Tuesday, January 25, 2005
My faith in humanity is restored.
Which given the day I've had is probably just in time.
Work has taken me off to the exoticness of a different room. Which has the radio on all the time. On the same local station. I am now currently wishing a friend's fantasy, of Pink and Natasha Bedingfield eating each other, would come far too literally true (I'm not sure why he felt it necesary to share this fantasy with me). At least they have forgotten so far that they are Radio Twain. But to make up for it we have had the entire Simply Red back catalogue and that sodding Cher thing from years ago, with the infuriating pixelated voice (you know, the one that sounds like she's being strangled, [if only...]) repeatedly endlessly. For the attention of any crap local commercial radio DJs out there: It cannot be a "blast from the past" if it is the fourth playing of the day, and second in your show, and you played it a lot yesterday as well.
And when I say crap... the lead news item for much of yesterday was the opening of a new Subway. No, not a useful one under the A3 or anything like that, but the opening of a sandwich shop. The Mayor of Wherever turned up and everything. Except he'd gone by the time the local celebrity, AKA, dappy girl from local radio got there. Who then proceeded to discuss, live on air, what the shop sells, what she'd had for lunch, what the mayor was rumoured to have had for lunch, what random vox-popper has going to buy, all while trying to fit in many dismal innuendos, most of which failed to be even single entendres.
[In a voice laden with nods, elbows and winks] "So what are you going to do with that baguette?"
"Take it back to the office."
[Dead air].
But what really annoys me about this radio station is that occasionally it will play something good. Not bad in itself, but when the song is something like REM's Everybody Hurts they can turn it into an instrument of torture. Nearing the end of the song [about the 3:50 mark on my copy] it runs "Everybody hurts [pause] sometimes [tune carries on]". But not on this radio station. Oh no, they have to improve it. The song now runs "Everybody hurts [pause] sumt[Station Ident]Natasha Bloody-Bedingfield sounding like Pink".
According to my calculations, there's still one and half minutes of the song still to play. What happens to the bits of music castrated by philistine DJs? Do they float round the ether, only escaping when those with dials on the their radios turn the dial? Or do they cluster under bridges forever confusing people with their sourceless echo?
I haven't heard editing that bad since Expression. And they had the excuse of being hung-over students with exams to worry about, huddled under a set of windblown steps, whilst battling with SBN News bulletins which wait for no man (or woman, or band, or DJ, or interviewee).
But while I'm doing background noise, I have discovered the backdoor to the Bethlehem Hospital: trying to eavesdrop on a conversation, only to discover that is Portuguese, being spoken by a heavily accented Indian, and an Eastern European woman. I only figured out it was Portuguese when they started talking about Brazil, and doing yokel vowel sounds, as before then it had lurched between sounding French, Spanish, Russian, and something else. So now I am left wondering what is "my lover" in Portuguese?
Reverting back to the rant, and for this I will need a baseball bat, a bottle of urine, and a tin filled with finely ground aluminium and rust, with a magnesium fuse, oh and something to light it with. Why? Rude people in cars. Whilst standing on a traffic island waiting to cross the exit from a roundabout, one car entered the roundabout in the wrong lane, and swung off at the first exit. As he did so he lobbed a bottle of some liquid at me. He missed and the bottle bounced under the traffic going the other way, spraying liquid as it went. I was too busy jumping back to get the number plate. But at the next junction he turned left, which would take him into an area of supermarket car parks, and a few residential roads, which has no other exit (at that time of night). If I had had a baseball bat, I might well have chased those pretty curving brake lights on that shiny black car, if only to find out just how easily windscreens shatter.
Then walking across one of the car parks and at a zebra crossing I have to jump back once again. This time because a small yellow car decided that I was merely standing on the crossing, rather than using it, and therefore it accelerated round front of me. It then roared into a disabled space, which I had to walk past. No badge. Very low open topped car. Shorter than a wheelchair. Not much room for one either. Man clambers out, with only the level of difficulty that all middle-aged men in low-slung mid-life crises cars have. Walks into shop on his phone. So not deaf then. Must be blind.
The car is small, sporty, and has hoops behind the seats. It apparently has no hood, or at least not one in use. This is where the bottle of urine would have come in handy. I'm not sure which car deserves the thermit reaction on, and through, the bonnet more.
CWB's the both of them. Which brings me on to the next topic: the miraculous duo. Ta muchly. This now confirms that I have another copy of song number one (although in a remixed form) on the Matrix soundtrack, which explains why it sounds so familiar, and that I have never seen nor heard of the band responsible for song number two, and can only conclude that it occurred via the mysterious and unpredictable power of the university residential network, which explains why I don't remember seeing them. Now all I need to do is work out who I thought it would be.
And are the miraculous duo deliberately trying to vex me? One address is gekranken (although I suspect kaput is a perfectly acceptable, and real, German word, so why didn't I use that?), and the other has reverted to an older form, along with yet another complete template change. Perhaps he needs a new tagline: Whateva Sista - More facelifts than Rocky's mother.
(Or maybe he hopes the constant reinvention while disguise the ageing process. Happy Birthday).
And speaking of hideous sights (well, she does look she met a hornet's nest head on), I managed to catch the beginning of Anatomy for Beginners last night. I had the television on the background, post-ER, whilst emailing (bad habit, I know). I glance up at someone pulling apart a turkey. That's not a turkey. Does look like one though. Skin is odd, especially when it is slinking over the edge of a support.
I know I've had waterfights using pigs' hearts (oh the joys of a well-aimed aorta), but I have to admit to not being entirely comfortable at seeing a man's brain sagging round fingers like a pink colostomy bag.
Psuedo-facts of the day:
Canning Town: An area of the east-end of London where the produce unloaded at the docks was tinned.
Traditional English Tea: Grown in Hampshire using methods handed down between generations, each one a closely guarded family secret.
I was being silly, and unfortunately some people listening didn't realise it. I eagerly await the news story citing evidence of tea harvesting on the South Downs as an indication of climate change.
Thus I demonstrate the advantages of a scientific education, which are to use organs for pleasure, to be able to vandalise effectively, and to be able to talk nearly plausible bollocks.
Anyhoo,
PS. I really like nice men who send me emails telling me how to do things I'm not sure I could do, and which I have to do for them. That make sense? Not really, nevermind, I was just surprised by expected kindness.
