Reading between the lines.

Yeah, right.
Like a large proportion of the country Julie and myself occasionally dabble in the lottery. Even more occasionally, to mangle grammar, we find ourselves with a small win.

When it comes to a rollover, all sense of statistics, chance and logic go out of the window, so when it was announced that there would be a massive jackpot of over £15million, greed came to the fore and we each bought ourselves a bunch of tickets.

However, our senses returned and we then became all rather cynical about the odds. Julie put it very well indeed.

Man, that's one bitchin' dog!

As mentioned before on numerous occasions, we are fond of dogs and other animals. Unable to own a pet ourselves (house rental rules, lack of funds and unwillingness to leave social animals on their own if we work all day), we will often visit wildlife and rescue centres. Recent trips have taken in The British Wildlife Centre, Raystede Animal Welfare Centre and the Last Chance Animal Rescue centre.

All three are very worthy places; however, LCAR is a very small operation, and very much a shoestring operation. As the name implies, it is very much a place of final hopes for the animals involved. The last time we went, there was a Staffie cross-breed by the name of Roxie. She had been there for a while and was very subdued. I eventually managed to coax her into coming to the fence and I squatted down to get closer and have a little chat with her. She sniffed at me and then allowed me to poke my fingers through the links of the fence (WARNING! NOT TO BE DONE WITH EVERY ANIMAL!).

Picture taken from LCAR site.

We bonded quickly, which was stupid of me really, because it had got Roxy's hopes up and when we had to go, she began to whimper and wail. It broke my heart.

When we visited LCAR the next time, I noticed Roxy's cage still had her details on it, but there was no sight of her. She may not be a puppy any more, but I would seriously adopt her and I can't understand why nobody has yet done so.

Other dogs, however, were not so sweet and friendly. The various Jack Russells were especially vocal. And then there was Tim.

Picture from LCAR site.

'Lively' is right. As soon as anyone hoved into view, Tim went berserk, jumping all round his cage and barking his head off. Also walking around was a family (Mum, Dad and two teenage daughters). Unlike us, they definitely were in the market for a pet, and were treating each animal with a little more scrutiny than we gave. When they reached Tim, he began his maniac bark-and-bounce routine, only calming down after he was sure the family were no real threat.

And then we arrived.

After Tim had calmed down once more, I approached the cage carefully. This was no meek Roxy, after all. I did try to be friendly, chatting to him in a calm, happy tone, but all he did was bark himself hoarse.
I moved away, and Julie took my place. For some reason Tim didn't try to assault her eardrums, but quieted down. He still wasn't happy, but he wasn't noisily hyper any more.

I commented dryly that Tim didn't appeared to have come from Thailand...
The family, who had remained nearby, laughed heartily.

Obviously, Julie had meant to imply that Tim was more of a ladies' man... er, dog.

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PS

Raystede currently have a donation drive to help them treat the hedgehogs that they have been treating. If want to donate, then visit the appropriate web page HERE.

Exfoliating fish fatalities

Some months ago, one of 'those' shops appeared in our shopping centre. You know the type. It's some new health fad and you know it's only going to be a short time before it disappears as swiftly as it arrived.
Sure enough, less than three months later, it was closed up, looking for all the world as though it fully intended to re-open once more tomorrow. We knew better. Another three months on, and guess what? Still nothing. I know vanity (along with a need for coffee, apparently) will be one of the last things to go - witness all the hair salons and (why, fer gods' sakes, why?) nail bars. However, a salon sole-ly (ahem) for the purpose of dunking your feet in so some fish with an apparent foot-fetish?

"Just when you thought it was safe to back into the water;
have you seen what they bloody charge for this crap?"

You may have gathered I'm not a huge fan of all these pampering things. I look at people forking over money to stick their manky feet in a tub of garra rufa and think to myself, "Why don't you just have a bath at home and clean your own feet, you lazy bastards?" A nail bar, I can just about understand - if you don't have the expertise, then your nails will look like crap. It's still vanity, but there you go. With the fish/foot fetish thing, absolutely nothing extra is offered. Everybody has the wherewithal to be able to wash their feet (OK, not literally, but then those unfortunates tend to have carers. I doubt they whisk their charges off to an aquarium for perverts).
Pardon me for a minute, I'm going to briefly morph into a Daily Mail reader - "More money than bloody sense, these people! No wonder the world is in financial crisis!"
Sorry about that, folks, I just had to get it out of my system. Julie, by the way, isn't too keen on the fish thing either...

Ew. Fair enough, but.. ew.

