Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
Help me out here
After two installs I was still having trouble so we formated my C drive and I was dumb enough to lose all of my favorites. So, if you would be so kind as to leave me a comment or two with some of the more essential links a person needs to get by in this day and age I'd really appreciate it. Plus, this is one of the few recent posts where comments have been enabled so you might as well make the most of it and be silly. Blogs, news sites, curiosos, whatever you have kicking around in your own lists.
Consider this The Acerbia Lost Links Appeal.
Art with a capital F
Since Pix had taken the day off today in preparation of helping me set up my own company (now no longer a requirement for the new job... oh yeah, I start Monday) it was eventually agreed that we would head down to the Thames to see some sights.
We started off with St Paul's cathedral, clad in traditional scaffolding, followed by lunch in a cheesy gothic-themed pub called Bell, Book & Candle. Blessed be. We crossed the Millenium Bridge, Pix seeing the Thames for the first time since she got to London... for the first time ever in fact, and we made our way into the Tate Modern Art Gallery.
The building itself is impressive as hell, the people wandering around looked like a mix of tourists and pretentious wannabe art students... the modern art galleries... well... they can be summed up pretty concisely with this;
After room after room of piles of rusty junk that's been soldered together or glass torsos filled with magazine clippings, glasses of water on shelves ten feet up the wall and Damien Hirst's Pharmacy farce I noticed Pix standing stock still before a piece that wasn't cordoned off like the others.
Two stark white panels surrounded with dark indents set into the wall with small metal cylinders connecting the panels to the wall, above which shone a green rectangular abstract representation of a person running.
"I see you've stopped before this one, does it say anything in particular to you?"
To which she replied: "Yes it says 'Use me' "
It was of course the fire escape. We left pretty quickly after that, skipping the remaining rooms and went and bought comic books. She's pretty, she can be funny and she's all mine.
I oughta make a sweater out of you lady
Michele reposted something today that just reminded me that I should say thanks to my mother for being such a great influence on me all these years and for always being there to help me no matter how tough life was being on her.
I spent the morning in Chelsea with the theme tune to "Different World" playing in my mind. Why was I in Chelsea? Well I had an interview down there, a second interview that concluded with the boss lady (who it turned out had been born in the same hospital as me) saying "I'll have Bradley call you and hopefully we'll see you on Monday" Would it be presumptuous to celebrate before Bradley calls or should I just enjoy the moment and wait until Bradley calls?
As the weather here has been glorious all week (just check the Wimbeldon coverage to see) I strolled through Chelsea along the King's Road towards Sloane Square, I believe I even saw David Dimbleby at one point.
What stood out though was this prevailing attitude and the stench of money. Money in the boutiques (shops? other towns have shops, Chelsea has boutiques), money in the cars on the road (hey I was nearly run down by an Aston Martin Vantage, how cool would that have been?), money emanating from the people who walked past. Luckilly I was in smart pants and shirt or I'd have been dragged away by the local neighborhood watch.
While pausing to cross the road however I rolled up my sleeves and realised that the woman beside me was staring terrified as if I was about to beat her or shoot up or something... can't a guy just roll up his sleeves to cool his arms? She turned back to her companion who was called Ethel (only old ladies are ever called Ethel... what I want to know was what her name was before she became an old lady) and said in a nasal whine; "Why is there this sudden influx of asian people? I thought the Japanese didn't visit until September..."
And suddenly I was back on Oxford Street bleating at the meandering tourists, and on TCR bleating at the businessmen who don't know to cross the road when there are no cars and so I bleated at her. Because not only was she a sheep but she was a snooty bitch too. If you ever used to read my old site Bulletproof Punk then you may remember that I make a habit of bleating at people who dawdle and go out into the big wide world without any purpose or idea of where they're going.
Don't be so hard on yourself
What made reinstalling the OS for the second time in two days and all the applications I'd spent the day reinstalling?
The South Park Movie was on cable and the scene where they drag Bill Gates into the Operations room and the General chastises him for lying about the stability of Windows 98 before putting a bullet through his skull... that made it worth my time. Hell yes.
My wrath hath no bounds!
