Taxing one's patience

Taxes are, as Benjamin Franklin famously said, one of the two things that are certain in life - the other being death.

Why do you suppose he didn't mention death and taxis? Because taxis cannot be certain in life even when you have been told what time they will arrive.

Ever.

The fact is that all taxi companies are laughing up their sleeves at us because we are being lied to.

"He'll be there in ten minutes".

"He's just coming into your road now".

"He's been once and no-one was there."

How many times have we heard these lies?

And why? Because they know they've got you over a barrel.

Bastards.

Think about it. You book the cab for, say, eight o'clock. It's ten past when you first ring to enquire as to its whereabouts.

"He's two minutes away, love" is the reply.

Always.

Never where it is, just how long you can expect to wait before... you have to make the next phone call.

Ten minutes later you call again. It's two minutes away.

Five minutes after that it arrives.

The problem is that we know they're lying and we let them get away with it. Because we know that to tell them, "Ah sod it - I'll ring someone else", is too great a risk.

You can't be sure any other firm can deliver a taxi to where you are waiting faster than your already-ordered cab is going to be late, and you know that even if they say they can, they won't and you're only adding more time on to your already annoying wait the inevitable lateness of Taxi Firm Two.

Because you know they're all as bad as each other.

And they know that too.

So... how does it end?

We have to bite the bullet. We have to start cancelling. We have to start walking away. We have to start standing them up and getting in rival cab companies' cars without ringing the first lot so that their lateness costs them money.

We need a register of taxi firms' abuses, published weekly in our local papers, so we can name and shame the lying bastards.

We have to start making bookings with the expression that "time is of the essence" and refusing to pay the full fare when they turn up late.

We'll learn them and we'll learn them good. So good they stay learned!

We can end these abuses! We can fight this fight! Other people agree with us! We can; we must lead the charge against death by taxis!
















My taxi was late last night.

Brown stuff

A number of our regular readers have been writing with questions about the British political system, particularly in the light of recent difficulties for Prime Minister Brown.

One question we found most intriguing was sent in an email entitled simply "semantics". It read, "Why is the process of changing a British cabinet called a reshuffle? Surely it's just a shuffle".

Actually the term 'reshuffle' isn't anything to do with shuffle in the sense of shuffling cards. It comes from the french verb 'reshuffler', meaning 'to dive back into the shit'.

What Difference Does I Make?

You owe me. Big style. Really, really big.

I have reformed The Smiths.

Oh yes! Now you feel humble, don't you? I have reformed The Smiths.

Frankly, I got fed up of all the "will they?/won't they?" BS that has been going on, so I intervened. I have acted. And decisively.

Obviously it won't feature Morrissey, because... well a) he's feeling a bit poorly and c) if it was going to feature Morrissey then I wouldn't have had to intervene, would I? You ARE paying attention aren't you?

So. anyway, I sought a replacement on vocals.

'Ersatz daff wielder wanted - apply within'.

Having sifted the applications I whittled it down to three.

The notes read; "Hadley - right period; wrong genre, too desperate. André - more desperate. All wrong. Astley - right period, close enough with the hair, man's voice. In."


Johnny Marr is not strictly joining in either, citing 'total indifference'.

He will be replaced by Billy Bragg just as soon as Mr Bragg's agent returns my emails. This does mean The Smiths will be a bit clangier than before, and that they will do some Billy Bragg songs.

That should broaden the fan base.

And of course Rourke and Joyce will not be allowed in The Smiths because a) they never actually have been and d) Morrissey can't get on with either of them.

I have approached Lou from the Red Guitars - below, first, centre - and the drummer from Bogshed - below, second (maybe) one of them - with a view to getting them all to rehearsals next Thursday.



I have done the world a favour, you'll agree. And the world will listen.

Sticking point

We were swapping very poor old jokes over chicken and vegetable pie this evening. I went for the one about the man who goes into a bar with his giraffe, and begins buying rounds for the both of them, to the amazement of the bar staff. After eight pints the giraffe collapses in a heap on the floor. The man has two more pints and makes to leave. "Oi", yells the landlord gesturing towards the comatose animal, "you can't leave that lying there".

