Gertsamtkunstwerk

Idolatory

Hello, let me introduce myself. I am not a young man, but I don't think of myself as old. I am aged 40-55.

I might as well mention now, because it will come out sooner rather than later. I am an Agnetha Fältskog fan.

Well, I say 'a fan'. Her number one fan.

I have been for about thirty years now.

I think about her every day. I feel obliged to, because I know she thinks about me. I worry about her. I worry about the people round her. We only want to be together but *those people* have poisoned her mind, telling her that I'm dangerous.

Me, dangerous? I adore Agnetha. Come to my bedsit. The walls are adorned with pictures of her. All along the table I position my Agnetha Falkstag dolls. I say table, but it only has three legs. The other corner is supported by copies of the Guinness Book of Hit Singles from the 1980s I bought at a Jumble Sale. I took the Abba pages out and had them laminated in Rymans, then I stuck them up in the kitchen with Blu-Tack. I wanted to use the Pink version, but they don't sell it nowadays.

Every week I go to the library and ask if they have got any new books in on Agnetha Falkstag, or if any other library has, so I can get them on inter-library loan. There was a woman there today, she asked me if I was interested in the Cyber-cafe.

I didn't know what a Cyber-Cafe was, but she showed me how to switch on a computer and use the internet, how to use this thing called Google. I had heard about the internet, but I thought it was just for lonely perverts. Not me, I've got Agnetha.

The library lady suggested that I typed something into this google, perhaps the name of an actor, footballer or pop star I liked. Trembling, I typed in "Agnetha Fältskog."

Now, I can talk to her without those evil people who keep her away from me. She has a thing called a website. I can leave her messages there, and she'll find them, like if I left them under the broken paving stone outside her front gate.

It's our secret. Mine and Agnetha's.

Regeneration

The post has just arrived. The Planning Department want my views on a proposal to build 2,500 homes, refurbish nearly a thousand more; and build premises that could include retail, professional, cafes, pubs; communtiy facilities such as library, creches, nurseries, primary school, community hall, gym,youth centre, health centre, elderly support facility, sports hall.

Also a Local Park and pocket parks.

Oh yes, it's the master plan!

So, st some time I have to examine the plans in minute detail, not because I have general objections, quite the opposite, but to ensure that there's nothing, especially on the plot across the road from me, that might detriment my facility. The devil is in the detail. Especially in Big Plans!

Progress is good. But time consuming!

Howling

My neighbour next door is howling again.

Surprisingly, this does not make me angry.

I'm not exactly a quiet person, so have fairly little room to manoeuvre. I would hate to live next door to a quiet person, who complains at the sound of a light being turned on.

His howling did not disturb my enjoyment of Waking the Dead, although it was audible during the pauses in University Challenge.

Now I'm listening to a CD with headphones on, so, again, it doesn't bother me.

It's just pitiful, really.

Eevrybody sings around their home, either to a CD, or to an instrument, or a capella. Most of us would die of mortification if random strangers were to hear us.

Sadly, my next door neighbour is reported to be a professional musician.

Sadly, I can strum a guitar as well as him.

Even more sadly, he paractices sometimes four hours a day. And he never gets beyond the one chord. And the howling. Sometimes its more like yodelling. But tonight it's definitely howling.

I did describe it as Bob Dylan but without the lyricism or tunefulness.

On reflection, that does Mr Dylan a grave disservice.

It's definitely more like a wolf yodelling. Falsetto.

It seems, from t'internet, that the house has been sold. Whetehr they remain as sitting tenants, I don't know. Or whether we get new neighbours.

It's always a bit tension making, that. Do I want house-sharers who think two o'clock on the morning I start a new job is the best time to have a party, replete with bongo-playing?

Or do I want an aspirant couple replete with 1.8 children who anxiously explain that they would rather we didn't talk in the house between 2 and 4pm or after 7pm because it would wake the baby?

Or do I want someone who lets their cat poo in my garden?

Always a time of tension...

Suggestibility

One of my oft-repeated statements is "I don't watch TV adverts"

If only this was strictly, rather than broadly, true.

Last night, I was at a bit of a loose end. Couldn't be bothered to settle down to anything proper, had a TV date (ad-free) at 9. So I flopped on the sofa and channel flicked to Bremner, Bird and Fortune. A few years ago this used to be obligatory viewing. Then Rory Bremner stopped being funny. Last night proved that the habit cessation was correct.

However, this was a rare unscheduled viewing of a commercial TV channel. And, remember, I was feeling lazy and apathetic, so I ended up enduring those dreadful TV ads.

