I WOKE UP AT FOUR A.M AND COULDN'T GET BACK TO SLEEP. I'd just been having weird dreams of flying (as you do) into my sleeping grandparents' bedroom in the dead of night. Then flying back into another bedroom in another house in another part of the country that was somehow adjoined. And finding the room suddenly extended to twice as big.
As well as feeling... well not "shaken" but slightly "confused" by these dreams I was bloody freezing cold. STILL there is no hot water, no heating in my house so I was reliant on keeping cooker rings on maximum all night - my only way of avoiding shivering to death, double-glazing or not.
When finally it DID get light - o! The joyous view! - It was just like someone had sprinkled flour over all the rooves and back gardens. And the white trees fading into white air beyond. Just like a Christmas card really. Though I wasn't in too much of a "seasonal" mood. Being so freezing cold make me feel "sick" (as in withdrawing) so I angrily rang my dealer who "promptly" showed up a mere two hours later!
I think I might have made myself ill with a slip of the hand while pouring paprika into last night's stew. Man! I felt all bloated and horrible and sticky-****y (bright red as well! Do you really want to hear all these details? Then I'll start up a new lavatorial blog. And if you believe that you'll believe anything.) Well I think that "upset" has died down at last. And I'm minded to go to McDonalds rather than risk more of my stomach-fermenting stew...
Ugh!
Here is the best of today's comedy newspaper stories. Yes! I actually dredged up the links!
If you want to see the Queen playing darts from The Sun, then click here.
Metro, London's free morning paper printed up a modern-day Glasgow version of the "nativity" with Mary and Joseph fagging away in tracksuits in a smashed-up bus shelter with their staffordshire bull terrier tied to poor Baby Jesus' pram... and the three wise men bringing stolen booze, cigs and a satellite box! Chav Yourself a Merry Christmas!
Have you seen Nasa's giant spider? According to The Sun "the eight-legged freak was caught on webcam apparently attacking the shuttle... TV viewers watched in horror as the giant beast nibbled the shuttle's nose-cone, then wrapped its body round the craft's powerful rocket boosters"...
Oh and last (and definitely least) snobby Prince Charles has been criticized for following upperclass tradition and sending out nonfestive-looking Xmas cards with just himself and Camilla (Dutchess of Cornwall, if you will) snazzily pictured in black and white (actually, the link shows them in full colour - which just goes to show how the cheapskate newspaper was desperate to save money on printing ink!). The snap is so unrepresentative that Charles looks more like his father the dashing (in his time) Duke of Edinburgh... When columnist Kelvin Mackenzie contacted Charles's press office to find out why he didn't picture snowy scenes and robbins: "a flunky for Prince Charles says, 'The Prince doesn't do robbins.'" ..!
Odd picture of the Day:
Mysterious Estonian Ground Apples By Night
Has anyone got a better interpretation ..??...
Video of the Day:
Gareth and the Kumars: Spirit in the Sky
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STOP PRESS!
The rumours are true! I've just seen the terribly "deformed" and "decrepit" old Arabic crippled lady who hobbles down the street legs akimbo on crutches wailing "pleease help me! pleease help me!" to horrified passers by who pop pound coins into her eagerly outstretched cup (these she pockets pretty expertly so the cup's always empty - a technique I also learnt in my (long over) begging days)... I just saw a suspiciously similar Arabic-looking lady in same coat with same giant men's sized slippers on WALKING TOTALLY NORMALLY and with her head up not half veiled and down as she does when "grafting" - I glared at her quite pointedly and she instantly affected a severe limp. Too late darling, I thought but didn't speak up (she's the "no-speekey Eeengleesh" type for sure anyhow)... How I laughed my head off as she cowered away, knowing she'd been caught out.
Bloody con artists!
Yes I was a beggar too. But I wasn't a LIAR on top!
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THIS is meant to be President Ahmedinajad of Iran's personal blog:
http://www.ahmadinejad.ir
do have a look and tell me if you think it's real...