"It isn't a lion; it's a giraffe", says the man.

In the midst of this, the elder steppy proved once again what a towering intellect we have amongst us. "Here's an old one," said Mrs. Graph, "what's brown and sticky?" "Ooh, ooh. I, like, know this", yells elder steppy in order to prove she can actually remember something. "It's... it's... it's... a TWIG!!"

Words fail.




I thought it was the position of the Prime Minister...

In bloom?

Last Saturday was "World Naked Gardening Day".

http://wngd.org/

It's good to know somebody's paying attention...

http://pseudograph-pseudography.blogspot.com/2009/04/days-ed-and-confused.html

Rocket launcher

It amazes me that people aren't aware of the link between motor racing and salad.

Only this evening I had to explain again to Mrs Graph (who had chided me for buying wild rocket rather than taking it from that bunch which she is growing in the garden) that wild rocket is not the same as domestic rocket. By definition; it's wild. Which means it has to be caught. And - as I would have assumed most right-thinking folk would have spotted from its name - it moves pretty bloody quickly!

Anyway, as a direct result of the extraordinary speed it exhibits in its native environment, we now have motor racing.

In the farming regions around Torino (called in English Turin, but actually more accurately translated as Tureen) it was regarded as the finest of leaves with which to flavour the locally produced soups - 'Zuppa Torino' identifying the local pot in which a variety of zuppe were concocted.

As demand for the zuppe grew, so too did the voracious requirement for greater and greater harvests of wild rocket (Rucola). The more that needed to be harvested, the fewer and further between seemed the 'Rocket Men' (Uomini Ruchetta) who were paid to capture the Eruca sativa.

One of those whose livelihood depended upon the successful chase was Ferrucio Lamborghini, born in 1876. His small farm, high in the hills of the Appenini at Renazzo, Cento, (ironically in the region of Ferrara) was insufficient to support his sizeable Catholic family. For that reason he began marauding further and further afield, reaching far west to the outskirts of Torino; netting wild rocket across that vast hinterland.

Greedy for the rewards the peppery brassica could bring, in 1891 (at the age of just 17) Ferrucio designed and built two rapid, narrow, single-seater vehicles equipped with a wide blade across the front for the sole purpose of hacking down the flying rocket plant. As he and his 15 year-old brother Miura raced across the Italian 'Steppi', the world was first introduced to the sport named later after the wild rocket itself, which was at that time so desired as to be referred to as"Principal in the Recipe" - in Italian 'Uno di Formule' - Formula One.

Mein Dreck

Sebastian Deisler retired from football at the age of 27, through injury and depression.



"Guten Morgen Herr Doktor.

"Ja, here mit mich ist schtill nicht zo gut. In denen nachts am Ich vakink mit der zound of Der Great Eskape drillink shrew mein earen, und zen iss startink ze veepink, ven Ich bin seeink again fur meinzelf ze miss I am makink in scoreline schtill at ein ein.

"Funfen - Ein. Funfen gebassted - Ein.

"Und schtill heare Ich den ge-zingink aus den Englische crauden, mit der "Caaaaarsten Jancker - ist ein striker, ist ein striker.."

"Und in mein meind bin Ich zeeink ze faces aus ze Mikkel Erven, Escherlei Kohl, and - wurst of alles - den vizzedge aus Erven Hargreeaven vitch vass ein freunden mit mein, aber in den dreemink ist he mit ze gloatink, gloatink, gloatink..

"Ich wudder nicht bin gemeindink, aber er didde nicht kommt on bis den siebentich-achtische minuten".

Hurts. Van. Mental!

My declaration of war took effect rather sooner than I might have expected. This morning I was knocked off my Vespa by what was clearly an introvert driving a fruit and vegetable delivery van. Didn't even stop.

I will be avenged. Don't think it ends there.

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it might be the end of this sentence.