In parenthesis, if people watch on average, reportedly, 50 hours of TV a week, I guess that probably means that they watch as much as five hours of adverts every week. For nearly an hour a day they willingly subject themselves to being told what to think, what to do, repetitively, over-and-over-and-over-and-over again.

How scary is that!

There was some advert for some foodstuff or other, with an enticing tagline "Because it only contains 10% fat, you can eat it without feeling guilty..."

Forget consideration of how much sugar, salt it contains. Forget considerations of whether 10% fat makes it healthy. Forget even the fact that human beings need fat, it's a vital nutrient.

Guilty...!

Guilty

Guilty is what I feel is I've done something wrong. Like committed a mass murder. Or an armed robbery. Or forgotten to bring my partner a glass of water, as he requested. Or surfed the internet when I should be working.

Why on earth should eating induce feelings of guilt?

I don't get it.

Normality

We were on the Tube on Saturday, arriving at Leicester Square at about 4pm.

We couldn't work out why it was so crowded.

Then we remembered, it's London. The Tube is always crowded. Especially in the Central Area. Especially on Saturday afternoons.

I saw no police. No avoidance of supposedly suspicious looking Asian men (actually, not sure if I saw any supposedly suspicious looking Asian men) and no staring jumpily at stray or abandoned bags (dunno if I saw any bags).

Children's names...

Children's names 'spell trouble'

Names which teachers associate with delightful children include Ben and Joseph.

Come on, it's not the names that count towards children's behaviour, it's the parental attitude, which starts even before the child is named!

And here's the forum thread

When I did school's audit, I used to have great fun looking at the dinner money register. In some areas the kids were all called Chelsea and Alfie, but in one very posh area there were three Clementines, lots of Charlottes, Victorias, Alexandras, Williams, Henrys.

In a way, although it's fun to laugh at the absolutely outrageous names, some of the slightly more mainstream ones are even more fun. Some slight acquaintances called their son Dylan Elvis, and proudly explained after whom he was named.

My earliest memory

Misty asks what my earliest memory is.

Simple!

Or is it?

I think I was in my teens when I realised that most of my clearest early memories are ones captured by photographs, typically of holidays, days out and family gatherings. I suspect that these photos are a key to how memory works - by looking again and again at the photos, they reinforce a memory which, due to the superficial nature, would otherwise be eroded. No doubt neurologists, psychiatrists and maybe even psychologists would be able to talk at length about hard wiring.

Most of the rest of my memories are of trivial events, usually that took place in very familiar surroundings. I have no memories of my grandmother, who died when I was two, but I do remember going round to my Grandad's, before he moved on remarriage when I was four. I recall asking "Any Mm-mms?" which was the code my parents used for sweets, not imagining, of course, I would associate it with sweets. And, of course, Grandad was a little bit more forthcoming with sweets than the parents were.

I have some haphazard early memories - being in the bath with my rubber tortoise; one Christmas it was very snowy on the way to Church so my sister was put into my pram - I must have been very young, because she's three-and-a-half years older than me. I remember the road where we lived being resurfaced. This might have been in the Sixties, and I don't think it's been done since. ButI have loved the smell of asphalt ever since. I remember when the gas fire was fitted in the sitting room (although bizarrely, I don't actually remember there being a coal fire there); this sticks in my mind because one of the fitters was black, and I had never seen a black person before, certainly not close to, so I wanted to touch his hand, and I remember him being very patient and charming.

I remember a bird in my bedroom which really scared me, so I spent the night in my parents bed. I've never really liked birds indoors since.

I suspect that these all occurred before the age of four - I have much clearer memories from then on. I do distinctly remember cutting the hair on my sister's dolls (okay, I'll admit - but she does have a bit of a chip on her shoulder about it); that must have been after I was four because it was inspired by a doll I got for my fourth birthday whose hair is adjustable by a belly button and a screw in her back. I think the crayoned ticks in the Ladybird books just appeared as if by magic...

I don't recall out of the backdoor onto the concrete step but I do have the scar on my chin to prove it.

I was undoubtedly a very sweet, very loveable toddler...

Retailers wake up

Britney 'drives shop staff crazy'

Almost half of those quizzed added that customers had also complained about loud in-store music driving them mad.

Almost half - it is impossible to guess what proportion of the rest have suffered uncomplainingly or have simply walked out to take their custom elsewhere.

The chances of any business, be it a shop, a hotel, an airline, whatever finding music that is going to appeal to a majority of their customers is so remote that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to play it at headhurting volume.

