as being a disembodied person settled snugly inside it.

I bought some pansies for my garden today. Never in my life have I bought pansies, but these guys climbed into my head and begged me to give them a home. How could I resist?

Encountering a Mona Lisa.

I was in a Tesco store today when I caught sight of a woman approaching me from behind. I turned to look at her and saw that she was young, maybe twenty or so, and eminently noticeable. She had long hair and long legs which climbed and climbed all the way to some mercifully indeterminate place a very short distance above a very short skirt. And she was blonde.

She was pretty, too, as I discovered when I shifted my gaze to her face (actually it was her face I looked at first, but it’s fun to be thought disreputable occasionally.) And there I saw something remarkable.

She was looking back at me and smiling in a way that was vaguely familiar from a time now past and shrouded in the mist of a near-forgotten history. It was a self-satisfied smile, a smug smile, the sort of smile which says ‘Yes, I am nothing if not spectacular. So glad you noticed.’

Women smile at me often these days, but never like that. It was the sort of smile that young women generally bestow on young men whose approbation is to be expected and appreciated, even though further attention is not necessarily sought. And it is, of necessity, reserved for young men because they are still players in the multi-faceted game and therefore appropriate recipients. I know what I’m talking about here. I learned to read the clues quickly from the age of around eleven, and I know that I am no longer an appropriate recipient.

And then she turned to walk through a door, presumably en route to the bowels of the building somewhere. As she did so I couldn’t resist stealing another glance, and do you know what she did? She turned and smiled at me the same way again.

I have to be brutally honest now and admit that at no time was there any hint of lasciviousness in my reaction. Much as it is fun to be seen as disreputable occasionally, lasciviousness has never been one of my characteristics.

So how did I react to the smile? Well, I found it confusing, amusing, intriguing and frustrating. And what did the smile actually mean? I have no idea. But isn’t it pleasing when such a small and ephemeral piece of enigmatic magic floats out of the eyes of a complete stranger in a busy grocery store on a Monday afternoon? At my age I think I can be satisfied with that. 

There's Life and Aspiration Yet.

Judging by my depressingly low energy levels at the moment, I strongly suspect that I’m suffering a recurrence of the old chronic fatigue problem. But here’s the odd thing. As soon as I open the scotch bottle and load some Shakira from YouTube, I find myself dancing like a 20-year-old (well, almost…)

I think this might be the universe’s way of preparing me for a not-too-distant future when I shall be incarcerated in some dingy care home watching glitzy lunchtime game shows and endless re-runs of the Jeremy Kyle Show. The only antidote to this hellish predicament will be to get the boom box out, insert a Shakira CD and do my stuff. And then I shall be able to luxuriate in the gummy grins of grizzled old ladies while watching the faux leather seat cushions getting wetter and wetter. (Any takers for smuggling the whisky in?)

Taking the Message.

In tonight’s episode of House, Lisa Cuddy took on the might of the American healthcare system and came up trumps. But of course, Trumps wasn’t in the White House when that show was aired. If he had been, no doubt he would have had something to tweet on the matter – something along the lines of the show’s producers being unpatriotic, I suppose.

But the healers were able to cheer while the insurance provider’s chief negotiator had the opportunity to address her as ‘bitch.’ Interestingly, she was also addressed as ‘bitch’ by the nasty nurse who had been fired for stealing meds. I suspect we were meant to recognise a parallel mentality, and so I did.

It has to be said, however, that in order to achieve the ethically justified result, Cuddy had to play the role of bitch and use dirty tactics. I think we were meant to conclude that things work like that over there. And so I did.

Capricious Spring.

Five days ago we in Britain were basking in record high temperatures, and we’d had enough warm, dry weather by then to be half convinced that summer had arrived early this year. This morning there was snow in the cold, spitting rain being driven across the landscape by icy, gale force winds (storm force in some places further west.) It was being driven across my garden, too, flattening the taller and more precocious plants and wrestling my prize, bloom-laden broom bush almost to breaking point. How the climate managed to go suddenly backwards from June to February is a little hard to fathom.

An added problem for me is that I’m becoming quite the wimp these days. I can’t tolerate inclement weather now. It adds a further layer of depression to a mind already far more familiar with the downside than it used to be.

So now I’m off to do my week’s ironing to get warm. My house is old and draughty, and the delinquent wind entertains the conviction that it’s free to come in here any time it chooses.

But at least I got the chance to use the word ‘capricious.’ I like that word and use it whenever the opportunity presents itself. I didn’t even know what it meant until I watched Jiri Menzel’s splendid opus Capricious Summer a few short decades ago. There’s lots of kind, gentle, summer rain in it, and lots of people with mundane issues keenly observed. And not a single gun in sight. I try never to watch films with guns in them any more.

Crossed Lipsticks.

One of the many strange recommendations I keep getting on YouTube lately involves women’s make-up. I keep clicking the Not Interested button but they keep throwing them at me anyway because they don’t seem to get the message. So I ask the question: ‘Where on earth did Google get the idea that I’m interested in tutorials on the subject of women’s make-up?’ And I’ve had no answer. Until now.

Several times on my blog I’ve made pejorative references to it. I’ve expressed the opinion that women who didn’t wear make-up always appealed to me because at least I could see what I was getting. I’m of the opinion that make-up is greatly – and often foolishly because it can be counter-productive – overused.

So now I imagine some huge, fat-but-dumb creature sitting in the Google machine like the captain of a Vogon spaceship intoning: ‘This man talks of make-up, and so it is logical to conclude that the subject must be of substantial interest to him if not his major preoccupation. And so he will have make-up until it runs from every orifice and eye socket and he is consigned to hell smelling sweetly of chemicals. Resistance is useless.’

The point I’m making here is that there’s obviously some cyber cross-referencing going on and they seem to be getting it wrong as usual. I think it’s time somebody with extended knowledge of the human condition published a book entitled The Place of the Software Houses in the Stress Epidemic Currently Sweeping the World.

I’m also getting repeated recommendations for videos on the subject of gaming. I keep on clicking the Not Interested button on those, too, but they keep on coming and coming. I’ve never gamed (I assume it’s now permissible to use the word in all its verb forms) in my life, and haven’t the slightest interest in the subject. Maybe it’s because I look at the sports pages on the BBC website. Vogon space ship captains are not renowned for the strength of their intellect.

Questioning America's Underparts.

I’ll tell you want concerns me most about America. The showers. It goes like this:

All the showers I’ve seen in American films and TV programmes have an unmovable rose attached to an unmovable copper pipe sticking out of the wall at a height of about 7 feet. The whole thing is fixed, so taking a shower is little different than standing out in the rain. At least, that’s how it seems. So my question is: how do they rinse the underneath bits (short of doing a handstand which seems rather less than feasible)?