Not only have I upgraded my OS to Windows 2000 (shudder) but I'm also taking this opportunity to upgrade all my software to the latest available versions. This means that I will be a very irate person for the next few days as I curse and swear my way through recustomizing all of my programs back to the way I like them.
In the meantime I thought I ought to advertise the following curioso that has been brought to my attention:
Thusrday 18th July 2002, will be the frist Acerbia-con 2002. In attendance will be:
The preson who makes D's sandwitches sometimes.
The doorman from his former place of work.
A former classmate from his kindergarden class.
A mystery reader of Acerbia.com
Unconfimred guest!!! The Very Lovely Pixeldiva!!!!!! !!!!!
Bye tickets now to avoid dissapointment.
This is an ex-catfish!
A nasty surprise awaited me as I cleaned out the turtle tank today; tiny little white worms squirming through the body of water... like animated vermicelli. Part of me was fascinated that this micro-ecosystem had given rise to tiny annelid protozoan parasites. Part of me started to itch.
First order of business was to remove and confine the turtles to our handy polystyrene playland... well... box really. Stick them in there, close it and they go to sleep, plus its easy to wipe out afterwards if they crap all over the place. We used to use the fruit bowl but they got too big.
Syphoning out the water was easy enough but then it became apparent that the tank would need to be disinfected and the gravel washed out... we're still debating whether or not to go and buy a few bags of that pink glitter gravel they sell in girly clothes stores and maybe a tiny mirrorball, add two tiny speakers playing Gloria Gaynor's greatest hits and those gay little turtles would be in heaven.
So I went down to the Wet n' Wild store which persists in not stocking sex-toys of any variety, only reptiles and aquariums. I knew that the first thing I said would be important in not giving the impression that I had worms so I carefully crafted a sentence of such devious cunning that it couldn't be misconstrued in any shape or form to sound as if I, the human, had the worm problem. I walked in the door and immediately forgot what it was.
Swimming (in the vaguest sense of the term) upside down in a tank of fresh water was a fat black speckled catfish. Its eyes lolled lazilly around and I could see it was still breathing but only barely. This was one stoned fish.
"Help you mate?"
Yeah, I have worms... d'oh! What's up with the catfish?
"Owner brought it in in a bucket he used to mop up without rinsing out all the bleach, very sensitive animals catfish..."
At this point I was just waiting for him to tell me about the Norweigan Blue Parrot and why it was resting in such a manner, but I guess he wasn't a Monty Python fan or something. Instead he sold me a bottle of some dye that would kill off the worms and fade gradually, disinfecting the tank as it went.
Upon reading the little instruction booklet that accompanied the chemical dye however I found the reason why the fish had really been floating pathetically in a stupor: stress.
Says right here in the booklet:
Fish Stress
Stress is the main cause of fish disease. Stress is caused by a number of factors, e.g. poor water quality, bullying by other fish, capture or movement of the fish, insufficient hiding places, poor nutrition.
When fish are stressed their immune system breaks down allowing disease to attack.
I've used the handily attached symptoms list to diagnose the catfish as suffering from accute personality disorder with a side-helping of sociopathic animosity and I shall be going back down to the Wet n' Wild tomorrow to set up a small underwater couch and administer rorschah inkblot tests and question the catfish on his relationship with his mother.
Just call me Doctor D-Little.
Acerbia
Nutritional Information Per Serving of Acerbia
Energy (kJ): 22100
(kcal): 5300
Protein (g): 78.0
Carbohydrates (g): 571.9
Fat (g): none, its all muscle baby!
Ingredients: milk, sugar, cocoa butter, prime minced beef, real cheddar cheese, starch, emulsifiers: E442, E476, E187, ED209, Ebygum, peppermint oil, vegetable oil, olive oil, motor oil, baby oil, vitamins: A, B, B12, C, D, E, K, alpha and omega, non-starch polysaccharide, 0.01% peach extract, 0.002% tea extract, 66% water, sarcastic acids and ironic oils.
No artificial colors or flavorings. Except for a small patch of skin that has taken on a slightly minty flavor because I always have a packet of Polo Mints in my right pocket.