Met Opening Night

A Triptych With Two Leading Men at the Met's Opening

Then came Act III of "Samson" with the ageless Plácido Domingo in the title role. Of late Mr. Domingo has been dropping hints about retiring as a singer. Yet here he is at 64, sounding remarkable. In the opening scene, when the blinded Samson, chained to a mill, pours out his anguish, Mr. Domingo sang with amazing ardor, poignancy, insight and plenty of power. Many tenors half his age would covet sounding half as good. As Dalila, the mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, was not at her best. Yet despite some shaky moments, her phrases rang true when it mattered, and as always, she looked gorgeous.

For those keeping score, this was the 21st opening night at the Met with Mr. Domingo participating. In second place, at 17, is Enrico Caruso, and no contenders on the scene seem likely to have Mr. Domingo’s longevity and prominence in the company.

Some Welsh geezer also sung.

In other news

A bust in honor of Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo was unveiled here Monday in appreciation of his rescue work after the (1985 Mexico City) earthquake.

Domingo worked several weeks alongside other rescuers in search for possible survivors in the aftermath of the disaster. 

Update: Some more links Plácido Domingo recuerda el sismo, La tragedia los une, Montan instalación sobre la avenida Álvaro Obregón Artistas plásticos recuerdan a víctimas del terremoto , Develan busto de Plácido Domingo en plaza donde murieron cientos, Desvelan un busto de Plácido Domingo en una plaza mexicana donde murieron cientos en un terromoto

Photos

Mr D asks: Of all the photos you've taken, Gert, which one gives you most pleasure to look at again and again?

It's a difficult one! What are photos for ? Are they bring back memories? To document an event? Artistic expression?

And memories! If you want to remember a person is it better to have a portrait shot of them or a photo of somewhere you went together and contains pleasant memories?

Two of my favourite photos I do not possess in hard form, only on a video tape that my brother-in-law spent hours compiling of childhood photos, which was a brilliant thing to do. I'm still waiting for him to repeat the exercise with scanner and PC...

One is of a sailing dinghy off Aberystwyth in 1974, the first 'proper' photo I actually took, when, although I did not know the language, I knew it was important to frame the shot correctly. I even rested the camera on the wall because it was too heavy for my six-year-old hands.

Another photo dates from 1977 and is a shot of Lincoln Cathedral taken from the castle. My father took it, but under strict and precise instructions from me  - I think he was concerned I might drop the camera over the parapet. Me? Little brother, possibly, camera never!

My back room, where I sit now, is full of photos of people. Dominating are photos of No 1 Nephew and Favourite Niece. Lack of photos of Younger Nephew must be remedied forthwith, but are an unintended consequence of him being a product of the 21st Century. In the 1990s people used to post photos through the Royal Mail. This just doesn't happen nowadays. Photos are sent more frequently, but digitally, and there isn't the imperative to print them off, because they are stored for all eternity on PC.

There is also a photo I took of my father at Christmas 1987, not long before he died, and it's a photo I especially like. Very personal reasons, of course.

Throughout my adult life I have taken all sorts of photos of all sorts of people and places. I particularly like half a dozen or so of the fifty plus I shot on film of Niagara Falls (imagine if I went there with a digi camera!). I do like looking back at pictures of people, although it always intrigues me that so many of us - and this  has been the case for a century and a half - only take pictures of the good times, the smiles, the jolliness, so we and posterity remember people like that. We don't record the misery, the pain, the anger. Which, perhaps, is no bad thing, but does not give an accurate portrayal of life.

One of my most favourite pictures taken on film does not come out well when scanned

                                                                     

The simple answer is I don't really know. Just looking at my photoblog, which only covers photos taken since March 2001, there are photos I like because of the memories of a holiday. There are photos I like because I made the mundane interesting. There are photos I like because I got lucky.

I can't really answer, which is why I'm going through slowly and highlighting a selection of favourites. As it happens, this photo below has particularly appealed to me recently, and it's chronologically due to be highlighted. This was taken on the footferry between Harwich and Shotley.

Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal

The opener to the new season at Covent Garden; a Donizetti semi-rarity. Last Saturday's was the first performance at Covent Garden, ever; I went to the second one on Tuesday. A concert performance, with all the singers relying on their scores, a sure sign that this isn't a repertoire staple. Synopsis is available on the ROH website. Dom Sébastien was a youthful king. A helpful programme note said

Chronic inbreeding between the Spanish Hapsburgs and the Portuguese house of Avis was the likely cause not just of Sebastião's father's premature death but also the premature death of all his uncles. It was also the likely cause of instability in Sebastião and in his cousin, the deformed Don Carlos (qv) of Spain. In fact, so inbred were the two families that Sebastião, who should have had eight great grandparents like the rest of us, could only number four

In fact, in some ways there was a slight reminisce of Don Carlo (s) perhaps mostly in the appearance of the Grand Inquisitor (No one expects the...Portuguese Inquisition.

