Thursday, May 27, 2004
God knows what's going on. German for beginners [see left] was about to go kaput, then got shunted to blogspot, where it was going to remain until the proper site was sorted. Except now Blogger is denying the blogspot one exists.
All of which carefully distracts from my very eerie episode earlier, when I saw the "last post", um, post. At the top of it is a section of written music. Despite the fact I haven't attempted to read music for, ooh, 8 years, somehow my brain scanned it, and I could hear it playing in my head. At which point I though "oh, that sounds like thingy, um, the one they play at church parade[1], what's it called? Oh yes, the last post. Oh, I get it now". You'd think the frequent reference to the words "last post" might have given me a clue as to what it was, but no, nothing so logical.
[1] Remembrance Sunday, also known as Church Parade: the cold one. Last time I did it was also about 8 years ago (actually make that 6 years).
Speaking of eerie: due to a bizarre sleeping position, I somehow managed to wake up the other day with pins and needles. On my head [neck, scalp, top half of my eyes, and ears]. I never even knew you could get it there. Freaked me out ever so slightly.
And did you know: it takes longer to walk than drive. This stunning insight was brought to you by Anyhoo Associated News Agency. I was going swimming, and decided it was a waste of petrol to drive there. So I walked. Unfortunately the pool is on top of a big hill. A hot half an hour later [not wearing anti-perspirant because I was going swimming, and therefore only going to wash it off: not such a good idea], and I'm getting lost cutting across a private school's grounds [2], having not been round there for ages [3].
[2] Well, this is Surrey, it's all huge houses, which become huge private schools, huge recording studios, huge plant nurseries and the occasional token farms. Though this private school does breed a special form of petty juvenile arrogance. The type of people who try to look down on me, despite being two foot shorter than I am.
[3] The last times were either on scout night-hikes, school carol concerts, or abseiling down the side of it, whilst trying not to put my foot through the chemistry lab window [as yer do].
Eventually get to the pool, go in, change, shower [it's a rule that is usually obeyed with the most scant ritualistic attempts], get in, and it's cold. Try swimming, and discover that walking a couple of miles uphill took more effort than I thought it did [ok, so I'm unfit]. And there's some stupid bloke who's persistently hovering to one side level with my knees, and not giving me enough room (my arms were already passing way under the floating barrier to my left). He does this for a few lengths, the starts doing front crawl. Which means he's going faster, not looking where he's going. It get very annoying to have to, in effect, ship one's oars every time he passes, and continually having to check what he's doing. Eventually I get pissed off, and whilst I'm waiting the side, he's coming straight towards me. I dip down, and push of the side ramming my arms straight out over my head. I shoot directly underneath the guy, which both makes him think "bloody hell" or equivalent, and has the added advantage of slamming my turbulence into him, so suddenly doesn't have any power. Bit cruel? Well, he shouldn't have annoyed me [there was space beyond him, but he never kept in a straight line].
Strangely he left fairly soon after that. Only to be replaced by a woman doing dry hair breaststroke. Who was equally as bad at holding station. Didn't help she kept alternating between breaststroke and backstroke, so going one way I'd be going faster, and then the next she was [yes, I was doing breaststroke, yes, I was pretty tired by this stage]. Eventually the inevitable happened, as she was doing backstroke coming up behind me (doing breaststroke and thus looking the other way). Despite being able to sense from the turbulence she was near, and so nearly grinding myself into the barrier, I still manage to make contact with my foot. And unfortunately I was trying to get away from her, and so pushing hard. I hit what I think was her shoulder from above, and stop pretty much dead in the water, spluttering an instinctive apology. She of course got pushed in and down by my kick. I think she surfaced into the barrier. Oddly, despite her efforts to keep her hair dry, it didn't look too dry after that.
I'm still trying to figure how, if my kick can sink people, it provides so little forward movement.
Eventually, one of the lanes clears, so I skip under the barrier, and practice my backstroke. And by practice I mean trying to see how fast I can go, rather than copying most people in that pool's version, which owes more to tai-chi than swimming. Apparently annoying me slightly works quite well at making me go faster, despite having a foot that hurts. Coincidentally I also managed to make a wake big enough to pass over the barrier and hit the woman head on. By this stage I was ignoring her muttered comments and malevolent stares. Oh well.
