Do you swear to tell the truth? "Yes. No. Maybe. What was the question again?"

Earlier this evening, Julie came out with a belter of a Gem, so much so that I had to write it down. This was done and I was quite happy to present it to you tonight, except there later arose a... situation.
I believe I have told you before about how Julie's mouth can get all carried away and what comes out sounds very much like some sort of free-form jazz. Well, up until now, I haven't been able to capture this in any way. With recording equipment, Julie becomes too self-conscious and nothing happens. Writing it down isn't really an option either, as there's no way I can either keep up or remember what was said.

Until now.

Well, I have to admit I have fiddled this one slightly. There was actually a bit more to this, but I got lost and this was the best I could do. Even so, it's a good one, right?

Is this the future?

Just saw this on Not Always Right. Don't know why, but I thought of Julie....

(I am calling a Housing Trust tenant to arrange a new time for us to re-glaze her shower screen. The maintenance centre has just called to say this particular elderly lady has several doctor’s appointments. These conflict with her original appointment time.)

Me: “Hello. This is [name] from [glazing business]. How are you?”

Tenant: *chirpily* “Oh, terrible. It’s this blasted weather, you know.”

Me: “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Tenant: “That’s alright, love. How are you anyway?”

Me: “Alright, thank you. I agree with you about the weather, though. Anyway, I was just calling about–”

Tenant: “Oh, yes. I am all dizzy, and my head hurts. And it doesn’t help that I’m allergic to the sun.”

Me: “That must be very frustrating. I just spoke to–”

Tenant: “And I’m polymorphic! If I go outside and change form, they’ll get me!”

Me: “That’s not a good situation to be in at all. Anyway, I understand you’ll be going into hospital on Tuesday morning. We need to change your appointment time. Is–”

Tenant: “I hope I win the $20mil in the lottery this weekend. Then I can move to Tasmania. Oh, the weather in Tasmania! I hear it’s beautiful and cool over there. Not like here!”

Me: “Yes, I’ve heard that too.”

Tenant: “Oh, you’ve been there? What’s it like?”

Me: “No, but I do have it on good authority that it is definitely cold.”

Tenant: “Oh, good. I hate being in this pension house. If I win this weekend, I will move to Tasmania and get rid of the pension. They can’t get me there, because it’s over the strait.”

Me: “It would be wonderful if you did win. Can we come Tuesday afternoon to fix your shower screen?”

Tenant: “Hang on darling, I’m blind.” *papers shuffle* “Sure, love. I’ll be home from the hospital by then.”

Me: “Fantastic. It was lovely talking to you!”

Tenant: “And to you, dear! When I win this weekend, you can have a share.”

Me: “That’s very kind of you. Have a lovely weekend!”

Tenant: “You too, dear.” *hangs up*

There's something in the air...

As I've said before, a game of Trivial Pursuit is always going to be a rich seam of Gems. When you take into account that Julie's grasp of Geography, her knowledge of names and places and her her own specialised brand of logic comes to the fore, you know it's going to be a good time.

Go, on Julie - get a blue question!
Blast - it's a green... mind you science is often just as good...

In the ensuing discussion, Julie explained her thinking to me; apparently, the troposphere is so called because it's closer to the tropics. I didn't have the nerve to ask how she 'knew' what the relative temperatures were...

BONUS GEM!

Following Julie's little explanation, there was this short exchange...

Sort of makes you think she's doing it on purpose, but trust me, it's all completely accidental...

Oh daaaarling! I love the mushroom chairs!

One of Julie's habits... one of her many habits, that is... is to bluff her way through words and terms she is not entirely au fait with. Remember the comment about consommé? Well, this one is similar. Unfortunately, bluffing your way through words only works if you a) are talking to someone who doesn't have as decent a grasp of the language as you do or b) you somehow manage to hit on the correct meaning or pronunciation.

Unluckily for Julie on this occasion, she was talking to me and the words weren't quite right...