I had never heard this work before. I have strong memories of there being some very beautiful music, but, really none of it memorable, and I feel that if I don't hear Acts 1, II, IV, V again it really wouldn't bother me overmuch. Opera Rara were recording it for release in February 2007; perhaps I shall buy the CD on account of having been there - assuming they manage to correct a few howlers in the studio.

Act III was absolutely superb, though, especially the Requiem. And I had one of those moments - I was sat in the Slips, ie front row along the side of the auditorium, and at the end of Act III I was leaning over, with my arms extended clapping and a big grin like a lunatic on my face, and Mark Elder saw me, caught my eye, and smiled and nodded (he had a bit of a lunatic grin, too).

I thought that the Stand-out performance was from Vessilina Kasarova. Alastair Miles was excellent as the Grand Inquisitor. Simon Keenlyside was impressive in a relatively small role. Some people argue it wasn't a small role; I contend that he made it seem much bigger than it was, but he spent relatively little time on stage. Renato Bruson had withdrawn and was replaced by a chap by the name of...Caruso. Carmelo Corrado Caruso. He wasn't bad, notwithstanding a wobble at the start of Act 4.

The strangest thing was the tenor in the title role, Giuseppe Filianoti, reportedly the next big thing. Intriguing. A very beautiful voice. Good-looking. Engaging stage presence. But, in his showpiece aria at the end of Act 2, it was very strange. I had been warned that he had sung it flat on Saturday so I was alert. In the first verse I was thinking - I can certainly say he's not sharp - and when the second verse came I knew he had been flat in the first. Each verse finished with a vocal pyrotechnic, which was sung twice at the end of the second. On the first two attempts it was a bit strained and unpleasant. On the third attempt he just missed it entirely, and the auditorium took a collective breath. The very elderly chap next to me jerked bolt upright and banged his fist on the padded rail in front. It seemed such a shame because for the rest of the opera, I kept hearing this absolutely gorgeous voice and wondering where it was coming from (I had a slightly restricted view so couldn't see him without leaning forward).

As well as Filianoti cracking and Caruso wobbling, a 'period' horn flubbed a solo passage (much as I like period instruments, maybe there's a reason they invented modern horns) and a mobile phone went off.

The orchestra otherwise were superb and the chorus sounded wonderful. I shall remember the Requiem for a long time, but it seems that there is good reason that this opera has been buried in obscurity for so long. I didn't feel able to care greatly about the story or the characters, and the music had its moments rather than long periods of sustained loveliness. And the Final Act ended as a dramatic wet squib.

Professional reviews: Never mind the quality ..., from the Guardian, Treasure trove in the grand style, Independent, Times.

Wisdom of crowds

The crowd knows best

Fascinating. Seems credible. But only when the crowd isn't being told what to do.

Some of the examples cited eg the ox-weighing contest are truly fascinating.

And the petrol-panic-that-never-was

In fact, the crowd was wiser than the journalism... Petrol mainly ran out (and then only temporarily) in those towns where right-wing newspaper readership dominated, but not in those with more diverse newspaper sales and readerships.

I am perenially fascinated with crowd mentalities. We spend much of our childhood and most of our adolescence screaming at parents and teachers that we don't want to be told what to do, yet well into our twenties, thirties, beyond, we happily do what the media tells us to do.

Or do we? Wave after wave of advertising, of lifestyle columns, of 'this is the new...blahdeblah' and still the most popular meal in Britain is curry. I have never seen an advertising camapign for Indian Restaurants, just plenty of misspelled leaflet drops and shaky adverts in the cinema. They did try pushing the Balti as the new rock'n'roll, but we soon returned to our Dupiazas, Kormas and Biriyanis. I have never read an article about how "Indian Restaurants" is where it's 'at'; never been told by some lazy-ligging-halfwitted journalist that going to a curry house will make me fulfilled. Yet, persisitently, we keep going, a whole nation of us, of all classes and incomes and ages. And the marketing people don't know why!

Wisdom of the crowd?

The Ballad of Albert Embankment

Many years ago I audited a particular division, X Division, of a particular Ministry, FAFF, we'll call it.

They were a really great bunch of people, a high level of competence and intelligence in relatively low grades. I liaised chiefly with 'Raj', who was one of the most impressive people I have ever met in Middle Management - he dealt with policy and medium-term issues. 'Jill' was responsible for day-to-day management. A very quiet and serious person, very shy. To me, she seemed to be straight out of a 1950 novel written by a Muriel Spark-wannabe . File notes by her were always written in impeccable, slightly girlish, script, keeping a perfect straight line on plain paper, and always signed J.J. Richmond (Miss).

