Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

And we're up to the useful questions: Wo ist meinem Mann?

Surely books aren't always this handmade?

Um, and I'm typing this using Blogger's new look editing page, which completely buggers the formatting in the preview, which is nicht sehr handy.

Turns out I have to manually enter line returns in both the Compose and HTML options under the new interface. BLOGGER SHD GO WHOLE HOG STOP MK PUNCUT E E E PUNCTN LONGFORM STOP
[TING]
[TING] THE BEST THING ABOUT TYPING WAS THE BELL ON THE CARRIAGE RETURN STOP
[TING]
[TING] OH GOD MUST BE OLD STOP RMBR USING TYWRTR THEN COMPR W RED BUTTONS N TAPES STOP RMBR ENTER N RETURN SEP BUTTONS STOP RMBR BACKSPACE NEW STOP MUST STOP THIS STOP
[TING] STILL FUN
[TING] THIS LEVER BOUNCE SWEEP PING THING
[TING] SEE
Stopping now as telegraphese not easy, but then never sent one. Only significant one I know of is my grandfather's reply to being told [by his sister] that he had a new child [not sure which one] which was "Much obliged".

Anyhoo,

Ooh, I understood the German bit in that song from Cabaret. And yes, I am, what of it?Said he who didn't post that to Twitter (which, despite being public, feels freer that the Facebook), because he's supposed to be working on a commission and has of course left it to the last minute (they're the most inspiring), so is feigning radio silence.

Anyhoo,

Feel like smiling? Just read the pictures.

And just watch these pictures.


Anyhoo,

Oh yay, apparent commission work falling out of the interether. Fractionally less yay are the slightly pestering emails with their misspelt and missing words before I'd even agreed to do it. And should I mention checking client viability which means finding that his Facebook page privacy isn't screwed down and he's despairing about his job (and his company's fan page is marginally more popular than mine).

That and he asked me to "right (crayon like)" on part of it, which apart from looking aesthetically ghastly, well, I'm me, I'm always right whether crayon-like or not.

It's odd having to remember to take out the longest words from an email.

And in other news, isn't this like damming the Nile? Well, potentially.

Cool, but I'd want long-term research on the physiological impact of diminished peak flows.

And in news of other news, the Daily Mail as seen by the New Yorker, from one odd beast to another.

Anyhoo,

I was in Lonedom the other day. I went for a "key industry event" for an industry I'm not currently in, where I learnt I knew much of it, found myself drowning under free linen bags—the event had 'Eco' in the name, so all holistic hemp, Hessian and holier-than-thou, except actually there was a lot of dubiously bad greenwashing [feign well, damn you], and companies who didn't quite get the concept wondering why the plastic bags of plastic bumpf for plastic products weren't shifting—wandering slightly dazed by the oppressiveness of the Proprietary Spreadsheet Software and scintilla-less displays that leave one wondering what the company behind them does, and then hearing my name shouted.

Turns out a friend was manning a stall there, along with giving some of the talks, and my arrival usefully got her out of being accosted by a woman wanting to know why no one was lobbying in the Jamaican government (ah, I'd forgotten the marvels of the logic of the general public), and suddenly free to seek out a talk she'd been recommended, except it took so long to find the listing in the guide and then the place that we missed it. So we adjourned, skipping the overpriced attempt at a pub, to sit on the steps in the sun outside taking drugs (she described mine, having had them explained to her, as 'serotonin supplements' which probably a good way of putting it).

And then we both did slightly lacklustre. There's affection, but a lack of current commonality; she reminds me of where I am not, what I am not, and she is only what I am not, so engulfed, mired, by the job I no longer do, all else planned to be collected at some future, unspecified, wayside. Which might explain why she's ill and I'm subdued.

It's odd to look at someone at wonder where their vitality went, and how I can help them get it back.

And then we parted, neither our best selves, our freest. I disappeared to be happy yet insular, she to be the latter. I'd booked to go to the theatre, yet had only booked one ticket because no one else wanted to go regardless of when. I mean, I know it's a show of a film, but so are most of them (seriously, there's already a King's Speech on? I haven't seen the film yet), and I like the film.

Anyway, so I saw a show where the drencher (technical term that. No, really, it is. Theatres have to have them. They're basically a safety curtain made of water) came on half-way through so they had to spend the interval mopping. That and there were shrieks from the expensive seats (guess who was nearly next to Zeus) because the momentum of the dancers was being artfully displayed.

