Born to be wheeled.

Neither me nor Julie can be described as being light on our feet. We're not hugely clumsy, but we are insufficiently agile that we don't like to invite disaster; skiing is right out, for example. The idea of throwing ourselves down the side of a mountain doesn't thrill us one bit. Even the relatively safer option of strapping wheels to our feet would be a bad idea. It's not that our sense of balance is poor - just our coordination. And luck.

Is no rat - is hamstaaaarrgh!

Living in Eastbourne, you will see quite a lot of people with roller blades, skateboards and scooters making their way up and down the prom. It's not so busy at this time of year (and the frankly pissy weather we have had for the last few months won't help), but when the warmer and drier months come round, you definitely need to keep an eye or two out for whizzing 'bladers.*

That said, some people make it look so easy and efficient as a means of getting around that we both have the occasional pang of envy and/or wistfulness. And then reality - and a strong dose of pragmatism - prevails.

* And then there are the cyclists, whom we have to be wary of all year round. They shouldn't be on the prom at all, and whiz right past and even over signs telling them not to, but it doesn't stop them. Not that anything is done about it.
Oh well. Have a video.

Time to sleep

As I type this, it's 1am. Yesterday saw some abysmal weather of the rain variety. Or, to put it another way, it was pissing down for most of the day, and just when some idiot commented that "it couldn't rain much harder", someone Up There replied with, "challenge accepted." Yeah. Thanks for that.

I have a weight problem, and as part of an agreement with a dietician, I'm trying to walk at least five thousand steps a day. Some days are good, others not so. Part of the problem is down to the headaches I get, partly the fact my main hobbies involve sitting down (reading, internet, Magic gaming) and, of course, the weather.

Not me, but the pose is.
Especially the mug of tea.

Yesterday involved a case of  'all of the above'.

Because of the weather, me and Julie decided to drive to a garden centre that we knew was under cover, but was still quite large - in other words, we got to have a bit of a walk. Unfortunately, I started feeling a bit woozy, and we had yet to do the food shopping.

On our way home, we called in at Morrisons, mainly because they have a fantastic salad bar, and their cous-cous is amazing. I was very glad to get home, though, because by that stage I was definitely feeling under the weather (no pun intended).

After a brief time surfing the web while having salad and a cup of tea, I gave in to the inevitable and decamped to the front room, took painkillers and gingerly placed a cold wheatbag across my eyes and forehead. And slept.

All too soon, I woke up. Grumbling, I made a cup of tea, tried some other painkillers and settled down again.

The face ain't mine, but the expression is.

10:45 pm - awake once more. Bloody hell. At least the headache had subsided somewhat. And - surprise, surprise - so had the rain. It might have been late, but I was definitely in the mood for a spot of fresh air.

And here I am. Still tender in the temple, but getting there.

Here's Julie on the subject of taking a nap:

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.

A flowery fate.

Recently, Julie and me finally had a week off together, so we decided to go and visit my mum up in Birmingham.
As it happened, this coincided with the end of Julie's job at the CAB, a place she had worked at for quite some time. Obviously, not every place of employment works like this, but when the news broke that Julie was leaving the Bureau, there was a genuine disappointment (and relief for Julie, who had been trying to leave the bloody place for years). There was also a not insubstantial whip-round. In addition to this, a number of other staff members felt compelled to shower my wife with gifts directly and in addition to what may have been planned.

So it was that I received a phone call, asking me to collect her from the Bureau. When I drove up to the office, what appeared to be a triffid walked out. It was only when Julie's faced peeked out from behind the foliage that I undid the car's automatic locks...
Yes, she was a popular person. Even the boss chipped in, by buying some fake medals and awarding them to her, claiming that they were for long service, toleration of a certain colleague, and success in the face of labyrinthine and constantly changing procedures and protocols.

One such gift was a bowl of flowering plants - absolutely lovely, but there was an immediate problem. Since we were going to be visiting my mother in two days' time, leaving them in our front room without care may have been problematic.

PS
In case you're wondering, the flowers are still alive and flourishing nicely.

Ballooney tunes

Caution - slightly NSFW due to language.

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Julie's been singing again.
There we were, having a nice little drive through the countryside. We'd turned the radio off and didn't fancy music at all, so we didn't bother with a CD. Instead, we looked through the window and enjoyed the views (or, in my case, as much as a driver can and should).
At one point, a random thought was started in Julie's mind and she tittered and sang a couple of lines...