She always wore a cardigan, and had a sensible supply of tissues in the pocket. Never a glamorous dresser, always sensible. I could never decide whether she was mid-thirties, as suggested by her skin texture, or mid-fifties as suggested by her style of dressing.

We never really conversed, except on FAFF business. Perhaps once or twice on adverse weather or transport disruption. She was not unfriendly, just conscientious and concentrating.

I had a sort of fantasy about her, inspired the countless post-War novels I had read in my youth. I decided that she lived with her ageing and infirm widowed mother, in order to care for Mother not because of an inability to flee the nest. Alternatively she lived in an impeccable but frugal flat in an unfashionable suburb, with a cat and many books. Not watching much TV, but listening to a lot of radio, maybe Radio 4. I also decided that she was a regular attendee at concerts, plays and operas, always going on her own, but being on nodding acquaintance with people she saw regularly.

Years went by, and I encountered many other people who, in the workplace, presented a supposedly 'boring' 'unexciting' persona, never talking about their drug-fuelled clubbing and shagging sessions, yet unbeknownst to their colleagues were living the wildest most exciting lives outside of the 9-5.

I got to thinking, maybe I was reading Jill all wrong. Perhaps she really did live with Elderly Infirm Mother, or in frugal bedsit with a two bar electrical heater. But in her spare time she was the long-standing mistress of a rich powerful married sugar daddy who once a year would whisk her off for a fortnight's frolicking in the Caribbean. Or a toyboy who trembled at her amazing sexual prowess.

A few weeks ago I got off the bus near work and spotted someone who looks a lot like Jill. Older, certainly. But, my god, so am I. Still very sensible, a sensible shopping bag, a sensible mac, and very sensible shoes. Not sensible, like my girlie slip-on embroidered Doc Martens, but very very sensible. If you didn't know she was a Civil Servant, you would assume her to be a librarian.

And on Tuesday I spotted her in the Ladies at Covent Garden. I spend some time after the second interval scanning the amphitheatre. Absolutely delighted that at least part of my fiction was correct. I tried to spot her, desperate to see the toyboy or the superpowerfulrichSugar Daddy. But I didn't spot her until I was leaving via the Vilar Floral Hall, where she was inspecting the exhibition of the Callas jewels.

So, I've come to the conclusion there probably isn't an Onassis-like figure in her life; the toyboy might have been at Stamford Bridge, I suppose.

Strong leg of the law

The lift stopped at the first floor. Someone got out. As the doors closed a man stuck out his foot and firmly held the doors, until they opened fully again. The man removed his foot. A young woman scurried in and once again the lift was moving.

"Cor, that was macho!" I exclaimed, impressed. He looked slightly taken aback; the other occupants laughed. "If I'd had tried that," I continued, "I would have fallen flat on my backside!" He pointed out he had his back against the wall. I insisted I would still have come a cropper. Something about the way he spoke seemed slightly...regimented.

An hour later, it dawned on me. Where I work is crawling with police officers. I always feel guilty whenever I see a uniform on the premises, then I realise they have more stars hanging off their epaulettes than the McDonalds Crew Member of the Week. Or I think they bear an uncanny resemblance to the Commissioner of the Met - and realise it is the Commissioner of the Met.

Makes me laugh, though. And kind of reassured. They may be sharp-suited policy wonks attempting to imitate civilians, but when push come to shove they think fast and beat down a door with one foot.

Boys in Blue, dontcha just love 'em...

Four helicopters?

Spied through a narrow gap in the buildings during a very quick smokebreak.

One hovering, one cruising in narrow circles, one higher and wider in its circling, and one taking off.

I understand that something's going on down in Trafalgar Square

I have spent twenty-five years studiously - and extremely knowledgably - eschewing cricket. It is now as much a matter of principle as anything. Why is it that people keep asking me whether I'm going to Trafalgar Sqaure? I'm a football fan and I like rugby. I understand cricket. But I am not going to Trafalgar Square.

Tim Sargeant RIP

Even when you know someone's been ill, it still comes as a shock to hear about their death. Especially when you hear via a copy of the South London Press (not yet up-to-date online) being placed in front of you.

Tim was always excellent company. We spent four good years, and then some, propping up bars. I can't say we always agreed - indeed, one of my best anti-Iraq war posts was at the transcript of a rant I had had at Tim 2½ years ago. But he was obsessively devoted to Streatham South Ward.

The official tribute from Labour Group Leadership says

It's impossible to think of Tim without remembering how sociable he was. He loved discussing football and politics over a drink and a cigarette in his local pub. Tim had an instinctive understanding of people and a desire to serve his community. It was this that gave Tim so many friends and admirers from all political parties.

