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Thursday 20 November 2008
Bad Language
I know, I know - I have no one but myself to blame.
If I will listen to Today on the radio on the way to work I will inevitably hear things that annoy me, but usually they're just things like interviewers being crap or John Humphreys.
But today I was running later than usual and consequently was still tuned in when Thought For The Day came round.
The pompous, smug piety of the standard Thought provider would be enough to grate at the best of times, but the thing that really send me over the edge is the way they abuse their language in an effort to add effect to their sanctimonious drivel.
This morning's woman was making great play of the fact that if we're made in God's image then we're apparently full of the greatest love in the yadda yadda yadda. The linguistic convolutions she was indulging in rendered whatever message she was trying to convey entirely obscure, but it was a simple over-egging of a straightforward detail that finally finished me off:
"For hundreds and thousands of years...."
So - for thousands of years then?
Bad Sign
You know you're in trouble when....
.... you're in a cab in a city you've never been to before, and the cab driver pulls over after the meter has gone well over the fare that you were told the journey should take, looks at his A-Z and then mutters "Merde!" before throwing the cab into reverse and swerving across three lanes of traffic.
Welcome to Geneva.
Where Did The Last Week Go?
It's been an interesting week - lots of change happening at work which has been occupying my time, plus I've been in 'Stranger In My Own Home' as previously discussed, so I've been feeling a bit detached from my own life and not in a frame of mind to discuss it.
But it's also been quite a social week. Went out for a drink with some friends of David's on Monday, did a pub quiz on Tuesday, and went to see Team America - World Police on Friday. The latter experience was....interesting to say the least. Funny in places, *way* over the top in others, I wouldn't rush to see it again, but it was a pleasant enough diversion.
In the meantime, the next couple of weeks promise to be slightly insane too. I'm going to be in three countries beside the UK in the next eight days, as well as having a weekend away with David next weekend and also welcoming Chris back to the UK after his six months in the US with Brian on Tuesday.
Coming? Going? Who can tell?
Titanic
I know, I know, it's a crap play on words, but someone had to do it.
We got very excited yesterday by the arrival of Huygens on Titan, following the news through the day and much looking forward to the BBC programme about it late in the evening.
What a crashing disappointment. Not the news or the photos or anything about the mission itself. I'm talking about the crappy Open University programme that was given over to it. The horror of the dreadful Adam Hart-Davis presenting was enough to put us off in a major way, to the extent that I gave in tiredness and went to bed halfway through.
It's a shame that even my excitement about all things cosmic can be dented by dull presentation.
Hypothetically....
Put yourself in this situation:
You go out for the night (taking your car with you).
You have a few drinks and decide to take some prescribed medication because you "like the head swim" it gives you. You drink some more.
You reach a point, courtesy of the drink and drugs, where subsequently large parts of the evening are lost from your memory for good.
Then you get in your car and drive off, giving someone a lift and shortly after you drop them off are pulled over by the police and subsequently charged with DUI and Reckless Endangerment (this is in the hypothetical USA).
When faced with the prospect of large fines and potentially jail time, what do you do?
Do you, for instance, send round an email to a bunch of people telling them you've got in a financial jam and asking if they can help by bidding on your Ebay auctions or possibly even donating cash without telling them what you did to get in the jam?
When one of them offers you his very well-visited web forum as a platform and kindly introduces your plight to his audience, do you then go online and again stress the urgency of your need without telling people what you did?
And when people realise that you've posted details of the event, including the phrase "I popped a couple tranqs while at the bar b/c I liked the head swim that it would give me." on your blog, meaning you have to come clean about it to the people on that forum, are you remotely surprised that some people come down on you like a ton of bricks? Do you post messages saying how people have made you feel just terrible for drawing attention to the fact that you deserve everything you get, and how much you don't need other people to tell you you made a mistake, and now you just want them to send you money?
It will come as no surprise for you to learn that I've watched this entirely non-hypothetical scenario unfold over the last 24 hours. After the fact, the woman in question has taken down the offending blog posting, so I won't link, but honestly, I can't remember the last time I was so angry about something someone did.
Worker Sacked Over Blog Comments
"An Edinburgh man has lost his job over comments made about his employer in an online diary, or "blog".
Bookseller Joe Gordon, 37, had worked for Waterstone's book chain for 11 years and was based at its Princes Street store.
In his blog, the Woolamaloo Gazette, Mr Gordon said he was dismissed for gross misconduct after the firm said his writings had brought it into disrepute. "
BBC
Interestingly, it seems that a number of authors (including Nail Gaiman and Richard Morgan) are coming out in support of the blogger, citing his work in organising signings as the primary reason they chose to have their events at Waterstones, so in the long run they may rather have shot themselves in the foot.
Hate Being Ill
Remember a couple of days ago I mentioned that I was past the point where I felt ill any more and just wanted to get rid of the congested stuff? Well as of this morning I'm annoyed to report that I'm actually feeling ill again....
I hate the way this damn bug is just dragging and dragging.
New Year, Same Busy Busy Busy
I'm having a hard time believing that a week into the new year, we're already so swamped with stuff going on at work. I'd be feeling a lot more positive about it if I wasn't still feeling the effects of the bug that I started in on back on Christmas Day. I'm past the point where I actually feel ill any more, but I just can't shake the horrible congestion that lingers on and on.
A Stranger In My Own Home
I'm feeling a bit itinerant at the moment. Having spent last week away from the flat while the brother and sister-in-law-to-be visited, I'm moving out again today to let a mate stay for a bit, then from the 25th, when Chris and then Brian come back to the UK they're going to use the place for probably at least a couple of months. I'll be staying at David's the while.
