At the crack of lunch.
Two weeks' pause will follow.
Tomorrow we march north for a bout of relovisits and a spell in Cumberland, a lumpy, wet part of England that was the ancestral home of the Cumbers. This means that the toddling steps of SAAP will be silenced for about two weeks. The only new material I envisage here will be p0rn spam comments, so do drop in if that's your kind of thing.
The comments here are a major part of the pleasure I get from blogging and it distresses me that allowing for that possibility lets in the mindless gits that spray muck all over the net. Pantries have flies, blogs attract other dwellers in excrement. I have noticed that much bigger blogs than this get spam despite filters so they get the disadvantage of long pauses in commenting as well as the filtrate, so I have never gone that route. What I will do is close comments after about six weeks which will, I hope, limit my exposure to manageable proportions. (Wow - how dull was that!)
My targets for the holiday:
- To read at least one of the books I was given over the last thee Xmases.
- Teach Jake to play golf to tournament level. I encourage him to do his homework and I pour as much wisdom as I possess into him, but I have a feeling that golfing skills are more likely to make him a fortune than anything I know. He looked promising on the Crazy Links at Hastings and I believe there could be more...
- Watch this space. Further inspiration may strike.
Update.
It didn't.
I had some time this morning and I wanted to write here. Instead I've spent two hours removing pOrn spam from every single entry on this blog. Bang goes that inspiration. Perhaps I'm obsessional but I don't think you can eat supper when there's sick on the floor under your feet.
Over 500 of them. And I've given up erasing them. Perhaps later when I'm listening to the news or something.
So sorry if you stumble across any of them I've missed.
We're going away for two weeks on Sat. God knows what I'll come back to.
More leaflets through the door from the Council, which seems to be getting keener on this whole recycling thing, something we as a green-conscious household naturally welcome. Paper, bottles, tins and now magazines can be offered for recovery. All good.
Some of the packaging that finds its way in here is problematic though. We had a take-away Indian last night, which was truly delicious. The main difference from our last order was that the food arrived in robust clear plastic containers which looked as if they have every intention of outliving the cockroach on this planet.
As I sat and stared at the mound of indestructible plastic over the top of my bulging stomach I thought: “They've made me a refuse I can't offer.“
I have been in particularly reflective and sombre mood recently, feeling vulnerable to the vagaries of city life. This is the downside of buying a new pair of white trainers, which I did last week, and what with the rain and the dirt and so forth I have been reflecting upon the song Cat Stevens should have written called 'The First Scuff Is The Deepest'.
Meanwhile, and curiously, as yet another person is gunned down within window rattling distance of our house, the property values around here continue to rocket, judging by the magazines that keep coming through our letterbox. I joked once that when I started reading that Peckham is the new Islington I would start preparing for The Last Days. Well, a year's supply of mineral water and spam are now uncomfortably close to the top of the shopping list. The word seems to be out. Our recent trip to West Wales was peppered with the question “Where do you live these days?” and the reaction “Ooh, that's very trendy now, isn't it?”
I knew something was up when a man who had come round to fix the drains started musing about how our house must be worth 'a bob or two'. I thought 5-10p was a bit low and declined to reply directly. I wanted him to ensure that raw sewage no longer came up into our downstairs bath - which was the sole purpose of his visit - and I urged him to focus on that.
What difference does it make if you don't intend to move? If those magazines included a reply coupon which you could return for the advertised value of your house then we would all know exactly where we were. Which we do anyway in some senses but I mean where we stood, not where we lived.
It's all a bit of a surprise. In fact I haven't been so surprised since I found out that soul singer Salmon Dave was in fact two people.
Caught Julie 'Feelings don't count unless they're Mine' Bindel on Woman's Hour yesterday morning, telling women who want children that they should just GROW UP, and telling them that they are merely suffering from egomania. Whoah! Sure of oneself, or what? Unaware of how sweeping generalisations apply to the sweeper too, or what? Selfrighteousness is a hideous drug.
I really detest those persons whose abstract certainties isolate them so thoroughly from the rest of the blood-owning humanity strewn about the globe.
Why do people give this woman a platform? For whom exactly does she speak?
Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height
(...here follows some nonsense about kites going upwards, not sideways at ground level...)
Oh let's go fly a kite.
I'm not much given to over-analysis but I think it my duty on behalf of all current and future fathers to hunt down the writer of these words. And strangle him. Because kites are a father thing, really, like zipping up the suitcase.
Several times during our week on the south coast this deceitful song came crawling back into my head, usually as the ache in my right arm became unbearable and I watched as our super-duper hi-tech ready-to-fly kite turned cartwheels 'cross the floor while my face turned a whiter shade of frustrated pale.