Over here in the UK – and I assume this is true of Europe generally – we mostly have electric shower units which comprise three components: a sealed plastic box containing a heating element which is wired into the electrical circuit and plumbed into the mains water supply, a flexible hose which carries the water out of the box, and a hand unit complete with shower rose screwed into the other end of the flexible hose. And here’s the clever bit: The hand unit sits in an open bracket fixed to a vertical rail, which means you can easily adjust the height and, most importantly, remove it and direct it willy-nilly (if you’ll excuse the expression) at any part of your body, including the underneath bits.

So this raises a serious question. Are the underparts of American citizens less clean than those of we more sophisticated Europeans? That’s gross. And is this yet another reason why I should never contemplate going to America, or at least ensure that I steer well clear of Americans if I do? Or am I missing something?

No offence meant. And this post is only being made in an attempt to convince the readership of nine hardy souls that I’m not as depressed as I think I am.

On Ashbourne, Pangs, and Oddnesses.

I did something in Ashbourne today that I don’t think I’ve ever done before. It left me feeling occasional pangs of regret for several hours afterwards.

*  *  *

I found Ashbourne unusually oppressive and depressing today. I think it was partly due to the two sets of road works which were being conducted with a lamentable lack of regard for either coordination or effective management, and which were causing exacerbated delays in consequence. It was also due in part to the proliferation of old people in the town, and therein lies a fit starting point for another subject: my oddnesses.

I mused on them while I sat in the coffee shop and watched a certain little lady walk by (for those who recognise the reference, I really was sitting in a coffee shop, not leaning on a lamp post.)

1. Among my bag of sundry neuroses there is one which I never really thought of as a neurosis before. I’d go so far as to suggest that it’s on the level of a phobia, and might well be recognised and have a name something like ‘geriatriphobia’ (which Word doesn’t think is a word but that hardly proves anything.) The fact is that I have a horror of old people. I find them repulsive and go to some lengths to avoid being near them. (At this point the normal response to such an outlandish statement would be: ‘It’s wrong to think like that,’ and my reply would be ‘I don’t think like that. It’s how I feel. Thoughts are generally quite obedient phenomena and mostly prepared to listen to reason. Feelings, on the other hand, are wild creatures which come and go in accordance with their own will and take orders from nothing and nobody.’) But to continue: The problem with suffering from geriatriphobia is that it affects the sense of self as you grow remorselessly towards the state of agedness. It’s why I now try to keep some distance between me and certain other people, partly to protect them from suffering nauseating attacks of repulsion, and partly to avoid my own descent into self-loathing.

2. I try never to wish harm to anyone no matter what they’ve done. I’m not always successful, but I do try. I suspect the wishing of harm probably damages whatever part of us survives physical death – if anything does – and is therefore counterproductive. The desire for revenge is also, or so it seems to me, a product of the lower mind and unfit for those who aspire to exist on a better level.

3. I find frilly lingerie a complete turn-off. There’s a shop window full of the stuff opposite the coffee shop in Ashbourne, and I sometimes spend several minutes staring at it and wondering what it’s there for.

4. In similar vein, I could write copious amounts on the connection – or lack thereof – between love, sex and romance. Unfortunately it would involve imposing a level of effort on my typing fingers to which I’m not prepared to subject them. Suffice it to say that I’m not at all sure that I’ve ever felt love for an adult human. Romances aplenty have come and gone, but that’s not the same thing at all. And one of the deep undercurrents of my odd perceptions is the notion that sex is fundamentally sordid.

5. And also in similar vein, I don’t understand why Dr House continues to pursue Lisa Cuddy. She’s far too blousy and tight-skirted for a man of oddly refined tastes. (I suppose it means that Dr House is not such a man.) As for me, I find surface glamour cheap and something to be avoided rather than pursued. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Hermione Granger man and always have been.

They were the ones which dropped off the top of my head in the coffee shop. There are plenty more. Right now it’s time for my nightly conversation with the bats (Not that it’s quite a conversation I admit, but you know what I mean.)

*  *  *

I never said what I did in Ashbourne which caused me to have pangs of regret, did I? I’m not going to, either. As I’ve said before and it bears repeating: the problem with writing a public blog is that you can never be sure who might read it. Those who know me well, however, might have caught a clue further up the page.

Priorities.

The episode of House which I watched last night was about a man with an IQ ‘off the scale’ who was working as a courier and living in a tiny apartment with a wife whose IQ was 90 points below his. The medics were naturally dumfounded by the fact – this is America, after all – and asked him why he had forfeited the opportunity to be rich and famous as a leading expert in some technical field. He said:

‘I chose happy over smart.’

Not quite my story, but not so very different.

Be My Guest.

I discovered this afternoon that by clicking onto the preview of my novel on Amazon you can actually read all of it. That surprised me because intellectual property is so jealously and obsessively guarded these days.

Fortunately, I’m not really into the whole intellectual property thing; it’s all a bit too capitalism rules for my taste. I didn’t write my novel to make money out of it; I wrote it because I wanted to. In short, I wrote it for the pleasure of writing it. Isn’t that reward enough? And if somebody wants to read it I’m flattered by their interest and my ego gets a bit of a boost. Furthermore, if somebody derives pleasure from reading it there are now three layers of icing on the cake. Why on earth would I want more?

And in the final analysis, a story is just a story is just a story. The concept of ‘owning’ an idea strikes me as at best questionable, and maybe even verges on the absurd. Aren’t ideas there to be shared?

More on the Subject of Shakira.

OK, here’s a proposition: Let’s get rid of all the ageing, power-obsessed male psychopaths who are currently running the world. Sweep the Trumps, the Putins, the Netanyahus, the Dutertes, the Xis, that guy from Turkey, and all the rest of them into a spaceship armed with a one way ticket to somewhere way beyond our solar system and wave a relieved goodbye to them for ever. (They can keep their money just because I’m a nice guy, even though they won’t have anything to spend it on.) And then let’s form a world government with Shakira as President. The world would become a better, brighter, more beautiful place.

That woman really is something, you know. She is. It’s my considered view that she’s little short of a goddess, which gives me the perfect opening to make a clever comment by saying that she’s more of a deva than a diva. (Sorry, but I do so like making clever comments, even though most people haven’t a clue what I’m talking about much less be informed as to whether I’m joking or not.)

And in support of my proposition I offer the following video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-befR4wHsjQ 

(I had to post the link because the ageing, money-obsessed male psychopaths who run all things media-related won’t let me post the actual video.)

I think I posted it before, but I can’t be sure and I doubt anybody watched it even if I did. Please pay special attention to the kids, the elephant, the llama, the tiger, the multi-cultural tone, and the smile at the end. The smile says it all.

