Ξ October 1st, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Silly |
I bought a new jacket today, which, as always, fitted nicely around my chest, but was overly ambitious when it came to arm length.
So, straight from the jacket shop and into Pamir’s [a very good alterationist in Cheltenham] where Mr Pamir duly measured and pinned and I was sent on my way.
Now Mr Pamir’s shop is upstairs of what I was brought up to call a cobblers – read, re-heeling, and key cutting etc. And, on my way out through that bit of the shop I caught sight of some rather nice boot polish – and stopped to ponder.
Whilst the polish appealed, I really needed some proper brushes to go with it; and I couldn’t see any on the shelves. So, I turned to the shop assistant and asked “do you have any cleaning brushes to go with the polish?”. To which he replied, “No, sorry; we’re due some in on Friday”. I thanked him, said I’d pick some up later, and made my way back to the car.
However, half way there [about 1 minute's walk] I remembered that I’d forgotten to ask Mr Pamir about fitting some elbow-pads to the jacket. So I about turn, and head back into the shop. No one noticed me as I passed through the Cobblers.
When I’d sorted out the elbow-pads and returned back down again I once more found myself pondering the boot polish.
And, then wickedness surfaced!
I turned to the shop assistant and asked “do you have any cleaning brushes to go with the polish?”
He started to reply, “No, sorry; we’re …” and then rather petered out as a puzzled look came over him!
So I put on an ‘oh my, what’s happening face’ and said, “did you notice a glitch in the Matrix just then?” and walked out.
Having previously been a signee to the petition to have Jeremy Clarkson made Prime Minister – along with 49,446 others – I was a bit disappointed in the Government’s response – which I’ve just been emailed. It promised much, or so I hoped ["maybe they'd done it" I thought!] – “The Prime Minister’s Office has responded to that petition and you can view it here”. ”
Well, on that page, there’s a further message – “We thought long and hard about the request to make Jeremy Clarkson the Prime Minister and in the end we put our thoughts down in a short film on YouTube. You can take a look here”. Well, what a funky government [not].
Well, if, as promised, they’ve embedded ‘their thoughts’, they’re pretty rubbish; which is quite normal for our government!
The video’s main piece is an image of JC’s framed picture – supposedly hung in number 10 alongside all our other Prime Ministers [which of course it wasn’t. A shame that; they’d have shown more wit if they’d actually hung it there].
The video ends with a ‘But maybe not’ remark – I don’t know why; I’m pretty damn certain that JC would do a better job than most!
As it was sunny at the weekend – and given that one should apparently ‘make hay’ at such times – we did some gardening.
English gardening is traditionally all about weeding, topiary, pruning, and dead-heads [nothing to do with Blackbird Leys]. Anyway, gardening here is a bit different.
Using an appropriate array of beefy tools we sawed, trimmed, sawed again, amputated, leveled – and yet despite all our efforts, nothing really seemed to change. The hegemony [sic] that continued to engulf us seemed to grow as we watched!
Finally, and being a petrol-head, I said, ‘I know, I’ll burn it!!’ ‘Make hay’, bah! Let’s ‘make ashes’ instead!
Thirty minutes later found me liberally sprinkling 4-star on the stuff like Lewis Hamilton showers Pol Roger!
Now, I once read that there’d been some sort of additive – um, added to modern petrol to make it less explosive/feisty, and, always being happy to educate the less knowledgeable, I openly pronounced on this belief whilst simultaneously offering a match to the petrol-laden mass – about a third of our garden I reckon!
In less than a second, two things happened: a VERY bright and all-consuming orange and red light surrounded me, and there was a sound [if one can call such a thing a ‘mere’ sound], WOOSH it went**. Oh yeah, I also remember that the light was f***ing hot!
After I’d jumped about a bit, and then stopped to appreciate the 20ft ball of flame rising up over our house; I noticed that there was a very strong smell of burnt hair mixing in with those of petrol and smoke. Judging by the looks on the faces of my companions – who were all looking at me – it was obvious that I’d done myself a bit of damage.
My eyebrows don’t really exist anymore, and what remains of my hair – which was bleached white – is now a sort of Burnt Almond colour.
I must have dreamt the stuff about the additive, or else ‘old fashioned’ petrol was entirely lethal. SO, just like the modern stuff then!
** Perhaps WOOOOOOMP would be a better description!
On Radio 4 [BBC Radio] today they had a spokesperson from the RNID [The Royal National Institute for Deaf People] – ‘odd’ I thought that one often hears about the RNIB [Royal National Institute of Blind People], but little of the RNID. ‘Ah’ I thought, that’ll be because of Peter White and Radio 4′s ‘In Touch‘ programme!
My brain then said, ‘I wonder why the BBC doesn’t give the RNID a slot too?’
And then my brain called itself a prat!