Tim was a kind and gentle person. He was good company, a great community councillor, an outstanding mayor, and in his final months he showed us too that he was a man of great courage and dignity as his fought very publicly against his illness. Tim is a friend we will miss very much over the coming months and years.

That's the third of the 1998 intake who has died far too young. One less character.

I wonder if the LibDims will force the by-election or allow the 6-month rule to come into play...?

Update: The SLP now has their tribute online,

Gert's quote of the day

Last night:

I can whistle standing up, but I can't whistle lying down because my teeth get in the way

What the Sun said...

asks Scaryduck

...I really can't remember, because I was boycotting Murdoch newspapers at the time, so couldn't bring myself to buy a copy for the archives. Various copies were pinned up on the JCR door, in the bar - a Willobite and an ex-Willobite being slagged off in a Sun editorial! Didn't happen every day in Willoughby Hall. In fact, it only happened once in my entire time at Nott'm.

It was something about "irresponsibility" and how, unlike those Nottingham University students, Mr Powell was in favour of free speech. They also accused us of setting off the fire alarms as well as shouting; it's only just occurred to me that, as well as not being true, it was logistically unfeasible.

It was a big day on campus. Perhaps the biggest ever. But, rather than try to rely on memory of half a lifetime ago, I have gone back to the Paper Diary of the time. November 1986

Me in November 1986

For a few days I was very famous, and  for the remainder of my University career I had a residual fame, and did not need to prove my credentials - which was not altogether a good thing...

And yet, the next week, it was the great Willoughby Food Poisoning and your intrepid Campus Reporter was reduced to phoning the Health Centre to determine how many had been kept in overnight.

Operaphile

Clair asks What is it about opera that you love so much? and Mike asks I can't get beyond those ridiculous artificial warbly voices. (To my mind, at least.) Assuming there is one (and I understand from yours and many other people's reactions that there must be), how do you begin to access the emotional dimension?

(And it's not too late to ask your own question)

General observations. I think that music is something intrinsic to all human beings. No, that's wrong, it's not what I think, it's something that has been demonstrated over and over again, by studying primitive tribes and new-born/unborn babies. More so than words, more so than visual stimulus, second only to touch.

I'm also making the assumption that people who read this blog are into a diversity of Arts - I know Mike's a bit of a Drama Queen, for example. I'm assuming that most people listen to art music, or read literature, or appreciate Fine Art, or enjoy drama over-and-above TV soaps. The extent to which they actively enjoy is a product of time, money, arse-into-gear round tuit  as much as rational thought.

I will also add that, with so many interests in life, there's a virtuous circle. If you like something and take some time to find out more, it enhances the enjoyment, which drives you to find out more. I  sometimes wonder why I don't make much of an effort to go to straight plays or ballets, and usually get bored very quickly in Art Galleries. I also think, with a lot of things, we may not be into them because we haven't been exposed to them at a time when we might be the most receptive to new influences. I'm thinking mainly of childhood, but also in adulthood, there are times - start or end of a relationship, times when we are disillusioned with life etc when we are open to new experiences. Most of the rest of the time we plod on with the familiar.

Oops

Rose 11 am

Retired 2 pm

Rose 5.45 pm

Departed for curry house 7.30pm

Returned home 11.30

Rien de blog

Chronically Fatigued, I am...

Quick question - 'must-watch' TV. UK specific

When is Waking The Dead - new series - starting?

And when is 49-up due to be on? I watched this since 28 Up. I can't miss this one. You know, suddenly, I feel as though they're my age group. When I first watched it they were ancient. And when it started, I wasn't even born...

Questions

I did this back in July 2003 which is a very long time ago. I asked people to leave me questions in my comments box. I'd like you to do the same again...

I would prefer the questions to be ones that I can actually answer, and , preferably, about me. You can be as personal, nosey and intimate as you like, although I won't guarantee that I will give a detailed, candid answer to very intimate question. But I won't lie.

I shall answer them gradually over the next few weeks. No limit to the number of questions any person can ask, although if someone poses twenty they're likely to get shorter answers than someone who asks just one.

And no limit to the number of people who can ask questions, although tail-enders might not get an answer, or might have to wait a while.

I won't answer the question "What is your opinion of me?"

Sex over forty...

...bring it on!

Women say good sex begins at 40

The golden age of Sex

When an increasing number of college girls are apparently so desperate to get chopped about, I must cast some doubt on their ability to survive as doctors, lawyers or businesswomen, let alone enjoy actual sex.

Faced with these choices, if we are honest with ourselves, I suspect that the sexual future of the forty-something woman involves having more than one partner at all times. As I've still got a year to go, I'll just call that a hunch for now.

I can't see myself acquiring a toyboy, or going down the multiple partner route.

