Moving the Clock Face On.

I realised earlier that today is my ex-wife's birthday. I worked out how old she is now and felt a slight, involuntary shudder. I tried to imagine what she must look like, but gave up the attempt as impossible. 

 

And then I remembered why I was never capable of making a lifelong commitment, which is effectively synonymous with saying why I was never the marrying kind. It's only a few years since I finally worked that one out, but I've never explained it on the blog and almost certainly never will. But happy birthday, Anna, notwithstanding. (I do wonder, however, whether she's still living in Wales with an archaeologist. And I do still wonder how old Beaumont the rabbit was when he died.)

I'm making this post to get the monthly post total off 13 because two 13s in one day sounds a bit risky. And I'm still working on the pocket edition of my memoirs. At the moment it needs two pockets and there's a bit to go yet. Hopefully, publication shouldn't be too far in the future. Maybe I'll die before it's finished, but probably not. And who the hell -- but me -- cares anyway?

A Literary Mystery.

To a perfectionist like me, one of the most lamentable aspects of modern life is the habit practiced by some young people of writing a word that sounds right to them, rather than the word which is correct. A notable example of this -- and one which I find most displeasing -- is writing 'of' instead of 'have', as in he should of taken the train. That being the case, you might accurately imagine my sense of horror when I discovered just such an error in the Shirley Jackson novel I'm currently re-reading (We Have Always Lived in the Castle.)

I cannot imagine for one second that Shirley Jackson, given her age, her circumstances, and her undoubted acumen in the matter of language, would have made such a glaring error. And even if she did, I'm sure her editor would have corrected it long before it went to print. So how on earth did it get there?

Today's Bad Joke.

Every day, and in a very prominent position, YouTube gives me a recommendation from The Church of Jesus Christ. It's hosted by a pleasant looking young woman - who might or might not be AI-generated, but the adjective 'pleasant' was carefully chosen - inviting me to 'request a missionary visit.'

Why me of all people? What is wrong with Google's algorithms?

Anyway, I gave it careful consideration and in the end chose to decline. What settled the matter in a closely run contest was the fact that I don't have a pot big enough.

Idiocy in the Van.

Following last night's post about the eclipse, I noted that the BBC News page led with it this morning. They described the phenomenon as 'spectacular.' They claimed that millions were 'wowed' by the experience. And they'd already reported that shops everywhere had sold out of the special glasses needed to view the sun safely. It covered several features as well as the lead, and they referred to it as a 'once in a generation event.' Well, that claim was at least true since the last one occurred twenty seven years ago, but let's note what actually happened:

The light level dropped slightly for about half an hour and then returned to normal, as it did in 1999. I think the phrase 'mildly interesting but otherwise utterly unremarkable' would be more accurate than 'spectacular.' And so the big question has to be 'why is the media becoming dominated by the idiocracy which seems to be gaining leadership of life's habits and imperatives?' How are our children being brought up and what kind of world are they about to inherit?

This could go much further than the ineptitude of the BBC, but I'm going to stop there. It's too hot today to work outdoors, so I'm going to write a bit more of my extremely potted biography. It's growing rather bigger than I originally intended, but since I'm writing it for my own sake without any expectation of it being read, it doesn't matter.

Much Ado About Nothing Much.

At 7 o'clock this evening I noticed that the light level in my house seemed a little on the low side. I looked through the window and saw that the sun was still shining, and then realised that I was experiencing the much-vaunted solar eclipse.  BBC News has been going on about it for days. One piece this morning said that the world would be 'plunged into darkness.' 

I ignored it, of course, because I remember the last solar total eclipse in 1999. I was sitting on a bench in a town centre and noticed that the light level had dropped slightly so that it resembled an early twilight. The BBC used the phrase 'plunged into darkness' on that occasion, too.

So what's wrong with journalists? Are they really so ignorant of the subject about which they're writing, or has it become permissible in this post-truth age to write total nonsense just to sound dramatic? And are people really taken in by it all? Do they not realise that while a certain amount of direct sunshine will be lacking during an eclipse, the sun will still be illuminating the atmosphere so the sky will still be bright enough to read a book quite easily. Solar eclipses are interesting, but there's nothing extravagantly exciting about them.

 

For my part I occupied myself washing the dishes and then wrote this. Now I will go out and water the parched garden (or at least parts of it) while there's still plenty of bright daylight.

I'm All Right, Jack.

I read this morning that, a few months ago, a plane due to carry Donald Trump and the usual hangers-on to a meeting in Iran was delayed. This was to allow Trump to be smuggled secretly off the plane because there was credible evidence that Iran was planning to attack it. It said that Trump was transported incognito in a service vehicle to another plane and completed the trip. Although the article didn't explicitly say so, the natural presumption must be that the original plane then completed its journey once the President was clear.

If that was the case, it would surely mean that the original plane would have flown into the 'credible' danger still containing the captain, co-pilots, cabin crew, politicians, diplomats, and journalists. Isn't there a serious, but unasked, ethical question here?

A Very Short Note.

There's an awful lot of anti-Trump invective doing the rounds of the internet these days, and yet I don't see anybody talking about 2028. If Trump hasn't been committed to an asylum or six feet of good American earth by then, I can't see him going quietly. For the sake of all good Americans - and I know there are plenty of them - I do hope contingency plans are being made behind the scenes.

Noting the Lunar Graveyard.

I've mentioned the waning crescent moon and its sickly aspect before on this blog. At the moment it's in the north-eastern sky when I go to bed at around 2.30, and it looks as though it's about to utter the death rattle. I regarded it through the bathroom window last night and a thought occurred to me. 

If I'd been the tribal wise person in a group of hunter/gatherers during less complicated times, I probably would have advised my flock not to walk in a north-easterly direction at night because that's where moons go to die.

The Brit Priority.

One of the YouTube channels I regularly watch is called Lauren the Mortician. It's run by a woman called Lauren who is a mortician. She's American - from somewhere in the Midwest, I think - and her channel covers the whole process of death from the effects of crashing on a motorbike to spirits haunting the corridors of the funeral home for a few hours after decease. It's all fairly light-hearted and even funny in parts.

But at the end of her videos she usually brings her French Bulldog (called Mango) into the act. Mango is very boisterous, squirms an awful lot, and licks the Lady Lauren furiously around the chin and mouth. Lauren refers to the whole process as 'mango kisses.' I would call it something else, which is why I dropped a comment on a recent post, praising her personality, humour, commentary skills, and storytelling, and finished with an opinion that when it comes to her turn to be laid out on the mortuary table, her embalmer will probably have difficulty washing all the dog spit off her chin. She hasn't replied.

Expletive Accepted.

Being a natural student of the English language, I often wonder where our expletives came from, and also how they've progressed in terms of strength and commonality of use down the years.

When I was a boy the expletive 'bloody' was considered reasonably serious, and any child using it would have been soundly reprimanded. But it became less serious over the following few years, and when my young nephew attended a wedding and exclaimed loudly about one of the guests: 'Look at that bloody hat!' everyone thought it was funny. The f-word is the current serious one, of course, but even that is now becoming very nearly acceptable and used at all levels of society.

What caused me to think about this was wondering how the word 'blasted' became a mild expletive - as in if he does that again I'll box his blasted ears or you're a blasted nuisance, boy. I wonder whether it came from Macbeth's question to the witches: Why do you stop our way upon this blasted heath? I don't suppose I'll ever know.