Idle Words has an entry on Tierra del Fuego with an arresting image of a piper and a penguin. The words are interesting too. Although, I don’t share his enthusiasm for Bruce Chatwin, who always struck me as a monstrous carbuncle, feeding off his friends and family. Read Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography of Chatwin to understand why I feel this way.
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Shuffling the Rats
Simon Hoggart nails it as usual. But the biggest rat of all didn’t get shuffled- he was the one doing the shuffling. There ain’t no justice in the world.Leave a comment
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Cracks in the Pavement
When I was very small, I used to be scared to step on the cracks in the pavement. I also was quite convinced that there were dragons in the attic that would come after me when I left the bedroom to go downstairs each day. So there were rules that I followed (religiously) about not stepping on the cracks and running downstairs so that the dragons wouldn’t catch me.Some people have similar rules, that frankly, in retrospect, strike me and Ophelia as just as bizarre and nonsensical. But then, we perhaps claim to be a trifle more rational than some.Oh, and I grew up. One day, the dragons disappeared from the attic after I dared them to catch me. And the cracks were just cracks.2 responses to “Cracks in the Pavement”
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But, don’t you think that at that moment when the cracks are just cracks, some little bit of magic went out of the world?
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Gelert, nope, I don’t. There’s a difference, I think, between a sense of wonder at the structure of the universe and its contents – which I think any scientist worth his or her salt should have – and an irrational belief that is powered by a sense of fear. Then again, as Arthur C. Clarke said: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
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Never A Truer Word…
"B&Q is not an evolutionary part of the process. A B&Q shed planted on the edge of the greenbelt is not evolution, that’s just mismanaged".– Bill Bryson on the current state of the British Countryside; an interview in today’s Observer.What he says goes for here in the Netherlands as well – perhaps even more so. Since moving to what passes for the country in a densely-populated country such as The Netherlands I’ve become aware of how little of "Nature in the raw" there is, and how much of an agrarian machine exists here. It’s like Disneyland – a simulacrum of reality (or Hyper-Reality, as Umberto Eco puts it so well); in this case, a simulacrum of Nature. That’s not to say that I don’t take pleasure in it, I certainly do; but unmanaged wilderness it ain’t.Bryson talks about the loss of hedgerows. They are almost unknown here. I am struck by the amount of electrified fences I see as I walk or cycle around the region. Hedgerows – a vital part of preserving wildlife and bio-diversity – seem to be an extinct species here in The Netherlands so far as I can see.Leave a comment
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Damn It, Janet
Another event in London that I missed. I saw the original production at the Royal Court (was it really 33 years ago? Ohmigod!), have seen the film countless times and have even gone to parties dressed as Frank-N-Furter. It’s in my blood, I tell you…Leave a comment
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Choose One from the Following
Gary McKinnon is either:a) barkingb) a sad casec) trying to justify himselfd) taking us for a rideMy money hovers between (b) and (d), but (a) would not surprise me.Leave a comment
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Doctor Who’s Viral Marketing
The BBC has been setting up tie-in websites as viral marketing for Doctor Who. I haven’t had time to explore them yet, but will try to do so sometime soon.And may I just say that the reinvented Doctor Who series has been simply wonderful. Christopher Eccleston was excellent, and David Tennant is already shaping up to match him in the eponymous role. It’s not simply that the production values of the new series are an order of magnitude better than the cardboard sets and characters of the original (fun, in a cheesy sort of way, though they were). It’s that the quality of the writing, and the strength of the acting of all the lead characters, knocks the series into a different class altogether. For example the scene in the swimming pool between David Tennant and Anthony Head in last week’s School Reunion was electrifying, and the dissection of the doctor’s character by his present and past assistants (Billie Piper and Elisabeth Sladen) was brilliant. In fact, the tying together of past and present in School Reunion made that episode for me one of the most satisfying I have ever seen, while The Doctor Dances remains as my number one favourite, with Boom Town as a close second, because of the scenes between Annette Badland and Christopher Eccleston..My only regret is that Martin does not share my enthusiasm for Doctor Who in any shape or form, so I’ve got no-one to discuss it face to face with. Perhaps I’ll just talk to the dog about it. At least he won’t get bored and go off to do something else.(hat-tip to Diamond Geezer of the tie-in websites link)4 responses to “Doctor Who’s Viral Marketing”
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Thanks for these links (noise of bookmarking) I just need to get around to watching the School Reunion – was out on Saturday, my attempt to tape it yesterday failed, have to wait until Friday!Not sure what’s happened to the formatting of your blog but starting with the first few lines of the film meme and upwards – in firefox at any rate – the lines are too long and overlap the right hand column – maybe it’s caused by the middle Kai photo which also sticks out rightwards..