Why Animals Eat Their Young - A Translation

Pseudograph have received a surprisingly high number of requests (particularly from overseas readers) asking for a translation of the conversation between the two vapid in-breeds which is documented in the post entitled "Why Animals Eat Their Young". We are happy to oblige.

"I dislike her intensely and regard her as a silly, bovine type. I cannot understand why she feels the need to copy my personal style of dress".
"I have heard also a suggestion that she is having sexual intercourse with Martin, a man with tattoos".
"Personally, I would not choose to have sexual intercourse with that particular gentleman, if you follow me".
"I wonder if you have heard the MP3 recording I have recently purchased on-line and saved to my mobile telephony device".
"I don't believe I have. Is it not the well-known recording artist Sam Sparrow?"
"That is correct".
"It would not surprise me in the least if the individual we referred to earlier, whom we regard as a silly, bovine type has also purchased the same tune. I dislike her intensely".

War Is NOT Over. Give E-N-T-Ps A Chance

So; last week, as part of my revision for a professional exam I was sitting the next day, I explained to the group that I was with, that - unlike them - (a bunch of I-S-somethings, or 'GEEKS' as we should learn to call them) my own learning style (a consequence of my Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), requires conversation; and so as a result I was looking forward to spending the full day discussing the revision subject with them all.

They voted to end the revision day early, and break up after lunch.

So they could all go back to their rooms and "reflect" and "cram".

WARNING - An expletive is about to appear. Maybe two.

The fucking bastards!!

I get all this stuff about how I'm supposed to manage my personality type, especially where it impacts on introverts, so I'm open and honest - and I get shafted by them. The fucking bastards.

And then, of course, the next day I get dragged into introvert (died and gone to) Heaven - the examination. That's three hours of solitary effort; timed to the second; overseen by some stony-faced, silent gauleiter and designed to demonstrate isolated knowledge, without interaction with any other human being, from within the confines of the brain and how much of the "facts and data and process and systems" has been "crammed".



No interaction; no ideas; no creativity...

Go on. Tell me exams were designed by an extravert... Go on! You can't, can you? Because they bloody weren't. If they'd let us design that sort of thing it would have meant everybody down the pub; loads to drink; loads of laughing and talking; big arguments and no fallings out, and top marks to the person who said the one thing you might remember through your hangover the next morning. Everyone else gets a pass mark anyway, for being a good egg.

Introversion tyranny, that's what it is. Insularity fascism.

Let's be honest. It is becoming clearer by the day that the real divisions in this world are not between sexes, races, religions, political beliefs, straight and gay, blah blah blah... They're between us - the talkative, sociable, imaginative... hang on what was it... "energetic, brash, witty and original" (especially original) and them. The accountants.

Bloody accountants. And 'systems analysts'. And 'operations managers'. Bastards. And 'invigilators'.

And these very real divisions need to explained in the starkest possible terms;

In short: it's War.

It's My(ers-Briggs) Party and I'll Cry If I-(S-F-Js) Want Me To...

This 'first and right' thing actually happens beacause of my personality type.

I am forgetful too. It's not a age thing. I always have been. I have a scatter-brained approach to life.

Both are explained wholly by my personality type which is (in Myers-Briggs terms) E-N-T-P.

That means I am, apparently "energetic, brash, witty and original; wanting to be where the action is but on my terms. I may need to be aware of unintentionally bruising the feelings of others through my love of argument and of having the last word".

In a recent assessment I was described, by a colleague, as "cultivating that somewhat ramshackle persona as a way of disarming people".

Up to that point I hadn't been aware that I had a ramshackle persona.

So what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Being forgetful. And needing to have the last word on everything in an argumentative kind of way.

It's probably true.

But I am trying really hard to do the self-improvement thing.

/mantra: I recognise that my Myers-Briggs type indicator is an explanation for my behaviour, and not an excuse for it. /exit: mantra. Sigh.