Maybe it was really easy to fly those kite-shaped kites of yesteryear, before they decided to remodel themselves as a form of three legged underpants. Maybe the winds were more reliable in the early 20th century. Maybe God did not intend that kites should ever come promising to fit into handy pouches, and I am being punished because our neatly folded pack-away sand sweeper is an abomination out of the sight of the Lord. Or is it that £4.99 doesn't get you more than six inches up?
Anyway, why should any child wish to go fly a kite, I ask? They should be warned that before they do they will be privileged to see their father cast as a latter day King Lear railing against the pitiless and capricious elements in a lather of frustration and a frenzy of knotted string, a victim of low level corkscrew turbulence whom only the foolhardy would approach and ask “Is it my turn yet?” or “Why is it still on the ground?” I notice they don't show any of that on the packet.
Or have I just totally missed the point? Mary Poppins was, after all, able to tidy the children's room with no more than a short whistle. And I can't manage that either.
Afterthought.
A non-magical version.
Let’s go buy a kite,
Cheap, but completely shite.
Then we'll wait while Daddy
Swears and gets wound
Up. We'll sit on a towel
Down where the air is foul.
Oh, let’s go fly a kite.
Just been on a long distance family occasion mission - my aunt's eightieth birthday barbecue in the heart of West Wales. A long way to go for a sausage, some might say, but family is family. Just ask Sister Sledge. The chldn got to meet eighteen cousins they had never met. And I totalled about ten. Time flies.
Comet wrote off the machine on Fri. Yay! It did rather lose its marbles towards the end and had turned malicious after one particularly thorough seeing to by a bloke who didn't know how to switch it on and powered it up at least nine times in a way that the manual expressly forbade. Now it lurks like a Bertha Mason of the basement, shunned, deranged, a bringer of shame and a reminder of hopes dashed. As soon as the divorce papers are through we'll be getting a new, young model, a bit sexier than Jane Eyre I'm hoping.
Not only the letters A S D F have been lost to me but also the keys J K L ; are now covered with anonymous co;oured stickers which is slowing me down a bit. The next few weeks promise to be confusing akk round.
We are also odd to the south coast today for a week's paffling near Hastings. With kucl the weather will warm up. Back next Monday, probabky.
I've had a bit of time this week, hence the wobbly return to the blogface. One thing I've also managed is to listen to music radio at length. There has been a surprising development, namely that I have thoroughly enjoyed Radio 1 in a way I haven't in 20 odd years.
My insatiable curiosity asks me “Why?” and I reply in several ways.
There is a crop of current records and acts who seem suddenly refreshingly free of corporate disinfectant and talent show beginnings. Also an all time recent low when it comes to tabloid tie-ins. The inevitable Wayne Rooney/Jordan collaboration has yet to appear.
The almost complete absence of boybands is a joy. The Robbie Williams quotient seems pegged low and limited to his few decent records, notably 'Rock DJ' which is aware enough of its own silliness to have remained charming.
Faux nostalgia for Oasis seems to have completely disappeared. Other pet hate acts are gloriously silent, probably holding back for the Autumn/Xmas rush. No Blazin' Squad in five days. Yay! I live in dread of more Stereophonics though and another Jamiroquai album remains a nameless fear.
The rush of good male voiced rock bands continues. I wish I knew who most of them are but the locked room marked Cool Kids is designed to exclude me, and the DJ's seem too busy to mention actual names afterwards. I have lumped them together as The Nameless, and they are jolly good. Rock music seems to have made an important leap forward from the days when it consisted of a petulant argument over what was left of the key of A after ACDC had finished with it.
The female tendency seem to be leading hip hop currently, which may explain why the sexual content has retreated into some kind of proportion. A few months back I felt that Radio 1 was a bit like a party political broadcast for the Nookie Party.
I feel that magical quality of variety out there, and a large big up to Radio 1 for reflecting it better than all my local alternatives who seem tediously ghettoised.
So a short list of the records I want to hear again: Natasha Bedingfield, The Streets (I never thought I'd say that), the UK girl rapper that does '1980', Kelis, Max Sedgeley, Goldie Looking Chain and loads by The Nameless.
Or is it just me?
I was clearing out a few more ads for p?nis enlargement pills this morning when I was suddenly struck by the idea that I should leave them instead.
All through my life I have been told by clever people how markets work and, at last, here is the mechanism under my very nose. People must really want this stuff, which is why the purveyors of different brands try so hard to get their claims across through sites like mine that naturally appeal to the discerning and critical elements in the population - the opinion formers, the movers, shakers and would-be long danglers. This is actually in some ways a public service they are providing. Who wouldn't want what they have to offer? Who am I to interpose in the delicately poised quadrille of consumers and the fulfillers of dreams?
The historical forces of empowered consumerism are surely on the march here, as predicted in the post two below. Would not the world be a happier place if we all availed ourselves of the forty one brands of pills on offer and our trousers were all fuller than Eamon’s swearbox?