So that was fun, apart from the Polish people behind me practising their chuchotage and the man in front who, despite apparently having come on his own, so not under duress, had earphones in, was listening to BBC Ici, and kept checking the BBC sports page throughout the show. So people are odd. I wonder if one day that won't surprise me.

Anyway, I liked it, even if it's a show based on a theme created around a song and the dropped g annoys me, although at least they have an apostrophe.

And then I went out into the night, blithely skipping through traffic, along kerbs, not quite into puddles because it is Larnden and it had been a sunny day so that water lying there, well, best not to taste it, and through the bright, happy, laughing city, across its beauty, and then into a final sprint to the platform, pegging it to the far train, scanning for seats and barrelling into the first and last.

And so home to bed, trying not to notice too much the young guy, with his parents on the way from the theatre, not knowing a three letter word for fish eggs despite the accent that was paid for, while I try not answer and to look elsewhere only to find that a quirk of layout means his eyes are all I can see in the window to the left, to the right, and even staring up at the luggage rack.

Not that he was cute cute, just the best looking man of reasonable age within eyesight at the time, so yes, it was a small pond, but he probably would have done fairly well in pond double the size.

One which point, good night.

Anyhoo,

Bitte holen sie.

And this is why God/Google invented translate.google.com. Wiederholen sie, apparently.

But then that deep harbour we moored in in Greece was called Vathi, which in Greek is beta alpha theta and the vowel one (oddly bath, as in what one bathes in, is from a different root meaning 'to warm').

But then each time I do one of the German lessons I start by going to Last.fm to find out what the last one was because I've no idea (Pimsleur has yet to be the most played artist of any week).

Anyway, the world is cool:


And for more wonder and lingual confusion listen to Jay Brannan's new album (which is rather like his set from October, which is not necessarily bad).

And I still need to read that. Except I don't, because that's only nearly the title.

And I need to stop singing, and laughing, along. I was laughing at something earlier too (not the depression one, good though that is, but the Kenny Loggins one, though I'm sure I've read about the dog before). It's very odd. Especially when I start wondering why, and having to consider whether it's medication induced.

He wears socks in bed! Well, there goes that plan. He being the man in my ear, Jay.

Ooh, I can do this:


Anyhoo,

We are not proposing any changes to marriages conducted on religious premises. This means that in law, marriages conducted by the Church of England, Quakers, Jews and all other religious organisation (who have registered their religious premises to host marriages) would only be legally recognised if they are between a man and a woman.

Why the hell not? Surely that should be left up to the religious institutions? To forbid something that all parties freely agree to purely because it would be analogous to something which already exists seems perverse. But such is the law.

The picture is worth a thousand words.

A slightly different take on it, which I like because it uses the word 'footballists'.

Anyhoo,

Thoughts?

Other than finding oneself thinking about where he'll be cod.

Typo, but it amuses me.

Anyhoo,

Suddenly I remember that one of the German concerts is at something called a "seniorenstift". I do hope there's ear-trumpets.

Anyhoo,

Because I keep starting posts and not getting anywhere with them there'll be a slight lack of segues in this compilation post.

Mother, dearest, please try to remember that this is my wedding you're railing against. BTW, the people inside the television can't hear you.

Stand outside. Stick your tongue out. Come back tomorrow at the same time and your insolence will already have travelled beyond the furthest anything made by man has got so far, and it's had over three-decades to get there. Which is pretty cheeky.

And it comes to something when there's three-pounds-twenty difference between the balances of one's bank account and Paypal account.

"Pathos - wasn't he one of the three musketeers?"

Anyhoo,

PS. This one:

Also ich muss lernen mehr deutsche Schimpfwörter denn "Scheiße" ist nicht genug. Und "swinehund" nicht scheiden.

Und, ja, Google half mir mit den schwierigen Bits. Es war das, oder Französisch.

Wie typisch ist es der Deutschen dass die meisten Wörter wie Englisch sind in einer dummen Akzent, abgesehen von dem Wort für "difficult"?

Mit anderen Worten: Ich ging zum Chor gestern Abend und sang das deutsche Lied, und schwor in der dritten Vers.

Allemande est très difficile.

Auf weidertöt,

Anyhoo,

PS. No farmer's boy, or farmer, just the tallboy and his quick flash of female headshots with green-to-red bars beneath them before he got to the next email. And being handed a CD of things I'd forgotten I'd asked for from someone whose name I've never known. And yet more requests for the scores. We don't do dots. Except those of us who do.

