I wander up the drive. It's pretty long, but his car's at the bottom, so he's sure to be in. Sure enough, when I get to the porch, there he is, my friend, Dave.
He's perched on a little stool in a kind of half-lotus position with his right ankle up over his other knee. He's trying, without much luck, to get his last walkikng-boot off.
"Pat!"
No hello or anything, just;
"Pat, do me a favour, go inside and get some petroleum jelly for me"
I start walking inside, shaking my head. and just as I'm getting into the kitchen he shouts;
"Bed-side table"
I stifle a grimace and say nothing.
So I head back out to the porch holding this miniature bucket of jelly like it's a hair I've just picked out of my soup. Dave's still there, sweating and muttering expletives between groans of exertion, tugging away at that fat leather boot like he's midwifing for a reluctant walrus.
Until POP! his arms shoot up and suddenly he's got this boot in both hands raised over his head like a new-born offering to the gods. He holds it there just as long as feels right, then slumps back against the wall, beaten.
I set the jelly down on the patio table in front of him and shoot him a look. Visibly exhausted, his eyebrows are ever so slightly raised and he's shrugging.
Just as I turn back into the kitchen he pipes up again;
"Well don't just leave it there"
First off, thanks to Bungallow for this blog topic. He posted a Roosevelt quote the other day, My Future is in the Past, that whetted my appetite for some existential thought.
Please forgive my writing about myself in the third person. I do realise that I'm not 'The Rock'.
Patrick had to work pretty early today. He started at 8 o'clock, which meant getting up at some ungodly hour to catch a bus. Given that none of the Patricks are exactly morning people, they always tend to get up at the last possible moment. It would, therefore, have been extremely helpful if Past Patrick had at least ironed a shirt for him. No such luck!
Present Patrick, frustrated in his pre-coffee funk, had nothing but distain for his former self. Basically, that moron, Past Patrick, made Present Patrick late. Present Patrick didn't even tell his boss the truth. Embarrassed, he covered for Past Patrick with some hastily put together untruth about a traffic jam.
You see, Present Patrick is basically a good guy. Naive, perhaps, but good. He tries his best, he wings it, he blags it, he finds a way.
But he's constantly getting screwed over by Past Patrick. They're like chalk and cheese. Past Patrick is relaxed to the point of out-and-out laziness. He's a poor planner, and his reputation for self restraint is even worse!
Take last night for example: going to bed at 2am when he knew Future Patrick had work in the morning. I think he even knew he hadn't ironed that shirt, the malicious rotter.
When's Past Patrick going to stop screwing Present Patrick over and think of Future Patrick for a change?
Who'd have thought it? There are Russian Princesses online NOW just waiting for a date with me!
Yep, you heard me! Not just women, not merely beauties, knockouts and bombshells but real, live, blue blooded, tiara wearing, glass slipper losing princesses.
I have to admit a bit of surprise, not only at the Russain royal family's seemingly endless supply of flawlessly photoshopped beauties, but also at their willingness, desperation even, to date online.
Inspite of myself, I can't help but get excited at the thought of my soon-to-be Anastasia. Maybe I'll be gifted some land at the wedding, or rubies and saphires... or.... or..... unicorns!
Yes, this site certainly has some funny advertising. Scam warnings are, quite rightly, spotted around the website; but I do wonder about the legitimacy of some of these ads.....
I, ladies and gentlemen of the CS community, will eat my hat.
I'm sure it's escaped very few of us that today is September 11th. In Catalonia at least, that makes it a day for waving flags.
As I look from my balcony I see flags adorning terraces, cars, passers by, other balconies. The Catalan flag has four red stripes, said to represent the smeared blood on the shield of a long lost warrior. A warrior implies a battle which, in turn, implies a divide. Perhaps 'adorn' is the wrong word.
I don't like flags. I don't like my own country's, the (possibly soon to be revised) Union Jack any more than the Tricolour or the Keys of St. Peter.
Flags only seem to have the power to divide us. They divide us along ethnic, national and religious lines and only serve to unite us in small, petty ways that ignore our common humanity.
The only exceptions I can think of, and I'm happy to hear of others, are the rainbow flag and the CND. Even these flags, necessitated by bigotry and warmongering respectively, probably wouldn't exist in a perfect world.
When will we stop waving flags? I'm starting today.
Our blogger adjusts himeself in his chair and stares pensively around the room, adjusting his glasses and stroking that part of his head where hair used to be, trying to find inspiration for that next blog....
Then, in a revelatory flash, the idea comes to him. This is going to be the best blog yet, he thinks, smiling inwardly.