A vacation to Venus, perhaps?

I don't think there is a person that hasn't done it, to one degree or another. I mean, even those who seem to have everything they want must yearn for something. Of course, for the rich, such yearnings are usually easily satisfied (unless it's the desire for another country to control, perhaps...), but for the less affluent, it's a little more difficult.
Hence the powerful machine that is gambling. Some people bet on sporting events and some may even do well from it (although I have a colleague who is something of a Jonah to anything he puts money on. Seriously - everyone else makes  a note of what he's wasti... er placing his bet on, just so they know which horse, driver to avoid). Others will try things like casinos (why the hell do people waste their money on roulette and slot machines?) or, scaling things down somewhat, bingo halls.
Of course, there is always the easiest, most freely-available option - the lottery. In Britain, we are lucky(??) enough to have a few choices of lottery. We have the national lottery , now renamed Lotto, the Euromillions lottery and a few smaller scale ones that are basically individual causes vying for our money. Tonight is going to be a good night for some lucky bas- people in the UK as there are apparently going to be a guaranteed 18 new millionaires as a result of the Euro lottery draw. And yes, I have a ticket. Well, a man can dream, can't he?
Talking of dreams, what should we do if we won the jackpot, Julie?

"Somewhere else?" Richard Branson hasn't actually managed to get any holiday trips to outer space yet, love...

The curious application of lottery logic

I'm going to admit right away that this isn't much of a Gem. Unless you happen to be what is popularly (and usually inaccurately) known as a Grammar Nazi. That is, the kind of person who will be annoyed by the sight of a sentence containing "an hotel", or when faced with a double negative, will invite a roughing-up from someone who really couldn't give a monkey's about double, triple or quad negatives and will show you just how negative it can be to prissily correct someone who happens to be taller, wider and was probably weaned onto bricks as a baby.
(breath in, Spike, breath in!)
That said, a lot of Julie's Gems are not wrong, per se, but there will often be that niggling sense that something isn't quite right, even though you have got the meaning clearly enough. Take, for example, the following Gem.

By the way, the square parenthesis [...] indicate a word or phrase unsaid but implied.

See what I mean? You got the sense of what Julie was meaning to say clearly enough, but a moment later, you stop and think, "...hang on a minute...". What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is either a failure of logic or a most ingenious paradox....
...hmmm...
Time for a video clip...

Money for nothing for money. Something like that, anyway.

Hey there! Still with us? It's been a busy week, all things considered. Even accounting for my unwelcome headache on Wednesday (and I still made good on my promise to you), you were treated to - or baffled by - a double dose of Gems every day this week. So glad I don't 'work' on the weekends, apart from harvesting the Gems in the first place. It's back to normal next week, however, with single posts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Anyway, to the first of today's offerings from Julie and I have a confession to make. You see, I've jotted this down and set it up in its nice little frame, but I'm sitting here now and I can't shake this nagging feeling that this isn't really a Gem. Not in the true sense anyway.

In fact, Julie's 'Gem' may even be grammatically correct. The only thing wrong with it, if I look at it good and hard is I would have said "...to not..." as opposed to "...not to...". It's just that this one sailed out of the air and  hit me between the eyes. It just... feels wrong - does that make sense?
I mean, we all know what Julie's saying, it's just the delivery is not what it could be.
Or am I completely wrong here? Let me know in the comments....

A Gem in the hand is worth cash in the bank

As I have said before (and probably will do many more times in the future), a lot of the best Gems appear just as I'm writing the previous one down. This places me in the difficult position of making a snap decision - do I stick with the one I'm jotting down and run the risk of completely losing the new Gem, or do I find a fresh clear bit of paper, hastily scribble the new arrival and hope that I can piece together the previous one from that little I managed to record?
Believe me, it's often a difficult decision and I've lost many grade-A Gems by making the wrong choice.

Today's second Gem falls into the category of 'new arrival'. I can't recall the fate of the Gem this one interrupted, but it was worth keeping for the thoughtful debate it's inspired.

Hmm. It's just possible this Gem should be tagged/labelled as a Freudian Slip, you know. After I managed to get everything written down, me and Julie started talking about the possibility of making money from her little slips. After some discussion, we agreed that the only way would be to print some of them up as one of those little books that everyone seems to get for Christmas (and then either bins or gives to a charity shop).
Alternatively, especially with the rate Julie can chuck these things out, we could have a Gem-a-day calendar...

Any ideas, folks?

Tomorrow, for Frivolous Friday, mo' money, mo' death (oops).