WARNING: TOTALLY CONTAINS NUTS, VERY BIG ONES, TWO IN FACT
How to Write a Script
1. Put your main character up a tree.
What the fuck? What kind of prank is this? What is this, a pine tree? Ouch... maybe not, it must be a... uh... maple... nope... a syracuse? What do you mean thats not a real kind of tree? Oh sure like sycamore is a real word.
Okay I think I've pretty much established that this is a big fuck-off tree that I'm sat in and I have no desire to stay in it so I'm going to be climbing out of it right about...
2. Throw rocks at him.
Ow! That one hit my skull! For christ's sake why does this sort of shit always happen to me?! Why God why? First I get trapped up this tree way up in the branches and now I might well have concussion... and those rocks just keep on coming, how can my life get any worse? How?! I ask you God?! How?!
3. Get him out of the tree.
What's this? A big glowing hand has appeared to shield me from the flying rocks and shrapnel... and... and its picking me out of the tree and lowering me gently down towards the ground. perhaps this isn't the best time to mention that I don't actually believe in...
SPLAT!
Sacré Bleu!
Growing up in France wasn't such a bad thing when it came to cinema trips, as the majority of new releases would be shown in English with French subtitles. Only rarely did we have to sit through a movie that had been dubbed into French. On television however it was entirely a different matter.
Some things are just untranslatable. The idea of "losing something in the translation" comes to the forefront when you're watching movies that didn't even make sense in English to begin with, character names or concepts with made-up words just become a verbal mess on the screen.
What occured to me last night as I talked to Nancy, who is similarly amused by a channel that shows Spanish dubbed movies for the local Cuban population, was that the same voice actors always dubbed the same actors. If you watched a Bruce Willis movie then the same guy who dubbed him in Die Hard or The Last Boyscout was dubbing him here, ditto for Arnold, Sly, etc.
The voice actors actually sounded like the actors they were mimicing though, Bruce sounded like Bruce speaking in French (some people were not so perfectly matched though) and I have to wonder if the situation wasn't repeated across the world... somewhere out there in each country of the world there's a guy hoping that Bruce will make another great movie or hoping that Van-Damme (yes they even dub Van Damme into French) will come back from straight-to-video hell.
Similarly new emerging actors will have voice-actor's fighting over them... sort of betting on who will have the better career. "Merde alors! I vant to be Ruzzel Craw! He eez going to be zee most famoose"
As far as I can tell though Gerard Depardieu dubs himself from French movies into English and from English-speaking movies into French. Jean Reno too... maybe its part of their contract.
(today's image of me in Marilyn Monroe drag is also Nancy's fault... which I guess means that I'm taking requests)
Eat a bug!
If I chose to sit here without my smart pants on because I didn't want to spill any of my roast beef salad sandwich on them and then a very cold piece or tomato landed somewhere it really shouldn't have... is that my own fault?
If I asked for extra mustard and then stuck my thumb with the big partially scabbed cut across it into the filler and got mustard in the cut and it stings like fuck... is that my own fault?
If I chose Diet Coke with Lemon just because I wanted to taste something new even thought I know that Diet Coke always gives me a coughing fit somehow when the sugar-free bubbles tickle my throat... is that my own fault?
Should it worry me that this impending interviewer said they wanted to hire me "for your brains, not your dress sense" when I can't pick the right fucking lunch to eat?
Maybe I should start a Greg Knauss poll and agree to eat a bug. The pet store I buy my turtle food always has interesting chirping bugs. The problem is I remember how Greg got screwed over that one.
Kiss me goodbye and write me while I'm gone...
When I was a child (or so the stories are told by my birth parents) among my first words were "pompers" (pronounced pomp-ays) and "Gamber Bascoigne"
Pompers was my attempt at saying "pompier" which is French for fireman, but even more precocious is that instead of coming up with some sort of childish approximation of Bamber Gascoigne, I turned it into a spoonerism.
Bamber Gascoigne was the presenter of University Challenge from 1962 to 1987 and has authored several best-sellers. He advocates that the development of the Internet is the third most important stage of human evolution after the development of language and the development of writing.
