Paid To Listen

A job cancelled last minute leaves me in the luxurious position of having a day to myself, on full pay.  I could, as the client suggested, go shopping.  I won't.

This morning, a mild hour of tentative spring.  Shy sun, mallards squabbling, blossom dancing.  All rudely interrupted by the slicing knife of a bitter north wind, that leaves me with aching teeth and a chin so numb it feels like a foreign body.  The Narnian permawinter holds sway still, but there are signs that the daffodils have had enough and are about to mount a coup.  Go, the yellows.  You are the embodiment of optimism.

Back home to defrost my face with coffee.  The house is making small, busy noises.  Heating firing up.  Fridge humming.  Jostling of joists and slate.

I don't have to do anything.  Today I am paid to listen.

Return of Dobbin

Shitoba hung around for three whole days.  And then a shameful display of wanton non-compliance in front of a room full of steely-eyed lawyers.  Another trip to PC World.  Nicky (who's having terrible car trouble at the moment*) and Frank (he is the only person in his department to offer feedback upwards, because he has 'standards'*) are sympathetic messengers of doom.  Apparently a machine has to be returned with the SELF-SAME fault FOUR TIMES before the unit is considered 'faulty' and thoughts turn to refund or replacement.  So, I've got to dance round this particular mulberry bush at least one more time. 

'Please could you watch my wallet?'

Perhaps I could get someone to steal Shitoba.  Like in that terrible Donal MacIntyre documentary, where Donal, desperate to prove levels of crime in a inner city council estate does everything short of handing his expensive laptop to a street-youth and saying 'Can you hold this for a moment, please?'  Eventually the youth obligingly, if reluctantly, trots off with laptop.  Why do I suspect this wouldn't work with Shitoba?

This is the LAST time I will post about this situation.  Please be aware that if I am silent, it is Dobbin/Shitoba-related. 

I suspect that January may see a trip to the Apple store.

* I have spent more time with Nicky and Frank over the last three months than with any of my 'friends'.  This reflects badly on Shitoba.  And me.  We're probably a good fit (uncommitted and frequently absent). 

Return of Shitoba

Finally.  It's taken a whole month for my laptop to be repaired.  Just in time, because my ancient and trusty back-up laptop is giving me notice.  The battery can no longer take a charge - so that means no use if I am any distance from a socket.  When I do have a power source, it's incredibly slow and laboured.  And more and more frequently it decides to peremptorily shut down.  I feel like I am an evil circus owner, forcing an ancient carthorse to dance, when he simply needs to lie down and die.   

So I've been doing as little as possible - hence lack of posts.  Reasoning that if I don't overburden Dobbin, there's more likelihood that he'll see me through the necessary bits.  And to his credit, that has largely been the case.  (Although there was an embarrassing incident in front of eighty people last week.  At least I was prepared.)

The Toshiba is back.  Still got a squeaky keyboard.  But the 'o' seems to have stopped sticking.  Only time will tell if the power situation has been resolved.  This is the third time I've had it repaired in the ten months I've had it.  Every time I take it in to PC World, I am told what a 'good' make and model it is.

'Good'.  In the same way that Victoria Beckham is 'fat'.

Day 372: Emperor Has New Clothes

To the cinema for 'End Of Watch'.  Solid buddy-cops-vs-Mexican-drugs-cartel action.  Having watched 'The Master' a couple of days ago, it is a sweet relief to see a film with understandable characters and a tangible storyline.

Difficult.  Exasperating. 

Film reviewers are throwing stars at "The Master" like confetti.  Don't get it.  Yes, the performances are impressive.  (To my mind, too impressive.  At all times there is a sense that the leads are Doing Very Powerful Acting.)  But that's not enough to make up for everything else - nebulous, opaque and long-winded.   I tried to love it but, despite best efforts, lost heart (along with any narrative thread) somewhere in the middle. 



Eyes,  and and ears, a mouth and a nose

Amongst critics there are some rare voices of dissent - the one that resonates most with me is Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun:

 'It is fabulously well-acted and crafted, but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air.'

Not so with 'End of Watch'.  Guns.  Blood.  Bodies.  Shouting.  Jake Gyllenhaal with his cartoon-big eyes and mouth.  Simple stuff. 

I think I've found my level (low). 

Day 371: Sunny Side Up

Actual poached egg

Limestone penis 'Poached egg'. 

Poole's Cavern is an ancient limestone cave, full of stalagtites and stalagmites and fossilised bat shit.  One cave is referred  as the 'Poached Egg Chamber' because apparently the stalagmites look like poached eggs. 

If I saw that rearing out of my Eggs Benedict, I'd be rather alarmed.  I think it would be more at home in the window display of Prowler. 

Day 370: Nans Miss Dildo

Fog makes walking inadvisable.  No matter, because Chatsworth is open and ready to rape my wallet.  A Christmas fair is up-and-running outside the house.  Normal stuff - wreaths, sweets, pickles, beads, candle-holders, felty hats.  Mulled wine and hot chocolate, and a great deal of hog-roasting.  The place is rammed with over-excited nans, jacked up on fudge, looming out of the fog in newly-acquired felty hats. 

Repair to the house, which has been pantomime-themed to the hilt for the festive season.  The combination of hideous baroque interior (ormulu and liverish marble) and pantomimery (beanstalks, wishy-washy laundry, cats and spotted hankies) plus even more nans who are photographing everything (baubles, floors, each other) is too much. 

Have to retire to the foggy gardens, which are largely nan-free.  But they're missing a treat.  Because here is the thing that makes the visit worthwhile.  A cherub atop a lion, with a handy dildo strapped to his saddle. 

All the better to rape your wallet.

Day 369: The Power Of Pork

A weekend road trip.  Forecasts are ominous.  Flood warnings abound.  Pass a sign outside a garden centre which offers 'Road Salt and Hot Soup'.  The implication is that both will be needed.

Make it to the Peak District.  Greeted by an epic rainbow and a pub panini that is heroically loaded with ham.  A blustery, pork-powered scramble up the gritstone tors around Burbage Valley, before a descent to the marsh below, with the intent of crossing the river.  The marsh is waterlogged, as are my boots.  An ill-advised river crossing that could have gone very wrong (sodden and wobbly turf 'stepping-stone', rushing brown water, camera precariously held in shallow pocket), but doesn't. 

I have concluded that ham is a super food.