Neologisms

I have thought of a new hobby.
Inventing new words.
These are my first attempts


Perplix (n).
A strange feeling when observing something incongruous giving a strange sensation in the stomach area while also making your head tilt imperceptibly to one side. Such as when observing a man clearly approaching a century of age in the high street wearing a designer Nike tracksuit.

Smutt (n).
A feeling of guilt that you get when you enter a shop holding your sunglasses and you wonder if the shop assistant is going to think you pinched them when you walk out again.

Pilth (n).
A flat feeling of indignation when shopping for personalised gifts such as key fobs, bookmarks and pens when you discover your name isn’t there.

Household chores

What is it with washing up liquid?
After years of conditioning I can live with the need for my plates to smell of Lemon. It it's good enough for my knickers it's good enough for my dinner set.
Although it's not even the nice lemon. It's the lemon scent that was patented by Kentucky Fried Chicken.
But I can live with that.
I didn't complain when they brought out a range in peach.
Peach!
I am bigger than that.
I don't think it's right but I had bought into the concept already so it was a leap I could make. I had been groomed by Procter and Gamble and ironically I felt a little dirty at this point.

 

But life goes on. And worse things have happened in the world than been unnaturally conditioned by a toothpaste manufacturer.
World War 2 and the cancelling of TJ Hooker spring immediately to mind.
But this is too much.
Today my washing up liquid features Oxygen.
Oxygen!
In what capacity?
What on earth does that mean?
It's not flavoured with oxygen.
It doesn't smell of oxygen. If anything it smells of washing up liquid.
The bubbles I assume are filled with air, not oxygen.

 

They are losing the plot.
I am just trying to clean my plates not resuscitate them.

The local economy

I don't mind supporting my local corner shop buuut....

59p for a Double Decker!!!

 

It didn't even come with a full tank!

The Final Cutdown

What's the best bit about having your haircut?

If you are a laydee of course I would imagine it's the pampering... someone trying to tune your ears into Radio 2 and claiming it's Indian massage when they should be reaching for their shears.

Or perhaps the glass of presumably slightly hair-filled house chardonnay that kick starts your experience by trying to blur your vision ready for when you sign the bill.

No.

Having your haircut is an inconvenience and to raise it to entertainment is an illusion.

But even I have a guilty pleasure on the day.

The best bit is, dear friends, is when you get home and wash your hair.

Because only you can get the bits out.

Only you.

My preference is to do this in the style I learned to wash my hair as a boy - head bent over into the sink.

If you do... you get the enormous pleasure of seeing all the bits that you are washing out.

Sometimes if you are light haired, you may have to satiate on the reflections of their filamentous shadows on the white base of the sink (so dump the avocado suite while you can).  And sometimes like today when you are blown dry by a nuclear powered dryer while the protagonist waxes and rages a little over-persistently about the Newcastle managerial situation, then there may be little fruit to bear.

 

But generally there's plenty to keep you satisfied and make the post-cut wash a hugely rewarding experience.

Looks at the bits.

Savour the moment.

Catharsis is an overused word but ....well it's the best bit.

 

 

 

Why Reading Matters

That was the name of a BBC4 programme I had circled for tonight and have just turned off. Endured 42 minutes in the hope it might say something interesting,

Had hoped it would kickstart my inertia about reading but it was a tired, derivative rehash of simplistic and now rather dated science-in-a-sentence which lacked direction and failed to tackle it's own intriguing title.

 

A posh voice from its haughty but dull presenter followed by lots and lots of brain scans with minimally teletastic doctors waxing on about the meaning of the scans (like they really know!) and what it means for us on the street. Then an interview with a man who had a stroke in an unusual place - Euston Novotel.

Then a few more coloured scans.

Glorious technicolour was enough to sell Thunderbirds but that had Supermarionation going for it.

These guys are just muppets who wannabe on TV and that's 42 minutes I won't get back.

Mmm...those grapes are sour.

A while back I entered a BBC Scotland script writing competition to finish a sitcom.

 

The prize was that the winning entry would be made into a pilot. They had a sketch of the clip to whet the appetite with Melvyn Hayes and Don Washington playing two old guys.
It was called the Old Guys.It had 2 old guys in it.
And I didn't win.
I did have the interesting experience of reading someone else's entry who I found was also entering and scriptwise we were both on very similar lines (which was discouraging) as the competition was to complete someone else's script.

 

And I will say this.
Both of our scripts were better than the winner, which they published on the website.
You'll have to believe me as it is long gone.

 

As it was a competition, you do not receive so much as a rejection postcard although I can tell you from experience they are not all they are cracked up to be.

 

I have just found the files of my script. Dated May and July 05! Best part of 4 years ago!!!
And the series started on Tv this week, bravely positioned on BBC1.
So the point is this.
It takes a while for these boys to knock these things up doesn't it?
It is totally recast as well with a familiar face from Only Fools and another painfully unfunny guy. I made it a heroic third of the way through the episode.

 

While I am on the subject do you want to hear an impression?
Yes?
Ahem. Here it is.
"You plonker, Rodney. Rodney, you're a plonker".
Shall I give you a moment?
Yes it's housewives favourite David Jason playing the much loved Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter out of the BBC classic... well you get the idea…

Is it Me?

I suppose very, very occasionally you might be able to say something of value as the Twitter phenomenon decrees.
Id est in 140 characters. Or less.
Let's give it a go.
"How can my soft, gentle T-shirt clothing tag slice away at the nape of my neck like a Stanley knife?"
I can't even be bothered to count. That must be 140 or thereabouts.
If Stephen Fry's twittering cannot grab me, I am afraid there is no hope for me and Twitter.
If I wanted to answer the same question – what are you doing now? repeatedly – then I'd adopt a 2 year old. Then another one for each calendar year.
It is a question I can answer in just 9 characters.
Including space and exclamation mark!

Casting nasturtiums at Twitter

13 years ago I thought of a joke.

Today I thought of a second joke.

Here it is.

What has Twitter got in common with the Lord of The Rings?

They both have a hundred and forty characters.

I thank you

Kindly Bog Off, Cyclops

Do you like free stuff?

Take care.

I have just been offered (by the viewing of my increasingly addictive junk mail), free… wait for it….laser eye surgery.

There are some things you don't want for free.

Piles, a summons, a poke in the eye, a slap in the belly with a wet fish, bread and bread sandwiches, plates of fresh air, blind mice.

I didn't even need to read the small print.

I assume there was a catch.

Probably Buy One Get One Free.

How to rule the world

Without being pedantic about it. The earth simply does not rotate to the rhythm of just a single beat. What you may feel it right for a single human is unlikely to be equally correct for double the number or maybe even triple.

Humanity is born, sure. And this may represent a human of means. But then along came two they got nothing but the jeans but they got… altogether... Different Strokes, they got….

Too late

When is it too late to be late?
If you are a recently deceased Mr X, for how long do you become the late Mr X?
Certainly historical figures don’t count. You don’t go around referring the late William the Conqueror.
Or the late Jesus. If that’s not too debatable.
Is it when you are talking to someone who may not know the guy’s dead? Are you giving him an extra piece of information with your sentence and half expecting an “Oooh I didn’t know he was dead” in response.
Or is this just polite convention?
Is it therefore impolite to omit?
And how long should you be late for?
A month is too short but is a decade too long?
Personally I hate people being late.
They never seem to apologise.