Twofer Wednesday - Limiting the options

Driving back home the other day, we were passed by someone in a bit of a hurry.

Relative speeds not captured, sadly.

In Britain, the national speed limit on normal roads is 60 mph - unless otherwise stated, of course. On dual carriageways and motorways, this goes up to 70 mph - again, unless there are signs telling you otherwise.

On this occasion, I estimated that the now rapidly-disappearing dot in the distance was going at least ninety. At times like this, I wish I could just open the window and drop a flashing blue light onto the roof of the car...

Splitting hairs, but I suppose it would be an entertaining defence to try out in court...

Have a tune.

I've told you a million times...

People - including Julie, sometimes - often ask if I make up the stuff I post on this blog.

Nope.

Well, apart from trying to fill in some blanks in the background. But the main gist of it, the core of the posts, remain exactly as they were when I recorded them. Trust me, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

That doesn't stop Julie from protesting.. well, not her innocence, exactly - more my lack of it...

...and thereby dropping herself further into it.
Not quite a win for me, but I'll take it.

Logic has been diminished

When I started writing these Gems down, I never gave a thought to context. All I committed to paper were the exchanges, divorced from the events that led to and followed them. This wasn't much of a problem to begin with, but now I have a small box full of scraps of paper and filled notebooks, I find myself looking at a set of almost unintelligible scrawls, with no idea of what prompted them.

All this means that I am now faced with two options. I can either fake a backstory, and hope I can get it as true to life as possible, or I waffle on, filling the post with a series of side-stories and unrelated topics.

No idea who did this, but it belongs to the surrealism art school.

...er ...perhaps not that unrelated...

Forcibly dragging the post to something resembling order, the only background I can provide to today's Gem is that me and Julie were discussing her ability to entertain with verbal slips (and spot-on bon mots). Very often, Julie will do herself down, claiming she is thick, slow, and dull.

That's one thing that is pretty much guaranteed to anger me and anyone else who knows Julie. Just because I remember lots of useless titbits of information, that does not mean I am more clever than the next person. When Julie talks about her work, I generally sit there while my eyes glaze over and the conversation flies so far over my head that it attains near-earth orbit. The reverse is true wen I begin discussing the intricacies of playing Magic: the Gathering.

However, there is one aspect of my psyche that would enforce such a self image. I can be very picky about some things. I like things to be correct and will attempt to correct people - including myself - when I believe them to be wrong. Since I spend a lot of time with Julie, this means that I do nit-pick at things she says. And trust me when I say I have got into trouble about doing this. Right, sis?

That said, may I present this legally-themed Gem.

Yes, I am fully aware that 'grounds of diminished responsibility' is a defence tactic, not an accusatory one. But - it was fun to roll with it, right up to the final brain crash.

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The two cartoon images come courtesy of an anime game series known as 'Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney', although some people, mostly in the West, will know them from the series of parody videos, Phoenix Wrong. These videos cut together parts from the games and then overdub music, quotes from movies, and classic comedy sketches, all punctuated by a banged gavel and a cry of "Objection!" Take a peek at this example.

Certainty

There is a famous and oft-quoted and paraphrased bon mot which has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin, the US statesman and former president.

Many people have since added a third option; human stupidity, housework, etc etc...

Some time ago, I was talking with Julie about this blog and the Gems she comes out with. Gradually coming to terms with the fact that most people are on her side (including me!), Julie is sort of enjoying the notoriety she has in our currently small audience.

We have mentioned before that my notes are referred to as 'damning evidence that could be used in a court of law' - or something very similar - but this time, Julie raised the possibility of a legacy.

"If I died," she said, "would people remember me?"
I replied that while I hoped that day lies long into the future, I believed strongly that she would.

Obviously, Julie meant 'posthumous success', but it struck me as being accidentally very deep.

Equal ops for children.

Taking Roxy for a walk yesterday, I stopped for a rest (Roxy's request - she refuses to go past a certain stretch of low wall until we have sat there for a few minutes). Sometimes, Roxy will hop up onto the wall to sit next to me. This time, however, she simply flopped to the ground (a sure sign I needed to get her home soonish) and basked in the warm sun.