Hmm, all this makes me sound rather evil, doesn't it? Well I'm not really, except if you happen to be really stupid, inconsiderate, and annoy me [possibly quite a large percentage of the population fit into that definition at some point]. Though she never apologised, and my foot still hurts.
Speaking of the above description, Israel clearly must think that there are Jihadi kangaroos [the pouch is obviously designed hold explosives. Saves on belts you see].
So far as I've been writing this the radio has played: Ooberman - Shorley wall, Embrace - My Weakness Is None Of Your Business, and something new from Ozomatli. Must be summer. All we need is Ash with Girl from Mars, and the shorts beneath a mac combos can begin. Shame 6 music has such crap presenters though.
![A banded demoiselle, or damselfly. Cribbed from the SBSG site, click the pic to find out more. Spot who's blatantly flouting copyright, but hoping there are nice people out there, and so he doesn't get told off for doing so. Besides I have remarkably little money. Anyway, it was the best picture I found [flattery will get you...to the end of the sentence]. And I can't make the current link to the site more prominent, as my HTML isn't good enough to get the border working](http://www.sbsg.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bandeddemoiselle1cat23july2003ad500w.jpg)
Actually everywhere does seem fairly firmly ensconced in June, despite it still being May. Walking back along the river yesterday there were masses of gorgeous dark damselflies. The near-black with green and blue iridescence ones used to be incredibly rare round here, but recently they've become much more common than any of the other species of dragon or damselflies.
Though strangely the entire place used to be a mass of different colour blocks of Honesty, but now there's only a few straggly bit left in between the nettles. And it can't be because it's over as there aren't any of the very distinct and rapidly developed seed heads (and because it's only just coming out, whereas the Honesty in the garden has finished). Maybe it's an effect of the attack of the four-leafed clovers [something on radio 4, to the effect that there's been a boom in that morph, but it annoyed me, so I turned over, and so haven't any idea where the research came from].
Whilst searching for a pic of the flower, I discovered that one can now get bottled Honesty. Perhaps [insert least favourite politician here] could do with some.
Except it rather pointless to provide the link, as it appears me clicking round their site used up the remainder of that company's monthly bandwidth. Which for an internet-based business...
Anyhoo, there's stuff I really ought to have done.
PS. Words MS Word doesn’t know: anti-perspirant, abseil, Ozomatli. Ok, so expecting it to know the Aztec god of dance might be a little ambitious.
All of which carefully distracts from my very eerie episode earlier, when I saw the "last post", um, post. At the top of it is a section of written music. Despite the fact I haven't attempted to read music for, ooh, 8 years, somehow my brain scanned it, and I could hear it playing in my head. At which point I though "oh, that sounds like thingy, um, the one they play at church parade[1], what's it called? Oh yes, the last post. Oh, I get it now". You'd think the frequent reference to the words "last post" might have given me a clue as to what it was, but no, nothing so logical.
[1] Remembrance Sunday, also known as Church Parade: the cold one. Last time I did it was also about 8 years ago (actually make that 6 years).
Speaking of eerie: due to a bizarre sleeping position, I somehow managed to wake up the other day with pins and needles. On my head [neck, scalp, top half of my eyes, and ears]. I never even knew you could get it there. Freaked me out ever so slightly.
And did you know: it takes longer to walk than drive. This stunning insight was brought to you by Anyhoo Associated News Agency. I was going swimming, and decided it was a waste of petrol to drive there. So I walked. Unfortunately the pool is on top of a big hill. A hot half an hour later [not wearing anti-perspirant because I was going swimming, and therefore only going to wash it off: not such a good idea], and I'm getting lost cutting across a private school's grounds [2], having not been round there for ages [3].
[2] Well, this is Surrey, it's all huge houses, which become huge private schools, huge recording studios, huge plant nurseries and the occasional token farms. Though this private school does breed a special form of petty juvenile arrogance. The type of people who try to look down on me, despite being two foot shorter than I am.
[3] The last times were either on scout night-hikes, school carol concerts, or abseiling down the side of it, whilst trying not to put my foot through the chemistry lab window [as yer do].
