Verbal and Legal

It appears I missed Wednesday. Shame on me - especially as I had a Gem ready and waiting to go.

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Last week, we went to a live show (as opposed to a dead one. That would have been boring). The band in question go by the name of The Illegal Eagles, so named because they are a tribute band to - well, it's obvious, really, isn't it? The show was excellent; all the musicians really know their stuff.

The band began eighteen years ago, started by the second and fourth gents in the picture. Over the years, there have been a lot of members, although some more permanent than others. The bass player on the right has been with them almost since the start. The newest - and youngest - member of the group is on the left. No, it's not Smallville's Lex Luthor, unless he has had a personality implant. He's a good addition to the band, contributing, as almost all of them do, to every section of the stage. Mind you, the real Mr. Diversity is chap #4, playing a variety of guitars, drums, vocals (including lead), and even saxophone for 'The Heat is on', played in the set's solo hits section. One each from Glenn Frey, Don Henley ('Boys of Summer'), and Joe Walsh ('Rocky Mountain Way'*).

You may have noticed that I haven't, until now, mention the third gent in the lineup. That's because he is the only one whose name I know off the top of my head; Keith Atack. Keith is the only reason that we were there. You see, Julie was massively into a band called Child when she was younger, and Child featured a couple of twins by the name of Tim and, yes, Keith Atack. Here's a picture of Keith (or is it Tim? Heck - they're twins...) to show why Julie was such an ardent fan.

Handsome, no? By the way, I had a little trouble searching for images, and I really hope Big Brother understands that my search term 'child singles' - in Images, no less - was innocent. After all, I really wasn't wanting results of Destiny's Child.

Back on track.

Some days later, we were out, taking Roxy for a walk and discussing the concert. I raised the point that TIE have been sanctioned by members of the original Eagles, in much the same way as Pink Floyd have approved The Australian Pink Floyd Show. It's something that has always made me smile to myself; I mean, 'The Illegal Eagles' can be a bit of a tongue twister on its own, without throwing anything else into the mix.

I have no idea if I did get it right, but it's as close as anyone would get. Julie herself admits there would be no way of repeating it.

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* 'Rocky Mountain Way is good, but I prefer 'Life's Been Good'.

The great Greek flip-flop flop

Heh - say that fast three times in a row...

Anyway - as I mentioned in Monday's post, We have a friend from Greece visiting for a few days. Since she and Julie are familiar with each other, it was no effort to either of them to fall into an easy banter - especially when it came to taking digs at me. Julie may come out with some odd things now and then (yes, really!!), but she is very quick-witted, and usually manages to put me in my place with no problem.

However, the Sunday was the first day after our friend arrived and she was still somewhat jetlagged. Since I am really not at all good in the morning, Julie was pretty much the only bright spark in a sea of bleary dullness. It didn't help that I had the grand idea of taking our friend to her first car boot fair, an event which can be best described as a yard sale held in a field, where everyone turns up to sell their crap - I mean surplus goods.

As you can tell, you do get some turn up in vans; traders of one sort or another - but they have to pay a larger pitch fee as they will take up more space. Fair play. It is truly astonishing, though, just what people try to sell. Mind you, it's not nearly as astonishing as the fact that people will actually buy it. From rusty car parts, old Paul Young records (usually No Parlez) to a truly staggering amount of baby clothes and dog-eared paperback books, you will find pretty much everything.

On the other hand, you will also find the odd hidden gem, something that is just what you need. That rusty car part might be from an Aston Martin, a part that was last in production fifty years ago. If you are living on the breadline and are expecting a baby, this will be an ideal way to clothe your newborn tot. And yes, there are still some Paul Young fans out there.

As for me and Julie, we view these events as a good opportunity to add to our already substantial collection of hedgehog ornaments, toys and nick-nacks. It may have been at a car boot fair or in a charity shop that we managed to snag a lovely hedgehog doorstop.

Handsome chappie, no? Oddly enough, we haven't named this one, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

But I digress. This hedgehog is not simply for looks, we do utilise it as a doorstop. In fact, the door it is responsible for is that which belongs to the guest room, the room in which our friend is currently sleeping as I type this.

Back to the car boot fair. It had been a hot day and we had just dragged our still-weary friend around a dusty field. Having said that, we did treat her to her very first cream tea - with clotted cream, naturally. Unfortunately, despite the delicious refreshments and the elation of having bought her very first item from a car boot fair (a Stephen Fry book), our friend was unaccountably tired, so we bundled her off to her room for a bit of a rest.

On the way into her room, though, she stumbled. Now, I thought she had tripped over the 'hoggy doorstop, and, jokingly, accused her of mistreating that poor, poor animal, "I mean, what has it ever done to you?" I demanded.

How wrong I was. Our friend had not been guilty of mistreating a weighty stuffed animal, but of making a small misstep as a result of her footwear.

You mean, instead of being 'flop-flip'?

Heh. What a day; first boot fair, first cream tea - and her first Gem.

Say you, say me... say what?

Julie and me were talking the other day about her Gems. Now, the thing about situations like this is that even discussing the Gems tends to result in more Gems being produced. Obviously, this is not a problem - unless I find myself not being able to keep up, or I have left my notepad at home.
Sometimes, when Julie is in full flow, or has just come up with something especially mind-bending, I find myself clouding over, my brain having had some kind of 'blue screen of death'. It's at that point that my brain and Julie's seem to suddenly synch together.