In case you weren't sure, she was trying to imply we need to 'feng shui'* the house. Mind you if she DID mean what she said, then all she needed to do was to look inside my work boots... ew...

*By the way, for those not in the know, 'feng shui' is pronounced 'fung shway'

I/you/we can't cope. You/I/we can't help it.

Julie has these moments now and then. They're the kind of moments where all you can do is step back, shut up and wait for her to run out of steam.
What are they like, these moments? Well, imagine a game of word association, played by one person. A person who isn't saying aloud all the possible links between words or phrases and frequently jumps ahead to a point several links down the chain.

If you think that's confusing, you ought to be there when it happens (usually without warning). Hence the following exchange...

For a mild dose of Julie's little moments, try this video...

Yes, because they're centrally heated, aren't they...

We live a couple of streets away from the sea front in our town and - being skint - we often walk along there on weekends. I have now taken to carrying a pen and a notepad around with me on these occasions, because Julie is bound to come up with something.

Like on this occasion. It's late February and the wind is more than a little nippy. The seagulls, however, are happy to bob up and down on the water or - more often than not - strut up and down the promenade, looking for a likely person to mug for food. We're strolling along and out of nowhere comes this Gem.

After a moment of stunned silence, all I could think of to say was "Don't they?"

...in an octodoggy's garden, in the shady side of the brain.

While we're out and about, Julie and me will stroll along, and talk about random stuff. And if you've got this far, you know just how random that can be. Sometimes though, we'll stop to enjoy the view, look in a shop window or - and this is a favourite of ours - watch people as they go about their own business. Sometimes, these people are walking their dogs. Then, it's often also a case of either making a fuss of the dog or - as in this case - discussing/dissing the dog (and/or its owner).

Sorry to break it to you love, but you don't tend to find many dogs outside of Igor's laboratory with more than the standard set of four...

She's got legs, she knows how to baffle you

Every now and then, Julie feels the need to explain away her little moments of brilliance.
Unfortunately, Julie being Julie, most of her explanations end up as Gems in their own right...

I'll be honest here. I've tried to work that one out a few times and I'm sat here now at nearly midnight and what's left of my conscious brain is saying 'No! Don't look at the nasty thing! You want to sleep!'

The Magic Numbers.

As any other married couple will do, we have discussions and will usually agree to disagree on many points. On one occasion, we both agreed that there were times when the situation is not quite so clear-cut. Or, as Julie put it...

No, Julie, I don't know.

Tell you what, love - why not leave a comment here and let us all know?

Fingertips part 1. And part 2, too.

OK, so you've been reading for a while now and you've got the hang of how things can be a little different on Planet Julie. In the normal run of things, she'll come up with a gem anyway. With a game of Trivial Pursuit, it's wise to keep a pad handy for anything she may say.

So, what do you think the addition of alcohol is going to achieve? Well, something quite like the following gem, to be perfectly honest. Out of nowhere, in the middle of a natural silence and in something of a dreamy of tone of voice, Julie says....

This is partway through her ONLY glass of wine, folks. As if that wasn't good enough, we were discussing the above comment a few days later. After having a laugh about it, Julie turned to me and, in all seriousness, said;

"That's nice de... wait, what? BENEATH your feet? Are you from feudal China or something?"

Showing a lot of front. Back. Whatever...

One day, I accidentally broke wind ('farted', for the less wordy among us). I apologised, naturally, and Julie said this;

After re-booting my brain, I asked what she meant. Apparently, she basically was saying that she was glad I hadn't done it in her face.

That comes as a relief, as I don't fancy looking at the anatomy of someone who managed to fulfil that statement...

The obvious is so bright, I gotta wear shades

Julie has always worn glasses. The prescription on them is pretty strong too, which makes it all the more difficult to shop for frames etc. Unfortunately, she seems to now have trouble with more than just walking around....

So, yeah.
And in further news the Vatican has confirmed that the Pope is indeed of the Roman Catholic faith. Also, shocking news from our nature correspondent regarding the toilet habits of bears in forested areas.