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Robert, it may well be an artifact of how the various browsers handle HTML. In IE6 and IE7, the formatting is OK – although as you say, the middle Kai photo gets cut off by the right margin of the central blog column. However, that’s always been the case with photos of this size that I use in the blog, and nothing new. Try reading just the blog (the blog items then take up the entire page) and see if that helps.
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Can’t stand Ecclestone!! And now they are going to do the unthinkable and re-make ‘The Prisoner’ (as if!) AND they’re giving the Patrick Mc Whatsit part to Ecclestone!!!!
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Gelert, we will just have to agree to disagree. I think Eccleston is a fine actor. His Doctor Who grew in depth as the series progressed, and his acting in "Second Coming" was simply outstanding…
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Anthony Bourdain
Attention, Mike, over at Coffee Corner; there’s a great interview with Anthony Bourdain in today’s Observer that I think you’l enjoy.And for the rest of you, if you haven’t yet read Kitchen Confidential, you don’t know what you’re missing.4 responses to “Anthony Bourdain”
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I loved Kitchen Confidential, but shamefully have not yet thrown out my garlic press. Is there an internet link to the Observer interview? I only get the Sunday Times, and barely have time to read that!
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Ooops, yes, found it, thanks. hehe. a-hem.
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Ahem – I have also not yet thrown out my garlic press. Clearly we are both destined for some version of hell akin to the kitchen described in Gormenghast…
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Gah, I’m out of date in my blog reading. Blame it on the job. Thanks for the tip – that was a great interview. I do still have my garlic peeler, quietly serving as ballast in the gadget drawer.Gormenghast. God, I couldn’t slog through that even though I wanted to. I did read the kitchen parts, and know the hell you describe, but man. Very, very dense. I ought to give it a second chance someday.
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Koninginnedag Comes Early This Year
On the 30th April every year, the Dutch celebrate the late Queen Juliana’s birthday. This is Queen’s day (Koninginnedag). It’s really an excuse for a big party that will happen throughout the Netherlands. Because the 30th April falls on a Sunday this year, the celebrations are being brought forward to the 29th.Tomorrow, weather permitting, we’ll be cycling around part of a 44 kilometre circuit that takes in a series of art exhibitions in the locality. Then on Sunday we’ll be joining our new neighbours for the local Koninginnedag party, which, to confuse everyone, is actually being held on the 30th instead of the 29th. I’m sure it made sense to someone…One response to “Koninginnedag Comes Early This Year”
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HELLO OLD CHAPPY, ALTHOUGH NOT AS OLD AS I.
57
67
77
87
98…O NO THE PATTERN MESSED UP. I AM 97.
GOOD HOUSE.
DO YOU LIKE GERKINS?
I DO I DO I DO I DOO
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China Dispatches
Brian Sack (Banterist) is visiting China at the moment. His impressions of the country and its culture are being captured in a series of dispatches. Well worth reading – particularly the guidance for using the squat toilet. Brings back memories to me of a trip through some of France’s camping sites about 20 years ago…Leave a comment
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A Brisk Lesson
What with all the work involved in the move to the country, we’ve missed several weeks of The Apprentice. However, we were able to catch up with last night’s episode – a real humdinger involving Syed and Ruth fighting tooth and nail with each other. And they were on the same team. Nancy Bank-Smith’s review of the episode in today’s Guardian is worth reading. Watching Sir Alan deal with them was, as Bank-Smith says, a brisk lesson in elementary butchery. Lovely stuff.Leave a comment
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An Addition to the Family
As I’ve mentioned before, Martin had his heart set on owning a dog once more once we moved to the country. The original plan was to sign up for a puppy. However, a breeder contacted us saying that she had had a three-year old Labrador returned to her, because the owners were no longer able to keep it, and were we interested?Naturally, Martin was excited, and so we went to view the dog. Signs were good, and thus we became the owners of the dog last week. So far, despite my rationalism, I find myself reluctantly becoming fond of the beast. Martin is, of course, besotted. The dog is, of course, just a dog. But when it gazes up at you with those big brown eyes… then there’s obviously some deep genetic thing going on between humans and dogs about which I am powerless to protest.Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kai van de Beckenkamp; offspring of Just Brown van ‘t Meijelicht (father) and Fresh Fields Makaya (mother)…
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[…] Kai came into our lives shortly after we moved to the farmhouse, 11 years ago. He was then three years old. His first owners had moved from a house into a flat, and it was clear to them that Kai was not happy with the downsizing, so with heavy hearts they asked the breeder to try and find new owners for him. We were the lucky ones. […]
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The Film Meme