An American's Comment on America.

Legal Disclaimer:
I hereby absolve myself of any responsibility for anything, reasonable or otherwise, which may be inferred from the contents of this post. Ahem…

*  *  *

I just watched the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. It was most notable for the proliferation of men dressed up as Christmas trees (I think they were American army officers), a woman pretending to be somebody else (I think it was Margaret Thatcher), and a hell of a lot of chimpanzees behaving like chimpanzees but dressed up as people (I think they were the American electorate.) And I liked the fact that all the sinister people with brains were Brits, and all the good guys were black. If you don’t believe me, watch the damn movie.

I’m not sure what Jonathan Demme’s intention was in making this film, but it was most interesting.

On Things to Like and the Lure of Lambs.

I’ve been taking my daily walk in the evening the past few days, and yesterday evening I was reminded that there are things about this world and this life which I quite like.

I like the vernal greening of the trees and hedgerows, the swathes of bluebells lining the path through the narrow wood further up the lane, the mass of heavy pink blooms, alluringly backlit by the westering sun, adorning a lone cherry tree, and the sight of a rural landscape dotted with fields and copses stretching to the high Staffordshire Moorlands through a succession of half tones.

But the big thrill last night was contained within the field at the top of the lane. The new lambs are there now – a week or so old, bright eyed, endearingly innocent, and determinedly frolicsome. Several of them came to investigate the curious giant creature which stood on two legs and leant on the gate. It’s odd how the stare of a young lamb can hold you almost intoxicated for quite a long time.

The mothers were there as well, of course, and one of them was becoming quite concerned. Mrs 36 was evidently a little suspicious of this giant creature standing on two legs, and was bleating mightily to attract her little one to the safety of her side. Unfortunately, only Baby 47 was answering the call and that wouldn’t do. Baby 36 didn’t appear, and I took to assuming that he was the Harry Potter of the flock and was too busy investigating whether there was a way to get out of the field and escape into the wood next door. The glances which Mrs 36 kept shooting at me suggested she suspected me of having stolen her baby, and seemed entirely mistrustful of my repeated assertions that I was but an innocent bystander in the affair.

Eventually I left to continue a laboured perambulation, conscious all the time of a sea of bright human faces with open, eager mouths, tucking into their roast dinners and exclaiming: ‘Nice joint of lamb, this.’

Bereft of Inspiration.

I think I must be suffering from heatstroke because I can’t think of anything silly to say tonight, and what value can the night hold if it can’t give you something silly to say?

I might mention that two things are irritating me mightily at the moment, though: the worthless YouTube recommendations spewing forth in substantial quantity from the mighty and much glitch-ridden Google machine, and the way in which young patients’ parents are represented in House. American parents can’t really be such a dumb, arrogant, presumptuous bunch of control freaks, can they? I wouldn’t know, of course, since I never had one.

But at least there’s a new owl shown up in the Shire. I haven’t seen it yet, just heard its strange call. I’m hoping it’s Errol come home to wreak mayhem.

In other news, I received a letter today from the UK Minister for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. I haven’t opened it yet because I’ve been irritated quite enough for one day. I expect I’ll take the plunge tomorrow.

Currently self-medicating in the company of Vaughan Williams’s Charterhouse Suite for Strings. Did you know that his second wife was around 40 years his junior? Should I comment further? Probably not.

The Lilac Connection.

In the thirteen years since I came to live in this house I’ve never seen the lilac trees so brimming with blossom as they are this year. I’m particularly fond of lilac, and yet, curious as it might seem, they always make me think of how attitudes to war changed between 1918 and 1939. It isn’t so curious actually, because attitudes to war – as with attitudes to so many things – are reflected in popular song.

In Britain during WWI, the popular songs were full of bonhomie and jingoistic pride. They were essentially jolly ditties put to music written in militaristic march time and carried the message: War is a great adventure and we’re all going to have a wonderful time being part of it. Hence the start of maybe the best known of them:

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye

Cheerio

Here I go

On my way

But then, a mere 21 years after the cessation of what became known as ‘the last lot’, the next lot started while the country was still full of middle aged and elderly people who remembered what the last lot had really been like. They remembered the millions of young men from all sides who had died, or been blinded, or sent home crippled, or had their minds turned into a quagmire of nightmares, enervating anxieties, and a horror of loud noises. And I’ve little doubt that most of them knew full well that it was all to serve the politicians’ power games, and that the brave refrains of the popular songs were little more than propaganda to place a smoke screen over a highly dubious and inhumane cause.

So when the next lot came around the songs carried an entirely different tone. They were softer, gentler, still upbeat to encourage hope for a new spring and a more peaceful future, but with a hint of melancholy mixed in. And there was still an element of propaganda about them, but this time it was an attempt to promote public morale rather than persuade gullible young men that sinking waist deep in freezing mud while waiting to be visited by violent death and dismemberment was somehow a great adventure.

Dame Vera Lynn became famous for her rendition of probably the best known of them:

There’ll be bluebirds over

The white cliffs of Dover

Tomorrow, just you wait and see

But my own favourite is the one which begins:

We’ll gather lilacs in the spring again

We’ll walk together down an English lane

Until our hearts have learned to sing again…

That’s the connection.

Note on a Fine Afternoon.

The weather is being pleasantly but worryingly unseasonal at the moment. It’s only April 20^th but it looks and feels like a glorious day in Flaming June out there. My bare arms are getting their first exposure to the heat of the sun, the butterflies are happily fluttering, and the bees are up and about. But the topsoil is turning to dust.

The last time we had an April like this was in 2007, and April was virtually all the summer we had that year. I remember worrying about the migrant birds and the bats hunting for flying insects through the cold rain much of the time. I get the feeling that the sense of balance in the climate is becoming a little unsteady these days.

No news from the hospital yet.

Off to do more work in the garden.

Woman With Own Dog Seeks...

The only thing of note which happened to me today involved a woman called Jo and a big, soppy, liver Labrador called Millie. It’s odd to reflect on how many women have entered my life bearing dogs. Maybe it’s a Greeks and gifts thing.

They changed their route to walk with me and we talked of illness, fatigue, alternate realities and the relatively minor matter of death. Millie kept her own council, but insisted on sidling up to me every so often to push her head into my palm. I think it must be widely known by now that I like dogs a lot; it’s women who come bearing them that cause me a problem. Dogs are much less likely to pull you into a long, dark tunnel, you see, and I’m never surprised when dogs like me. Women who seem to like me, on the other hand, cause me some disquiet because it would be hard to find anything about me which a woman should like. (I’ve even been called a misogynist, which isn’t true.) That’s why I’m tempted to wonder whether each one of them is a physical manifestation of the mad woman I used to dream about frequently as a child. She used to scare me witless on every occasion that she appeared.