Fat women are worse in bed, and a woman's health is only important if it, in turn, satisfies a man sexually!
He leans back in his chair, taking a moment to bask in his own creativity. He readies his typing fingers, positively salivating at the thought of his next hit blog.
Meanwhile, back in reality....
Tap tap tap goes the keyboard as another desperate blog is vomited out onto the screen like so many chunks of carrot forming themselves, just barely, into meaningful sentences. The stench of loneliness and bile hangs on each of them like a slow rot.
You can imagine my gust on arriving home last night to find an extemely sheveled young woman in my kitchen. You can imagine how appointed I was that the monotony of my usual returning home had been broken. Despite my being a rather dolent cleaner, the state of my kitchen was rather peccable and so she left as quickly as she had come. Thankfully, the whole expeience was effable so I'm able to relate it to you now.
Obviously this is utter nonsense, but before you reach for the dictionary in order to define the exact subset of nonsense to which it belongs, let me save you some time.
They're not in the dictionary. These strange little 'unpaired' words exist only in the negative. One, for example, could be 'digruntled', but never 'gruntled'. What a funny language Englih is!
I wish I were talking about a problem as trivial and easily fixed as;
'previously having had a plentiful supply of locusts which has now run dry'.
Alas, no. I'm dealing with something far more disturbing.
I speak, of course, of the utter and inexplicable indifference towards the sport of cricket across mainland Europe.
Of all the challenges I've faced as an English ex-pat in Spain, this is surely the most infuriating. How can they not care for the satisfying slap of willow on leather? The subtelties of a DRS referred LBW decision? The ramblings of geriatric commentators?
I have absolutely nobody with whom I can talk about cricket. I've found myself desperately trying to shoehorn it into conversations in Indain or Pakistani run shops and restaurants just to get my fix. Te gusta el cricket? Viste el partido...?
Is there a cure? Can the word of the Gospel of cricket be spread across these heathen lands? Or must I meekly accept this football-centric fate?
I don't like emoticons. There! I said it!
I think the jumping banana is my least favourite. The others seem at least to represent something. He's just a daft, over-energetic plantain wannabe!
SUSPECT#1
<---- I mean, seriously, what could this anthropomorphic fruit be expressing through the medium of dance that couldn't be expressed in words?
I do also, however, reserve a special bit of hatred for that fat, oversized bear; endlessly spewing forth his grubby pixelated hearts.
SUSPECT#2
<---- You're an insult to bears everywhere. Paddington and Yogi would be ashamed!
I don't know about you, but I feel better already.
I'm an English teacher, and as an English teacher, I get asked all kinds of questions about the English language, culture, history and so on.
Today, I was asked this:
"Why do English people say 'sorry' all the time?"
I think it's a really good question. It certainly made me think!
If I don't hear something, I say "sorry?"
If I want to speak with someone I say "Sorry, have you got a moment?"
Even if I have some rude students in class who talk while I'm talking I say "Sorry, would you mind quietening down?"
Then, if I run over an old lady's cat in my car, then reverse over it again; squirting its entrails over the owner's front window accidentally spelling out the word 'f*ck' with it's large intestine...... what do I say?? You guessed it; 'Sorry'!!
Given its other uses, 'sorry' just doesn't seem adequate any more for situations like this!
Are we Englishmen just too polite to express ourselves....?
Barely Literate Old Garbage?
Basically, Lots Of Gas?
Bold Literary, Oratory Gold?
Bollocks Like 'Orrible Gifs?
I may have cheated slightly with that last one.
Do let me know!
(smiley face)
I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly up-tight person. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I generally nod politely and smile when faced with incredibly long, boring anecdotes. I just shrug when my football team loses and I don't swear (much) when my alarm clock goes off in the morning.
There are, however, a few notable exceptions. Things which really get me annoyed. Things which make me want to break things. Things which make the vein in my temple pulsate like an injured earthworm:
1. People who STAND (not walk) on the left hand side of an escalator. Seriously, I have considered murder.
2. People who drive really close behind me, especially when I'm going fast.
3. People who stand too close to me when we're having a conversation. PERSONAL SPACE, people!!
4. People who needlessly abbreviate words (sorry to any Australians, but you guys are really bad for this) by saying things like 'boyf' instead of boyfriend or 'obv' instead of obvious, 'blates' instead of blatantly.... I could go on.....
5. People who 'listen with their mouths'. You know what I mean? Those conversations you have when people aren't actually listening to you at all, they're just waiting for their chance to speak again. Grrrrrrrr.
That is all..... for today.....
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