Diary of a Grammatical Misfit

It doesn’t feel like Friday,
Although I know not why.
For I’m very much aware
That four days have gone by.

I’ve certainly been working,
So my brain feels battered.
I’ve lived the five full mornings:
Basically, I’m shattered!

But I don’t have the tingle
Of anticipation:
Pleasurable awareness of
Weekend jubilation.

And so I write a ditty
As I have done before
To hope that Friday feeling
Comes back into the fore.

As in previous incidents, I make no apology for bad free rhyme. It’s fun!

I would quite like to manage six posts between now and Friday just to get up to the big 200th post before I leave the country. Since anything I write while away will be less considered and less sensible than my normal standard (um, well except the ones when I talk about pudding, or break into rhyme perhaps…).

But unless I can actually be bothered to write about how I’ve developed a formula to choose how many pairs of socks I think I’ll need (divide number of days away by likelihood of proximity to washing machine then subtract probability of weather that will lead to sandal wearing…) or the trauma of losing my holiday notepad (actually, it’s not that I can’t be bothered to write about that, it’s just too gosh darn upsetting) then I haven’t got much to say at the moment.

Although, now I come to think about it, there are a couple of theatrey type things that I haven’t recorded for posterity yet. I must get around to them before the end of the week.

But in the meantime I’ll just stare at the screen and go hmmmm.

I just had the most amazing idea.

It’s such a brilliant idea that if I had my own cartoonist shadower, drawing my life as I go along (and oh my gosh, how much do I want one now that I come to think about it!) he would draw a bubble over my head containing not so much a lightbulb as the entire Las Vegas strip.

It’s that brilliant.

Now, I admit, if pushed, that I can’t quite remember the detail of this brilliant idea. Or in fact, if I have to be honest, anything about it at all.

It was definitely brilliant though, I remember that.

It was probably the path to world peace, or the cure for cancer. Although, again, if I have to be honest, if it were the cure for cancer it would have to be something simple like eating carrots ’cause I have no knowledge of sciencey type things.

And really if it were that obvious it’d be easy and the sciencey people would’ve figured it out by now. Could be something unsciencey but uncommon I suppose, like eating raw broccoli while sitting naked in pond water under a full moon - I doubt anyone’s ever tried that as a cure.

But really I don’t think that that would be an idea so much as a hypothesis. And I think my brain would have different signals for hypothesis. ‘Cause it’d have to be tested and everything. And I don’t think I’d be quite so neon-lit excited for anything that involved testing people eating raw broccoli, naked, in water under a full moon.

‘Cause after the testing they might just be a bit miffed if it turned out that it wasn’t actually the cure for cancer after all. And I wouldn’t like to stick around for that bit. Although people are prepared to try all sorts of funny things with about as much scientific basis - even religion, to pick an example (not very much) at random - so maybe they wouldn’t mind after all.

But I still don’t think that was the brilliant idea.

It’ll come back to me though. Eventually. Isaac Newton sat under his apple tree thinking exactly the same thing, you know. History doesn’t mention that what actually happened was this:

Apple drops: “Aha! I have a brilliant idea!” says Newton. ”Wow, if my resident artist were here, how he’d paint my thoughts - they’d be not so much a candle as the great fire of London! But hang on, what was my idea again?”

2nd apple drops: “Ah yes, that was it, must write it down, now where’s my quill?… Oh no, it’s gone again.”

3rd apple drops: “Got it, I’ll definitely remember it this time, it’s firmly in my head. I’ll just make a note after my nap… Now, was it something to do with ships?”

…Some days later…

The apple tree sighs and throws down its last apple with an air of “for fuck’s sake, you’d better get it this time”: “Aha! Gravity, that was it!”

So all I need to do is find an apple tree. Only problem is, I’m pretty sure that my brilliant idea has nothing to do with fruit.

I was taken over by a far more serious side of my brain when I wrote yesterday’s post, I think it was the result of having more serious conversations about the performance that I am typically used to. Generally I stick with, “wow good”, “wow, funny” or ”wow, pretty”.

Today the silly side of my brain is in control. I keep wanting to say blancmange.

And now I’ve written it. Blancmange. Doesn’t look great written, sounds great spoken though. Soft, seductive, succulent…

“blancmange, bla-monge, bla!-moh-nge, bla!!-mohoh-nnge”

The more I say it, the more over-the-top my French accent becomes until I feel a strong urge to say “eehoh eehoh eehoh” (like a French parody not a donkey).

So it’s Friday morning, I have pudding on the brain and a dodgy French accent to contend with.

Great!

The telephone cord perplexes me.

It is, in itself, a coiled thing. And then it twists around itself as well until it is a tight ball of cord rather than a length of cord.

It does this furtively, steadily… until one day I pick up the phone when it rings and realise that I cannot get the receiver to my ear without the base coming with it. Whereupon it inevitably crashes back down onto my desk and the person I’ve just answered the phone to thinks they’ve rung an office under fire. But I complete the call, often with my nose millimetres from my desk, and once I’ve hung up, I set about unravelling the phone cord.