But I’m through with talking about women and dogs, at least for the time being. (Please note the use of the American idiom. We Brits don’t say ‘I’m through with…’ It’s all House’s fault and I’m resolved that it won’t last beyond the end of the series.)

So now I’ll change the subject and mention that the wild garlic in The Hollow is blooming about a month earlier than usual. You can’t trust the climate, can you? And the full moon is looking in at my office window again. When I went to bed last night her radiance was lying on top of me, a phenomenon I’ve been given to believe is bad for the mind. I don’t call her ‘Mistress Moon’ for nothing.

A Singular Taste in Humour.

Why can I never find stand-up comedy funny? I can’t, you know. The only stand-up comic I ever found funny in the whole of my adult life was Billy Connolly, and he isn’t operating any more.

I used to find stand-up funny back in the days when comedians were simply expert joke tellers telling jokes expertly, but they don’t do that now. Now they strut about the stage with over-inflated egos, apparently in the misguided belief that they’re very clever observers of life-the-universe-and-everything, there to educate a collection of 3,000 sycophants in the matter of the absurder side of the subject. But I’m yet to find one clever enough to do it. Mostly they state the obvious, and then spin it out to a worthless and ever-declining degree until it becomes nothing but an almighty yawn.

I tried to watch a Scottish comic on YouTube tonight attempting to concoct a humorous diatribe on the dangers of being a tourist caught up in the maelstrom of a Scottish ceilidh. I managed two minutes as it gradually turned into an almighty yawn, and then the camera showed a shot of the audience doing the LMFAO thing. That was too much and I turned it off.

I went and fetched myself a drink and pondered the question: ‘How can anybody find this funny? Is every seat plumbed into a nitrous oxide cylinder or something?’ I wondered whether the £30 tickets are maybe dusted with some mind-altering chemical which messes with the facial muscles. It seemed unlikely, so I gave up.

And then I read an old post of mine which made me laugh. It seems I really am existing in a universe of one.

Full Moon: A Name and a Note.

Did you know that the commonest name for the April full moon in the English speaking world is the Pink Moon? Apparently it’s named after the pink flowers of the phlox plant which are supposed to proliferate in April. That’s a surprise to me because I’ve spent around 40% of my life living in the English countryside and I don’t even know what a phlox plant looks like. And there’s nothing pink and proliferating where I live at the moment. White is the commonest colour by a long way, especially the heavy white drapery of the blackthorn tree. So let’s start calling it the Blackthorn Moon, shall we?  Agreed? Good.

I gather it’s also known as the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Fish Moon and the Hare Moon. (The Anglo-Saxons, bless them, called it the Egg Moon, but the Anglo-Saxons always were a bit of a funny lot. Thank heaven for the Irish and Welsh components in my ancestry, I say. I expect the Welsh name for the April full moon is more notable for the proliferation of Ls and Fs than any perceived connection with the phlox plant. And it’s probably completely unpronounceable by anybody who wasn’t born within a 10 acre patch of hallowed ground around the town of Llangollen – and maybe another bit near Llandaff.)

Anyway, I’m not here to talk about the monthly names of full moons. I’m here because tonight’s full moon is looking in at my office window and it struck me that its character varies according to how you see it. If you see it through the branches of a tree which are being set in silhouette, it’s mysterious. That’s how I’m seeing it through my office window at the moment. If you see it high in the sky with dark clouds scudding rapidly across it, it’s sinister. If you see it low in the sky and reflected in the calm surface of a lake, it has a philosophical tone.

At least, that’s how I see it, and it is my blog.

My Personal Shrink.

I asked my psychiatrist a question this morning:

‘Look here,’ I said with some authority, ‘I’m neurotic as hell and loaded to the gunwales with neuroses. Does the fact that I’m aware of it mean I’m not loony after all?’

‘Don’t know,’ he replied, before dipping his rich tea biscuit in his morning coffee and deliberating on the question: ‘Is Hermione Granger a real person, a fantasy figure, or a being born of group projection?’

I left him sitting there in his office inside my head. He has no formal qualifications, you know, but he’s the only one I can trust because he’s the only one who knows me well enough to wrangle with my issues. Employing a professional would be pointless.

Reasons to Feel Guilty.

There was a knock on my door at about 10 o’clock this morning. Knocks on my door are very rare, and on the odd occasion that they do happen it’s nearly always somebody come to preach at me or try to sell me something, or somebody whose presence is generally unwelcome and who is about to pollute my world. It happens about twice a year on average. (Unfortunately, the one person whose knock would be a true delight is never going to grant me that favour so there’s no point in expecting it.) In spite of my obvious misgivings, however, I decided to open the door.

An elderly man stood on the threshold with a bunch of leaflets in his hand. He said:

‘I’ve come to invite you to a special event in Ashbourne on Friday to commemorate the death of Jesus Christ.’

And then he handed me a leaflet, at which point I couldn’t help saying the first thing that came into my head:

‘I don’t happen to subscribe to the notion that Jesus was the Christ.’

He looked deflated, poor chap, and I felt like a prize heel. He’s entitled to his beliefs, isn’t he, no matter how absurd I find them? If he’d started preaching at me I would have been justified in regarding him as fair game, but he wasn’t. He was just handing me a leaflet. I said ‘thanks anyway’ and off he went.

I’ve always been prone to this, you know – opening my mouth before my brain is in gear. Why didn’t I just say ‘thank you’ in the first place? What happened to my post-op resolution to be a better person, to think more carefully about what I say to people so I don’t cause offence without adequate justification? Still working on it. (Then again, I could have gone further and explained to him why, if Jesus really had been the Christ, the notion that he was capable of dying is patently irrational. Thankfully, I stopped short of that one.)

*  *  *

So then I went to Ashbourne and found another reason to question my way of being. One of the charity shops has a middle aged Downs man working in it. Mostly he keeps his own company, sitting on the shop floor and sweeping the same bit of it over and over again. I always thought that was his job, but today he came over to me while I was looking through the jeans, and said:

‘Hello, mate. How’s the missus?’ (For those who don’t know, ‘missus’ is a British colloquialism for ‘wife.’ It’s pronounced the same as Mrs.)

‘I don’t have a missus,’ I replied, wondering how he’d come by the notion that I did. He looked suddenly sympathetic, and said:

‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ (I assumed he must have thought that, being the age I am, if I didn’t have a wife I must have lost her somewhere along the way.)

‘That’s OK, I don’t want one,’ I reassured him. ‘They get in the way and force you to compromise. I know they can be useful at times, but not often enough to bother.’

I think the undercurrent of humour was beyond his capacity to grasp because he changed the subject:

‘They’re too big, aren’t they?’