This actually happened on this occasion; it seems that merely discussing Gems is enough to trigger a Gem-fugue in another person. Julie was concerned with making sure that she was given due credit for the things she had spoken, and I wanted to assure her that this was the case.

Did I say I wanted to emphasise it?
>cough<

Running and rambling

A while back, one of Julie's colleagues announced that she was going to take part in the Cancer Research Race for Life.

At the time, we congratulated her and didn't think much of it. After all, there is so much in the way of charity events taking place these days.
And then, in July last year, my father was diagnosed with a massive and aggressive brain tumour. Less than six weeks later, he died.
After that, our heightened sensibilities couldn't help but notice that so many people's lives had been touched by cancer. It's been tough, to be sure, but we're coming to terms with it now. Yes, we do find ourselves in situations that affect us. The first time I saw this video was hard for me, but I now see it as a positive thing.

Back to our friend. When she told us of her intention to take part in this, we wished her well and backed away. Not from sponsoring, but from the actual activity. You see, neither Julie nor myself are what you could term 'svelte' or 'athletic'. Not by a long shot. For my part, I like to walk; I'm built for a slow, solid pace and Julie is generally happy to accompany me.
Running? Uh... no, thanks.

Julie put it slightly differently, of course.

Heh. Dad would have loved that one.

Something in the way she derps.

Last week, we featured a Gem from the category of Trivial Pursuit, that board game version of a pub quiz. The question asked of me was "What language boasts the most words?" I got the answer correct (English) and then Julie came right out and admitted that her personal lexicon was somewhat less than extensive. During the short discussion that followed, we established that perhaps half of her word count was taken up by the word 'wotnot'. Most of the time, 'wotnot' will be a noun, one for an item whose correct nomenclature seems to escape my struggling wife. On rarer occasions, the 'w' word would take the place of a verb.

And when 'wotnot' features twice or more in a sentence, you know Julie has had something of a brain-fart and come up with a sentence where that word takes the place of a noun or two, a verb and, if you're really unlucky, an adjective too.
Mad stuff. "Wotnot - not even once."

I only bring this up, as it would seem 'wotnot' has a rival, of sorts.

Julie came home from her morning job one day, and it was patently obvious to me that some matter was giving her concern. When I asked her if she was alright, her reply was along the lines of, "Hmm? Oh, I'm fine, I'm just trying to remember... " However, she then pulled a face and tried to explain...

Well, that's cleared that up...

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PS - while writing this article, I wanted to avoid using the word 'something' too much myself. However, I couldn't think of one right then, so I went to synonym.com and had a bit of a chuckle when it turned round and told me that it couldn't find a suitable synonym .
Mind you, it was not much better at my preferred thesaurus site, thesaurus.com - there were a few words, but all were less than apt for my need. Oh well.

That's what I'M talking about!

Here in Britain, we have been gradually switching our TV signals from analogue to digital. Essentially, it should give us more channels and a clearer picture. What it really meant was a lot of people suddenly finding that they can't watch the four or five channels they were happy with. Well, not unless they either forked out a small amount for a digital adapter, or for a new TV and/or aerial.

What with all of that, we were discussing whether it was worth our while switching our phone line/internet provider to someone that deals with TV too. We looked at details for a while, bit it evidently all got a bit too much for Julie. all those details, comparisons, offers, etc. Julie looked at me and tried to tell me what offer may have been the best - or was it that she wasn't bothered at all? Or maybe she meant something else? I was completely lost, to be honest. And it seemed I wasn't alone...

Uh....
...what..?

This conversation is a real no-know.

Every now and then, Julie will ask me a question about something, or else the conversation will have just... happened, as they sometimes do. Unfortunately, these conversations also have a habit of getting away from themselves. Either we'll stray far beyond the original topic, or I'll forget myself and go into what Julie calls my 'Teaching Mode'. I'll try and explain things in too much detail and in an almost condescending manner, and Julie ends up either bored, lost in details or utterly confused by the terminology (sorry, love! I know I do it!).
When we're playing Trivial Pursuit, there's an obvious danger of this arising, and so it was to prove the other day. I have no idea what the question was or what we were talking about - for some reason, Julie's answer crowded out all that boring detail...

See what I mean? By the time I had managed to work my way through that sentence, everything that had gone before was not even a distant memory. What gets me is that it is all perfectly correct as far as grammar and internal logic goes; it's just that you lose track of where you are in the sentence each time you try and analyse it...

Wot is a wonot not?

Once again, a lull in a daily schedule saw us playing our little game of Alpha-categories (henceforth to be tagged as 'Alphagames'), last seen in the post, Mental Mashups. Once again, the category was singer/band names; it's a nice easy one for us and we can rattle through it in a short time, which makes it ideal for whiling away a few minutes when we're waiting on transport links.
Things were progressing normally for a while - Julie claiming that I made up up half of the names I was using (Joe Bonamassa, Ozric Tentacles...), but then it fell to Julie to come up with a name for the letter 'W'. Unfortunately, the 'ramble and repeat' button must have been pressed, because what came out was this:

I'm sorry, but like yourselves, I knew what Julie was aiming for from the start, but you know how it is. You know it's going to be messy, but you just can't tear yourself away.
That and I was too busy alternating between 'baffled' and 'bwahaha!'

Following that, there's only one more thing to do. And that is to join in with us and Shake Your Head.

An incursion into recursion. Take notes.

Just a quick bonus for you today, courtesy of Very Demotivational.
Apparently, notes were taken. Of what, I'm not entirely sure...

Did you get that alright? Anyone?
Bugger. How can I get someone to explain it to me...?