Tuesday, 29 January 2008
BIRDWATCHING IN THE CITY
Not that long ago, my wonderful children and I were off to the nearest train station. They were off to catch a train to Wiltshire to see one of their grandparents. I don't go to Wiltshire unless under cover of darkness and preferably in a fast moving vehicle. I still don't trust the coppers there. Prone to the annual Hippie Cull they were. And did you know it's illegal not to eat a pork pie every 60 minutes in Wiltshire. They still have the stocks and angry crowds of ill mannered wurzels turn up in their thousands to hurl soggy, mouldy vegetables at anybody who doesn't have pig in aspic stuck between their teeth and traces of greasy pastry on their smock.
However, on the way to the station, there was a bird. This bird was right in front of us, bang smack in the middle of the pavement if you please. And it was very still. It's one of those sorts of birds which you periodically see stationary, because it's stone cold dead. Not just a bit dead mind you, absolutely horror show, intestines out sort of dead.
There are many cats in our area, and parked cars often afford them an excellent sculking or hiding place from which to pounce upon their prey. On this occasion, the unsuspecting bird, probably humming a crisp tune to itself, was stalked and done in.
So feast your mince on it's last attempt at modelling for the camera, immortalised as long as this hard drive and blog keep a-rollin' on. I hope it didn't suffer.
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
BEHOLD, THE TRANSLAT-O-CAM
"What's that?" I hear you all cry. (not cry as in tearful and upset, I meant cry like a town crier, only ssh, cos you'll wake the neighbours)
I was returning from the local weeny supermarket, when I looked up into the night sky. And guess what I saw. You'll never believe me. I mean, I wouldn't believe anybody that told me this. Well, I may believe some people, because some people are just very good at explaining things in a way which means virtually everybody believes them. (There's a song about that by a band called "The Wizards of Twiddley" I rather like it.) Some folk can just go on saying stuff, using all the best and most accurate terminology and descriptive powers, and still nobody would think that they were telling the truth. If they went on too long, most people would just get a bit bored.
Yes, that. But that's a daft thing to think, even when your on holiday in a swimsuit. I know this isn't you, but it's just a photo to illustrate a person thinking. I know, there are two people here, but only one of them would be thinking this thought. The other one is just a figment of the thinking one's imagination. Actually, that was a bit of a fib, there are two here really. You can tell that because cameras can't really pick up people's thoughts. It would be handy if they could, because I would just take a photo of myself in the mirror every time I lost concentration, and I'd be back on the right thread quite soon.
The original piccy of me up there was taken on the same beach as those two. I think they were both Russian, but it's hard to tell from their accents in a photo. Photos can't pick up accents or dialects either, or translate other languages to English. It would be good if they could, because then I could take a photo of people from eg. Russia and look at it to see exactly what they were saying to me, or even about me. They'd probably be saying;
"Why, English bloke, are taking you a the photos and us?" (I know, I know. It's a cheap camera, O.K.)
Of course, my Russian is non-existent from my mouth as well as to my ears, so I'd have to take a picture of me thinking or saying something and show it to them. Since it takes up to 7 days for my photos to get back from the developers, I expect they'd have forgotten what they'd asked me, and the conversation would go rather limp. That's probably the only reason the Translat-o-cam was never invented. Or the Thought-a-matic.
Anyway, since Daphne is a cheat, I'm going to appeal against the result. The least I feel I should get is a rematch.
However, the wind was fairly strong, so once I'd got to the bottom of the mountain, most of the short, and hence, lighter words had blown away. The best I could do to make sense of them all was ask a passer-by. As there weren't any passer's by, I ran around the corner to find one. Eventually I did, and he kindly followed me back to where the words were, despite the atypical nature of my request.
Upon asking him about the scattering words, he looked at me rather oddly. I asked him why he was looking at me rather oddly. Was it an unusual request to ask a total stranger to look at the ground to see if the chopped up words from my dictionary would spell out some sort of message? Most folk would comply wouldn't they, without a funny look? He said no, not at all. It's just that it's Wednesday which means he has to fulfill his New Year resolution to randomly present total strangers with a bizarre countenance. I looked at him strangely. He asked me if that was that my New Year resolution too? I said no, that sort of coincidence would be utterly ridiculous.
After careful consideration, he came to the conclusion that the only coherent message the words spelt out was "Go to the shops and buy a beer"
WWHOAH! That was really weird. Before I'd got bored, I had been wondering if I should just pop up to the shops and buy a beer. Sometimes the Universe is just irrefutably synchronized, isn't it?
That wasn't the weird thing that happened to me though. No, the weird thing was on the way back from the shops, I distinctly made out the shape of a spaceship traversing the Northern part of the sky. Oh, wait a minute. It's still there! Oh No, I'm wrong. It's just an eyelash.
Silly me, I've probably wasted quite a bit of your time, haven't I?