I looked at the jeans I was holding. They were actually my size, but too baggy for my taste.

‘They’re too baggy,’ I said.

‘That’s what I meant.’

And then I went off to peruse the bric-a-brac, and when I left the shop I questioned the whole situation. If he hadn’t been a Downs sufferer I would probably have been more reticent and a little sharper. But I feel the need to make extra effort with somebody who has a difficulty of that sort, and I wonder whether I should. It’s inevitably a little forced and it seems patronising. So is it right or wrong to make the extra effort? Still working on it.

*  *  *

As I continued my perambulations I hoped I would encounter the former Lady B’s sister so I could apologise for Monday evening, but she was conspicuous by her absence as usual and blissfully unaware of the pangs of guilt plucking at my sense of self.

Divided by the Chinese Girls.

My ex, Mel, is currently doing a part time job in the coffee shop at the local university. Tonight she was telling me about the Chinese girl students who come in. They drive her up the wall, apparently.

‘They’re so rude. They have no manners at all, you know. They jump the queue and march up to the counter demanding “I want black American.” Do you mean a black Americano? “I want black American.” I tell them to be patient and wait their turn, but do they? They don’t make proper eye contact either. I mean, I know it’s a cultural thing and all that, and then there’s the language barrier, but it drives me up the f******* wall! One of them is particularly bad. I’m sure you’d love her. I expect you’d find them all endearing. You’d smile and calmly explain that we don’t do things that way in Britain, but when it’s busy and you’re run off your feet, the last thing you want to see walk in is a Chinese girl student.’

‘I’d find them all utterly endearing,’ I replied.

‘I know. I just said that.’

‘I know.’  

Dear Universe.

When I was driving to the hospital yesterday afternoon I passed the former Lady B coming the other way. I haven’t seen her for several weeks. And then, when I was driving back in the gathering gloom of late evening, I passed a figure walking down my lane. It seemed oddly notable because the lanes of the Shire were eerily empty of all human presence – whether vehicular or perambulatory – in all directions. The view in my mirror as I drove past revealed that it was the former Lady B’s sister, who I also haven’t seen for several weeks.

This is becoming a feature of my life lately – a curious idée fixe in the otherwise drab music of my existence. Little coincidences keep happening, mostly minor and unremarkable, but they’re still there. And they usually involve women in pairs. And so I say to the universe yet again:

If you’re going to give me messages, would you please be more explicit so I have some idea what they’re meant to convey. Either that, or contrive some way of letting me know that they’re not messages at all. Life can be a mysterious business sometimes and you’re not helping to clear the fog.

The Rarefied Being and Other Conversations.

I had the latest CT scans this evening and for some reason I was nervous as hell. Fortunately, the radiographer conducting the procedure was young, female, plain as a pikestaff, bespectacled, and utterly delightful. So what do I do when faced with such a rarefied being while in a state of nervous apprehension? I talk.

But I don’t talk about mundane things like the weather and the state of Brexit negotiations. I talk about my current situation and try to make light of it all. The problem is, most people don’t get the humorous undertone.

‘Are you able to handle anaphylactic shock?’ I asked the Rarefied Being as I took my place on the inspection couch.

‘Anaphylactic shock?’

‘Yes. Dr House says some people go into anaphylactic shock when injected with contrast dye.’

‘Lots of things cause anaphylactic shock. Don’t worry about it.’

‘But you will know what to do, won’t you?’

‘Yes. There’s a crash trolley outside the door and A&E is just around the corner.’

‘You won’t let me die, then?’

‘No. But you’ll be fine anyway. You’re not allergic to anything, you have no underlying conditions, and your blood tests were perfect.’

‘Blood tests? What blood tests?’

‘The last ones you had.’

‘You mean I’ve had blood tests without knowing about it?’

‘You would have known about it at the time.’

‘So when were they done?’

‘Erm… October.’

‘October? That’s six months ago. My blood might have deteriorated since then.’

‘It doesn’t work that way.’

‘Oh, right. I suppose I must be irritating you.’

‘No.’ (I did say she was utterly delightful, didn’t I?)

‘Well I’m irritating me. Go and get on with it so I can shut up.’

And so she did, and Tiny Tim did not die, and everything was as right as a wet Sunday afternoon in October. But the day wasn’t quite over…

When I left the CT chamber, or whatever it’s called, the woman who’d inserted my cannula came to uninsert it.

‘So what will you be doing this evening?’ she asked.

‘Drinking a lot and watching YouTube,’ I replied. ‘What else is there to do?’

‘Sounds like fun,’ she said with that studied air of nonchalance which seems to characterise cannula inserters. ‘Hope you get to drink lots.’

‘I can’t drink that much. Scotch is too expensive.’

Now, the last time I had a conversation with a medical person about drinking I got the lecture about fourteen units a week being the prescribed limit, along with the instruction to ensure I have two days every week free of the demon alcohol. Today’s woman just said:

‘Go to Aldi. It’s cheaper there.’

And when I walked past the reception desk on the way out, the receptionist said:

‘You look better coming out than you did going in.’

‘Do I? That’s a relief. Bye.’

(And incidentally, I asked the Rarefied Being whether she’d ever watched House. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I hated it. The medical stuff they come out with is rubbish and it irritated the hell out of me.’ ‘Ah, but what’s compelling about House is the relationship issues,’ I answered knowingly. She didn’t say anything that time. Just gave me a funny look.)

On Beazleys, Germans, Life and House.

The post I was writing earlier got shelved because I was busy doing other things, and now that the moon is over the yard arm I can’t finish it because it was serious and I don’t do serious late at night. Let’s talk about House instead.

I just finished watching the two episodes in which the bad doctor is a voluntary inpatient at a mental facility. Two things were notable:

1. The pretty, chirpy, blonde young psychiatrist was called Dr Beasley. That surprised me because I couldn’t imagine why any scriptwriter would call such a character Beasley. I regard it as the most innocuous of names, and I should know because it was the name I got saddled with when I was eight and I’ve spent the intervening years being just about as innocuous as anybody I know (even though my version of the name is spelt with a z, which makes a bit of a difference but not enough to count.)

2. House fell in love with a thirty-something German woman who was extremely handsome in a slightly softer-than-you-might-expect (of a German) sort of way. If she had an Iron Cross, she was keeping it well hidden. She also had a remarkably engaging personality and I approved of his choice. I’m sure I would have done exactly the same thing in his situation, apart from the sex-in-the-unused-office bit which, though commendably restrained, was still a bit below the belt (if you see what I mean) for a proper Englishman like me. Anyway, the big boss psychiatrist decided that House’s canoodlings were proof positive that he wasn’t a loony any more, so now he can go back to terrorising Cuddy and the rest of the gang. Phew.