But do check back in 2008. Who knows...?

I will say that being in one's Twenties seems really crappy in retrospect...all that wasted effort to achieve - what?

As for made up statistics, how about

69% feel more adventurous in bed

Buy one get one free

I had a text from my sister so I called her back. She's got shingles. Her doctor commented that she could have got it in Tesco. I remarked that my doctor said the same when I had chicken pox.

My sister wonders if you get Clubcard points with it.

I think it's more sinister. Conspiracy theorists, on yer marks, get set, GO...

For everyone who's boycotting Tesco, it may just be another reason to add to your list...

The Day I Snogged Rik Mayall

Well, it got your attention, didn't it. It certainly got mine. That, I'm afraid, definitely has to go in the minus column.

But at least it reminded me that my irregular round-up of search requests is long overdue. In chronological order: with the usual warning that this is not suitable for Primary School age children. Or secondary school children. Or adults, for that matter...

• caught him in my ballet shoes - he'd stretch them...oh, god what was he doing in her ballet shoes...?
• KD Lang lookalike lampard - good spot, Searcher!
• i have got habits which are driving me mad - they're driving me mad, too, stop coming here with your weird search requests
• By what means does carbon dioxide give a pleasant tingle on the tongue?
• disciplinary because i shut the casino 30 minutes early - you bet it's a disciplinary
• lyrics to kyrie liason - I think you'll find it's spelt 'l-i-a-i-s-o-n
• crushes on minor celebrities therapy - for what affliction is it suitable therapy to have crushes on minor celebrities? Take my advice, only have crushes on major celebrities
• cottageing - nothing intrinsically strange about this except the searcher used tesco.co.uk's search engine, which is a bit like reading The Daily Mail Guide to Cottaging, Dogging and Roasting
• Berlusconi naked photo on the beach - yuck, move swiftly on
• jason gardener posh - this appeared about two hours after I saw Jason Gardener interviewed on the telly and thought 'Crikey, he's posh...'
• lampard penis sex - Hold The Front Page! Frank Lampard has sex using his penis
• good-looking "edward heath" - move swiftly on
• literates behaving as illiterates
• kevin keegan cottaging - these rumours are persistent, but I have difficulty believing them
• STORIES NON CONSENSUAL CRUCIFICTION - more evidence, if it were needed, that the sickest of perverts always use CAPS LOCK
• balamory porn - the ultimate spin-off
• "tights" wearing hobby interest - oh, yet another search for Cristiano Ronaldo. Me, I have no interest in wearing tights, even as a hobby. Stockings, with suspender belt, yes, but tights, no, no, no
• Why is my suitcase always last on the conveyor belt - because you're always the first to check in?
• has anyone ever really met jeremy sumpter - no, he lives in a hermetically sealed cocoon of a desert island, a media creation, and whenever he's in a film it's merely a hologram
• St elijah+lyrics+mandelson - this is so wrong in so many ways
• alan titchmarsh porn - it could have been worse, it could have been Rolf Harris porn
• CHRISTIAN GAY MALE ESCORTS LONDON - you don't know how much this shocks me to my core, and I'm not sure what's worse, a christian wanting a gay escort, or a christianbeing a gay escort. AND PERVERTS' CAPITALS shudders
• celebrities vomiting naked - words. actually. fail. me

But my favourite has to be clothes worn by jodie marsh, which came as such a shock I had to check out the other pages indexed by Google, and, right below me was a site advertising clothes worn for church and mosque. Has the world gone quite mad...?

Why do people hate their children?

# 2584 in an occasional series

On the bus home this evening I was vaguely aware of a mother and child of probably Infant School age. The mother was engrossed in a book, the child was singing to himself. Sitting on the floor of the bus, but singing to himself, some song about ski-ing. There was a bag of abandoned Kentucky Fried Rat on the floor, and the child started playing with it. She slapped him across the arm "Leave it! You'll make it smell."

He started doing a sophisticated commentery on the traffic. I glanced across, thinking it may be someone I knew, but that was a stupid thought, because his parents engage him in conversation in a very engaged and engaging way. She completely ignored him.

The bus stop before my mine, she leaned across and rung the bell. "Get off here!" she said. The child leaned across, saying "I'm going to ring the bell again." "Stop it!" yelled the mother, and slapped him across the head.

As the bus was about to move off, I glanced sideways and the child was about to run down the pavement. The mother turned and yelled at him. The split second before she turned I saw her face. She looked as if she would rather be anywhere else than with the child, and as she turned, it seemed that she would do anything to avoid meeting hs eye.