Remind me not to read screeds in the Telegraph.
[Briefly, because references are for dweebs]
- Context, m'dear.
- Yes, compared to single parent families; it's the number of enduring parents that counts, not the brand name. And if you're going to bring up the harm that comes to children from gay parents, do try to remember that that is foisted upon them by some parts of society, that it's the victim's fault for being provocative, which seems a tad Islamic (although being born flawed is terribly Catholic).
- Universal, from a very western-centric viewpoint (there are no other religions, no other cultures really, are there? Well, no worthwhile ones). Shall we just change "universal" to "in much of modern Christendom" now, or ought we try to redefine "universal"?
- Darling, it's not a label, it's a state. But yay you for the flawed attempt at belittling and negating the inevitable criticism.
- Actually, you are right; the death of marriage is a bloody good reason to embalm it.
- Deserve ≠ get, but awareness and pragmatism isn't exactly what the Catholic church is know for.
- Oh, yes, of course it'll spread to polygamy, just like miscegenation led to bestiality (although humans are better able to give consent than animals, so polygamy is more likely than bestiality to be acceptable).
- Quelle Horreur!
- If possibly no government has the right, then certainly no church has the right.
- Oh look, there's a man made entirely of straw, yet designed to scare us not crows; no wonder this argument appears to be remarkably ill thought-out.
- Redefining is bad? Well, what has Redefinition ever done for us? You do know that Christianity has redefined marriage itself fairly often, right? And it's hardly as though marriage equality is a new idea (it existed before Jesus and the church has intermittently condemned it ever since [although often that was just head office's view]).
- Seriously, you're bringing slavery into this? Surely there's an Godwin's law for that too. And, um, weren't the church, well, not wholly against such a thing, because, you know, they maybe in chains, but at least they're no longer ostentatiously pagan.
- And if you're going to quote a charter of ideals (written to be as widely acceptable as possible at a specific time, and so covering a mix of social contexts), do check that it doesn't render your argument moot:

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights is crystal clear: ... “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”.

And let's not go into the comments (I started, but the token sane one cant' use apostrophe's).

Anyhoo,

Apropos of previous comments:
Sound from the first left, video from the first right, and wait for the first customer.

Anyhoo,

It occurs to me that Glee is Byker Grove with singing (well, more singing, and commercial performances in the programme rather than the following Saturday morning). Which is fine just as long as there isn't any paintballing.

I need to stop wasting money. That being said all money is wasted whether in the spending or hoarding. But I was buying little Lego minifig things (basically Lego have gone the football cards route of blind packages and gotta-collect-em-all, which I don't really approve of them doing—have you seen what they Legoify now? The backlash will come and this saddens me, and that's not even considering the deplorable Lego Friends for Deeply Unimaginative Girls (TM)—but because it's Lego and not football I quite like the results) each time I went to anything medical, because I'd bought a couple for the BroSIL as there's always Lego at Christmas, then was jealous, so started buying them for myself (the shop down the road from the doctors' does the old sets cheaper), then started getting repetitions (another footballer. Why is it always sodding football?), which was a lot less fun, then discovered the key to codes, and then went a bit overboard while waiting for people to text back and tell me where I was going next, and so went through most of the stock in the shop picking out the ones I didn't already have (with only slight repetition where I misdivined the bumps), while the shop assistants made bitchy comments to each other (I can hear you, and I already heard your earlier conversation, so, er, a bit less mockery of the customers please, unless you wish me to spread, well, news of what you found yourself spreading).

I think I'm in love with the sailor (malheureusement, j'ai un musketeer seulement). Which makes a change from the man who tried to steal my heart on Reagent Street (that or crush it. Please, if you're going to shoot into the gap between two streams of pedestrian traffic, and miss it, don't do it with a rucksack full of large, heavy metal objects in it; I hope I broke his hard-drive) or the guy who stole my eye at Waterl'eau (in answer to the question neither of us asked as we passed in eye-contact chicken: yes, fervently yes, probably with a please too. One day I won't flinch, flicking my eyes down, away, but instead speak. As for him, he had greenish-blue eyes, dark enough lashes, brown hair with a slight tinge of red, and, er, I'm not sure of the rest except his smile was glorious, and his friend chatting away had no idea).

Oh, and what's your take on this:

X: Anyone bagsied Thursday evening yet?
X: Heard owt from X?
Y: Bagged! No word from X.

Yes, that's what I thought/But don't you see how it could be misconstrued?

Um, yeah, so an Undone day was had, except through incompetence/miscommunication (and fall-back plans fell of the face of the Earth), I didn't see anyone bar the doctor.

Well, anyone I know that is.

Anyhoo,