As we sat there, a small group of schoolchildren came along with a couple of adults carefully shepherding them in the right direction. When they were encouraged to ask questions of random people, I realised they were on a field trip.

A couple questions later, it seemed they had fulfilled their quota, and were preparing to head up onto the pier. Before they did so, the teacher wanted to make sure her charges understood what they needed to do and what to look for.

At that, the teacher held her clipboard over her face to hide a smile, while the less restrained man at the back of the group wheeled away, doubling up in silent laughter.

My own laughter was not silent, and I felt moved to literally applaud the young boy for an apparently progressive attitude. The teacher, may or may not have been impressed, commented to me that, "in all the years I have done this and asked these questioned, not once have I had that answer."

Win.

Hide the line

A staple of long journeys with any family, even if you don't have any of the books (or any recollection of them either). I spy is a simple game, although frustration can often occur if the 'spied' is obscure, silly, or - in some games I have known - fictitious. It can also serve as a joke. Stuck in a dark room when there is a power cut? "I spy, something with my little eye, something beginning with 'D'." "Dark?" "Yes. Well done."

Driving up to my mother's home is a fairly long journey, involving lots of motorways, some parts of which may even be free of road works or traffic jams.
Yeah, right.

Normally, our distraction of choice is the alphabet game, but even a favourite can become stale over time, so we switch to other games, such as I-spy.

One time, it was my turn. I chose something that I believed to be fairly simple. Of course experience tells you that nobody gets the obvious ones. No wonder people get a bit antsy with the odd ones. I had gone for something beginning with the letter 'P', and since we were moving nicely on a relatively clear stretch of motorway, the lane markings were clearly visible.

Many guesses later...

How do you camouflage white lines on a dark road?
Probably like this...

(Bull)dogged

"British Bulldog, one-two-three!"

That phrase should bring a small wave of nostalgia to many of you (mostly Brits, obviously). British Bulldog is a game played by many children (and adults, on occasion), normally in the school playground. It did go through a dark phase during the 1990s, when political correctness and the imported culture of litigation meant that many schools banned the game as being too dangerous.

Bollocks.

I'm a physical coward, and I LOVED playing B.B. I was useless, granted, but I had fun anyhow. What's a scrape or two to a kid? Nothing. Yes, I will admit that there could be - and has been - the odd serious injury, but you cannot and should not stop children from having some energetic, social, spontaneous fun.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, here is a graphic for you.

Image from BBC News site http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7592648.stm

Now, because of said political correctness shite, I haven't seen or heard of Bulldog being played for a long time. However, on an evening walk with Julie and Roxy, I saw a youth activity group getting into a game of Bulldog. As I say, I had been a long time since before schools were banning Bulldog, and Julie was never too keen on it in the first place. So when I commented on what game was being played, I had to remind Julie of the rules. It didn't take much for a connection to be made and Julie was nodding her head in recollection. It seems she had had it confused with another popular schoolyard game...

...Oh well.

People are strange...

...when you're a stranger. Which version do you now have playing on your mental radio?

Apropos of nothing. Out of the blue. Spontaneously.

Whichever term you use, it's going to be a good way to describe how Julie tends to break up a silent moment. One minute, my wife would be sat reading, but gradually drifting away from the book. The next thing you know, she will utter something that may be poetic or profound. However, the odds are on 'baffling'.

Take, for instance, this little quote from some time ago. There's no back story to it, no preamble. It just happened.

Julie was not reading or watching TV, and Hamlet wouldn't be high on her 'to watch' list in any case. It was just a lazy day, with the late winter sun peeking in through the window. A nice, quiet day. Where did it come from? Where did it go?*

Oh well. Here's a picture of David Tennant as the titular prince of Denmark to ease you into your weekend.

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*It went here, of course. What a stupid question...