And days later we repeat the performance.

How does it get so coiled? I have three theories.

1. That someone (cleaner? security?) makes long calls from my desk in the evening and sits and rotates continually in the swivel chair as they do it.
2. That the office pixies do it. At the same time as they hide my paperclips, empty my stapler and put spikes out to rip my tights.
3. That there is a resident rat learning the Viennese Waltz who is practising each night with my phone receiver.

Anyone got a better explanation?

I was feeling lazy today so I decided to use Facebook for inspiration. Lots of people have this questions application when they ask people stuff and answer other people’s questions. I quite like this so I am answering five questions today.

  

1. What do you do to keep up with the Joneses?

Absolutely nothing. This is not (sadly) because I am immune to consumerist one-upmanship but because the only Joneses I know are holier-than-thou, gossipping bigots with dodgy fashion sense and no personality whatsoever. So keeping up with them is not a temptation, the difficulty lies in shaking the leeches off.

2. If you could have one superpower what would it be?

Stopping time. Or teleporting. They were always my favourite two superpowers from any sci-fi or fantasy stories so Hiro in Heroes (who has both) is very very envied.

3. Of all the bars in all the world, why that one?

Because there probably isn’t any such thing as coincidence.

4. Pickle or chutney?

As food, I like both very much. But as vocabulary, definitely pickle. I love being in a pickle, I don’t think being in a chutney would be so amusing.

5. What is the point of life?

Like most pointy things, it’s the sharp bit at the end.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax,
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings.” 

Only one verse of The Walrus and the Carpenter (Alice through the looking glass, Lewis Carroll) sticks completely in my head. The rest I can just about conjure up if I concentrate but this verse pops in whenever I can’t think of anything to write. I’ve often put “shoes and ships” or “cabbages and kings” in the subject line of emails - often to the complete bewilderment of the recipient - when all I mean is that it’s not much about anything in particular but “many things”.

So I have decided I should try to exorcise this poem by saying something about each of the many things.

Shoes: Shopping for ‘em, wearing ‘em, walking in ‘em - have talked about shoes a lot in the past and probably will do so again. I am wearing two shoes at the moment and am in the presence of six more - two smart pairs that I keep under my desk and one pair in the suitcase I have with me for the weekend. Those adverts that talk about shoes and the psychology of women (can’t remember the brand) are the most annoying ads currently on TV.*

Ships: Not a lot of ships in central London, other than those that aren’t really worth getting all fired up about (eek - pun alert). I am not sure when a boat becomes a ship but have made no effort to correct this lack of knowledge. I am staying on a ship in November here. I have birthday connections to lots of ships - the Mary Rose sank, the SS great Britain was launched and the Spanish Armada was defeated - all on July 19th. The SS Great Britain was the first ship I ever set foot on (it lives in Bristol, my birthplace) and I attended my university graduation ball on it too. Quite a lot to say about ships as it turns out, wasn’t expecting that!

Sealing Wax: Ummm… Oh how about…? Er no actually that’s just normal wax… (*Scratches head frantically*) They use sealing wax in Harry Potter - is that a something? Well, it’ll have to do frankly.

Cabbages: I already have a blog post about cabbage, I shouldn’t really repeat myself. But cabbage makes people fart and gives my Dad and sister headaches.

Kings: Don’t know any personally. I got very confused by someone a while ago saying “the Kings are just completely power-hungry”. I kind of thought that was the point of Kings - especially historically, but it turned out the person was just talking about a family in Emmerdale (which is no longer called Emmerdale Farm - I was shocked!).

The last two require answers rather than somethings…

Why the sea is boiling hot: Because you have pneumonia? Global warming? Blatantly wasn’t in Brighton that’s for sure. Brrrrrr.

Whether pigs have wings: Not all pigs, no. Just those that passed their pilot’s exam.

 

* Excepting loans, stairlifts and car insurance which come into a category all of their very own

…in conversation about this article and the concept of discrimination against left-handed people*…

Me: “I think the game on my new phone discriminates against right-handed people,” (demonstrating) “my hand is in the wrong place and obscures the screen - it’s really knocking my time scores!”

Other person (not seeming to realise I was joking): “But you can’t discriminate against right-handed people. They’re the majority. Discrimination only affects minorities.”

- - - - -

Complete rubbish of course. Discrimination can be exercised by anyone on anyone regardless of race/creed/ethnicity (whatever the mot du jour may be), gender, skin colour, hair colour, religion, age, weight, sexuality, class, height, (ummm, have I covered them all yet? oh no…) financial status, parental status (that one’s pretty hot in employment tribunals although it often comes under gender discrimination which I think odd), intelligence, attractiveness, and of course, preferred handage (is there an actual word for that?!).