Philip Green has made another bid to buy Marks and Spencer. They have rejected him again. I think he shouldn't hold back and should raise his offer.
After all if he doesn't like it he can always take it back.
Went to a very nice party at the weekend. Lovely finger food that included a ravishing display of mangetout peas ranged in a circle round what I took to be a chrysanthemum head. “They're stuffed with cream cheese,” trilled the caterer's waitress. And indeed they were. I felt myself in the presence of greatness. The stuffer surely was someone with no fear of the shortness of life and I felt inspired.
This plate, I thought, was a small Cistine Chapel Ceiling and it had been brought right to me, pilgrimage excused. I have been told that the Japanese can find beauty in small objects and moments in a way our megalomaniac Western tradition has forgotten. Well not me mate, not then. I managed to grab six before she moved on.
Later I spoke to someone important-looking who had recently attended a power dinner thrown by high level business brains and seemed keen to share his experience. He had eaten well and had then been addressed by some super guru type who had laid out the future before them all, as clearly as if upon a picnic rug. Apparently we are all consumers now and we have to make choices because salaries and pensions can no longer be relied upon. The moral of the story is that the companies who will do well in the future are the ones who will adapt to the task of providing goods and services that we actually want.
I was dumbstruck and made my informant go over it twice more, both to make sure that I had got it right and to detect any special meanings hidden in any of the terms in question. There were none.
Sarcasm is not a hobby of mine but some tools suggest themselves for some tasks. I think Capitalism can claim to have arrived somewhere around 1600 AD. I am pleased that its mission is now clear to the persons charged with running it. Is this the first case of 'dumbing up'?
Some random details of our lives follow below.
I have had a Madras-strength sore throat for the last three days but it is now mellowing.
I have finally removed the 'World's Greatest Daddy' rosette from my dressing gown where it has hung proudly since Fathers' Day. I was flattered at the time but it has troubled me a little since and the sense of achievement with which I once glowed has somewhat dimmed.
Firstly it reminds me of the sort of thing farmers get for fat bullocks. Secondly it is not dated so although I could take this to mean that I can wear it for the rest of my life I am not a needlessly boastful person and a three week lap of honour is probably enough. Thirdly now that the euphoria has ebbed away and many grey dawns have brought a longer perspective I have come to believe that 'This House's Greatest Daddy' might have been more accurate considering the competition I probably faced. Finally in a dark moment last night I even considered that 'The Greatest Daddy We've Got' might have been more truthful. So off it has come.
Never mind, there are other real achievements to celebrate. I came first in a search for “How much Pizza do Americans eat as a nation?” Number 1 out of 13,000, despite not providing the answer. Who needs all those Google search tips?
And I finally broke the five figure barrier and scored 10,156 on the Mah Jongg.
Lastly it occurred to me, as I banned yet more IP addresses this morning, that blogging is the new farming and deleting spam p0rn adverts is the new mucking out.
Hello, yeah it's been a while
Not much, How 'bout yooo?
Some things have already been said as well as they need saying.
So bearing that in mind I'll get you all up to speed in Preeneworld as quickly as I can.
Zoe has taken on a correspondence touch-typing course that involves gradually covering up the letter symbols on the computer keyboard with coloured labels. At present the letters A S D and F are covered which has reduced me to a degree od guesswork and has slowed me down rather. It has fedinitely made things more interesting though.
Had a lovely Sun lunch yesterday. Chicken cooked with new potatoes and garnished with herbs.
“From our own garden” quoth Mel proudly.
“Ah,” I replied warmly, the syllable jumping to my lips. “That explains the scent of cat wee,” I continued, but I was careful to keep these latter words strictly in the non-moving parts of my skull.
We then moved on to a rhubarb and ginger crumble. Now I like my fruit desserts quite tart but this was the tartiest thing I'd encountered since I stopped reading Belle de Jour. (I doubt that the loss of my custom was any great blow to her and I'm sure many people have come across her since.) Anyway, we got through once we located the white sugar, misfiled in the pasta cupboard by the builders we had in recently.
Euro 2004 gave us lots of late nights and the usual slew of bizarre and time-consuming questions about unlikely events during sporting contests. We did also get several previously rare opportunities to explain who Eusebio was. And in the end Greece are the new Italy. Great technical ability in possession, counterattack by the tested device of passing the ball to people in the same coloured shirt, defend superbly for 87 minutes and take one chance. Every time they meet a side who can't be bothered to defend they will win.
On the opinion front I say this:
Smacking; I'm in favour of a ban. It shouldn't ever be necessary and strikes me as being more about the 'rights' of parents to get angry.
Smoking: I'm in favour of a ban. I gave up in 1979 and I firmly believe that it is a habit that no one need take the trouble to acquire.
Having said that I'm not in favour of banning things, so if anyone wants me I'll be lying in a darkened room with sparks coming out of my ears