Category: Terminally boring

This is the way your world ends…with a bang

Just finished reading Crime and Punishment for the second time. The first time was twenty years ago when it was all Russian to me. Being older I had a better understanding of the novel this time.

One of the passages that caught my eye on this reading was when Raskolnikov, after five days of delirium, reads the previous five days newspapers. He is searching for details of the double murder. Before he sees the reports of his crime, there is a flavour of the news in Petersburg of that era. There is an accident on a staircase, four incidents of fires (was there an arsonist on the loose?) and spontaneous combustion of an alcoholic shopkeeper. This brought a smile to my face as I thought of a funny episode in a film.

In a scene from the rock music spoof, This is Spinal Tap, one of the band’s drummers dies from spontaneous human combustion. Most of the drummers, party animals, seem to have a small shelf life and die from various causes. But if you gotta go. SHC is as good as any. Continue reading “This is the way your world ends…with a bang”

Stationery to Stationery

According to a recent poll, stationery is the 41st thing that Britons love the most. In my book, I’d place it considerably higher. There really is not many better feelings than the smell of punched paper (or is that paper punched?) first thing in the morning.

What’s not to like about stationery? Pencils with tiny rubbers, shatterproof rulers and a compass to arc and map the page; just like being on a boat only without the waves or the sea legs.

Another reason for the love affair with merchandise office supplies is that much the same as office affairs, eventually it will reach the terminus. Stationery is mortal and for that we have the utmost sympathy and empathy.

• The little sharpener loses its edge and can only cut random slices out of the pencil.

• The rubber will erase itself and turn into disappearing ink.

• Old files are given the medieval treatment at the teeth of the shredder

• The Tipp-Ex bottle runs out of fluid and more urban correction methods are used.

• Modernists write their missives on machines leaving foolscap and his papermates to fade away.

The prime of life

Next month I’m due yet another birthday.

I’ve grown fond of 72, six dozen, two cubed times three cubed and the year when I was in the wild no man’s land of being 29.

But 73? Numerically boring, even repulsive. But, you say, I’ve clearly got too much time on my hands, if I even think about such trivia.

But anyway I’m planning to milk the max from my last 21 days (3 x 7) of 72. And happily it’s thawing too, so I can commune with nature again; with creatures who understand.

Absolutely

Drought is a root cause of the Syrian war. It is an absolute truth uttered by our future King. As Thucydides, one of the early Greek chroniclers knew, causes have to be categorised. Some are climatic, others cultural, others political. So it would be helpful if responsible commentators could discuss the matter with HRH. But that’s easier said than done, given the 15-page contract broadcasters are required to sign before any interview.

Backside says, there’s no clever dick like a royal clever dick. Absolutely.

(The Indy and the Grauniad both cover this shamelessly republican tale.)

Freedom of movement

It looks as if the EU’s Shengen days are numbered.  Queue of lorries at the Ukraine border with Poland

Thank goodness, I hear you say. Sanity returns.

But be careful what you wish for. I remember well the queues of stinking lorries at border crossings, waiting interminably for the cynical attention of the customs crews, who now and then threw a sickie or struck in the name of solidarity with something or other. Train drivers, air-traffic controllers, farmers…..

And if you were unlucky enough to be carrying goods requiring their attention, it was ‘back of the line for you, my lad, car or no car’. I have spent whole half-days between Belgium and France, Holland and Germany. Friday afternoons in summer were always particularly unpleasant among short-tempered drivers eager to get home and short-tempered customs officers reluctant to let them.

Ho hum.

Footie ditties

Jurgen, Jurgen, don’t you stop   (to the tune of ‘Horsey, horsey’)

While your fans up on the Kop

Like your grinning when you’re winning

Jurgen Jurgen Jurgen Klopp

and

All the referees are mad    (to the tune of ‘Eviva espagna’ even though he’s Portuguese)

Says Jose Mourinho

Arsene Wenger’s just as bad

Says Jose Mourinho

They just love him in The Shed

Their Jose Mourinho

Even if he fires the Med

Their Jose Mourinho

I’m so special, I’m the one

Says Jose Mourinho

No one tells him when he’s done

That Jose Mourinho