I shall be a stranger to that poor cat.
"Jerry! Jerry!"
I watched the pre-screening controversy about the showing of Jerry Springer - The Opera on Saturday night with a combination of amusement and rage.
On the one hand, watching the sanctimonious buffoons standing outside the BBC on Friday burning their TV Licences and hoping they get prosecuted for watching Songs Of Praise was pleasantly diverting.
On the other, seeing people get so exercised over something so pointless, and attempting to enforce their view of what's acceptable on the rest of us made me want to call the BBC to say I think they definitely should screen it.
In the end, we watched it, but after about ten minutes I went and got a book to read, because I found it pretty much unwatchable purely from the point of view of its entertainment value.
From Kittens To Hounds
I've been meaning to mention this since David told me about it over the Christmas break:
There's a new Kate Bush album coming out!
I know - how bonkers is that? Not sure when yet, but I can't wait.
I gave up being excited about music years ago, but I can safely say that it's the first album in a long time that I'll be making a point of getting on the day it's released. I mean, come on - it's Kate Bush!!!!!
And on a related note, Him Indoors picked up The Futureheads album yesterday, which contains their cover of Hounds Of Love. I suspect it'll take a few listens for me to really like it, but it's very different from the Bush version, which I think it would have to be to work at all.
TV Round Up
On Tuesday evening we saw a Channel 4 docu called Wacko About Jacko, which explored the lives (and I use the term in its loosest possible sense) of some Michael Jackson 'SuperFans'. These people travelled from the UK to California to lurk outside the courthouse when Jackson was due to be making an appearance (having diverted across to Las Vegas because there was a rumour he might show up at an awards show), and are so deluded in their certainty that they have a special relationship with The Freak that they managed to interpret a random wave out of the car window as an instruction to follow him back to Neverland. The sheer excitement they displayed at the end, when they'd been invited into a security hut days later so that Jackson (or one of his minions more like) could talk to them on the phone was ridiculous. "He talks through a microphone to a hundred thousand people in a stadium, but he was talking through just a phone only to me."
Okay, so I'm not prone to being starstruck under any cirumstances, but the almost religious reverence which people apply to him makes absolutely no sense at all.
In a totally different direction, though on the same channel, last night was the first episode of Desperate Housewives, which apart from the rubbish title promises to be quite interesting, and at the very least entertaining. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the last thing was something which looks as though it's going to have quite a strong element of mystery to it. Teri Hatcher, as far as i know, hasn't been regularly employed on anything except Radio Shack commercials since Lois and Clark, which is a pity, because she's not a bad actor, and she does comedy very well. The rest of the cast, with the exception of the Hispanic husband, are also very good, and the scene in which one guy tells his perfect wife why he wants a divorce is brilliant; "And I hate the bizarre way your hair never moves".
We'll be watching it regularly unless the rest of the series drops off in quality pretty steeply.
Three Minutes
There's much debate in the papers today about the three minute silence observed across Europe at lunchtime today in memory of the victims of the Tsunami, and whether it's necessary or appropriate.
My own feeling is that 'periods of silence' seem to be entirely too frequent these days, and it's not just Liverpool that seems to be getting hooked on grief.
Also, this 'sliding scale of tragedy' which determines how many minutes of silence any particular event gets seems to be getting more pronounced. Does a huge tragedy warrent more than a major terrorist action? Does a schoolkid murder get longer than a tragic accident? And who decides these things anyway?
In the event, at midday I was coming back from a meeting with Dave, and we had to pull in for petrol. Such was the determination of the staff that no one should pump a drop of fuel until we were safely out of the zone of silence that at one BP station on the A3, an extremely respectful five minutes of silence was observed.
Wow
There's the most fantastic sunrise visible from the office window right now. I wish I had my camera with me.
Odd Timing
My brother and future sister-in-law are on their way for a visit just in time to for me to go back to work tomorrow. The hazards of their work schedule I guess. Anyway, it'll be nice finally to meet her, and also to have a chance to spend some time with the little brother for the first time in ages, even if it is just a couple of evenings.
It's felt like the break has been a bit wasted, though that's partly the fault of this damn bug having brought us both down so much. I haven't done half as much with the time as I would have liked. Oh well, it can't be helped now I suppose.
Last Marple
We actually made it all the way through the final Agatha Christie: Marple last night without being distracted by bad plastic surgery, and it was every bit as mad as expected. They'd been mercifully sparing with the plot changes, not doing much more than cutting out a couple of extraneous characters and adding an irrelevant romance.
Catherine Tate as the Russian (or possibly Polish) housemaid Mitzi was a truly bonkers bit of casting, which lends weight to the sense I mentioned after the first one that the whole enterprose is seen as just a jolly romp of a get together for a load of Brit character actors - what do you mean, there are NO Russian (or possibly Polish) actors?
Kitten
The love of my life has recently embarked upon a new path - one which involves him wanting to get a kitten. In truth, I don't know exactly where this came from, as ever since we met he's made it clear he's a dog person, and refers to Dillon as 'The Evil One'. Yet it seems that somehow the '"Aw, look at the kittens" switch has been thrown, and we're looking at a serious plan.
I confess that at first I wasn't sure if I should be taking this seriously, but it seems that I should.
Start As You Mean....
First day of the year, and we set off for a drive into Kent; quick wander round Tonbridge Castle and then round the town, then back - we've both been hit by a bug since around Cristmas (David since a few days before), so we're being a bit rubbish and bundling up at home with comfort food and doing nothing this evening.
New Year's Resolution? I think I should try to Be A Better Blogger.