Thats how precocious a child I was. I didn't get any better from spending my teenage years in Paris. And as of today I have had my hair shorn down to a more manageable length again. I swear I could hear Johnny Wright's "Hello Vietnam" playing in the background... what hair length has to do with being arrogant I don't know... but it helps to not have girly-locks when you're going for an interview with a proper honest-to-god real-life advertising agency.
One scoop or two?
Imagine if you will that I used to work for the world's largest Internet ice cream vendor. I did a good job there and my boss never had reason to complain.
Imagine then that the Internet ice cream company decided it simply wanted to develop new flavors rather than actually sell ice cream and it turned to another, smaller, ice cream company and suggested that they hire the staff they were laying off. And I was one of them. But I didn't like this other company and declined.
Imagine that this smaller ice cream company had eyes larger than it's stomach and was unable to meet the demand for Internet ice cream sales and another smaller Internet ice cream company grew influential from the left-overs and missed contracts.
Imagine that this second, smaller company tried to hire me and explained I would be working hard hours for little pay because I was obviously passionate about Internet ice cream and that the other guy already there selling ice cream was so overjoyed to have extra help on board that it bordered on pathetic.
Imagine then that the owner of this small-time Internet ice cream company and I disagreed on matters regarding the contract they had stalled showing me and that I was escorted from the building for having too many questions about said contract which it had been hoped I would sign quietly without a fuss because I was already there.
Imagine now that my former boss recommends me for a job with the Dairy that provides the milk all these companies make their Internet ice cream from and they're already talking to me as if the job is mine. This, my friends, is one hell of a shit-eating grin on my face and we're not talking ice cream anymore.
Gene Splicing Made Easy
What good, you may have asked yourself in the past, is the Human Genome Project to me? Well consider how much your daily chores would be facilitated with an extra set of arms, how much faster you would run with a third or fourth leg, and just how much fun it would be to have purple eyes.
Look no further than the very organic material that you are made up of for all those possibilites and more. You're only microsurgery and protein-modification away from being able to swim like a fish, run like a cheetah or swing from cross-beams like a monkey.
First off you'll need a scalpel, a bottle of iodine, a protein catalyst solution and a non-corrosive oxidising biophage agent, cotton swabs and a lot of patience.
The secret of DNA is that it is the blueprint to a person, each cell contains this blueprint and Stem cell research has shown that this blueprint can be modified. Unfortunately you have to take your greatest risk at the beginning of the endeavor by slicing off an appendage, soaking it in the biophage agent to regress the cells to a proto-formed state before you can even think about growing those extra bits and pieces.
Slice quickly and efficiently through the flesh with your scalpel, applying iodine and the business end of a blowtorch to assist in cauterisation, then submerge the severed limb or appendage in a bath of the biophage solution.
When your limb of choice has disolved into its most basic proto-plasmic state you are left with a bath full of the building-blocks of a person. The sheer volume of flesh originally sacrificed will be the clay from which you will build your new abilities and appendages.
Insert the USB data cable supplied in your starter pack in the bath and with the unique software begin messing around with the genetic code in an easy-to-use text editor. Small electrical pulses will update the DNA code in the bath and you will see your chosen modifications begin to take form. Don't be too ambitious at first, many an amateur has been killed by their own creation.
When I first started out I had little more than a butter knife and a cheap third-world nuclear reactor fuel catalyst instead of any of this expensive modern-day biophage solution I can get my paws on. Once you've made your first succesful mutilation/reconstruction you'll really want a challenge you can sink your mandibules into, and I'd suggest brain augmentation or limb grafting. Nothing helps genius more than extra genius and an extra set of hands. Hunchbacked assistants are over-rated.
With this starter course and the wealth of information available in the public domain about the Human Genome Project it'll be no time at all before you're impressing your friends with gymnastic feats and tentacled card tricks. Who knows, they may even agree to be your next victim... hahaha... of course I mean "volunteer".
Puss in boots
On our way back down from lunch in Highgate village we passed the Whittington Hospital and the small stone statue of a cat outside with the dates of Dick Whittington's career, some creative license has been employed in the following paragraphs.