Funny... I don't recall that being in the English version or the German original. I'm pretty sure Nena might have something to say about it...

Sadly, due to restrictions, I can't post a clip of the song here. Never mind, you can just sing those two lines over and over until they've become a level 9000 mindworm.

***EDIT***
Apologies to everyone. Because I had been so fixated on posting the video for the song Julie misquoted/paraphrased, when it became clear that no video was available to me, I forgot to adjust the blog to reflect this.
Of course, the song in question was Nena's '99 Red Balloons'.

Moooooo!

The body is a wonderful thing. Rather like the age-old comparison with the apparent grace of the swan, there is so much activity beneath the surface that it would be fair to describe the human body as a battleground, one that will only be calmed when one side it vanquished for good. Sorry, but you know which side that is. As the phrase goes,

"Life is a sexually-transmitted disease with a 100% fatality rate."

Cheering, eh?

Let's steer things back to lighter matters.
Everybody likes a fart gag, don't they? Gaseous emissions have been a staple of comedy since time immemorial, but it's as much about timing as anything else.
Imagine a hall full of students taking their final exams. Despite hours or revision and weeks of preparation, it's turning out to be far harder than any of them had imagined. Half an hour in, and already, despair is setting in. The tension in the air is palpable. Then, from between clenched buttocks comes a noise, a sound like a cornet being blown to a tone of E flat. There's silence at first, then a muffled snigger. Soon, the whole room is full of students trying not to make any noise and failing dismally. However, the mood has been lifted and who knows - some of the students may have relaxed enough to improve their score.

"What you see might not be real" is a sculpture by Chinese artist Chen
Wenling. It's an unsubtle dig at the financial crisis. The bull represents
Wall Street, and the human is Bernard Madoff. He was convicted
and jailed for 150 years for being a Ponzi schemer.

Alternatively, let's pretend you are watching a sitcom. The main character works in an office. He's been stuck in a meeting for what has felt like the longest hour of his life. He has spent most of the meeting regretting the full English breakfast. It was tasty enough at the time, but it's given him some terrible gas. Finally, the meeting is over. He grabs his papers and dashes out for his own office. When he gets there, he bangs the door shut behind him, but doesn't notice that it has bounced open again. He leans his knuckles on his desk and carefully relaxes certain muscles. The resulting fart is loud, sonorous and meaty enough to be put into pies. Them, just as he sighs with relief, he hears the boss behind him, "I hope you feel much better for that." Oh bugger.

See? It can be humorous. Obviously, it can be taken too far. An entire programme of fart gags is a bit much (although Bottom seemed to get away with something very close to it for several series).

On the other hand, when you feel the need and you happen to be in public, it's really not done to simply let rip. In that case, one will surreptitiously glance about, making sure that the coast is clear. Only then will we allow ourselves to let something out. Hopefully, it will be as discreet as your attempt to clear the area.
Yeah, right.
Poor Julie, on this occasion, managed to create a passable impression of a foghorn. I was gasping for breath, I was laughing that hard, and Julie was laughing just as hard. Then, just as I felt I was beginning to calm down, Julie decided to justify herself.

And I was off again...

Good guy Uruguay?

Staying with Trivial Pursuit from Wednesday, here's a Gem that ticks a great deal of the boxes; Geography, a quiz game and that wonderful ability to blag an absolutely daft and improbable answer with humour and aplomb.

Generally, trying to explain some geographical concept to Julie is rather awkward. Not so much for the question or any lack of ability to understand the answer, but more the timing. Why is it that Julie tends to ask something that generally requires some visual aid to explain when we're in the car - or sat on the sea front, with a frustrating lack of flip charts and black markers.

On the other hand, if you don't know the answer to a question in a game and you're just having a bit of fun for a change, then just throw caution to the wind and make whatever your 'guess' may be a highly entertaining one.

Bwahahahahahahaha! Good answer!

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, apparently.

On a bright day recently, Julie and me decided to go for a little drive. Sunglasses on, Madness on the CD player, we headed off westwards along the A27. This route takes you right into the heart of the [newly declared] South Downs National Park, which features lots of old river valleys, broad and shallow. It's a nice place to be, and very popular with walkers, hikers and other people that don't mind getting rained on.