I am trying to moderate what others believe to be my worst personality excesses. Apparently I can do this, "through prioritising time"; "through practising and improving listening skills"; "through realising that competence at absolutely everything is impossible"; "through getting enough rest and exercise"; "through getting in closer touch with feelings and learning to express them"; "through being sensitive to impact on others, holding back from abrasive comments"; amongst other things. The Myers-Briggs people recommend these changes.

Fuckin' ell. That sounds like torture.

They were a US mother and daughter team, were Myers and Briggs.

They claim that - apart from needing the last word (ridiculous) and being abrasive (AS IF!! ) - at my very worst, I may "be argumentative, (nope) succumb to hypochondria, (never) have tantrums, (unknown) feel unloved and unlovable, (preposterous) withdraw from others and neglect self." (poppycock)

Well at least I remember that there's an 'H' in yoghurt you patronising, new-world wankers!!!

You people make me bloody sick.

I won't bother even eating one tomorrow. And then I'll die and you'd be sorry if anybody actually even cared about me, which they don't.

Saints Go Frog-Marching In

I was listening to the radio this morning.

That's the 'wireless' for those of you over fifty, the 'crystal set' for those over seventy and the "what the hell is that box making a noise in the corner?" for those of you over one hundred and four. Anyway, I digress.

There was a fellow on the radio, about to give the sports report. He was doing the 'two-way' with the main presenter about some breezy, chit-chatty thing they were talking about, and - as part of his reply - he indicated that a particularly smart-arsey listener knew more about SAINTS than he.

"There's a word for that; knowing about saints", he opined, "But I can't remember what it is".

"I dunno", says main presenter chap.

"You have four minutes to find out, while I talk about sport", grinned Sport boy.

Now, you need to know that at that point I was shouting "HAGIOGRAPHY!!! HAGIOGRAPHY!!! IT'S BLOODY HAGIOGRAPHY!!!!!" at the crystal set. I, clad in a towel - having recently emerged from the shower - reached for the mobile phone and desperately typed in the message, "He's looking for the word Hagiography!", so I could send it to the presenter.

The text message would not send.

WOULD NOT SEND!

This was stressful to the point of almost causing the regurgitation of my scrambled eggs and muffins. It wouldn't fucking send!

Four minutes later, Sport boy asks if presenter boy has got it.

"Nope", says dopey, "the internet just brings up Southampton Football Club..."

Oh. Ho, ho ho.

By this point I was too exhausted with stress to even shout again, and had collapsed on the bed grinding my teeth with unhappiness.

"I've remembered!", exclaims Sport bloke, "It's"..."Hagiography", we said together.

Dammit! I wanted to be right. Me. I did.

And the bloody text would not send.

That was a terrible start to the day.

I don't know why that happens, by the way. Well, either of those things. I don't know why I have an overwhelming urge to be first and right about everything. And I don't know why I know that the word is HAGIOGRAPHY. I just do.

There may be something intrinsically wrong with that.

The rest of my day was like a supermarket. Bright; loud; filled with people who don't want to have to interact with me; likely going to cost too much money, and not somewhere anybody would choose to spend the whole day.

I do not mean I spent the whole day pushing a trolley around; choosing between brands of tinned goods; squashing fresh bread and trying to work out which aisle had the most attractive check-out operative.

It was like a supermarket for the first list of reasons. Okay?!

I may have over-extended an already flimsy metaphor there... That may have been what caused that faint snapping noise some time around the words "likely going to cost too much money".

And now, to put the fecking tin lid on it, I realise we were both wrong. Intrinsically. Wrong.

Me and Sport boy - both utterly, devastatingly, depressingly and intrinsically wrong.

It should have been hagiology.

Multiverse comes to worst

This man's father invented the idea of Parallel Universes.



How proud would you be if your Dad had been the Quantum Physicist who developed and created the idea of Parallel Universes? Mental!

To make matters worse (in 'furiously jealous already' terms) he (the man in the picture) is also the man behind one of the coolest bands in modern music.