Eventually get to the pool, go in, change, shower [it's a rule that is usually obeyed with the most scant ritualistic attempts], get in, and it's cold. Try swimming, and discover that walking a couple of miles uphill took more effort than I thought it did [ok, so I'm unfit]. And there's some stupid bloke who's persistently hovering to one side level with my knees, and not giving me enough room (my arms were already passing way under the floating barrier to my left). He does this for a few lengths, the starts doing front crawl. Which means he's going faster, not looking where he's going. It get very annoying to have to, in effect, ship one's oars every time he passes, and continually having to check what he's doing. Eventually I get pissed off, and whilst I'm waiting the side, he's coming straight towards me. I dip down, and push of the side ramming my arms straight out over my head. I shoot directly underneath the guy, which both makes him think "bloody hell" or equivalent, and has the added advantage of slamming my turbulence into him, so suddenly doesn't have any power. Bit cruel? Well, he shouldn't have annoyed me [there was space beyond him, but he never kept in a straight line].
Strangely he left fairly soon after that. Only to be replaced by a woman doing dry hair breaststroke. Who was equally as bad at holding station. Didn't help she kept alternating between breaststroke and backstroke, so going one way I'd be going faster, and then the next she was [yes, I was doing breaststroke, yes, I was pretty tired by this stage]. Eventually the inevitable happened, as she was doing backstroke coming up behind me (doing breaststroke and thus looking the other way). Despite being able to sense from the turbulence she was near, and so nearly grinding myself into the barrier, I still manage to make contact with my foot. And unfortunately I was trying to get away from her, and so pushing hard. I hit what I think was her shoulder from above, and stop pretty much dead in the water, spluttering an instinctive apology. She of course got pushed in and down by my kick. I think she surfaced into the barrier. Oddly, despite her efforts to keep her hair dry, it didn't look too dry after that.
I'm still trying to figure how, if my kick can sink people, it provides so little forward movement.
Eventually, one of the lanes clears, so I skip under the barrier, and practice my backstroke. And by practice I mean trying to see how fast I can go, rather than copying most people in that pool's version, which owes more to tai-chi than swimming. Apparently annoying me slightly works quite well at making me go faster, despite having a foot that hurts. Coincidentally I also managed to make a wake big enough to pass over the barrier and hit the woman head on. By this stage I was ignoring her muttered comments and malevolent stares. Oh well.
Hmm, all this makes me sound rather evil, doesn't it? Well I'm not really, except if you happen to be really stupid, inconsiderate, and annoy me [possibly quite a large percentage of the population fit into that definition at some point]. Though she never apologised, and my foot still hurts.
Speaking of the above description, Israel clearly must think that there are Jihadi kangaroos [the pouch is obviously designed hold explosives. Saves on belts you see].
So far as I've been writing this the radio has played: Ooberman - Shorley wall, Embrace - My Weakness Is None Of Your Business, and something new from Ozomatli. Must be summer. All we need is Ash with Girl from Mars, and the shorts beneath a mac combos can begin. Shame 6 music has such crap presenters though.
Actually everywhere does seem fairly firmly ensconced in June, despite it still being May. Walking back along the river yesterday there were masses of gorgeous dark damselflies. The near-black with green and blue iridescence ones used to be incredibly rare round here, but recently they've become much more common than any of the other species of dragon or damselflies.
Though strangely the entire place used to be a mass of different colour blocks of Honesty, but now there's only a few straggly bit left in between the nettles. And it can't be because it's over as there aren't any of the very distinct and rapidly developed seed heads (and because it's only just coming out, whereas the Honesty in the garden has finished). Maybe it's an effect of the attack of the four-leafed clovers [something on radio 4, to the effect that there's been a boom in that morph, but it annoyed me, so I turned over, and so haven't any idea where the research came from].
Whilst searching for a pic of the flower, I discovered that one can now get bottled Honesty. Perhaps [insert least favourite politician here] could do with some.
Except it rather pointless to provide the link, as it appears me clicking round their site used up the remainder of that company's monthly bandwidth. Which for an internet-based business...
Anyhoo, there's stuff I really ought to have done.
PS. Words MS Word doesn’t know: anti-perspirant, abseil, Ozomatli. Ok, so expecting it to know the Aztec god of dance might be a little ambitious.