OK, a quick digression into meme-land. This list should probably – for reasons of alliteration – be called the "Movie Meme", however, if you don’t mind I prefer sticking to "Film". The word "Movie" has an air of cheap cigar about it as far as I’m concerned.Anyway, here’s a list of 102 films that people who are supposed to be literate about film really ought to have seen. My score is in bold. How did you do?“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) Stanley Kubrick
“The 400 Blows” (1959) Francois Truffaut
“8 1/2" (1963) Federico Fellini
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) Werner Herzog
“Alien” (1979) Ridley Scott
“All About Eve” (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
“Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen
“Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola*
“Bambi” (1942) Disney
“The Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) William Wyler
“The Big Red One” (1980) Samuel Fuller
“The Bicycle Thief” (1949) Vittorio De Sica
“The Big Sleep” (1946) Howard Hawks
“Blade Runner” (1982) Ridley Scott
“Blowup” (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
“Blue Velvet” (1986) David Lynch
“Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) Arthur Penn
“Breathless” (1959 Jean-Luc Godard
“Bringing Up Baby” (1938) Howard Hawks
“Carrie” (1975) Brian DePalma
“Casablanca” (1942) Michael Curtiz
“Un Chien Andalou” (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
“Children of Paradise” / “Les Enfants du Paradis” (1945) Marcel Carne
“Chinatown” (1974) Roman Polanski
“Citizen Kane” (1941) Orson Welles
“A Clockwork Orange” (1971) Stanley Kubrick
“The Crying Game” (1992) Neil Jordan
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) Robert Wise
“Days of Heaven” (1978) Terence Malick
“Dirty Harry” (1971) Don Siegel
“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) Luis Bunuel
“Do the Right Thing” (1989 Spike Lee
“La Dolce Vita” (1960) Federico Fellini
“Double Indemnity” (1944) Billy Wilder
“Dr. Strangelove” (1964) Stanley Kubrick
“Duck Soup” (1933) Leo McCarey
“E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) Steven Spielberg
“Easy Rider” (1969) Dennis Hopper
“The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) Irvin Kershner
“The Exorcist” (1973) William Friedkin
“Fargo” (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
“Fight Club” (1999) David Fincher
“Frankenstein” (1931) James Whale
“The General” (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
“The Godfather,” “The Godfather, Part II” (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
“Gone With the Wind” (1939) Victor Fleming
“GoodFellas” (1990) Martin Scorsese
“The Graduate” (1967) Mike Nichols
“Halloween” (1978) John Carpenter
“A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) Richard Lester
“Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith
“It’s a Gift” (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra
“Jaws” (1975) Steven Spielberg
“The Lady Eve” (1941) Preston Sturges
“Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) David Lean
“M” (1931) Fritz Lang
“Mad Max 2" / “The Road Warrior” (1981) George Miller
“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) John Huston
“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) John Frankenheimer
“Metropolis” (1926) Fritz Lang
“Modern Times” (1936) Charles Chaplin
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
“Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman
“The Night of the Hunter” (1955) Charles Laughton
“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) George Romero
“North by Northwest” (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
“Nosferatu” (1922) F.W. Murnau
“On the Waterfront” (1954) Elia Kazan
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) Sergio Leone
“Out of the Past” (1947) Jacques Tournier
“Persona” (1966) Ingmar Bergman
“Pink Flamingos” (1972) John Waters
“Psycho” (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
“Pulp Fiction” (1994) Quentin Tarantino
“Rashomon” (1950) Akira Kurosawa
“Rear Window” (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
“Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) Nicholas Ray
“Red River” (1948) Howard Hawks
“Repulsion” (1965) Roman Polanski
“The Rules of the Game” (1939) Jean Renoir
“Scarface” (1932) Howard Hawks
“The Scarlet Empress” (1934) Josef von Sternberg
“Schindler’s List” (1993) Steven Spielberg
“The Searchers” (1956) John Ford
“The Seven Samurai” (1954) Akira Kurosawa
“Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
“Some Like It Hot” (1959) Billy Wilder
“A Star Is Born” (1954) George Cukor
“A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) Elia Kazan
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) Billy Wilder
“Taxi Driver” (1976) Martin Scorsese
“The Third Man” (1949) Carol Reed
“Tokyo Story” (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
“Touch of Evil” (1958) Orson Welles
“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) John Huston
“Trouble in Paradise” (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
“Vertigo” (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
“West Side Story” (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
“The Wild Bunch” (1969) Sam Peckinpah
“The Wizard of Oz” (1939) Victor FlemingLeave a comment
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The Garden in Spring
We’re starting to tackle the garden at the farmhouse with the arrival of some warmer weather. There’s quite a lot of the garden to tackle, so it will be occupying much of our time, I feel. At the back of the property is a one acre meadow that should be mowed at least once a week apparently. Even though we have the luxury of a sit-upon mower, this takes a few hours each time to complete.