Dick Whittington set out to see London, having heard that the streets were paved with gold, and upon his arrival he began training to be a mercer. This was back in 1370, when London was nothing but the dusty road of Oxford Street with a few saloons and a whorehouse or two. The undertaker's did a roaring trade in coffins and the chinese laundry would overstarch your britches.
With his trusty pet cat by his side, Dick defended the streets of London and would hold shoot-outs in Oxford Street, traditionally waiting for Big Ben to chime midday before gunning down the bad elements of England. Many a time was he left endebted to his cat, Puss, who would call out "Look out Dick! He's got a gun!"
In 1393 Dick was elected sherrif of London and when he heard about the misfortunes of the sherrif of Nottingham he sent a posse out to Sherwood forest where they used Agent Orange defoliant (invented in 1331 by Thomas Eddison) to flush Robin Hood and his band of outlaws into the open where they were brought to justice in a blaze of glory.
Upon hearing of his upstanding morality and unswerving devotion to truth, justice and the English way, King Arthur knighted Dick and appointed him Lord Protector of London, petting Pussy on his way back to Avalon. Dick dropped the title and simply called himself Mayor of London, immediately declaring martial law and initiating the prohibition against the various mob families that were running rampant through London at the time.
Having caught out the most notorious crime lord over his tax returns Dick founded the London Metropolitan Police Force but decreed that they couldn't carry guns in the hope of dissuading criminals from doing so. Pussy founded the first Rat Squad.
Today Dick and his cat survive as soldiers of fortune, if you have a problem, if no-one else can help and if you can find them, maybe you can hire, Dick and Pussy.
Not without my anus
The conversations you can find yourself in when you're not paying attention astound me.
Yesterday, recovering still from the sheer unadulterated joy of walking out of a shit company I went to the local sandwich shop run by... God only knows where they come from, Eastern Europe somewhere. Anyway, I had explained why I walked out of my latest job after she'd asked me why I looked so angry.
"Ah, see, you can't do eet. Either you... huh? or you... huh. You see what I mean?"
Um, no, not quite.
"You do ze job and you all like huh. You know what going on and the boss he making you do things no good. Or you working like huh? and you making him money without being smart."
Oh right, either see no evil or ignorance is bliss sort of thing?
"Uh... you want butter on that?"
And then again today as I talked to my favorite employment agency over the phone having just killed the biggest bee since the last one (hey we have big fucking bees in this part of the country, whats going on there?)
"You shouldn't have killed it, they only sting as a last resort because they die afterwards. Wasps will sting indescriminately. Bees lose their bums if they sting you"
Huh? What? They what? Lose their bums?!
"Yeah, the stinger parts at the tip of the abdomen. My dad sat on one while he was driving yesterday..."
What, a bum?
"A bee. Anyway, it stung him once then died."
Uh-huh... and did you know that angels are asexual? They have no sexual organs or anus.
"..."
The conversation sort of went downhill from there, but they like me and know they can find me something else which means money for them so they don't care if I discuss biblical sexuality with them or not. Plus I buy them chocolates.
Try this out, although not as visually impressive as the recent South Park Flash site, its the first Flash game to be accessible to the visually impaired, which has to be a step forward in anyone's opinion.
I will not mock the funniest show on TV
Is it possible to have seen every episode of the Simpsons?
Here in the UK BBC2 will show an episode every now and again, while Sky One will show three back to back in the evening and another again just before midnight. Four episodes a day... and yet... for the life of me I can't find myself getting bored of them.
Pix will occasionally throw a strop over Sky One showing the Simpsons followed by an episode of Star Trek, another two Simpsons... maybe an episode of Star Trek... Futurama, more Star Trek... its got beyond a joke and yet... I still can't find myself bored of the Simpsons.
When I was younger and I saw my first Simpsons episodes I considered Bart to be the focus of the show. He was certainly the merchandising hook for the kids... but the potential of the show was in making the adults laugh and now, older and wiser, its quite plain to me that Homer is the real star of the show. Every so often there will be a Marge or Lisa episode, but its the everyman loser in Homer that has to be the appeal.
Oh, and I walked out of my new job after two days. No great loss, just more hassle to find a new one. Bummer.