But we're not here to talk about him. Except in a parallel universe where I am writing this exact message at this exact moment, but about the guy in the picture and NOT his Dad.

And in another one where I am the guy in the picture, and he was MY Dad.

And another one where the Dad never existed and neither did you, but the blue Polar Bear is your Dad anyway...

I could get lost in the parallel universe thing. But how cool would THAT be? Lost in a parallel universe! Except in a parallel universe where you wouldn't be lost in a parallel universe at all. Lost and not lost at the same time! How cool is that?

Except where it's not, obviously.

I have a colleague who argues that restructuring of our organisation at a Quantum Level is the easiest way to realise efficiencies. Her basic position is that we would and could get more done if we harnessed the parallel selves that exist in the parallel universes - or the multiverse to be more precise - and (given that we now know that electrons, photons and the like can be in more than one place at once) travelled within the multiverse, thereby allowing more than one of our selves to conduct our work affairs in any given reality. Inevitably that would mean only an infinitesimally small number of our infinite selves would be required. That would certainly get things done.

Although it's also true to say I'd get more done if she stopped spouting that hippy shit at me as well.

I have also pointed to her that such free movement of an infinite number of pseudographs (NOT actually the name I'm known by at work! ) would in fact cost a fortune in accommodation and desks. And phones. And similar stuff.

"...natural species are chosen not because they are 'good to eat' but because they are 'good to think'..."

Diet is so important.

Actually it's important that I go on a diet, but that isn't my point; I mean that the foods that people eat as individuals and societies determine, to a large degree, their cultures. Those foods are, in turn, largely determined - at least traditionally - by geography and climate, and - most importantly - by where you can grow spuds and what local animal tastes best with them...

I don't think this is an original thought. I suspect Lévi-Strauss of articulating it first.

Actually I suspect Lévi-Strauss of a great many things, including the theft of my mother's prize-winning tea caddy and being the owner of a sizeable, world-class collection of antimacassars; but that's not important right now...

It must be important though - if one wants to be wholly aware in the global economy, and to fully understand the multi-cultural society - to try as many of those animals as one can, preferably with the children of the spud; fries (or chips as the British call them).

So I have made a start.

I mean, a start over and above the obvious meats of beef, pork, lamb and chicken. Or, more properly, cow, pig, sheep and chicken (why hasn't the poor chicken been given a disguise to use when it's cooked)?

I have eaten duck, pheasant, grouse, partridge, reindeer, rabbit, goat, snails, octopus, squid, eels, whelks, mussels, oyster, lobster, crab, swordfish, stork, trout, cod, haddock, hoki, shark (in the form of hakarl and otherwise), puffin... and so many more.

Egrets? I've had few, But then again, too few to mention.

And, actually, when I say stork, I do really mean the margarine.

You're gonna find me; out in the contrary...

I like the idea that there are words that have no opposite in the language.

Why does nobody pleased ever describe themselves as gruntled? Can we ever have an outbreak of social rest? Why isn't a tidy person said to be shevelled? Is a moment of clarity achieved when one is combobulated?

“Without Contraries is no progression”. William Blake said that. Contrary bastard.

Hegel thought so too, and Marx agreed with him, but also completely disagreed.

Blake also painted pictures of dragons.

Hegel didn't.

Opposed them, I suppose.

Sylvia Plath was fascinated not by opposites, but by doubles; as was Dostoevsky who also had a thing, as we have discovered, for non-existant, peculiarly-coloured Polar Bears....

Goddamit!!!! He did it again!

Anyway, David Lynch has a thing about both doubles and opposites. 'Lost Highway' seems to be about a single character separated from himself in a momentary life event and completely different from himself, while in 'Twin Peaks' Maddie is Laura Palmer's exact double, which is why she has to die at the hands of Bob - a demon rapist from a room that apparently exists in the woods in the minds of each of us. 'Mulholland Drive' is shaped like a mobius strip, only in narrative form, rather than the kind of paper people used to use for Christmas decorations. 'Wild at Heart' is about a couple lost in a violent unreality, controlled by a man with a thin moustache. 'Eraserhead' is about the male fear of rejection and birth, and 'The Straight Story' is about a man on a tractor.