As for current events in the life of Mr Beazley, tomorrow I have to present myself at the Royal Derby Hospital, there to give my body over to the wonders of modern science in an attempt to find out whether I’m about to die or not. I find it all a bit nerve-wracking, but life will be life and the conveyor belt is only so long after all. But if there happens to be a handsome, thirty-something German woman sitting next to me – and if she has an engaging personality, is entirely devoid of Iron Crosses, and finds me irresistible – I’ll let you know the outcome. Probably. (And as long as I don’t die through anaphylactic shock when they inject the contrast dye.)

Oh, and one more minor and utterly innocuous little aside: Somebody replied to one of my YouTube comments today with XD, which I had to Google to find out what it meant because all I could think of was X-ray Department. That was nice.  

Coincidence and the Universe.

Back in the months of May and June 2017 I developed three conditions:

1. I gave myself a hernia bringing a badly overgrown hedge back to a semblance of order.

2. My legs started aching badly when I strode out on a walk, which made my rural perambulations a matter of duty rather than pleasure. (And having come and gone, come and gone, now it’s getting worse than ever.)

3. The timing of subsequent symptoms would suggest that my cancer started growing about then.

Two other factors also landed on my plate during those two months: The much-esteemed bringer of light finally left my orbit and shut the door behind her, and a goblin entered my life by way of replacement.

That’s an interesting coincidence, and in a recent episode of House his patient happened to be a priest who said: ‘Coincidences are God’s way of giving you a message.’ Replace ‘God’ with ‘the universe’ and I might be tempted to give the concept a reasonable level of credence. But here’s the problem:

If the universe does give us messages – and the mysterious nature of existence allows that it just might – then I wish it would be a little more specific in its utterances. Universal ‘messages’ are a bit like Chinese pictograms; they can mean different things according to the context. When the context is life itself, there’s very little hope of being able to interpret them.

The CT Scan and the Image.

I have my next set of CT scans coming up on Monday and do you know what really bothers me about them? I’ll tell you what really bothers me about them.

The scans I have are of thorax, abdomen and pelvis, so I have to strip down to my underwear (which can include a T shirt as long as it’s plain) before donning a regulation hospital gown and taking my place in the inner waiting area. But here’s the rub: I’m also told to leave my shoes and socks on.

So there I am, sitting on a chair with a few other suitably gowned people, while my bare legs stick out below the bottom of the gown and culminate in a pair of shoes and socks. Not exactly suave, you must admit. It looks gauche, inelegant, patently absurd, and makes me feel really silly. So who says you have to stop being image conscious just because you’ve grown old and ugly and are about to have your insides photographed?

(The other thing that bothers me is that the contrast dye they inject you with can cause anaphylactic shock, but I only have Dr House’s word for that so I choose to ignore it.)

Thrills and Incongruity.

Yesterday evening I saw the first bat of the season flying, and today I saw the first Orange Tip butterfly – always a classic spring marker in England – and the first wild garlic flower. The weather forecast for the week includes some sub-zero night temperatures. Makes you wonder why we bother, doesn’t it?

Comparitive Imaginings.

Not all my imaginings are dark, you know. Some of them are light and pleasant. The problem is that the dark ones are heavier and more substantial, and they’re stubborner than any mule when I try to shake them off. They put their claws out and grip and refuse to let go until they eventually fall asleep for a while. And then they wake up, climb onto my back again and repeat the exercise. The light and pleasant ones, on the other hand, are misty and ephemeral. They breathe sweetly scented breezes at me for a few minutes and then dissolve into clouds of vapour before drifting away on their own airy nothingness.

I don’t trust the light and pleasant ones; they’re frothy and featherweight and give me a Walter Mitty complex. They make me feel silly and deluded. When they do talk to me they tell me to wake up and get real. ‘We light and pleasant imaginings,’ they whisper, ‘are but pointless dreams which offer nothing. Only our cousins, the nightmares, hold any prospect of becoming reality. Put your trust in them if you’re more interested in prospects than the present. That way you won’t be disappointed.’

Writing this is irritating me so I’m going to stop here (except to say that the light and pleasant imaginings nearly always have the same player taking centre stage, which is probably why I don’t trust them.) I think I’ll muse on Dr House’s end-of-episode aloneness instead. Tonight it caused him to hallucinate the appearance in his apartment of the late Ms Cutthroat Bitch who whispered in his ear. It was reassuringly familiar.

Best Friend Blues.

I had a conversation today with the manager of the coffee shop about the fact that people aren’t allowed to bring their dogs in. I said it was a shame because, in my book, dogs are wonderful creatures and should be welcome just about anywhere. She agreed and said that she’d be perfectly happy to allow dogs in, but it was against company policy.

I asked her whether it was a hygiene issue, and she said it was more about the fact that some customers object. Ah, so here we have the real bottom line. I suggested she get a notice for the door which says

Dogs Not Allowed

…and then precede it with

People Who Don’t Like

I was quite proud of myself, actually, because my mind doesn’t usually work that fast. But what I omitted to say - rather shamefully - was that nobody objects to people bringing their babies in, and babies routinely engage with the practice of random vomiting. I'd say that just about wins the argument for the dogs.

On Mind Reading and Messages.

I told one of the women in B&Q the story of the lawnmower and the advert as reported on one of last night’s posts. She expressed the belief that technology is, indeed, now reading our minds, and seemed to think I was an idiot for not having realised it.

And now I’m beginning to wonder whether she might be right. ESP has long hung around in that no man’s land between complete acceptance and complete rejection within the scientific discipline. Maybe the nature of the phenomenon is such that technology has simply learned to be better at it than we are. It would explain a lot of the odd behaviours exhibited by my computer, and I did say that I expect young women to be in the van of a new and enlightened world, didn’t I?

And just to go off at not too steep a tangent, I was watching an episode of House last night when my right shoulder developed an itch. Just as I reached up to scratch it, the poor patient being subjected to the usual tortures concocted by Dr House and his devilish cohorts reached up to scratch her shoulder, and one of the cohorts observed that ‘itching is one of the symptoms of liver failure.’ Is this that damn universe playing games with me again?

The Lady Fu's Influence and the Lady in Birds.

I had a pleasant surprise today. (Actually I had several pleasant surprises, mostly involving young women and saving money. The Lady Fu was clearly in attendance and in fine form today.)

I went into the Birds confectionery shop in Uttoxeter to get my lunchtime cake, and guess what I found. Cheese scones. Now, readers of longstanding might recall my undying fondness for such comestibles, and so I said:

‘Aha! You have cheese scones. I used to have one with my coffee in Costa, but then they stopped selling them and no amount of grumbling from me seems to have had any effect on their dumb and dastardly leadership.’ (I might not have used quite so many words, but that was what I meant and the dear lady behind the counter took the message.) ‘The problem is, I like them buttered.’

