Absurdispam

Spam, don't you just hate it?
A tragedy of the commons if ever there was one.

This week I decided to fight back, so before pushing the button to send my spam into the oblivion of dark matter that awaits it on the other side of the spam filter I recorded the litany of recent spam subjects and my, often, bemused responses.

Dont look fat and stupid this summer.

But that is so me.

Ensure your potence and make love everywhere.

I’m sure there are laws about that sort of thing.

Sure win method to bed women.

Offer to fill their hot water bottles.

Worm out at once!

You noticed.

5 euros to scratch and win up to 200.000 euros!

And my dad told me it was rude; maybe I should worm out.

Your extra inch will go a long way.

Six foot two will do me fine for a few years more.

The real meaning of class.

Bloody Marxist spam now!

Even Brad Pitt takes blue pilules!

I prefer the red.

Get rid of bad intimate living.

Yeah, what could I have been thinking about.

100% Replica Watches for jluong!!

All of them above average I tell you.

Shop around for luxury items at a reasonable price

I have a little person who does that sort of thing for me

Roman imperator took that pill to serve all his mistresses!

Boy I bet he was filling hot water bottles till his fingers fell off!

Amaze your lady friends thoroughly.

I do already and she is continuously shaking her head in disbelief

Bank of America - We Will Be Forced To Suspend Your Account!

If it’s news fine. I’m sure the BoA can open an account elsewhere.
If they are suspending my account - I’ll split anything they find in it with them.

Deadly catastrophe in Chinese capital.

I think it is called the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Peoples Republic of China.

deflater staminal

You know I think I’m going to stop before I loose the will to read!

A duck

Recently I was strolling with a group in the village. We came to the green and a duck and ducklings came out into the middle of the road to solicit food, preferment and political favours. Well what else would you expect them to do? The negotiations were under way when a large agricultural vehicle moved into sight. This was halted until the duck caucus was resolved and all dispersed for tea and symmetry. Quite a sight really! The runt of the litter or the brood, whatever, had great difficulty getting over the kerb, much to the amusement of the strollers, the driver of the vehicle, and its mum. Hmm! Can relate to that.

Old

There’s old and old.

I was accused of being middle-aged recently and took umbrage. Damn it I’m old?

I was forced to review this as I sat in our local café.

My delight at having a quiet lunch out with “69 for 1” to read by Alan Coren was only slightly spoiled by a group of 4 misery guts who sat at the next table. There was a steady litany of complaint. Three elderly women and one man poured out lamentations with despairing responses. These flowed in a stream, unswerving and desultory, with no analysis or reflection or attempt to identify remedy. From what I could tell they sounded reasonably prosperous, they seemed healthy, and they had each other for company.

How unlike my own dear mother-in-law who is 91. She has had a hard life making her way, stoically, in the world. Living reasonably at peace, profoundly deaf but uncomplaining, able to enjoy her garden and whatever life bowls at her.

I will never forget the occasion when she fell and broke her arm. I was the one to take her to casualty. It must have been painful. No complaints! I nearly passed out holding her hand as the quack set her arm without a general anaesthetic and with little more than a poppy whiffed under her nose.

The A & E Registrar said he had never seen such a high pain threshold before; he looked a bit green round the gills as well.

On the way back home she looked out of the car window and pronounced that:-

Och, it had not been such a bad day!

Up to a point Lady Copper!

I offer the following not as some sexist stereotypical aside but as evidence of the endless capacity and imagination of people offering advice and services in difficult situations.

This week the woo woo sewing machine (WWSM), which carries the GoodLadyWife (GLW) along the A14 to work and home, refused to start. If I had been thrashed up and down the A14 I might refuse to start, or even get out of bed.

The local garage collectively scratched its head and said - looks like a new starter motor- and indeed it did. GLW enquired if this was the same as the alternator (as, not unreasonably, that had been replaced last year and it was still under warranty) I have made similar blunders – describing various kinds of bulls as Limousines and Chevrolets.

However, this presented the local garage collective with a problem.
Clearly the collective wanted to keep faith with GLW and her attachment to WWSM, a key element in their projected income for the next decade. The spokes person for the collective, obviously an aficionado of Evelyn Waugh, said tentatively that it was similar up to a point, similar in the sense that a cooker and a fridge were the same sort of thing. GLW, who can spot the mutual face saving linguistic device at 200 paces, was gracefully appeased and I nearly crashed my car laughing giving her a lift home from the garage as she described the exchange.

Love-in-a-mist

Nigella


Between the daily grind and the sun shining!

At the village fete today I won a teddy. Not needing one I agreed with the person operating the stall that I could pass the winnings back to the stall, clandestinely!

So life goes on.

The plain people of Ireland say no!