Since it's chalk downland, people in the past felt the need to make their mark on the landscape. Like the White Horse at Uffington, these marks are large and tended to on a regular basis. The Sussex Downs has two such things in our area. A solid horse on a hill near Alfriston, and the rather more famous Long Man of Wilmington.

As we were driving past the Long Man on this occasion, I noticed what I can only describe as a flock of paragliders circling over the hillside.
For those not in the know, paragliding is rather similar to hang gliding, except that when you throw yourself off the hill/cliff/whatever, your means of support is a lot less sturdy. It doesn't help that you have to have someone make the run-up with you, holding the parachute - in pretty much the same way someone would help you to get a kite up in the air.

For all my snide comments above, I have to admit that they did look especially graceful when they were up in the air and drifting about.
Julie, on the other hand, is nowhere near as enamoured with the paragliding idea.

...yes, lovey.

Bog-standard listing

I love animals.
Well, apart from cats.
Unfortunately, a combination of lack of money, time to give the pet and our tenancy agreement's 'no-pets' clause means our house is animal-free.

Having spent some time recently with my mother and her Jack Russell, Toby, my desire for a permanent (non-human) companion has increased dramatically. It didn't help that a recent walk along the seafront in a rare day of dry winter sun featured a veritable horde of people - and their dogs. A lot were horrible mop-alikes with teeth, but there were enough of the sort that trigger my 'd'awwww' button.
After a while, and making sure there was nobody in earshot, I wailed out my desire to Julie.

OK. Forget the dogs. What on earth did that mean? Surely my wishlist isn't that full of shitty ideas?
No - it seems that Julie was imagining writing out the list on toilet paper, unravelling the roll as we add more desires to the list.
Now there's an image for you.

Longer doesn't mean longer.

The passage of time is a very subjective experience. Poor situations seem to make the day drag out interminably. Conversely, if you're enjoying yourself, you're bound by the laws of conversational narrative to utter the immortal line, "what, already? I just started! I don't know - just where does the time go?" As the author Terry Pratchett has also noted, your perception of time already elapsed will vary too. You may look back on a work or school day and lament how it never seemed to come to an end. However... wait, what? We've just had the longest day of the year? I could have sworn it was February yesterday! Or, as Sir Terry has it...

Of course, you don't need any such mundane approach to time dilation when Julie is around. If nothing else, after a few Gemmed-up exchanges with my wife, you'll have only the vaguest idea as to what century you're in. What I wasn't aware of, however, is that even Julie is affected by her in-built temporal distortion field. Even more oddly, Julie can turn this field on by having a nice lie-in.

I'm not a morning person, never have been. Unfortunately, being Gemmed later in the day means my brain is awake and then ties itself into knots trying to figure out the meaning behind what the ears have just fed it. So, there I was, mug of tea raised partway to my mouth and an expression of terminal bafflement on my face. Julie saw my confusion and decided to help me out.

Well, that's nice. Do you think you could find the time to explain it to me?

Julie and the Gems of Time

First up, I need to take a few deep breaths. I did something at the weekend which was stupid, irresponsible and has me beating my head against the walls.* I lost one of my Gem notepads, one which contains many, many fine Gems, including at least two platyposts. There has already been some discussion over on our Facebook page, so if you want to pop along and berate me or commiserate with me, then feel free.
The one glimmer of light in this debacle is that I can remember one Gem perfectly.

Now, Julie has a sort of love/hate relationship with this blog. On the one hand, it's a tad embarrassing for her. On the other hand, she's actually rather pleased and touched** that so many people find her witty, charming and entertaining. So it is, then, that Julie likes to know what I have posted and how I have presented it. Some days I'll nail it and other days I'll get an unexpected smack around the back of the head. Normally, the question is a supremely cynical, "So, what have you said about me today?" However, there can be occasions when Julie isn't quite so guarded about how she's phrasing things (yeah, I know, I know).

...and then there are times when I have to jump into a TARDIS to find out what I'm posting. Apparently.

* Gently. I'm not into pain.
** Yes, a lot of people would say Julie is touched...

Say what??

That was close. I put this Gem together, all the time having this nagging feeling of deja vu, and finally committed myself to starting up a new blog post with the title above. Except that after typing the word 'say', I was then given the auto-complete option of 'Say you, say what?' With a sinking feeling, I trawled the archives in search of the post with that title, hoping it wouldn't be the same thing. That I had re-used something, having failed to cross it out before...