Logic gets cold feet

I hate food shopping on a weekend. I am writing this on a Sunday (just about), having had a very pleasant afternoon and evening playing Magic with some friends. However, before that, supplies needed to be replenished.

Unfortunately for our sanity, it seems that everyone else had had the same idea, with the result that Tesco was packed with seemingly entire families. Why is it that parents spend ages chatting to someone in the middle of the aisles and then become angry with their children, who - for some strange reason - have got themselves into trouble through sheer boredom?

We actually happened across one of our neighbours, and it was a mutual decision on the part of all concerned that we would nod, smile, and then do our level best to get the hell out of there ASAP.

As we passed by one section, we noticed that there were some items that had been reduced in price. That is, Tesco had stopped overcharging for them so much, in an effort to clear some space in their warehouses. One such item was a pack of foot warmers. Essentially a gel pack that warms through chemical means once the pack is opened, just like those available for hands, backs, and various other parts of the body.

Yes, but these are for the feet, yes? That means they need to have a different shape and a new pack. Oh, and a new price...

For 75p, though, I did have to admit that it might be worth a pop, just for the one try. Not for me, you understand - my feet tend to be fine. Julie's feet, on the other hand, frequently resemble blocks of ice. Being the thoughtful husband, I pointed these out, but there seemed to be a problem.

Something about my blank stare must have told Julie that I didn't feel all that up to speed on the conversation, so she generously explained that she had, in fact, been referring to her ankles.

...riiiight...

Define 'tidy'...

Moving from Wednesday, when we were discussing the pets of a friend of mine, we go to my friend herself - or, more precisely, one of her daughters.

Sam, it seems has managed to craft and near-perfect the habit of not tidying up after herself. And before you say it, Julie, I know she still won't be as bad as me.

Sharron, Sam's mother, asked her several times to clear away all the toys, books and what have you. Asked, cajoled, ordered, and commanded. In the end, in fear of tripping over something and hurting herself, Sharron gave in to the inevitable and did it , as mothers all-too often do.

Naturally, Sam can tell the difference between a cluttered, messy room, and a tidy one. Not that she commented upon it when she came home from school. Even when her mother raised the subject, Sam remained unimpressed.

...somebody pass me a dictionary, please. I think I've been getting it wrong all this time...

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.

Burning Peter to save Paul

Eastbourne has a problem. A big one. We have a hospital here, which is as it should be for a town our size. In fact, since we have the only main hospital for at least 20 miles in any direction, you would think we would be happy with it.

But we're not.

Bit by bit, our hospital is being closed down and the services are being transferred to a 'nearby' hospital, The Conquest in Hastings.
Like I said, nothing else for at least 20 miles. And that's not counting the fact that the main road is guaranteed to slow to a crawl for miles during peak times. Or if there are road works. Or an accident... 'Alternative' routes involve minor roads, many of which have cars parked along them, forcing traffic into a perpetual slalom. Unless you opt for the picturesque route, which, while relatively trouble free, adds an uncomfortable five miles or so onto the journey.

(map taken from Google Maps)

First, the maternity unit was closed down, despite lots of protests, petitions, demonstrations and talks (the kind of talks where only one side appears to be listening, apparently). It was put off and then sneaked back onto the agenda when they thought nobody was looking.

Three days after it closed, the first 'taxi baby' was born, en route to The Conquest.

Now, any scheduled surgery is to take place there too.

A fun fact about Eastbourne; It has the oldest (average) population in Britain. A large town, comprised mostly of OAPs, all of whom have to somehow make their way to someplace they aren't necessarily familiar with, via whatever means necessary

Fun fact 2; Discounting taxi, there is no one single form of public transport that will get you from Eastbourne to The Conquest. The Conquest is at the back end of Hastings, well away from any busy transport routes. This might be fine for patients trying to sleep, but for anyone trying to get there, it's a bit of a bugger. And if you should decide to drive there, then you have to fight for a parking spot in one of the most fractured, compartmentalised car parks I have ever known.