You read that right. A man on a tractor.

On a tractor.

Driving across America.

On a John Deere tractor.


David Lynch is bloody weird sometimes.

Why Animals Eat Their Young

Teenagers. In general. There's another detestable thing.

In particular I hate the bloody yacking they feel they have to do at full volume on any kind of public transport, as if their shallow, brainless, half-formed little lives were of ANY interest to anybody but themselves.

Why do they need to shout at people they are sitting next to? Why do they swear their fucking heads off? Why do they feel the need to play music in public places without using headphones!!?? It was bad enough when we could all hear that 'ttsssiiittsss tssiss tssiiss ttsssittsss bump ttsssiiittsss tssiiss tssiiss ttsssiiittsss bump' thing going on because they had decided to prematurely end any chance of avoiding deafness by cranking up personal (note that - "PERSONAL")
stereos so loudly that we could all sing along. But now they're using mobile phones to play their crappy dance music to the whole bus!!

This morning there were a couple of vapid in-breeds at the back of the bus. Shouting at each other.

"Ah feckin' 'ate 'er Ah do. Silly cyow. Wah do she alwerrs 'ave to go out in clerthes like whar Ah do?"

"And Ah've 'eard she's shagging that Martin blerk. You knerr, 'im wif ve ta-ooze"

"Ah wunt feckin' touch 'im wih yaws, kner warrameen?"

"'Ere. 'Av you 'eard ma noo dahnlerd? S'on me fern".

"Sam Sparrer, innit?"

"Fuckin' IS , yeah".

"I beh she's gorrih. Silly cyow. I feckin' 'ate 'er".

I'm glad we all heard that.

There was a time when bus drivers took some responsibility for their passengers, and would have dealt promptly and brutally with shouting, swearing, smoking, fornication, playing of loud music loudly, the duffing up of old dears, fishing without a licence and the building of outhouses on the bus without planning permission. These days they let it just go on around them. And more importantly around us passengers.

It's a lack of customer focus, that's what it is. They don't get paid well enough to care either. And we don't pay enough to be cared about. It's the curse of public service industries. All are assumed to be second-class services for third-class people.

I blame Thatcher.

And I'm fed up with it. Just last week as I went to get off at my stop I had to fight my way through some bloke's hastily constructed garden shed.

I wouldn't have minded, but I fell over his bike.

Chi-hua-hua-hua defiler

My cousin once bought a chihuahua puppy. She spent hundreds of pounds on the bloody thing, and that was in the 1970s.

They are - like The Queen - very expensive small animals indeed.

She waited for it for weeks after paying and ordering, took it home, threw an arrival party for the bloody thing, put it to bed in the kitchen in its cushioned pooch basket with specially minced grade 'A' meat in it's dinky wee chihuahua bowl nearby (next to the cat's milk bowl) and carefully closed the door so it couldn't get out.

She came downstairs the next morning to find that cat had eaten the bloody thing.

True.

All of us are into Agutter; some of us are being looked at by stars...

People don't believe this, but I have a stalker.

I understand that that, in and of itself, seems to most people to be (how can I put this?) 'unlikely'.

I know that 'stalkers' have become something associated with celebrities, and I understand why, but people have forgotten that legislation has had to be passed to prevent, or at least, deter stalking, not just for celebrities, but for ordinary people too.

So, people doubt the very existence of my stalker.

However, the real difficulty comes when I tell people who it is. They move very quickly from the facial expression which suggests they think it''s 'unlikely' to the facial expression which suggests that they're thinking, "Oh my God, I always knew he was mad, but he's clearly tipped right over the edge and needs sedation, preferably with a very large dose of something and a swing from a baseball bat which keeps him asleep for long enough for me to get away".

Which is VERY harsh.







Just because I'm being stalked by Jenny Agutter.



I have only actually spotted her twice. But then stalkers aren't known for their openness, are they?