>phew<

As it happens, 'Say you, say what?' is a completely different post, one from the murky depths of time before I started getting cocky and adding pretty pictures to each Gem. Take a look.
Today's Gem admittedly riffs off a very similar theme, albeit set to a rambling time signature in the key of 'eh?'

You know what, love? It may well do, but I'm damned if I know...

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Breaking [faith with] the legs

Julie recently began a part-time job at the hospital, after an extended period of waiting for a CRB check to clear. For those not in the know, all that means is that there's a check to see if you're nutter with a criminal past. (Useful, except that there are a lot of nutters that DON'T yet have a police record.*)

All Julie is required to do at the hospital, in case you're worried she'll be let loose with all that equipment and medication, is provide the patients with food and water. I say 'all', but it's a pretty big 'all', considering the amount of times she has to trek down to the kitchens, along various corridors, around wards, BACK along corridors upon realising she got lost and is in the wrong part of the hospital, along a different set of corridors, around the correct ward, all that several times in the course of a three-hour shift, as not everything fits on the trolley in one go.
No wonder she's bloody knackered when she gets home - especially when you bear in mind this is a second job to try and up our income. As Julie herself put it,

What Julie actually meant was that she wanted to trade them in for a different pair. Unfortunately, she got the 'tray' sound from 'trade' in her head and it went a little loopy, becoming 'betray' en route to the mouth. This is how a vast majority of her Gems are created.
Oh dear. I've just given away a trade secret, haven't I?
Never mind. There are plenty of others. If nothing else, even I haven't figured them out yet. Mind you, neither has Julie...
Tata for now!

*Not even 'Roxanne' or 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'...

A handy perspective

While I was away on business recently, I kept in contact with Julie on a regular basis. We had arranged to call in the evenings, but I often called if I had stopped for whatever reason, be it a service station on a motorway, at a destination where I was due to unload; any reason, really. Amazing how much you can miss someone, isn't it? When you're both at home, life just sort of settles into a routine. That's nice, but you can sort of start taking things for granted. While I was on the road, I missed the random hugs and the general knowledge that Julie was just there for me. OK, so we don't sleep in the same rooms (it's a snoring thing, mainly. That and my habit of talking in my sleep), but we know we're still very close.
I also miss talking with Julie. While we may differ in a lot of ways, we share likes and opinions on many, many other subjects.* On one occasion, Julie told me that she also found herself missing me in a curious aspect, that of scribe. Apparently, at work, Julie had said something odd and immediately found herself thinking, "oh! Spike should have been here to get this down!" I did suggest she jotted it down herself, but she said she couldn't do that.

This is true... Thing is, though, love, that sentence didn't quite end the way I thought it would...


*We both, for example, have a deep aversion to pretentious art; yes, Tracey Emin, I'm looking at you. And you, Damien Hirst. Do something yourself for a change, yes? Something not solely designed to shock.

To be or not to be me

One night recently, Julie and myself were chatting away. Our conversation was - as ever - punctuated by Julie straying into the lands of the odd. It was late, though, and I was struggling to stay awake as it was. Trying to concentrate on what Julie was trying to say wasn't helping much either. Finally, after one particularly long rambling interlude, I had to say something.

As you can well imagine, that one just about finished me off! Boiiing! Time for bed said Zebedee!

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So. Our next post will be our 200th. I shall have to do my best to ensure it's a suitably epic one.
Tata for now!

Of notebooks and hairy brains...

Sometimes, keeping up with Julie requires a very flexible brain and a supreme memory. Failing that, you could do what I do and carry a pen and a notepad around at all times - just in case, you know.
The thing is, it's not an ideal solution. For one thing, you'd be stuffed if you were outside in the rain. Windy weather is almost as bad, trying to keep things from flying away. Then too, you have the situation where you don't have anything to lean on and you're trying to rapidly jot down a long, rambling and above all convoluted Gem into a tiny notebook. Not only will you have trouble following what had been said, but you're almost certainly going to run into difficulties just reading your own scrawl...

Julie has her own objections to this arrangement. I completely sympathise with her too; I mean, it's got to be supremely off-putting when the least little thing you say may cause your nearest and dearest to stop suddenly and scribble every word down. Especially when we're about to play a game, too. Julie will settle down with a large glass of wine to hand. Me, I'll probably have a cuppa, but more importantly, out comes the notebook.
Naturally, Julie has plans to do away with the evidence - but in her own inimitable style...

