In which I reflect on how bloody lucky I am

I grieve at the moment due to unspeakable horrors blighting the existences of close friends and family. I won't go into the horrors in question because they are other people's business. And so I choose instead today to reflect instead on one of the positive pieces of news I have had this weekend. I also wish to thank the powers that be that my own existence is currently fairly blessed, for which I am tonight trying not to feel guilty.

My beloved cousin C. has emerged from an epic battle involving his nose, a chisel, probably assorted other (hopefully) sharper instruments, and a rowdy horde of recalcitrant but now defunct polyps. He is apparently still quite himself, although morphined up to the eyeballs and sounding a bit like Kenneth Williams (see below) until they take several hundred meters of cotton wool back out of his sinuses. I wonder what will have happened to his previously honourably rugby-bashed nose. I was quite fond of it the way it was.

And now for some Kenneth Williams. They don't do gentleman comedians like this any more.

Strasbourg taxis

Strasbourg taxis are, in general, excellent. There is always an exception that proves the rule.

I had my hair done yesterday for a party, and ordered a taxi back to the hotel to keep the spiky fluffy effect from falling. No, sadly no photos.

The taxi driver pulled over at the hotel, and said, "Six euros please". The meter read 4.50€.
I said "But the meter reads 4.50€".
"In Strasbourg there is a minimum taxi fee of six euros, and if you don't like it you can walk".
"Where is it written in your cab that there is a minimum fee of six euros?"
"It's there in the back, but never mind that because you owe me six euros and I'd like you to pay and let me get on with the next client". He seemed to be having a very strong reaction to a reasonable request for confirmation, and I couldn't work out why.
I said, "I've no objection to paying the fee if it is indeed the fee. I would just like to know where I stand contractually, so that we can both see that we are having a fair transaction"
I looked around the back of the cab and found a transparent tariff sticker on the window. I started to read it. The cabbie became increasingly agitated. And it wasn't surprising. The minimum fee as per the sticker was stated at five euros and sixty cents.

He had tried to scam me for the paltry sum of forty cents.

I was so amused at this I paid him the six euros, waited while he grumpily and reluctantly made change, gritting his teeth and counting out every coin in as small a denomination as he could possibly find to get back at me. And then, when he'd gathered them all together, I tipped him his own forty cents change back and bade him good day.

Get this

So Arfur, as we know, is in the garage, and I've had the good news that she WILL be repaired. This means that the Europcar SEAT Ibiza my insurers have so kindly supplied me with as a replacement car can stay with me until the 17th, when I can pick Arfur back up.

As I'd replaced Arfur's back window three weeks ago following a dose of pure vandalism, and I deliberately haven't replaced Arfur's radio since it was nicked outside Zed's house in January, I was thinking that there was nothing that could possibly go wrong again on the automotive front.

This morning, when I climbed into the SEAT Ibiza, I noted that there was no longer a radio.

That's right.

The police confirmed that the front driver lock has been forced.

Cars. Who'd have 'em?

Beneath; a photo of what my replacement car radio could now be up to.

Christmas shopping recommendation

Zoe's book is out. It's a very cute little hardback with an alarmingly accurate, as far as I can tell, Lucy Pepper cartoon of Q and Z on the front. Buy it here.

Human mice

I went to a course today on something very boring and financial. At the beginning of the day's labour, the teacher asked us all whether we were sure we were all in the right course. "Yes, yes, Financial whotsit whotsit, room 3.6, that's us".

Then he made us sign the register. One gentleman noticed he wasn't on the list. Was he still sure, the teacher asked, that he was in the right course?

"Yes, yes" he said, "room 3.6".

"OK" said the teacher, "there must have been a mixup, add your name on the list, the more the merrier". And he started the course.

After about 15 minutes of being led by the nose around the financial car crash of CapGemini's 2003 accounts, the unlisted gentleman lifted his hand. "Excuse me, but I think I'm in the wrong course."

"What course are you supposed to be in?" we all asked.

"Assertiveness...."

It took a while to restore order.

We subsequently discovered that several people had been turned away before any of us had turned up. We think the assertiveness course people deliberately give students the wrong room number as a test of just how much work is needed.







I'm assertive, I'm assertive!

Sandpit

1) I've just sat down to blog after a weekend away, and there are traces of chocolate on the white paper we run the mouse on.

Scouse Doris, you are officially busted.

2) It is only when you take your two-year-old relative to a sandpit, and then bring him home, feed him, put him to bed, and then undress for a shower, that you fully learn just how much sand you can carry in your bra without noticing.

How angels get wings

Tippler's boyish fantasy about a particularly unorthodox good deed that allows an angel, though somewhat fallen, to earn her wings, has triggered me to reveal to you a conversation I had a couple of Sundays ago.

A small child had been entrusted to us for the morning by her sporty and elegant mother, which explains the following exchange:

Small Child: "What are those flappy, wobbly bits under your arms?
Me (somewhat flabbergasted, and therefore operating entirely on reflex): Well, I'm trying to grow wings.
S.C.: REALLY?
Me: Well, yes, you see you can't grow them overnight, it takes a bit of time, so this is just the beginning.
S.C. (horrified, but somewhat fascinated): How do you do it?
Me: Well, you go to the doctor, and she tells you what you need to do, and after a while you wake up one morning and there are these here wobbly bits (wobble them for effect) and then a bit later bones start to grow inside, and then eventually feather ducts grow in the skin, and then the feathers come out, and you can start learning to fly.
S.C.(turning to Scouse Doris for confirmation): Really? Is it true?
Scouse Doris (who has never, to my knowledge, actually lied) nods with a very serious look on her face.
S.C. thinks for a good 45 seconds, and then: That's NOT TRUE!