She could be there all the time. Using a spyglass, or binoculars, or even having me tracked by satellite from outer space. Let's face it - she has the wealth to do that. And plenty of time on her hands. She may even have my phone bugged, or have paid friends to report to her about me.

But it's happening. Oh, it's happening.

I bet she follows me everywhere.

The first time I saw her was between the mainland vaporetto stop and the airport at Venice. I was just leaving Venice after a week there. She pretended to be going in the opposite direction.

Yeah.

And at the time I believed that. I remember commenting, "Oh wow. I just walked past Jenny Agutter", and that seemed to be that. A chance passing on the street with a former child film star. Cool.

But then, just six or seven weeks later, I saw her again. Hundreds of miles away. Somewhere I shouldn't have been. I was at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. I had gone there to see Le Nozze di Figaro with a friend of mine for a birthday celebration.

And there she was.

Oh, she was clever. I didn't spot her until the interval. But there she was.

I turned to my friend and said, "Do you see that woman? She seems familiar. Who IS that"? as if I didn't know. But the sudden fear that had gripped me meant I wanted to be sure. Needed to be sure. "Jenny Agutter" she replied. "And over there to our right is that woman from the Apprentice. Look". But I couldn't look. All I could see was the terror made flesh. The stalker. Agutter.

I haven't seen her since. She must have got sneakier. Smarter. Better at hiding. Longer lenses. I can guess at all the small places in which she secretes herself to carry on her little campaign. High windows. Crowds. Dark doorways. Behind the coat section in TK Maxx. Behind a newspaper with eyeholes cut out in the park. Disguised as a labrador dog on the bus. But I can't catch her at it. If I could, I could move to get an injuction.

One day I will get the proof, get the police and she will go to prison for a long time.

It's a shame really. I always enjoy The Railway Children.

A moment of clarity...

The elder steppy asked tonight, "Why isn't it called a teethbrush?"

Let mortals beware of words, for with words we lie...

"Tell me I'm a tourist in the fourth dimension".

What kind of a request is that? Silly man.

Although it would probably be nice if one were a tourist in it. Whatever it is...

If I learned my physics all rightly at school, the three dimensions are height, width and weight, , so the fourth must be distance.

Or time.

Space is a long distance away and takes time to reach... So a tourist in the fourth dimension must be someone travelling in space and /or time then! Michael Stipe thinks he's Doctor Who!!

God, I'm great at interpreting lyrics.

Here are some more examples of my skill with lyrical interpretation...

"She's buying a stairway to Heaven"? - She is procuring drugs and is going to use them herself to get high.

"The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind"? - I have procured drugs and am going to use them myself to get high. Outdoors.

"I feel stupid, and contagious"? - My wife is procuring drugs for me, I am going to use them to get high and it will all end badly.

"Somewhere a king has no wife, And the wind, it cries Mary"? - Kurt Cobain's wife has gone out procuring drugs and he is using cannabis to get high. Outdoors.

It's really very simple when you know how.

Some songs don't need that much work to sort out. Like instrumentals. Or ones with hardly any words.

I think it was Elton John's 'Song For Guy' which said simply, "Life... isn't everything. Isn't everything. Isn't Everything."

Which is easy to figure out.

That song was released in 1978 on the album, 'A Single Man', which means it was probably recorded in late 1977. Probably on a Thursday.

London Zoo's most famous resident, Guy the Gorilla, died in 1978.

Do you see? It's right there! Elton had some kind of premonition that the gorilla was going to die, and soothed its passing with some nice simple words of comfort that even a speechless primate could understand. It kind of makes you hope the gorilla heard the song, doesn't it?

But don't get me started on 'Clair' by Gilbert O'Sullivan. That's wrong. Plain wrong.

Stipe went on, "Hey, what's the big deal - I'm an animal". Perhaps not as much as some other people, eh Gilbert?

Anyway, that's enough for now. Hi-ho Silver... AWAY!!!!



I am vibrating at the speed of light.