‘No problem,’ replied the dear lady, ‘I’ll butter one for you.’

And so she did, and handed it to me in a little paper bag, and charged me no more than the splendidly low price of 64p which is usual for an unbuttered cheese scone. I was moved to wonder whether she had committed a technical offence by failing to charge VAT, since the amendment-by-buttering could be construed as altering the transaction from one definable as a supply of food to one definable as a supply of catering, but no matter. It’s a borderline issue and I couldn’t care less whether it was technically illegal or not.  Anybody who goes to the trouble of buttering me a cheese scone for 64p is a hero in my eyes, and I promised she would be remembered by posterity through an honourable mention on my blog. So there you have it.

(I wonder whether she knows how to make baked Alaska…)

Aussie Rules Not OK.

I see police in Australia have arrested hundreds of vegans protesting against animal cruelty. The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, called them ‘green collar criminals’, and said their actions were ‘shameful and un-Australian.’

Un-Australian? What the hell does that mean? I’ve known some very good Australians (mostly of Chinese descent, I have to admit) but the fact is that Australia is a very small country in terms of population, and is generally of little consequence internationally. So can it be that Australia is really going head to head in a battle with America for top spot in the cultural insecurity stakes, and is Scott Morrison really going toe to toe with Trump in the leader-with-the-smallest-brain competition? Or are they simply aping big and powerful America because they imagine there’s some virtue in so doing?

I could tell you what’s really shameful here, but I sincerely hope that I don’t need to.

Cyber Telepathy.

Today I gave my lawn its first mow of the season. The old lawnmower offered a few hints that maybe it isn’t much longer for this world, so I decided I’d take a look at the prices of lawnmowers in B&Q while I’m in Uttoxeter tomorrow. Tonight YouTube gave me an ad from B&Q for lawnmowers.

That happens a lot. Coincidence?

The Real 1984.

When I’m flicking through the TV channels to see whether there’s anything I might tolerate in an idle moment (which there hardly ever is) I keep bumping into shopping channels on the way. I’ve even stopped to watch the odd minute or two of them out of a sense of bemused curiosity.

You see, it isn’t the sheer tackiness of them that troubles me. If people want tacky, let them have tacky. I have little to do with people anyway. What troubles me is this:

The very fact that they not only exist but patently proliferate indicates that there must be a demand for them. And that means there must be a lot of people out there in the so called developed world who are content to spend their time sitting on a couch and watching a screen in the corner of the room in the hope of finding something to buy. If that isn’t a leap through the looking glass, I don’t know what is. And that’s why I’m truly led to suspect that shopping channels are the true face of dystopia.

The Kid Who Dropped Out.

I’m sometimes moved to reflect on what happened to this little chap:

 

He looks so happy, doesn’t he? And that’s a little odd because this picture was taken at about the same time that he stopped connecting with adult humans and embarked instead on a life of remaining at least one step removed and observing them. I’m told he became very good at it, too. It’s said that he could assess a person with almost unfailing accuracy on the basis of an initial ten minute conversation, and was then able to decide whether the newcomer had the credentials to join the elite 2% of the population with whom he wanted to engage, or whether they should be consigned to the other 98% fit only to be cast to the winds.

In spite of all this, it is rumoured that there was once a lady who caused the clouds in his breast to clear and reveal the warmth of the sun. By then, however, he was becoming old and decrepit and the prospect of aspiring to any kind of a connection had long since become redundant.

So where is he now and what is he doing? Well, the last I heard he was living alone and generally unregarded among the lanes, fields, hedgerows and copses of rural middle England. And he spends most of his time looking for unicorns in one sense or another. I’ve also been told that he gets lonely sometimes, but there’s a good chance that he hasn’t got too much longer to remain trapped in the swaddling bands of the mortal coil so I don’t suppose it matters a very great deal.

Potential.

I was standing by the gate to the Harry Potter wood yesterday, luxuriating in the fresh new growth which is now appearing there. The view down the path soon disappears around a shallow bend overhung by the gentle spectacle of light green and still lightly spread mantle of new leaves. It’s almost luminescent and utterly captivating.

When summer comes the heavy growth in a wood can be so domineering as to be almost oppressive, but at this time of the year it tells you that magic just might exist. It also reflects that promise so apparent in the wonderment and aspirations of youth, and therein lies a simple message which would take a lot of words to explain more fully:

What faith I have in the future of mankind and the planet we all depend on is invested in today’s young people, and most especially the young women. Please listen to them.

© Schneirdermann

A Cold Coincidence.

I was out hanging laundry this morning when I heard the church bells chiming across the fields in the cold east wind which has been prominent over the past week. Being Saturday, I assumed a wedding must be imminent.

It brought to mind another wedding there, a little under two years ago, which sent an even colder wind coursing through my bones. I thought of subsequent events and the timing of symptoms, and realised that my cancer probably arrived and started growing just about then. There’s probably no connection between the two facts, but the sudden perception of endings large and small became insistent anyway.

An Acceptable View of People.

Sorry for posting yet another YouTube video, but this one has a different motive behind it. It’s not about the music this time; I find the music pleasant but not particularly remarkable (although others might feel differently.)

What appeals so much about this one is the images. They’re my kind of images because, for all that I might wear the mask of the cynical curmudgeon when the occasion suits, I’m actually a big ol’ softie at heart. And if this video were a true reflection of the state of the human race, I would have to find something else to complain about.

I even make a few brief appearances in the film. I’m the one with the furry brown ears.

On Confusion and the Lady in the House.

The generally mild winter and the unusually warm spells in February and March have caused many of the plants in the garden to think that it’s already May. The weather, on the other hand, is being unusually fickle at the moment, and for the past three days seems to have forgotten that February finished six weeks ago.The poor plants look very confused, poor things.

As for me, I have a body which is becoming ever more susceptible to changes in the weather. Today has been characterised by sneezing bouts. Two days ago I thought I had a fierce chest infection starting. Another time it might be a sore throat, toothache, headache, or earache. And that’s why I’m beginning to wonder whether my seemingly rheumatic fever-like symptoms are actually an unforeseen consequence of global warming.

*  *  *

But at least the Lady Isabella now looks at home. I had to paint part of a wall today and re-hang two pictures so that the lady was in the right place on a pristine ground and everything was back in balance. And the best news of all… I googled Images of Renaissance Portraits and found her! She was painted by some chap called Angolo Bronzino some time in the middle of the 16^th century, so I was right on two counts: she’s Renaissance and painted by an Italian (at least I assume he was Italian with a name like Bronzino.) She also has red hair, by the way, a fact which I forgot to mention and which some people will no doubt consider important. And this is she:

Incidentally, the print on my wall has far better definition as you would expect. The skin tone also has a more ivory tint, which I prefer and is probably closer to the original (although which is better I wouldn't know because I'm not an artist.)