Julie has said to me that she wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to turn it into a cottage hospital. I poo-poohed this idea, but when I mentioned it to my doctor today, he replied that he wouldn't be at all surprised.

Well, crap.

Naturally, the residents of the town aren't taking this lying down - they can't because some of the wards have been closed and there aren't nearly enough beds... In the windows of many houses, you will find small posters defending our hospital. Most of them seem more plaintive than anything else...

Nice flatline...

Julie, being a life resident of the town, is obviously very much against the transfer of services (as am I). One day, we were out for a walk, and we happened to pass a house with one of these posters in the window. Julie felt moved to have a little rant.

Well, yes. Although a tad on the illegal side of things.

A very feathery fish

On one of our many forays into the eateries of town, me and Julie popped into Roots.

The food and drink is good and there is a fair choice, too. Not only that, but there are things that you won't often find in your average cafe, such as quails' eggs. The thing is, if you don't have more than a basic knowledge of flora and fauna, then even the word 'quail' will mean nothing more than a sensation of fear or trepidation. Julie is one such person. However, I will say right now that my wife is not unintelligent - far from it. A lack of knowledge is nothing to do with your mental processing power.

That said, Julie does ask some interesting questions...

I know quail eggs are small (and very delicious!), but they're not that small.!

Here's a quail.

The Tea Room Trilogy, part 1: The short arm of the wotnot

I love it when a single day out results in a plethora of Gems. Even better - and rarer - is when I can cull a week's worth of Gems from about an hour's time in a tea room.

Visit http://www.duddleswelltearooms.co.uk/ for more information.

Duddleswell Tea Rooms are in Ashdown Forest, Kent (UK). You need to be concentrating on your surroundings though, as it is the epitome of 'blink and you'll miss it'. We were lucky; today was their last day of opening before closing for the winter period. It's a very friendly place, and the food is home cooked and locally sourced. They don't do soy milk, though, so you will need to take your own. The tea rooms are very pet-friendly, and will bring out a saucer with a couple of doggy treats should you decide to stop for a cuppa while out on 'walkies'.

We decided to stop for a drink on our way to Last Chance Animal Rescue to discuss fostering a dog. It was relatively quiet; the staff nearly outnumbered the customers. After sitting at a table by the window, we ordered our drinks - gunpowder green tea for me, as I forgot the 'no-soy' thing.

Chatting away, I became aware that Julie was having a problem with the table. She was trying to lean her elbows on the top so she could have her cup held by her mouth. Unfortunately, every time Julie moved slightly, one elbow or the other would slip off the edge of the circular table.

Uh. If you insist, love.

If you are in the area and fancy dropping in for a drink and a bit of cake (after they reopen), you can search for it on Google maps. Here's a little bit of map for you to get started...

A lickle trouble

Viewers of programmes like Eastenders, and those who have seen films with Jason Statham in them will know of a certain vocal characteristic of those who live in the London area. Essentially, letters and wholes syllables are swallowed up in a glottal space, resulting in an almost total absence of the letter 't'. In fact, the very word 'letter' ends up being pronounced as "le'ah."

Dad had a similar, yet different, approach to pronouncing whole words. It was - and still is - a family in-joke that Dad could never really pronounce the 't' in the middle of a word. Instead, the hard sound of the consonant was transformed into a 'k' sound. Since my father was fond of Derbyshire, and a lot of his and Mum's spare time revolved around trips there, this invariable meant going through Matlock. Or, as Dad would call it, 'Macklock'.*

You can see how this is going, can't you?

Now, since Dad was rather fond of a tipple, especially single malt whiskies, the family joke has always been about 'lickle bockles'. My father always took it with good grace, and even enjoyed joining in with the banter. Brilliantly, this Gem has someone else falling foul of the whole scenario...

Hmm. If this was Twitter, this would probably be given "#guessyouhadtobethere".

Interestingly enough, when I was having an idle google, I found a site that would seem to have been named by my father...

I'm not making this up - ickle bockles is a site that provides you with all those horribly small toiletry containers that airports demand these days. Visit THEIR SITE to find out more.