Well I can't think of any other explanation why I've got these (frankly rather modest) wobbly bits under my arms. So clearly it must be due to my impending ascension to a higher plane.

Mwahahahahaha!

Sherman's on fine form. He's been trying to buy a drink in Utah.

"Most gas stations and supermarkets have a cooler containing cans and bottles upon which is stenciled the word, "beer." Don't be fooled. It is 3.2% by volume. As we all know, these are merely bottles and cans of colored water, at which several elderly ladies from Bratislava with gigantic moles sporting prehensile hairs on their chins have screamed the word, "beer" repeatedly."

I looked for a hairy mole photo for this post, but they all made me feel sick, so you'll have to do without one.

Lordy Lordy.

As a treat for Scouse Doris's birthday a while back, we went this afternoon to the matinée presentation of Lord of the Dance. Before it even started we were treated to 10 minutes with the World Champion Rope Skipping Team, DDF I think they call themselves. I remember double dutch in the playground ... and I remember it being a good deal more girly.

As we all sat there aghast, the show began. An ancient Oirish tale of good versus evil, it starts off with an introduction to a small creature in sparkly pyjamas and nightcap who pretends to be playing a much-loved Shaker (weren't they Protestants, what's with that?) melody on a tin whistle. The tune is sweet, as Aaron Copeland has pointed out, but the mannerisms are maddening and the "Little Spirit" was lucky I didn't have my bow and arrow on me. It awakens a bunch of flower fairies, all legs and hair extensions, who prance around for a bit without their clogs on and then have a dance-off with Morrighan, the wicked hussy, or at least as wicked as Bonnie Langford fallen on hard times and forced to take up pole dancing can get. I might add that this woman is wearing a shorter version of my red dress, but as I look much better in it I find it in my heart to forgive her. Then Don Dorcha, the evil leader of the Dark Warrior clan comes onstage with his Cybermenesque cronies. Despite the Russian Mafia purple and black shell suit trousers and the somewhat plump anatomically correct armour, the dancing was very virile.

At this point Scouse Doris murmured to me "I'm with him!".

A loud bang is let off, after which it's defibrillators all round which distracted us somewhat from Saoirse's solo, and then came two lassies with some very hot violins. Then the ladies come on in their prim Oirish dancing costumes and leap about for a bit until Morrighan influences them at which point, in true Buck's Fizz stylee, they rip their dresses off to reveal shamrocked gym kit. Not surprisingly at this point the eponymous hero, who has a belt with his name on in case you haven't worked out which one to root for yet, leaps onstage with his knights companion in their skintight tops with silver buttons on. The famous chorus line to the Shaker tune then ensues.

Interval. Scouse Doris and I reach for the chocolate ice-cream like an ageing librarian for the G&T when forced by his mother to dine with the vicar's spinster sister.

Act 2. On comes the Spirit with her bloody tin whistle again, followed by Don Dorcha and his Warriors who tease her, steal it from her and then break it. At this point, Scouse Doris and I broke into a small and lonely bout of applause. In comes the Lord of the Dance and he and his men fight off the baddies in quite a magnificently virile show of Irish dancing. For reasons I have yet to fathom the Lord of the Dance mends the Spirit's bloody tin whistle. Despite this heinous act for which he should have been roundly booed, Saoirse still manages to find him sufficiently fanciable as a partner for a romantic dance between the male and female characters. After this the support dancers come onstage in Strictly Ballroom-style day-glo leotards for a set piece dance during which a little light relief was finally provided when one of the men fell over and the rest of them got the giggles. Erin the Goddess (the singer) then sang something rather sad about missing Carrickfergus, although the lyrics seemed suspiciously familiar from the Skye Boat Song.

Then the Lord and Saoirse come on for a bit of a dance but Morrighan is waiting and she distracts him (all men are the same). Gentlemen, be warned. See what happens when a man lets himself be distracted by a loose woman: he is captured by the dark henchmen and taken to Don Dorcha's palace where he is danced at until he disappears in a puff of smoke and a loud explosion. Out with the defibrillators again. Don Dorcha claims the Lord of the Dance Belt, which I wouldn't want personally due to all the sweat. But it turns out that the Lord has been saved by the annoying Little Spirit elf thing who's grateful he mended her tin whistle, and he returns to challenge the Dark Lord in a quite magnificent duel, and everyone comes onstage and dances that chorus line again until their shoes fly off into the audience.

I haven't laughed so much in ages. It was worth every penny.

Politics

And as the Beeb settles for a week of non-stop clematis trimming, a girl's thoughts turn to alternative activities. Politics, of course, is always a popular pastime for those with nothing better to do with their leisure hours. Daphne is painting Madrid red, which sounds far less boring than it probably is, and Tippler and Eliab have found a politician prepared to offer them personal services, apparently not even in exchange for a vote. Honey is observing riots in her street and raging herself about another issue, which I must say I agree with her on.


Sport of course is a far more useful pastime than politics although sometimes the two can be combined. Issues such as immigration have certainly been tackled effectively by the Iranian cycling team. Economics come into play when it comes to taking up sports activities. I myself have been pestered by Scouse Doris to join her rather chic gym, but I nearly balked when she explained that in order for weight loss to occurr (other than the extraction of notes from my wallet) I would actually have to GO. My own personal planned economy is affected; but the income allows the gym to employ assorted handmaidens and handimen to fluff towels, etc, thus helping the economy turn and increasing the alluring opportunities Europe can offer. I myself shall be looking out for any buff young Omar Sharifesque Iranian spinning class teachers.

Scouse Doris

Scouse Doris is blogging! OMG!