Kick the ball
Football sucks. And I'm talking about soccer here, not the Yank version which doesn't use a ball or people's feet very much for anything other than running... strange people.
The only time that you'll see the sport at it's best is during the World Cup, like now. First round group matches are coming to an end and London's multi-culturality is showing. We live in a pretty Irish-dominated area in the North and I can assure you that the local pubs were filled last night with drunken Irishg celebrating their win over Saudi Arabia.
This morningPix and I had to go and collect two packages from the local post office (her laptop power cable that she left up in Scotland and an anime import DVD for me) and the streets were deserted. Why? Because England are playing Nigeria.
Its on right now... yes, right now! If you're English, you're missing it! Go watch...
COME ON NIGERIA!!!! (a futile gesture, but defiance takes many forms)
I remember four years ago I was in Paris during the World Cup (it was held there for those of you who don't remember) and during the final match, every goal or near miss would cause a roar... a national roar... the country itself yelled and shouted its support of the French team against the Brazilians...
Yesterday the French lost, with one of the poorest World Cup performances ever, highlighted even more by the fact that they were the previous World and European champions.
The US team isn't doing too badly, but nothing outstanding so far... I guess its not as popular a sport there because you don't always win it... in stark contrast to the various other sports that you always win because you're the only ones to play them... I mean, honestly, if its the World Series... why isn't the World involved?
Football still sucks.
UPDATE: Dear God, I've never heard little old ladies swear like that before. They do seem to like David Beckham quite a bit though.
Isn't that illegal?
First day back at a real job and my tally is pretty good so far.
Of the various tasks I accomplished today, diving straight in because they are woefully understaffed, I believe at least two of them were illegal, two, maybe three of them unethical, and one of them very unpleasant. Not bad for a first day. Lets see if I last the week. Jessica... why is my life mirroring yours all of a sudden?
State of the blog
My Sunday just got hella good; we got a George Foreman Lean, Mean, Fat Reducing Machine! I plan on spending this evening grilling anything that is incapable of escaping my grasp. Good thing we don't get the turtles back until tomorrow, eh? You can read the post below and know that it isn't as boring a Sunday as I first said.
Somebody, somewhere has made a big mistake... involving hosting and bandwidth, and I think it was me.
Bulletproofpunk.com expires today or tomorrow by the way, you can go and snap up the .co.uk too if you want to. I left that hosting situation because the servers were woefully unreliable and I didn't know if my problems with Greymatter refusing to rebuild was their fault or mine... so I went for an expensive hosting deal I thought would last me a year or so. Six months on and I'm realising that I'm running out of bandwidth.
No, I'm not about to ask you all to pay. And no, having worked in Internet Marketting I have no intention of putting up banners... maybe pop-ups... nah, too annoying. No donations, no themed competition or anything, I did just get a new job with a prestigious company (austentatious even) and I wouldn't let this place just die like that... I enjoy writing it too much... and tinkering with the graphics.
The graphics... yes, I suspect that was the problem, the little flash headers and the 100+ links icons... the bandwidth has been running out a lot slower with this simpler new design. This is still not a real redesign, this is all I could come up with to fill the gap in design left after I was turned down by another prestigious Internet company (who refuse to tell me about why they didn't hire me and I think my agent buggered me sideways in that situation somehow cause I haven't heard from him since)
So that's the state of the blog. Its Sunday so I have no qualms about posting a slow boring post, if you're reading this today then you're probably bored too. Just... don't refresh too often, this is costing me money.
Pennies from heaven
Over here in the pubs we like to have lots of charity collection boxes across the top of the bar to encourage people who, perhaps a bit merry from alcohol, to drop the change from their round into them and thus help a good cause.
Each charity seems to have its own ideas about what makes an eye-catching but recognisable statement about itself, for instance, the Guidedogs for the Blind Association has large plastic golden retrievers with little penny slots in their skulls to collect your change. The Royal National Lifeboat Institute has large orange boats with a slot in the center for donations.
Unfortunately, the charity that Pix works for has got it all wrong, they have a bright orange squirrel to represent the Royal National Institute for the Blind, and to my mind this just doesn't work. Squirrels aren't blind.