It's probably also disheartening to discover that even your objections to an activity simply provokes that activity into... well, activity.
Heh. Gemming must be catching.

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Well, the next time you'll be reading a Gem will be Boxing Day. So, from both Julie and myself, to those who celebrate the day - Happy Christmas!

nb - On the off-chance you're around here on December 25th, we're hoping to have a little video put together for you. An alternative to the Queen's Speech, if you will.

Video via TARDIS

I've often mentioned -sometimes here's, usually just as the Gems happen - that what we really could do with is an mp3 dictaphone. Switch it on, make sure it's in 'ear'shot of Julie and wait for the long, rambling Gems to come in. Something else we have both talked of, and appears to be a popular idea, would be to get a camcorder with which to record actual sessions of me and Julie talking about various subjects. This, however, is how Julie put the situation...

This one nearly slipped past me undetected, I have to admit. Everything was fine right up until the last word, which lulled me into a false sense of security. Mr Tennant, you caught it too, I see. Another fine paraprosdokian in action there... (Don't know what that is? Click the tag below to see more of the same, including one with a definition.)

Julie is on a variable frequency.

Considering the output, it's not really all that surprising that we discuss Julie's near miraculous ability to baffle, delight and entertain. Unfortunately, there are a few snags to a free-flowing conversation on such a topic. One of the major stumbling points is that Julie simply can't remember half of the stuff she's come out with. Mostly, it's only the truly epic Gems that have lodged in her memory (such as The Doughnut, shitty tea, perverted prawns and the Octodog - and my personal favourite, Stop Making Sense).
The other main problem with holding a discussion with Julie is that whatever causes her to Gem at all will actually happen even when we're talking about the Gems in the first place. I know - it all sounds a bit Inception, doesn't it? How can we find the root of Julie's Gems? We have to go deeper...

Deeper into the past and into Julie's mind, as it happens. We were talking about Julie's Gems some time ago, and I raised a point that Julie herself had made on several occasions previously...

I'm sorry? Since when were 'frequently' and 'often' not synonymous?
I was reminded of this particular Gem the other day when I came across a T-shirt for sale at Zazzle.

Now... Do I dare buy it for Julie? Or am I too much of a coward...?

Fancy a canapé? It's low-alcohol, you know.

Everyone generally has a favoured tipple - even if it's only a particularly sweet fruit juice, a piping hot cuppa or an ice-cold glass of water. Generally, I will drink tea., but I like to have, every now and then, a strong, smooth and dark ale. Julie, on the other hand, prefers a Coke but will sometimes treat herself to a bottle of wine. It's not usually drunk all in one evening, but that's just as well, since it doesn't take much to get her... squiffy, shall we say.
Of course, Julie doesn't generally need the excuse that alcohol provides for communicating a little less clearly than normal. If you find that hard to believe, then may I suggest you go and read the archives?
The other day, it seems as though Julie was pre-empting herself. Before even opening the bottle, my wife looked at the label and commented on the alcohol content...

To her credit, after she had said that, Julie did turn to me and add, "and that's before I've drunk any!"

Say hello to Aggie Beeblebrox

I have a stack of paper scraps here on my desk - all containing hastily-scribbled comments and observations from my lovely wife. The thing is, as the stack implies, Julie does tend to come out with a lot of Gems, far too many to keep up with unless we post daily (and that's not happening, unless Julie posts one or two herself. Yeah. Not happening). Unfortunately, such an embarrassment of riches means that, unless I've managed to capture a few details at the time, all we have is a random comment with zero context.
We all know that any innocent phrase taken out of context can appear to be inappropriate at the least. With a Gem, it seems that the reverse is true. I now have a load of what were at the time wildly odd and hilarious comments - sadly now merely odd.
So, here I was, leafing through a load of near-indecipherable scribbles (my handwriting is appalling at the best of times, and trying to jot something down while I'm laughing is an exercise in futility), when I came across this following exchange:

Oh, and if you don't know who Zaphod Beeblebrox is - shame on you! Read Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy NOW! Alternatively, have a look at this pic and click the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Wing-Davey_as_Zaphod_Beeblebrox.jpg

Have a great weekend, folks!

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ps - In case you didn't understand this post's title, click on THIS LINK about marbles.