Well. There you go - they said no.
A hundred thousand nos.
Well more like 110,000 nos more than those for the proposition
Details here but you have to ask yourself what now.
Don't laugh, but I do not understand it.

A similar level of perplexity about the shiner's position.
Maybe I'm losing it.
You wouldn't want to argue with MARY LOU MCDONALD though. With shoulder pads as wide as that you could suffer a permanent injury.

I wonder what Myles and his little horses would have made of it all!

Metallica

I am reliably informed, by those in the know, that the above are an ensemble who perform some sort of popular music!

John Naughton has a less than flattering opinion of them based on their activities rather than their performance:-

I’ve never knowingly listened to anything by Metallica, but I remember well how aggressive they were in the Napster era. They’re old-style control freaks.

It struck me that Metallica is an anagram of cameltail. Equally, as I have never seen the buggers sing, dance or entertain - I can't for the life of me remember if camels have tails! Crosswords do some funny things to your brain.

Tinternet

Nicholas Carr's blog has a link to his article in the Atlantic - Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Some interesting ideas. His description, in passing, identifies the insecurities of the past brought forward from 'Socrates' and the critics of the printing press to the present day.

The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information...

captures the lack of volition in those two words efficient and automated. He chooses to dwell on the way the internet may be affecting our ability to read and the way that we read. In relation to the question about Google it is not making us stupid that worries me. The stupid, like the rich, will be with us always. I suppose that it is the monopoly and the business model that leave me concerned.

Anyway, I managed to read it on this bright summer's morn.

The Merchant of Venice.

On a very wet Saturday in June, off to Stratford on Avon to see a performance of the Merchant of Venice.

We arrived in near glorious sunshine. Joy at this is enhanced by a certain amount of fizz.

A typical Tudorbethan House and Bicycle.

In the play I am struck by:-

• The power of the language;
• Anti-Semitism;
• Views about money lending.

As I have mentioned before not all bankers are merchants (or Jewish).

But of course banking as we know it, Jim, had a lot to do with those fabulous Medici boys. They found ways for the pope to get round accusations of encouraging usury when he was short of a bob or two!

An expanded view of boodle - by David Boyle in the Little Money Book all good stuff.

If you have a market, you are bound to have market failure and areas where the market does not operate and people to whom participation in the market is refused!

In which case you need a group of people who are beyond the pale and who will agree to operate in the sub prime area. A pound of flesh is a bit steep but I have heard some funny things being pledged in our business!

I thought it was a very enjoyable production. I surprised myself enjoying the complexity and richness of the language and belly laughing the comic touches with the audiences! Not, I am sure, anything to do with the fizz!

Septics, don’t you just love ‘em?

So, congratulations Senator Obama. Keith’s mum says that you must have some sharp cookies on your campaign team. It was a great wheeze spotting that you may be from nowhere (IL) but you could win the necessary delegates. A contrast when you have an intelligent, tightly fought campaign and voters who don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground. I was particularly taken with a vox pop from Hicksville somewhere south of the Maison-Dixon Line. Interview person sticks microphone under nose of elderly white hayseed:-

Tell me sir; are you a Democrat?

Yup.

Will you be voting for Senator Obama?

Nope!

Can I ask why?

He’s a muslim an’ his wife’s an atheist.

Is it a pity that Hunter S. is not around to put his gloss on it?
I think there is going to be an unhealthy interest in the position of running mates in each camp. Shudder!

Is it possible that Obama can recover the womens’ vote, pull the Hispanic vote into the tent and dodge the bullets?

Watch this space.

Be Very Afraid.

Just when you thought it was safe to talk to old men with grey beards Dobbo appears on the air waves.

You remember Dobbo. He was the hapless .uc. who was persuaded to stand against the People's Ken.

Now, as if by some miracle of cryogenics, Dobbo appears before us; the champion of Life , Liberty and the ....

I don't think I heard him say

Not a penny off the hour; not a minute on the pay!

but I couldn't be sure.

As fat Tony would say:-

How come Dobbo if you got dis hard on for democracy and liberty an' all that shit you never gave a fuck in public about de liddle guys in Iran or was it Iraq? Who knows?

A quiet day in Suffolk

So bimbling about the countryside, convivially, we decide to go widdershins on the orchid route.
The joy of the green lanes is something else, as they say.

I am struck by the peace and beauty of the village. Here an inscription


In Latin

Sinite parvulos venire ad me, et ne prohibueritis eos: talium enim est regnum Dei

A lot of parvulos are suffering and without a chance of peace and beauty.
Shame on us who do not do what we can!

If I was ever daft enough to be asked for my desert island disks I would insist on having
Sailing By as my number one.

It would be very nice to hum along to and wave at the beggars as they sailed by!