So, three suggestions for alternative collection devices;
1) A brown mole, arms arced upwards as if digging its way towards the light. Perhaps atop a mound of earth, with a white stick clutched in one paw.
2) A large bat, wings outstretched, menacing fangs threatening to pierce the skin of anyone refusing to make a donation, and it could double as a poignant reminder of why not to restart Joel Schumacher's career.
3) A giant pink worm, rearing upwards, erect and... uh... with the slot for pennies at the tip... uh... no... this isn't a very good suggestion... people don't want large pink phallic erections on their bartops, even if the customers would react to them...
I think I'd better think it out again.
Think this entry sucked? Lots of spelling mistakes? This was typed in a hurry while waiting for a taxi and you can call 1-800-BITEME
That 'Ol Dry Wit
According to someone Hell is other people, and this is a motto I've happily stood by for some years.
Up here in the islands is quite the reverse to city living. Everything is very personal and intimate, despite the great distances between houses and towns, whereas in cities you can spend your entire time never talking to your neighbor, never being served by the same person in the nearest fast food restaurant, seeing friends very infrequently.
I feel today, after where I had lunch that I could expand upon this guiding motto on mine: Hell is other people, providing that Hell is a rather small Tea room in a remote Scottish town and all the other people are rather old, wrinkly, have white or grey hair and very long stories to tell about their relatives.
At first I felt like Munch's The Scream, only with my hands clawing away my eyeballs as my jaw split open in that agonising scream, realising that I was trapped, cornered and probably not going to escape without someone pinching my cheek and saying what a fine young man I was. Even my side salad wanted to tell me about its kids: "Well, our Eric is doing just fine, he went down to London and is now garnishing a very fine piece of Salmon in a buffet. He sent word back that Hilda's... thats Hilda over there under all that thick french dressing, anyway, that Hilda's eldest was accidentally grated over a rather plump cherry tomato. Speaking of cherry tomatos you'll be fascinated to hear..."
Auuuuuuugh! As Charlie Brown was occasionally known to say.
They were taking pictures of each other, sitting at their tables, cooing at their pots of tea and home-baked biscuits and cakes. (Don't get me wrong, the food was excellent, the cakes and suchlike even more so, service friendly and cheerful, I give the place two thumbs up, a blue rinse and a crocheted bobble hat) The occasional flash punctuated by a rather thorough and investigative analysis of the weather or maybe one of them telling a story about their Alvin's adventures at College.
I do realise I will eventually get to be that old (if Pix lets me) and that I too will decline into doddering old man mode... I may even kickstart it myself by having everyone repeat everything twice to fool them all to thinking I've gone deaf... and I understand old men are allowed to leer, which I greatly look forward to doing without the standard punctuating slap.
When however I lose my wit, that razor-sharpened tool I survive the day-to-day difficulties with (I refer to my dry wit as "saltire") bring me a gun and full magazine, point me towards them unappreciative youngsters and I'll save one bullet for myself. Just, please God don't let me turn into Paul Newman and leave me sitting in a small room with scones and cups of tea, surrounded by women named Ethel, Agnes and Philomena.
What the f'Auk?
For the past three days I have been reading Stephen Ambrose's D-Day, having finished Band of Brothers a week or so ago. Next I've chosen to read Robert Harris' Fatherland.
The timing of reading D-Day so close to the 58th anniversary only struck me yesterday and suddenly I started recording the times into my head for reference today (adjusting for the time difference and wartime daylight saving differences... damn that sounded geeky)
As I was eating breakfast the first assault waves would have been hitting the shores... which led me to thinking that these days men do not have anything comparable to the hardships endured then... or so I thought. How many times have we heard "Does my bum look big in this?" or "Whats my best feature?", "How much do you love me?" or "Whats that supposed to mean?"
This is why men go to war in the first place I'm guessing.
During WW2 there was what was known as a million-dollar wound; a wound that left you unfit for combat but unmaimed in the long run. Some soldiers were known to shoot themself in the foot or hand to avoid combat and be sent home... if only men of today had something similar, some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card available to them: the easy-chair with ejector seat installed, the beercan that self-destructs when you twist the base, the widescreen TV that opens up and sucks you out to safety outside.