Joking aside, you know your eyesight's bad when you take off lenses that are a centimetre thick to read a newspaper close up....

Song sung bloody awful

Today, I present to you a bit of a zinger. As you may have gathered from previous posts, Julie has a preternatural knack for not getting the message across. However, she does have another talent, one of producing on-the-spot pithy put-downs...

Yesterday, Julie and myself decided to have a wander around town. As we got to the main pedestrian area, we could hear the strains of an acoustic guitar.
As we drew closer, we realised that the word strains applied as much to his vocal abilities as his guitar playing. Now, as the phrase goes, read on...

See what I mean? Utter win. Ye gods, I love this woman.

Remember to remember

Last week, I made the decision to carry a pad and a pen around with me whenever I go out anywhere with Julie. As an idea, it immediately bore fruit - I managed to garner perhaps a dozen Gems in the course of an afternoon walk.

On one occasion, though, I began jotting down one such Gem when Julie began to object...

This one earned her a blank look of about force eight on the Boosh Bafflement scale. How is it that just two short sentences can involve such labyrinthine logic?

Up, up and away in my beautiful... athletics event??

The general knowledge board game Trivial Pursuit (here's a link for those unfamiliar with it) is usually a fun way to while away the time. In our case, it has the added bonus of Julie's random little comments.
Just to make things clear, my wife's grasp of geography is only slightly poorer than her knowledge of particle physics as is applied to the chaos theory. Obviously then, any guesses are likely to be somewhat awry of the truth.

However, I must be fair here. Most of us, when faced with a question to which the answer is a mystery, most of us will say something like, "pffff - I dunno." Such a mundane response is not for Julie. No, she'll take a stab in the dark - with a corkscrew, usually.

Finished reeling from the bizarre logic of Julie's suggestion? I don't know about you, but if I was to make a silly guess, I would have said, "fly the Enterprise?"* Well, for those of you that may be interested, Piccard and Jones were the first to fly around the world by hot-air balloon.

*and yes, I'm fully aware that Jean-Luc still would have been wildly inaccurate.

Doughnut forsake me, oh my darling

This one goes back quite sometime. Some years ago, when we could just about afford it, we used to have a car. At the end of a working day, I'd drive back home, collecting Julie from her own place of work on they way. This particular conversation took place on a Thursday, just before we were due to partake of a long weekend at my parents' place in Birmingham.

Apparently, Julie had been talking to her colleagues about her plans for the weekend and things had become a little confused in her mind.

Also, note to self; never drive when Julie Logic is about to be applied.

French confusing in the UK

Well, I'm going to have to attempt some sort of explanation here, I think.
Quite often, Julie's Gems have a twisted sort of internal logic and such is the case here. The first sentence is clear enough; my wife is confessing a near-total lack of knowledge of French persons.
Now, the second sentence...
....
....
....
Nope. I got nothing apart from a whole bunch of Paradox wrapped up in a pretty layer of Bafflement. With a bow.

(not me, by the way)

(although I had the same baffled look)

I can't believe it's not pork (tm)

Now, given that there are various products for people who like to get their protein, such as Tofu (bleh), Quorn (yum) and - whisper it - Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP - or low grade soy mince to you and me), and even some pretend meat products such as vegetarian bacon (tastes ok, but feels like cardboard), this doesn't actually look that much of a malapropism.

However, consider that this one arrived in the middle of a conversation about roast dinners and specifically big lumps of meat that you carve into slices and have lovely bits of crackling coating them. Only then does it become something of a show-stopper.
Apparently, what Julie had meant was this, "Can you get vegetarian pigs?"
This, as you can guess, is a whole new thing.

There then followed a brief lesson - with diagrams - on the whole carnivore/herbivore/omnivore thing. Interrupted with frequent questions asking whether such-and-such an animal was carni/herbi/omnivore. I think she's got it straight now, but I'm still waiting for the follow-up cock-up...