So-called positive discrimination is still discrimination. It’s an attempt to redress historic inequalities by discriminating for minorities and therefore against majorities. It’s one of the most ridiculously illogical notions ever. “No two wrongs ever made a right”, we were always told at primary school although presumably even as the teacher utilised this appallingly lefty-oppressive language, some poor left-handed kid was being mentally scarred by using right-handed scissors.

It’s not that all left-handed people are suddenly making a big fuss and I agree that the practice of forcing people to use their right hands was wrong and we should equip schools/offices etc with alternative equipment. But this all seems part of the wider tendency to blame society for every small thing that ever went wrong and to demonise the notion of difficulty and I’m worried at the side-effects of this.

Because, just like we’re discovering that it’s actually a good idea to let children get dirty and encounter germs in order to allow their immune systems to develop (the rise in leukaemia is one of the many side effects of children being kept too ‘clean’), there’s evidence that a little bit of discrimination can actually be a good thing for people. (Emphasis on the LITTLE by the way - just like germs and disease, a little is a good thing, cholera epidemic proportions is not!).

For example, as a white, english, middle-class type person, the only discrimination I have ever faced has been minor but ultimately, I think, beneficial. At primary school I was equally able at maths and english but the attitude of the boys that ‘girls can’t do maths’ spurred me on to achieve far more in that subject than I would naturally have done without that incentive. The only problems I ever face as an adult tend to come from being fat rather than female and I think the problems I have faced in relation to that have made me a stronger, more assertive person than I would otherwise be. Ultimately I think I have more confidence because I am fat than I would have if I had more ‘right’ to feel confident about myself.

The BBC article points out that left-handed people actually tend to be more successful - this is attributed at least in part to the overcoming of obstacles. “Thinking outside the box” is how the spokesperson for the left-handed club describes it. “Bothering to think” is how I would describe it.

If too much comes too easy then humans have a natural tendency to be lazy. Darwin recognised the essential role adaptability plays in evolution and we marvel at the ability of our bodies to overcome difficulties - to adapt to the environment, to fight off disease etc. Yet we spend increasing amounts of time, money and effort to eliminate all forms of difficulty that might exercise our minds’ ability to adapt and develop.

Kids ’suffer’ from the trauma of failing exams - make the exams easier so that more people pass despite knowing less. Kids are ‘destroyed’ by competitive sports - ban sports days and races so that we can all be friendly despite producing less able sportspeople. Effectively, what all of this well-meaning effort does is reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator. And that cannot be a good thing.

After all, if all the kids at my school had been limited to my level of sporting ability, the GB athletics squad would be short two members and the west end stage would have lost a promising dancer.

I would therefore like to fight for a beneficial level of discrimination for all. Thinking about it, rationally, the principles of equal opportunities demand it!

 

* Incidentally, the microwave thing confuses the hell out of me - I paid attention last night when I was zapping my dinner and realised that I open the microwave door with my left hand and generally take food out of it with my left hand despite being right-handed. It just happens to be more convenient because of the position of our microwave. So how does the design of microwave doors discriminate against left-handed people?!

I know I’m not the only person who does this but that doesn’t make it any less pointless or stupid.

Why did I stay up late watching High Fidelity the other night?

I mean, I love it. It’s one of my favourite all time films (not top five but it might just sneak into the top ten) but I really didn’t need to stay up late to watch it just because it happened to be televised. I have it on DVD. I have it on VHS too dammit. And if I looked through the piles of recorded-from-the-telly-videos-that-can-now-be-used-again I probably have it a third time there somewhere too.

It’s so stupid. The whole ridiculousness starts reasonably enough, I’m getting ready for bed and it’s nice to have something on in the background while I’m wandering around picking out my clothes for the next day (because I’m a morning zombie and can’t make decisions for at least two hours after waking up). I fully intend to turn it off when I get into bed, idly thinking I might put it on this weekend and watch it from wherever I got to. But in my heart I know I won’t do it because it’s happened too many times before with too many other films. Even (and these are the really annoying times) when it’s on a channel with adverts. And even worse than that, when it’s been cut to fit a timeslot.

I’m not sure if that was more or less pointless than staying up late the previous night to watch the end of a crappy film I never intended to watch in the first place. I had been half watching the programme that preceeded it while sorting laundry and my first awareness of the film was noticing its extremely irritating incidental music. But before long the story was filtering into my head and I started to watch the screen. And then somehow I didn’t turn it off until it finished. I knew all along that it was a rubbish film (Tim Allen starring = big clue) but I still wanted to know what happened. I think maybe there was a hypnotic message in the awful incidental music. Or maybe it was a morbid fascination with finding out just how much more trite the film could manage to become as it slowly creaked its way towards the credits. (The answer was a lot more. A hell of a lot more.)

But to be fair, I slept like a baby once it had finished. Less well after High Fidelity - too many fantasies of John Cusack!