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Reconnecting the Firehose
I’m here crossing my fingers because tomorrow, with a bit of luck, someone will arrive to install ADSL at the farmhouse. This last month without Broadband access has felt really strange. I’ve hardly been surfing at all on the Internet and the blog has slowed almost to a standstill.Mind you, I think it will also be a problem to find the time to surf. These last four weeks we have been falling into bed every night totally exhausted from all the jobs that need doing around the house and the land. Today, for example, I mowed the meadow – which took 3 hours even though I was regally seated on my mowing machine dispensing royal waves to passing cyclists.Add to that we now have a dog – a 3-year-old chocolate brown Labrador – who needs lots of attention every day. Quiet life in the country? You have got to be joking! I think it was quieter when I was working for my living. Still, this life is giving more satisfaction.Hopefully, more updates to follow once ADSL is installed…One response to “Reconnecting the Firehose”
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[…] also a bit strange to think that, back then, I thought of ADSL as “drinking from the firehose” – I suppose it was, considering it was 60 times faster than dial-up access. However, as the […]
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Sharing the House
We’ve had a wooden floor put in the bedroom at the farmhouse. While that’s been going on, we’ve spent the last couple of nights sleeping in a room in the outhouse. A bit basic, but doable – and the plan is to turn that room into a guest bedroom anyway. The room has a small attic above it, which is accessible from the workroom next door.The first night we were vaguely aware of the patter of tiny feet, but last night the patter appeared to turn into a full scale barn dance. And either the mice were wearing hobnailed boots, or we may have a larger species of rodent to deal with. This will explain the selection of traps that the previous owners left in the workroom. I shall get some practice in. Oh, and a cat.2 responses to “Sharing the House”
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reminds me of when I was a kid. We had wooden floors in part of the house, and if you lay on the floor with your ear to the boards and scratched, little feet would scratch back at you!! I thought it was borrowers until someone explained.
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I checked the traps this morning – two tiny corpses. I can’t believe that mice can make so much noise.
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Between a Rock and a Hard Place
"There’s nothing we can do – it’s an automated system"That’s a sentence that is guaranteed to raise my blood pressure. Having worked in IT myself, I know that it’s not the computer’s fault; the blame can be laid entirely at the door of the humans who designed, programmed and paid for the computer system.The latest example that has been sent to try me is provided courtesy of my Internet Service Provider, XS4ALL.Normally, when one moves house in the Netherlands, the telecom provider (KPN) and the Internet Service Provider work in tandem to ensure that the ADSL (Broadband) service is also moved at the same time. Alas, my experience has been been far from troublefree and seamless. My experience has resulted in an XS4ALL sales support person uttering that dreaded sentence at the beginning of this piece.The seed of my misfortune lies in the fact that I used an ISDN line at my old address to carry the ADSL service, while here at the farmhouse we have a plain old Analogue line. KPN and XS4ALL are quite happy to move ADSL between two ISDN lines, or between two Analogue lines; but between and ISDN and an Analogue line? Unfortunately, "that does not compute", as I’ve found out to my cost. At first, I was told that it could be done, but then it was: "sorry, you’ll have to cancel the ADSL service on the ISDN line and then reapply for a new ADSL service on the Analogue line". This I did – and then found out that I couldn’t apply for the new ADSL service until the old service is stopped. This takes a month. Then, once the application for the new service is made, it takes a further two or three weeks before the new service is available. Going back to dialup speeds after ADSL is like watching paint dry on most modern web sites. Still, I resigned myself to being up to three weeks without my ADSL fix.But now, a new wrinkle in this sorry saga has appeared. KPN have indeed stopped my old ADSL service, but XS4ALL are still insisting that I have it, and are still stopping me from applying for a new one.According to KPN’s automated system, KPN stopped the old ADSL on the 31st March. Not bad, I suppose, considering that they were supposed to have stopped it on the 27th March, as had been agreed. Considering that they had a month’s notice, they really should have been able to hit the 27th March target…Meanwhile, XS4ALL’s automated system is still stubbornly insisting that I am enjoying ADSL service on an ISDN line that is itself no