On Mood and Mild Discoveries.

I’ve written three posts today and deleted them all. I seem to be in one of those why the hell would anybody be interested in anything I have to say? sort of moods. I often am in autumn and winter.

*  *  *

I discovered that somebody had recommended one of my old posts on Facebook. She said ‘Trust me. It’s all about DNA and very funny.’ So I read it. Couldn’t see how she’d arrived at either notion.

*  *  *

The man who called me ‘nuts’ on YouTube apologised last night. He even said I ‘seemed like a gentleman.’ I complimented his courtesy. Who wouldn’t?

*  *  *

I further discovered one of those blog analytics websites which estimated the value of my blog to be $62,583. Is there a person out there who would be prepared to buy it? It also said my ‘X-Content-Type-Options’ is ‘nosniff.’ Is there a person out there who knows what on earth that means?

*  *  *

I came across a Spanish TV talent show on YouTube which featured a girl who looked so like a childhood version of the Lady Bella that I was utterly captivated. She was fabulous. (Her singing wasn’t too wonderful, but she was.) And I should just add that I only found and watched a Spanish TV talent show as a result of searching for variations on the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I still have some regard for my reputation, whatever the season.

Here's Looking at You, Kid.

The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill o' beans in this crazy world
~ Bogart in Casablanca

I'm typing it to help me remember it. I always hoped it might come in useful one day, and it still might.

Intoxicated.

I just watched some of the 2002 New York production of Riverdance. As fond as I am of the ’95 Dublin version, I have to say that this is technically better. And the inimitable Jean Butler is so much more accomplished and self-assured (probably because – as far as I know – Flatley was out of the way by then.) As for the 2002 Riverdance chorus girls, Jeez! Don’t ask. (Is a ladies’ legs fetish more acceptable than other fetishes? I hope so. You've no idea...)  Here’s a clip:

Conversions.

Here are a few things that I’ve learned relatively recently:

1. Some Americans are so worth knowing that I actually want to know them.

2. Some Africans and Asians project a rare beauty that’s hard to find among white folks. Africans and South Asians tend to glow; the Chinese are more likely to beguile.

3. Some Germans can sing songs other than the Bavarian drinking variety. (I learned the difference between leder and lieder a long time ago when a Dane corrected my pronunciation of lederhosen.)

4. Some Brits are best kept anchored in a slurry pit.

5. There’s nothing actually wrong with me, I’m just a type. An eminent psychotherapist told me that quite a long time ago, and I’ve finally decided he was probably right.

They took a long time coming. (And please note: this post is consciously whimsical. I would probably bleed if shot.)

A Regret and a Note to Literate Americans.

I’m half inclined to regret my Late, Late Ramble post that I put here in the early hours of this morning. I was tired and using a broad brush to make a relatively narrow point, and now I’m minded to think that the brush was a little too broad. Still, I like one or two bits in it so it can stay up. Feel free to hurl unripe bananas in my direction and I’ll attempt to defend myself as best I can (or apologise, or hurl them back, or whatever.)

The only constructive point that emerged from last night’s ruminating was the fact that Americans can’t seem to decide how to spell ‘theatre.’ While searching for something in a related field, I came across the odd fact that some theatres are officially called theatres, while others are equally officially called theaters. This is not a serious issue, but I do think that if you colonials are going to tinker with the mother tongue and invent your own spellings (a practice to which I offer no objection) you might at least be consistent.

The Late Late Ramble.

I was thinking about the Asian beauty thing, and it occurred to me that the worthier Asian girl would probably find our banal, commercial, materialistic culture quite intolerable. It seems to me that Asians and Africans have so much more innate style than we do. They’re naturally classier. As the wealth of the world has gravitated to the west, we’ve become a bunch of hamsters running the treadmill of the shopping mall, choking silently on chemical scents while ogling neon-proclaimed images which are crushingly tedious in their superficiality.

I’m generalising, of course. Japan has long been westernised, South Korea is holding station, while China is moving rapidly that way. And the rich fragment of India is nothing if not aspirational. Is that a shame? I think so.

And I’m rambling without point or purpose. Night.

(And I didn't send the email I've been toying with all night. I didn't even write it. Discretion rules in the land where angels fear to tread.)

The Asian Beauty Question.

I’m intrigued. There’s an ad suddenly appeared all over my browser which says:

Looking for an Asian beauty?

Find now.

I’m impressed that there’s no exclamation mark after ‘now,’ but mostly I’m intrigued. How does this work? Do you fill in a form, produce your credit card, then wait for the postman to walk up the path with an Asian beauty rolled up in an oriental rug?

I have no real interest in the matter, of course, since I wouldn’t know what to do with an Asian beauty except give her a cup of tea and apologise for the fact that it’s Indian and comes in handy little bags. But I’m still curious.

Trial by YouTube.

You know, YouTube sometimes seems to me like a cornucopia in which a tribe of rats has taken up occupation. The stuff you often read on there is unbelievable, and I’m not talking about the abusive, illiterate redneck types since you can’t blame chimpanzees for being simian. I’m more concerned about the patronising, arrogant, judgemental jerks who write things like:

If you don’t like this you need help.

I pity anyone who fails to appreciate this music for they truly have no soul.

Truly? Who do they think they are? God’s big brother?

Still, I did learn something interesting from YT tonight: Paul Simon has very strange ears. (But he’s redeemed by having a hairstyle just like mine.)

Crying Over Spilt Soup.

I’ve got a persistent thirst tonight, which leads me to suspect that I put too much celery salt in the pea and potato soup. Maybe there’s a connection between the excess salt and the fact that when I picked up one of the pots to move it, it somehow contrived to tilt sideways and spill its contents all over the cooker top.

Do you know how messy and time consuming it is to clean a pot of thick pea and potato soup off a cooker top? And do you further realise how irritating it is to slave over the making of said soup, only to have to mop up a load of it with about 10 yds of kitchen towel and throw it away? Very in both cases.

*  *  *

So tonight I’ve been contemplating a suitable riposte to a man who replied to one of my comments on YouTube with ‘Sorry, but your nuts.’ The range of possibilities was wide – some were even reasoned and sensible – but I think I’ll restrict it to ‘What about my nuts?’

The Road to Trivia.

For some unaccountable reason I’ve had The Seekers’ mega hit The Carnival is Over humming in my head all day. (I could understand it if I’d been dreaming about the priestess, but I haven’t. The only woman who regularly haunts my dreams these days is sublimely unaware of the fact, and she lives much closer than Australia.) So I did a bit of digging and came up with two bits of trivia:

1. Did you know that The Carnival is Over was written by Dusty Springfield’s brother and set to a tune based on the Russian folk song Stenka Razin? That’s pretty heavy, isn’t it, especially when you consider that Putin has been sending warplanes to bomb the rebels in Syria?

2. While contemplating my erstwhile relationship with Australia, I came to the startling realisation that everywhere on the planet lies in two directions from everywhere else. So if you live in Upstate New York and say ‘Providence, RI lies east of here,’ you’d only be half right.

(Oh, and it seems Springfield got the relationship between Pierrot and Columbine wrong, but I don't suppose it matters in a land where romance is defined by the immortal phrase 'Brace yourself, Sheila.')