*either way, Matlock is a lovely place to visit, but it is a right bugger to drive through as it's at the bottom of a long, narrow valley.

Pre-emptive Alzheimer's?

There comes a time when you have to give up. You have tried your very best, tried approaching the problem from different directions, and it finally becomes apparent that you should really have been approaching the problem from a different dimension.

We have tried to explain it before, but it strikes me that all we have done over various posts is provide various possible mechanisms for Gems to occur. The actual cause? It's my belief that Julie trusts me enough and is comfortable enough around me that she can leave her highly-ordered office worker mentality behind and let herself go with a huge sigh of relief and a steady flow of WTF.

Today's Gem is a prime example of my inability to 'get' what Julie meant. Trust me; context makes no difference. Worse, the longer I look at it, the more I become convinced it makes sense, if only I could stare at it long enough for my eyeballs to start bleeding and tartan spiders to emerge from my fingernails...
>shudder<
Sorry. I must have missed some medication...

In the meantime, I'll leave you with the Gem. If you understand it, then good for you. Just stay well away from me and pay attention to those nice people in the white uniforms...

Oral, not aural.

Let's be honest, we've all done it. We have all said something and then immediately wondered why you did. Sometimes, it slipped out and you aren't even aware you spoke until you realise people are staring at you. Sometimes, you are caught up in the moment and an incautious phrase escapes before the mental filters can stop it.

And then there is Julie. Shameless to the end, all manner of things are said at the drop of a hat, with not a regret. Brilliantly, many Gems arise as a direct result of my wife attempting to justify herself or defend something she has just said.

For example...

Indeed.

OBJEC...tion...?

I'm a bit late today, so I'll get right to it.

Today, Julie gives us an insight into a possible career change. One which would make Franz Kafka proud.

And before you say anything, no, I did NOT make a mistake in writing that down. It's just Julie thumbing her nose at Physics once more.

Slow, slow, quick-quick, slow.

This one could be described, in a more print-based environment, as being 'hot off the presses'.

The weather in Britain has been unpleasant lately, although not nearly as bad as the weather experts predicted. That's only for this country, of course. Other parts of the world have far worse weather, but moaning about the weather seems to be a well-deserved cliche.

I was out, attending to a couple of chores, and happened to notice that the clouds were rather - as Julie would put it - "ominominominous". Since it was late in the afternoon, I thought it might be nice I collected Julie from work, as opposed to letting her trudge home in the grotty weather. I'm nice like that.

It was an uneventful drive to her and then home, which was nice, especially since there are roadworks that have blocked off one section of a major road on the seafront very close to us. Putting it bluntly, it's fucking chaotic. While getting home was a relative breeze, it took me twenty minutes to get further than a hundred yards from our house on the way out.

Once parked up, though, I sat still for a moment to let the controlled ire of idiots subside. Julie also remained in her seat, too, but for a different reason. Coming up the road was a learner driver.

Seeing one of these ahead of you on a narrow road.
Never cheering.

Since I had parked on the right-hand side of the road, Julie thought it best to let them by before making a move. Unfortunately, it seems like the learner had not long begun their lessons,* and was proceeding very cautiously (i.e. 'very slowly') up the road.

Obviously, it probably was less than a minute, but to Julie, with her hand on the door handle, it must have seemed like an age.

Yep. That one earned her The Look.

*Poor bugger, eh? Just started learning, and they're being dragged around near closed-off roads during rush hour.

Well, what a duck-up.

I don't know how widespread this is, but in Britain, we have a growing number of buffet-style restaurants - usually for varying degrees of tasty Chinese/pan-Asian food. There is one near to where my mother lives which is pretty good. A little further away though, is one one that I have already mentioned in this blog.

As I am sure I have mentioned before, Julie didn't have quite as much of a cosmopolitan upbringing, especially when it comes to food. As a result, I have introduced her to various Chinese and even Indian dishes. This is all well and good, but if you don't know about some dishes, false assumptions can be made...

Ooops.