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WHAT BOOK SHALL I READ during those interminable nonsnowy lonely (sob-sob!!) hours of Xmas?
1. Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
2. Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist ...??
Actually, come to think about it; I've thrown open the subject to "Victorian English writers of note + Tolstoy (who was Russian)" and done a "pole" on it up top so do be ready to answer.... c'mon!!
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Hey! I just checked my World Map of Hits and found out I've had readers today on all six continents! (Whenever you click you get the last 100 hits, so if the map makes me out to be a liar it's because you're clicking maybe tomorrow when the dispersal might be different! The dark shadow, by the way, signifies where it is nighttime on earth...)
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This is my friend Audrey's blog-motto. I think it's pretty cool:
It is the passion flowing right on through your veins And it's the feeling that you're oh so glad you came, It is the moment you remember you're alive, It is the air you breathe, the element of fire, It is that flower that you took the time to smell, It is the power that you know you got as well, It is the fear inside that you can overcome, This is the orchestra, the rhythm and the drum.
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RE The books I'm going with Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist for now. Dickens can be awfully wordy and rather brimful with waffle, but I've turbo'd my way through chapters one and two already and Oliver's already left the workhouse and is in the home of a couple of funeral directors (I think they were...)
Like most people on this small isle I know the story of Oliver pretty well... especially the musical version that we did at primary school. Fagin's song:
Why should we break our backs
Stupidly paying tax?
Better get some untaxed income -
You've gotta pick a pocket or two!"
is a classic. I can still remember my old headmaster from primary school up on stage performing that one!
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My local shop has sold out of my (current) favourite biscuits (McVite's Ginger Nuts). How annoying! I had to go to the supermarket and get own-brand instead. Hopefully they've not skimped on the ginger. I love fiery biscuits.
(Not too fiery. Not literally aflame...)
Why am I harking on about biscuits so much? Because I'm back to my old "drink tea not alcohol" move.... I've even managed to cut out the toothrotting SUGAR from my tea, which is quite some achievement for me.
I'll let you know how I get on.
(Not so much with the biscuits, I mean with the cutting out booze!)
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Look at this (from Josie's blog) for some amazing Canadian forestry!
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HEY! DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THE EPISODE OF FRIENDS where Rachel or Phoebe keeps buying stuff from an American shop called "Pottery Barn" (pronounced Paddery Borrrn (!)~ sorry I had to get that "Americans have strange pronunciation" bit in even though I know they think we all speak like the Queen...)
Well anyway I just discovered POTTERY BARN - despite the bizarre name - is REAL!!!
Click above for their website!
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteOr Tervehdys! in Finnish
Don't try to pronounce that. (A government health warning :)
I won't try and say that aloud... I couldn't even pronounce "pikku tuttoo" (however it's spelt: "little girl") in Finnish. When my audience DID finally work out what I was trying to say they laughed their heads off!! ;->...
ReplyDeleteYour blog is lovely by the way
The Finnish for "girl" is spelt TYTTÖ in Finnish. The Y sound doesn't exist in the English language, so you're up the creek without a paddle :)
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago in Toronto there was a woman who would sit on the freezing cold concrete, draped in rags whilst holding out her shaky hand begging for people to help her out. She was always outside of the building that I worked in, I gave her cash, food, gloves all the time - it was such a scene that you couldn't help but be empathetic. Turns out she was exposed in our daily paper...she had a condo with her son and for extra cash, she went out, put on a show and suckered people. It made me fume. There are so many people out there that do require a helping hand and are in dire straights. People like "shaky lady" and the woman whom you speak of are the reason as to why so many of us just choose to step over honest people in need and ignore them. I don't like the feeling of becoming jaded and without empathy, however, I can certainly see how it happens.
ReplyDeleteOliver Twist is my vote...
Love the Gareth and Kumars video!