And while I was on the Images page, I also found this which I thought amusing. If anybody doesn’t know who he is, you should. I’m just off to watch his latest adventure in the Blood From Every Orifice Show.

Two Tiny Titbits.

1. Today, dear little Ashbourne was as boring as smug, snooty, centre-right-and-anti-vegetarian little Ashbourne can be. (There’s a new discount store due to open in Ashbourne shortly, and I’m told there have been letters in the smug, snooty, centre-right-and-anti-vegetarian little local rag expressing outrage that the tone of the town will be lowered irretrievably! That’s Ashbourne.)

2. I think I might have rheumatic fever.

On Being the Runt.

Did you know that, according to Blogger stats, last month my blog had the fewest visits of any month since April 2010? I assume the explanation is one of the following:

1. I’m honing the tone to something approaching perfection.

2. My light shines so brightly that only enlightened beings can stand the glare.

3. Something I haven’t thought of yet.

And do you know what else is interesting? I’ve started watching animated videos by a young woman from Arizona who styles her vlog Jaiden Animations. Here’s an example, should you be interested:

  

I’ve adopted the habit of watching one a night in spite of the fact that they’re enormously popular (you might have noticed that I generally shun things which are enormously popular.) The reason I watch them is the fact that I like her voice, I like the personality which shines through her presentational style, I like her animations, I like her sense of humour, and I generally like the content. Most of all, however, I like the fact that her mind works very much like mine, which is quite a rarity in the world of muggles.

So here’s what’s odd. Being enormously popular, she gets a hell of a lot of comments and they all get liked. It seems you automatically get ten likes just for turning up, and if you say something really deep like ‘Haha. Love this’ your like count can rise into the thousands.

Except me. I’ve left a comment on every video I’ve watched, but I’ve never had the thumbs up ticked. So that leaves me pondering the same question as I do with visits to my blog: why am I the perennial wallflower of cyberspace? I think I should refer you to the three possibilities listed above and also add a fourth:

4. I don’t fit in.

I like that one.

Odd Thoughts.

I’m often led to wonder where my propensity for nonsensical thoughts comes from. Tonight, for example, I thought:

A disturbing sense of trepidation hung in the air in precisely the same way that a spoonful of gravy doesn’t.

I don’t know where they come from, you know. They just appear as though from some celestial source. Somebody once told me I’m a poet – and a gypsy one at that – but I’m quite sure I’m not. Whenever I get poetic thoughts I feel suddenly pretentious and decline to continue for the sake of preserving self-respect. (Ditties are OK, though, especially the silly ones.) As for the odd thought above, I have two theories:

1. I’m sure Douglas Adams said something similar in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which makes me merely a plagiarist, not a poet.

2. I’d just read a quotation from Anne Morrow Lindbergh which I thought a little preposterous, and then read the short bio on Wiki and decided I didn’t like her.

Tell you what really bugs me, though. I dislike adverts on principle, but the ones on YouTube are particularly irritating. I click on a track and my eardrums are suddenly assailed by some loud American male shouting at me in a bewilderingly perverse attempt to convince me that his product is the best thing that could happen to me since I took my first breath – and just when I was expecting a gentle Chinese melody to fly me off to the banks of the Yangtze where goldfish play and the scent of peach blossom hangs in the air in precisely the same way that a spoonful of gravy doesn’t. It’s bloody maddening.

The other thing that’s bothering me at the moment is that my cheese addiction seems to be getting worse again. And talking of bugs, I really, really like this song:

 

Cos I get a thousand hugs

From ten thousand lightning bugs

And they try to teach me how to dance 

I wish I'd written that...

An Old Euphemism and a New Lady.

I’ve always thought the term ‘undertaker’ to be a little odd. For those who don’t know, it’s what we in Britain call a funeral parlour, and I realised today where it presumably comes from. I’ve little doubt that it’s a conveniently contracted euphemism for the person whose function in the community is to undertake that essential service about which it is indecorous to speak literally. That’s why we don’t call them body disposers. (We British do so love our euphemisms, don’t you know.) And this brings me to one of several issues engendered by my current preoccupation with mortality, but more on that when the time is right and relevant.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, I bought a new picture today – £3 from a charity shop. Although I’m a complete ignoramus when it comes to art, I think I’m on safe ground in assuming that it’s a copy of a work by some Renaissance master (probably Dutch or Italian I expect, because I’m reliably informed that the Dutch and Italians were good at that sort of thing. By a strange coincidence they also have a history of producing good football teams, but we British always brewed better beer.)

Description

A portrait of a very handsome lady, probably aged around thirty, wearing a red dress with puffy shoulders and low cut chest over a lace bodice (I think that’s the term) which reveals a throat pendant and a longer gold chain. (Do bear with me; I have no expertise in the matter of describing women’s dress style. I know jeans and short skirts when I see them, but flouncy Renaissance stuff is a bit of a struggle.) Did I say she is very handsome? She is. Oh, and the background is so dark as to be almost black. It is, therefore, a predominantly red and black picture which suits my office perfectly.

But the real reason I bought her was the way she looked at me when I walked into the shop. Her eyes followed me diligently, as they always do in proper paintings. And then she spoke to me, saying in a voice which was mild yet firm and cultured: ‘You have my favour, my lord, so look long and longingly at me. Am I not beautiful? Could you be so heartless as to leave me here festering in this sordid establishment among the cast off bric-a-brac and second hand furniture? Take me where thou wilt and I will be thy lady.’ Sounded good, so I did.

Because that’s how it is with me now, you see. I need to surround myself with beautiful women who are not flesh and blood and therefore unable to run away screaming at the sight of me. Sad, isn’t it? And henceforth she will be known as the Lady Isabella, because Isabella suits her better than Kirsty or Jaiden.

I intend to hang her tomorrow. On the wall, that is.  

Full Circle.

Tonight is the anniversary of another rather unpleasant night not so long ago, a night of severe pain, desolation and that what-the-hell-is-happening-to-me sense of dark wonderment. I remember feeling glad that I lived alone because I find illness terribly embarrassing.

It probably explains why I feel uneasy tonight. I often get moods which are inexplicable until I realise that it’s the anniversary of some event which engendered the same mood. I gather it’s a well known phenomenon, and I do seem to be prey to some well known phenomena.

It’s April 1^st now and I’m hoping that somebody will play a friendly April Fools joke on me, just so I know I’ve been noticed. But please let it be through some human agency of which I approve. House elementals take note.