Change of subject.
Today we went on a boat out to Iona and Staffa to see seals, puffins, auks and the lesser-spotted Anna Pickard. The boat took ages getting to and from the various islands and I was about ready to grab a seal by the tail, use it as a club to knock a few puffins out and fry them up on the decking. I think the captain would have disapproved though.
The captain was a merry sea-faring chap who announced over the intercom that if there was anything we wanted to ask about wildlife, sealife, birdlife, social life, night life, religion, politics, sex, drugs, rock'n roll and if they didn't know the answers they'd happily make them up. There were discounts for people who could pronounce the local celtic island names correctly.
I didn't take him up on the challenge.
p.s. I did get to hear that funny distressed "hmmr" noise the puffins make, thanks Anna.
We're never gonna survive... unless...
Today's trip along the western coast of Scotland included a detour to the Isle of Seil, across the Atlantic Bridge.
To begin with I was very anxious to see some seals, and told Pix as much. "Its not spelled that way." Oh. "Its s, e, i, l" Oh. I didn't realise, does this mean there won't be any seals? "Well seil is gaellic for seal" which went a long way to increasing my confusion. We went and there were no seals. There weren't any seils either. And there were certainly no SEALs to be seen (although as elite American forces I wouldn't have expected to spot one at all anyway)
The Atlantic Bridge... the only bridge to straddle the Atlantic does a pretty pathetic job of it. I had vaguely hoped that some sort of magical portal would whisk us to the US eastern seaborne, but no such luck. The bridge basically connects the island of Seil to the mainland and the Atlantic flows all around. Course, its only an island if you look at it from the water... the water which can be as deep as... about a foot by my reckonning. So today I crossed the Atlantic at its narrowest and shallowest point and didn't even get to another continent or country. Bugger.
One inhabitant of the island had the right idea though, a Jack Russel/Corgi cross-breed (attacks children and cows alike) with a good many years under his pelt, one floppy ear and his eyes half-closed waddled out into the sunshine and dropped down onto the grass to sun himself. I'm beginning to understand the term "lucky dog" better now as well as how to spell "seal". Next stop: Mull, Iona and Staffa.
Footnote: If you're ever in Oban (and why the hell would you be unless you're Anna Pickard) do not go down to the waterfront and eat in the Tex Mex restaurant they have there, its bloody awful.
Squeak, squeak
Day two of our retreat to the western coast of Scotland. No sign of Puffins yet.
We followed a road around Loch Crinan and ended up at a lock leading to a canal that ran parallel to the shore. (Thats a loch lock, lucky, eh?) The lock sat in a sheltered cove (ie: no mobile phone signal available) and several white-washed single-storey houses adorned the shoreline, across the water an ancient stone keep sat atop cragged rocky shores, reflected in the cerulean blue waters.
I sat and watched on a bench as a fishing trawler pulled into the lock from the loch and the seamen began attaching bags stuffed full of muscles, cockles and scallops to the lines thrown down from the lock walls by the waiting men and their white van (the logo on the side proclaimed "Fish!" and from the smell that permeated the air, I'd never have known).
Another, larger, trawler pulled into the lock and I couldn't work out if they were competing to unload faster or working together to load two seperate vans. The larger trawler had a metal pulley and winch system allowing them to lift two bags in half the time... albeit with a lot of rusty squeaking.
The men working to manually pull the bags up the wall began teasing: "Aye, we could be pulling them up that fast if we made yon squeaky noises too... Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak (to the sounds of which they each hauled two bags up doubletime) See?"
Different pace of life here altogether... me, I just sat an watched it all and hankered for a laptop and mobile phone signal.
Dog save the Queen
The evening's Jubilee celebration has just finished, celebrating fifty years of QE2. A concert of epic proportions with British and International performers galore followed by a spectacular fireworks display. The camera rested on the Queen's face a moment and I managed to lipread "Yes, very nice"
There's just no pleasing some people.
Bonus: A conversation held earlier today between Pix and myself.
Her: I'm not asking you to perform a Herculean task here, D.
Me: I'm quite sure one of the tasks was to bite off sarcastic comments in the face of his girlfriend's mother.