ReplyDeleteMany people pretend not to be who they are and they have caught many here.
ReplyDeleteMost beggers get a nice allowance from welfare and still beg and make another hundred a day like that.
Maybe we should be begging for them to give some of it back?
I loved the first video btw, a bunch of Hindus ( an assuming they are Hindu and not Christian converts) singing about Jesus and doing a great job of it.
Have a nice day
Funny! Queenie, darts, tats and texting. President A's blog - nah!
ReplyDeleteCharles over Leo .... hope they get your hot water and heating sorted those conditions are a little too Dickens like. *!*
Dude, I have dreams of flying but in my dreams I usually have to keep circling until the damned air traffic controllers give me clearance to leave.
ReplyDeleteRead "Oliver Twist". The Tolstoy is too girlie. :)
Rita: isn't the y in tytto pronounced as the o-umlaut/oe in German "schoen"..?
ReplyDeleteEileen: why on EARTH would someone who HAS a flat, no drugs, alchol, gambling, mentalist things going on WANT to beg on the street... I understand really good beggars are meant to make a lot (I never did, I was never better than average)... hmmm....
Akelamalu: v catchy innit!! ;->...
And a solemn non-indictment on modern British multiculturalism
Walker: there are some people who beg off ME even though they ought to realize that bc I DON'T beg that far less money passes through my hands than theirs! Yet they still ask. Just occasionally I get in the "C'mon spare us 50p" - much to their horror!
ReplyDeleteBimbimbie: it IS a bit Dickensian right now. My room is stifling hot with the stove on full (only 1 ring though so I'm "thinking of the carbon footprint" (which I don't particularly believe in. How can global warming come down to something as oversimplified as carbon dioxide emmissions? I am mighty suspicious of THAT one...)
Dan: I'm going with Oliver anyway. I really had to turbo through but I've got to 25 and he's left the workhouse already!
Bimbimbie: I was meaning to add there that though it was sub-zero this morning we've yet to have any frost on the inside (or outside) of our bathroom windows/anywhere else... hmmm...
ReplyDeleteYou have weird dreams!
ReplyDeleteI love the story of the old crippled lady... reminds me of deaf beggars in the subway in Paris who have an Ipod in their pocket :D
The Kumars are great. Are they regulars on a t.v. show? Never heard of them on this side of the atlantic...
ReplyDeleteZhu: I had some even more bizarre dreams yet to post... very odd... woke up screaming with my mouth closed which is always good for a sinister "laugh" haha!
ReplyDeleteWhitenoise: the Kumars had their own chat show... that was a charity record for Children in Need or something similar... The younger guy was famous for being on top bbc soap EastEnders married to a nag called Gita... I don't think the Kumars are on any more...it was one of those semi-spoofed chat shows with real guests and a fictional set up if yer know what I mean...
Tyttö - The spelling in German would be TÜTTÖ
ReplyDeleteSo a short answer to your question is "No".
The Ö at the end of the word is like the o umlaut in German, whereas the Y is a U umlaut. Okay, mein Führer?
So you were sort of kind of half right :)
Tu parles français? The Finnish Y is pronounced like the French U in "pur" ( = clean ) or excUsez-moi.
Except the Y in tyttö is short.
So am I :)
"the Finnish Y is like the U in French 'pur'..."
ReplyDeleteOK I know the sound you're talking about, I can mentally hear it; but it's the one sound I probably get wrongest in French...
... actually, second wrongest. The "ou" in "amour" would be worst
!!
just can't do it properly. Nobody has ever said I have a good French accent. German sometimes yes. Never French though!!
The closedt i`ve come to flying in dreams is taking 5 stair steps at a time.
ReplyDeleteCharles Dickens is the best pick, although one needs to be in a deep state of mind to read him. No quick and easy read there.
Love Oliver Twist. I read that last year.
Have a Merry Christmas Gleds. Prince Charles sent out a foolish card as far as I`m thinking.
tea
xo