Phew! What A Scorcher!
My word but it's warm. I've hardly been what you could call energetic, and the sweat's been pouring off me. Which is possibly more information than you needed.
Anyway, I'm going to be good - when I'm online at the weekend, I do work, and I shouldn't, so I'm going to have a computer-free rest of the weekend.
See you on Monday.
A Blog Of Note
Partly because I've been too distracted to keep up to date with as many blogs as I used to (as previously discussed), I've been a bit bad about doing these little features. So to make up, I'm going to do two or three in the next week and then try to get back to a regular routine.
Starting with: mad musings of me. I've been reading Gert's site for what seems like forever, so intimately do I feel I know so many aspects of Gert's life. This is a real life-blog, with everything from rants about working in the civil service to pub crawl and domestic weekend postings, plus commentary on world and political events from a pleasingly leftward slant, all accompanied by a very fine line in linkage: I've just read, for instance, courtesy of her most recent post, about why it's okay for Christians to use saunas.
Gert also operates an interesting policy with regard to her list of recommended blogs: she runs an 'auditioning' list for sites which she's interested in, but not yet ready to commit to an active recommendation of. I remember vividly the day that More a way of life.... was promoted, and it made me feel all warm and loved.
Gert's fab, and so is her site.
That’s So Gay!
Someone sent me a note today asking whether as a gay man I had a problem with people using the phrase "that's so gay" to describe something they wanted to paint negatively.
My honest answer was that I'd only ever seen it used online in a forum we both frequent, and that I'd assumed it had its origin in some obscure past thread in which it had been used to give stick to one of the regulars and just become a buzz-phrase.
Apparently not. I'm told that it's endemic in American English, and has been for years. My correspondent has some gay friends who take it in their stride and some who take offence at it. His own view is that most people don't really think about the meaning in an anti-gay sense at all, but that this doesn't alter the fact that it has its origin in the 'gay=bad' equation.
I'm rather conflicted about my own reaction. On the one hand, by wrongly assuming it was some kind of in-joke I've been unwittingly complicit in it by not questinoing when I've seen it used. Which fucks me off, frankly, because if people have been using it without thinking about what they're actually saying then they should be pulled up.
On the other hand, if there's no intended anti-gay sentiment (and in that forum I truly don't believe there's very much either generally or specifically in these cases), then does drawing attention to it make me sound like yet another shrill whinger who will actually create antagonism where there wasn't any?
Once upon a time I'd have waded in with both feet and to hell with upsetting people, but I'm a little calmer these days, the past is another country, etc.
So I throw the discussion open to the floor. What does anyone think?
(Postscript - Curiously, I've also found myself involved in an entirely unrelated online discussion this evening about whether the use of that word (you know the one - the one I hate above all others and won't use; begins with a 'c' and rhymes with 'punt') as a slur, panders to the misogyny that lies at its root. Weird how I can go months without a good word-discussion and suddenly have two on the same day.)
And I Woke Up…
...and it had all been a horrible nightmare.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
The Art Of Being Organised
Is clearly one that was handed out while I was still getting used to my newly-bestowed Art Of Storing Endless Quantities Of Useless Trivia, causing me to miss out.
Don't get me wrong - in work terms I can be as organised as I need to be - I have a reputation for work-related organisation in fact.
But at home.... different story entirely.
I know people who go to bed having set the table for breakfast and put cereal in the bowls ready for the milk to be poured onto, and tea bags in the pot ready for the boiling water. This is not me. In my house, mornings are an obstacle to be dealt with. No matter what time I get up, I always seem to leave the house having scattered round at the last minute. I have no routine - sometimes I have a cup of tea, sometimes I don't. If I do, sometimes it's before I hit the bathroom, sometimes after. One day in about three l'll have breakfast, and about two days in three I'll need to iron that day's clothes. And I keep letting this be the case, even though I know that probably one day in two, I'll have had insufficient sleep, and will be feeling thoroughly crap.
I know that I could iron a week's worth of shirts on a Sunday evening, but my hatred of ironing is such that I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than spend that amount of time at an ironing board in one go. I know I could even iron for each day the night before, but when I get in of an evening, I don't want to do anything related to work except such actual work as I have to do, and I'm trying to minimise that in the interests of a healthier work/life balance.
So my mornings remain chaotic, and my home gets progressively more untidy as the week progresses, until I reach the point where I have no choice but to waste a chunk of every Saturday just restoring order.
This, I have concluded, is not an ideal way to live.
Where Did All The Good TV Go?
I'm not sure I need to do more than ask the question. But to elaborate slightly:
The West Wing is dropped from the C4 schedule for no reason on a regular basis. That's after they messed around which day of the week it was on at the start of this season. Don't get me wrong - it's still great, but this almost seems calculated to make me wait for the DVDs.
The end of Buffy and Angel looms on Sky One.
24 - Day Two - meh.
If it wasn't for the prospect of the rest of the new season of Six Feet Under to look forward to, things would look pretty bleak indeed.
Note also that I look entirely to North America for the prospect of good TV. What's the best of the homegrown dramas? Oh look, they're bringing Spooks back next week. Must....try....to....stay....awake....
Stuffed
Alison, well-known as one who is 'never knowingly undercatered', managed to provide sufficient food for about ten people rather than the six at lunch today.
It was all good, and I'm still stuffed.
Not That Bad
So - at the screening of Full Frontal Alison and I attended, there were only ten people in the small auditorium at the start of the film. Trailers included the remake of The Italian Job, and I think the cinema staff actually forgot that there was even anything on in there due to the rather larger, Matrix-related crowds in the place, as they came in ten minutes into the film to turn down the house lights.
Two minutes later, a couple in the row behind us got up and left. Thirty minutes or so after that, someone else did likewise.
By the time the film finished, there were only four of us left.
And I just don't get that. Fair enough, the reviews were mixed to say the least, but they all made it clear that this was Steven Soderbergh back in Sex, Lies & Videotape territory, not Ocean's Eleven land, so no one should have been surprised. And fair enough it's got flaws, and it's a little self-indulgent, but it's also funny and has some very nice little performances.
So why people would walk out after they'd paid money for it I don't know.
Twenty Years Ago Today
Almost forgot to mention:
Twenty years ago today I passed my driving test.
Not sure why it's worth noting, but there you go.