It was strange. This is not the usual tale of a child running wild. Seemed perfectly normal behaviour to me, and I didn't find the child annoying or disruptive. He seemed bright enough, clearly enunciating the words of a fairly complex song and his commentary made sense to me. I don't approve of the lashing out, but that's not what this is about. It scared me to see the absolute lack of rapport or communication between the two. I have reported absolutely everything she said to him, there was no conversation.

I'm assuming it was the mother; for a bit I thought it may be the hired help, but from the glance I gave them, they looked alike.

I suppose it's none of my business, I don't know what's going on in their lives, I don't know her state of mental health. There's a lot I don't know. But it just seemed an extraordinarily bizarre way to pass a bus journey.

And what is haunting me is that lack of eye contact. It just wasn't normal.

Gullibility?

Spy conman 'put me through hell'

This is an extraordinary story. It's been bubbling about in the media for months, but only now are we able to read the full story.

We are all gullible, up to a point. We have to take people on trust, and trust our instincts. And most of us feel we know the rules, up to a point. I've fallen for guys who have turned out to be all charm and no substance. But this has emerged after a few weeks of meeting up for meals, drinks etc after work. Maybe even a few shags. But no one has ever taken over my life and my life savings.

This guy deserves the life sentence he has been handed out, but, I have to say, I don't feel a great deal of sympathy towards the victims. It's like some people are wanting to be conned. Sometimes they're motivated by greed, sometimes it's a sense of danger, I don't know. I suppose they're a bit like people who become drug addicts. The kicks, the living outside the norms of society, some can't resist. I suppose I am lucky that I don't go for thrills, on the whole. I like having a solid structure and foundation to my life, and use that as a springboard for my thrills, comfortable that I'm in control.

Or am I being complacent? People think they can trust someone, and something catastrophic happens, and that person they thought was a good all-round decent person turns out to have a monster lurking. They would argue they were not gullible, they would argue they believed their instincts told them to trust that person.

I'm sitting here and I'm thinking of the people I trust. If I was being coldly, logical, objective I would question the basis of that trust. Perhaps I would say that's it a calculated risk. But not that calculated, and anyway many things in life are a risk, or random - what job to accept, where to live. And most of all our life (or part-life) partners. These things could go catastrophically wrong, randomly. But I still feel there is a difference between finding out that you can't stand your employer or that your husband is serially unfaithful, and having your entire life, your mind, your will and enormous sums of money taken away from you by someone who's entire way of living is totally outside the norms of accepted behaviour.

And, I have to say, when people wake up to the faults of their employer, or spouse, or neighbourhood, it's usually about something they've known all along but have justified to themselves, explained away, tried to minimise.

(The victims) included...a recently married PA, who left her husband for the swindler and ended up sleeping on park benches, living on a slice of Mars Bar a day and foraging for fresh water in public lavatories.

I mean, come on, he made her do that?

Sorry, I need some convincing here.

Update from Stinky Central

The Bulgarian mafioso* who actually owns next door's Little Portugal is currently burning wood on a bonfire in the back garden. I've had to close the back door and the back windows to prevent us being stunk out (but at least it isn't rancid lamb fat).

The wind is blowing in the direction of Colombia. I wonder how long the Colombian washing will stay on the line; or the Colombian backdoor will remain open? I must find out if the Australians and the French are as pissed off as we are.

What's the Spanish for Schadenfreude?

* did I ever tell you about how he beat up the Japanese man who was supposedly his friend/caretaker/tenant? Remind me to tell you the tales of Great Uncle Bulgaria of Balham.

Some baseball match

Today's baseball match between Washington Nationals and Florida is being broadcast on Z104 radio station, which has a 'listen live' facility via Real One Player and Windows Media.

The General Director of the Washington National Opera will sing the National anthem during the opening pitch and God Bless America during the "seventh inning stretch" (whatever that is). The broadcast begins at 1.05pm ET which is 6.05pm BST. An hour or two later in continental Europe and possibly five o'clock in the morning in New Zealand.

TotalRecorder is already on standby and I've put in a request for assistance to find out when the opening pitch and seventh inning stretch are likely to occur...

For four dollars you can even watch it on your PC...

Update: Well, I found a picture, anyway...

Conductors

Sitting in a restaurant on Saturday afternoon, I commented to Jimmy that I do like looking at conductors from behind, and, the older they get, the more impressive they seem to be from behind. Conductors' Shoulders, I call it.

Have you noticed the longevity of conductors in general? So many active in their 70s, even into their 80s. There's a theory that conducting combines cardio and cerebral exercise, the key to a long life.

Jimmy commented that his right arm is noticeably bigger than his left, because he uses his right arm all day.

So I sniggered and said

Conductors do it with both arms

He said it depends on the size of their baton.