longer operational (I also cancelled the ISDN line). Last week, an XS4ALL’s sales support person first claimed that this was a temporary abberation, and that all would be well on Monday 3rd April. Inevitably, Monday has come and gone with no change. A second sales support person claimed on Tuesday the 4th April that it would all be alright by the end of this week. It was she who could quite clearly see in her information system that something was wrong, but then cheerfully uttered the Dutch equivalent of "There’s nothing we can do – it’s an automated system".So the upshot is that muggins here has found himself trapped in a hell between two automated systems that appear to refuse to communicate with each other, with support staff who seem to be unable to do a damn thing about it. And until they do, I can’t order my new ADSL line. It looks as though I am condemmed to dialup for at least a month, if not longer. Meanwhile, XS4ALL’s marketing department’s ad campaign extolling the virtues of fast Internetting with ADSL rolls on. I am thinking uncharitable thoughts at the moment.8 responses to “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”
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Heck Geoff. My sympathy. There’s nothing more annoying than a problem you can’t do a damn thing about, that no one who could seems to give a flying f%£* about. Have the same problem with my router, which keeps dropping internet connection, making it impossible to function online for about 3-4 hours a night. Is it the router? Is it my service provider? Neither seems to know or care, each insists its the other but can’t really help…… the other night I almost smashed the router against the wall, until I realised its as much a victim as I am!! heck, did I just say that? Its a bastard that seems to hate me. I really think I’m losing it!!
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We seem to be inching further forward. This morning, XS4ALL’s Service Centre application, which lists a users’ set of services, was no longer showing my old ADSL service in the list of my services. Nonetheless, the ADSL application web pages still won’t let me apply for the new one, because it claims I already have it. So it’s not just the KPN and XS4ALL systems that are slow to communicate with each other – it’s XS4ALL’s own internal systems as well. Sigh.
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I do NOT believe it!!! The XS4ALL system finally let me start asking for a new ADSL line -I get to the last page of a nine page questionnaire and then the bloody thing says "Server Error – please start again"! I swear, they’ve got it in for me…
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Well, finally, after I think the fifth time of trying today, the XS4ALL system has finally accepted my order for a new ADSL service. I trust that it will be installed by the end of the month – but on past performance, I’m not holding out too much hope.
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dearest geoff, i’m so sorry you’re having such a hard time with your hookups….hang in there, young man, sip something while watching your paint dry….n
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Brian sighs, Mozart twinkles in the background and candleight dances through a glass of pouilly fume. Remember the old days? When we used to write letters, ink to paper, sheets and sheets? When the only thing we had to manipulate was the quill to the inkpot and more wine in the glass? If we weren’t sure of the spelling of a word we’d rise, bridge the miles across the carpet of the study, reach up and pull down – a dictionary. Google was something we did to the knickers on next door’s washing line and a service provider was those ladies Uncle Reg would occasionally visit that he thought Aunt Madge didn’t know about. No ASDL, no SODs, NAFFOFs or YERWAs. Eh, them were’t days, lad!
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Hah, Coboró – you’re right. It does no harm to slow down. I have now placed my ancient copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary within easy reach. It’s faster than searching for words online.
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[…] the first months of living here. We should have had ADSL internet access (3 mbit/s), but there was a mixup made by our service provider, and the ADSL service was not transferred from our previous house in Gouda to the […]
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How Animals Have Sex
I have mentioned this book by Gideon Defoe before. But that was before I had read it. I am here to report that the reviews were completely on target. This is one of the funniest books I have read in recent years. As the blurb on the book cover says: from panda porn to snail love-darts, this is a guide to the reproductive habits of creatures great and small. It is a simply wonderful book.Message to Chris and Ed – this is definitely one for your collection. Well done Gideon!Look, just order it from Amazon, will you? I promise you, you won’t regret it.Leave a comment
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