Spare a Thought For Halfwit

NEVER APOLOGIZE. NEVER EXPLAIN. ~ IMMANUEL KANT. As quoted at Melody Lee's blog...

Spare a thought for poor Freddy Halfwit. He is a contestant on the current series of Big Brother. This year Big Brother played a trick on all potential housemates, by letting them into the house, yet forcing them to "earn" the right to full-housemateship by completing (usually bluffed) tasks e.g. "walking across broken glass in bare feet" ~ it was actually sugar glass as used in the movies. Poor Freddie, and a braindead topless model called Sophie made it first to the diary room and were told they would only be allowed in if they changed their names by deed poll to Halfwit and Dogface. Which they duly did. Nobody calls Dogface that because she's actually quite pretty (though what she has in prettiness she loses in dullness bigtime). But poor Halfwit is universally known by that name.

For his terrible singing. His crackpot theories (which actually hold a lot of sense, it's their expression and endless repetition that's halfwitted). His constant need to apologize and explain and demand to know what's the problem rather than just dropping things and just letting them go (a skill I'd like to think I learned years ago but we all make mistakes). His gone-out facial expressions (the photo is quite characteristic). And best of all, his description of a good party: "we all eat lasagne and sit around strumming guitars all night and philosophizing" (but I'd be quite intrigued to attend one of these.)

Now, as you probably know, each week, every housemate must enter two nominations, with "valid reasons" for whatever housemates they think should face the public vote that Friday. It says everything that poor Halfwit has faced eviction EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

From being an annoying character who smiled inanely and proclaimed he was "drunk on life", he is now limping, wounded, apologizing for every insult thrown his way.

Now, just like a shark with a broken fin, the others circle around him regularly taking pops at him and anything he says or does is just used against him. If I could pass in a secret message I'd say, "Freddie: stop apologizing and explaining. Keep quiet and get strength from that

Never apologize. Never explain. said Immanuel Kant (as quoted at Melody Lee's blog).

In his defence, poor halfwit is intelligent (too intelligent; this has been his biggest failing: his way of expressing philosophical points e.g. about the house being divided into "wolves, sheep, shepherds and individuals" in his posh accent comes over as patronizing) but best of all he seems quite pure of heart, which is quite an unusual thing these days... Far far more of a fascination than the shallow wannabes who make up more than half of the Big Brother house year on year...

HAVE A LOOK AT THIS:



For the record, I liked Angel the most. She was a genuine individual and only got knocked out for ridiculously going around telling the girls they all "looked pregnant" and "needed to lose 10kg each" the day before nominations. Hardly the actions of a "schemer who knows what she's doing," as Lisa ((pink hairstripe) rival lesbian and the biggest gameplayer in the house) put it. Her Russian accent was very sexy and despite the lesbionic chic I thought her heartshaped Madonna face very pretty:



FOOT MUSHROOMS ~ GOING ALREADY! From a choice of "Lamasil Once" ~4g @ 1%, £8 or Lamsil ordinary ~ 15g@1%, only £6... (Do they think we're idiots?) ... Which do you think I went for..??!? It's working very efficaciously, thankyouverymuchindeed...

My feet are less cracked and dry. FAR less smelly ~ yeeurkh! They never were "fissured and running with yellow pus" as the leaflet described the most extreme manifestation.

But they were getting highly inconvenient in all this heat. And are far less inconvenient now...


NOW TO MY TROTTERDONKEY SPANISH... I have por favors and yo, tú, él, nostros etc verbs coming out of my ears. Together with accompanying Spanish mandolin sounds. I'm starting to think these courses have booked the same sessions guitar player. A poor old man with a donkey trundling across the Andalusían countryside swigging wine from old skins as he clip-clops from recording studio to recording studio. "Oh man! Today I must go back recording studio for BBC Sueños ~ I tell them mañana, mañana, they no listen... why they no call yesterday when I do Teach Yourself, Berlitz and Routledge!" he mutters as the donkey wearily treads on...

... Not to be too ambitious but I was thinking of trying to get on an A Level Spanish course in the autumn. An A Level is what you do after completing three month's of solid effort in a British high school diluted into five years. I.e. you pass the GCSE or lower school certificate in a language. To get this you must be able to read basic texts, e.g. menus, instructions, postcards, letters, emails, handle yourself in everyday situations talking about yourself and your background, ordering food and drink, buying things, giving directions etc. And have good listening comprehension skills for recordings e.g. of people talking about themselves and their families, their passtimes and musical tastes. The courses I've got out of the library cover all this and the approximate vocabulary of 1500 words you need for a GCSE. Though you need to give it quite some welly to pick up all the words. I am only on lesson 3 of 15 and have been putting in a good 2 hours a day. And I still keep forgetting absolutely elementary things like how to say "you are" using "ser" (to be constantly) rather than "estar" (to be in the moment). Ser is what you ARE, estar is e.g. how you feel. I get the distinction but forget the declensions. Anyway I thought that might be a good goal, if I can complete these studies full-on for three months I'd like to do an A Level or higher school certificate in Spanish ~ but ONLY if it includes literature studies. I hate the modern business-oriented courses. We did French like that at A Level but German with literature and the French felt so soulless in comparison... Not to mention the fact that literature adds to your vocabulary immensely, especially if you can do poetry (fewer words, more meaning, less flicking through the bilingual dictionary...)

~~OH SHUT UP!!~~

I had a browse over the internet but found no inspiring-looking courses. Maple Syrup launches to the most obvious "oh do a course in Spanish" but you get so many free course credits paid for you and I'm not wasting these on basic level courses I can race through at home: if I'm willing to practise ad nauseum for hours each day. Anyone can do it this quick if they apply themselves, there's nothing special about me except the desire to learn.

After all this slogging through CDs, dictionaries and filling notebooks full of grammar and vocabulary I'm utterly drained. Which makes me wonder whether I'll ever be able to hold down a proper job. Because it's not as if I'll accept workworkwork and just sleep as a compromise. No! I'll STILL be learning 2 languages ON TOP of a full day's activities ~ see what I mean? There's no "instead" about it...

~~WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS... BLAH BLAH BLAH BLIBBLIBBLIB... B L O B .. ! ~~

OK so that's me for today. And how was your day? Have a cheery weekend, y'all... and don't forget furry Friday's foxes BELOW...


áéíñóúü ¡...? and ¿...!