A Gentle Query

I’d like to rename some of the Folders in my Windows Explorer in Italics.
I know that makes me a little fastidious but does it make me a bad person?
Or is it the gesture I am currently directing toward Microsoft with my non-typing hand that does that?

If Abba were Plumbers

Lucky old Abba. Alphabetically guaranteed to be at the top of everybody's playlists.
If they were plumbers of course they would long since have been displaced by AAA Stopcocks.
If they were heating engineers they would have been burned by the Aardvark Heating Co.
If there were builders, Aaron's Construction would have toppled them.
But as legitimate artists of pop, they head the list.
Fitting.

A Little Night Music

Load your iPod and pick your Genre of music.
But pick the right one.
Don't make the mistake I did by listening to an afternoon of New Wave when you had tried to upload only New Age.
It will raise your ire more than your chill factor.
When you are looking forward to 40 minutes of growing your hair to some easy-listening, don't fidget when it comes to the genre selection and accidentally upload 5 albums of A Capella Acid Jazz.
And when you have found a cable that connects your iPod to your gramophone and you are sitting in the drawing room with a glass of port, lighting your pipe and awaiting a gentle murder, make sure you have set it to Chamber Music rather than Christian Gangsta Rap.

Believe me, it's an easy mistake to make.

Villains of NYC

Now I like Law and Order.
It's smart. It's slick.
Honestly, it's like looking in a mirror.
Their actors are good and their regulars have gravitas.
It's everything that Bones isn't, regardless of what the oracle Stephen Fry thinks.
But we must, MUST, have more bad-toothed villains.
I can bear a well moisturised villain having a gravelly sinister voice and a too well trimmed goatee. But when they have all been on the receiving end of a GoSmile treatment it all gets a bit hard to swallow. I understand they need to keep their options open for the song and dance gig or the vacuum cleaner ads but really... do all killers laser?
The British have traditionally done well as Hollywood villains.
It's time to accept that cliche and export many more of our unwhitened gap-toothed actors, the ones who seem not to even brush never mind floss never mind bleach.
We can start exporting everyone in Eastenders then bring back Tomorrow's World.
I can't be the only one to miss Michael Rodd.

Have Mercy

I had a dialogue today on email with a lady who was training as a nurse.As she was American she needed a nursing degree and was then going to get another degree to specialise.
That's the trouble with a land that still uses Fahrenheit. Always siding with two degrees when one will do.
I also tried to find a dermatologist today but the only thing that Juneau had was an Advanced Paramedical Estetician in an Advanced Skin Specialist Clinic.
Lord help us.
Paramedic botox.
I don't like to harp on about vocation and I have no objection to the beauty business but "paramedical?"....please...
And have we reached a world where everyone is "Advanced" by just going on a course?
Everyone is a specialist just by saying so?
In a world of experts, where are the foot soldiers?
In a world of paramedics where are those ambulance men who you want at your side in a tight spot.
Where is that nurse who roles her sleeves up and isn't seduced by having a stethoscope around her neck?
Not in Juneau Alaska. That's where.

"Sophistry" - a poem

The reflections of elephants
The pride of the lions
It’s a hundred baboons thinking of scratching

It’s mating, recreating
For a million days
It’s a billion eggs dreaming of hatching

It’s the fancy for food with no sauce or seasoning.
Just shoots and leaves
And species reasoning.

A tasty start to the day

Sometimes when you work in a multicultural outfit, communication and language are a delightful enigma.
Having just now had a discussion about dealing with the complexities of a controversial issue, I was told by an Italian colleague with the usual gestures.
"I don't know how you say in English but it eez a boiling potato".
"Well.. we say hot potato".
Cue more gesturing at the difficulty of the problems behind the problem as we lurch towards how we develop change.

"Don't worry", I said "I eat hot potatoes for breakfast".

The Lost Manuscript

I just came across these thoughts from a year ago just when I was thinking of doing a blog.
I was in Kusadasi (apparently) and it was also July 4th. (Did I mention it was a year ago?). I have done a quick tidy and present it for you in today’s blog time capsule...

Build it they said. And they will come.
OK. Nobody said that. At least not to me.
The challenge of writing a blog is one of writing hopefully entertaining prose but an exercise at least in truth. I could call it “You CAN Handle the Truth”. I like that. But my mission is not that messianic. Trifle’s aren’t messianic.
One of my current sins is I don't write enough. And I rather like it. Maybe if I practice I'll get good. My journey starts here. Join me and let’s see where we end up.

Recently I went to Galilee.
Do you know what the currency is in Israel? It ain’t dollars.
Israel is the land of the Miracles.
But no sign of Smokey Robinson.

I just avoided buying the “First Miracle” wine from the souvenir ship in Cana but it got me thinking. (I love a little commercial crassness so it was a joy to behold.) Anyway, why do we assume the water into wine involved red wine. Surely white would have been a more probable choice. Especially with fish. A nice Cab Sav maybe.
But if everybody agreed that they tasted wine when drinking the translucent liquid, what casual observer would dare doubt this miracle?.

Prior to this I had visited the site of every schoolboy’s favourite - the loaves and fishes miracle. None on sale unfortunately but various fish symbols were available should you have space on your rear bumper.

These were the miracles.
Jesus chose interestingly I think.
Like a magician might select.
For drama. For effect. For a standing ovation. For these things alone, the wine has to be red. Red wine IS drama. If you don’t think so, try spilling it on your best friend’s beige carpet then look at his wife’s face.

But why did he not select effects that everybody could be blown away by.
Like say, oh I don’t know...turning back time.
Why choose something so material so.... well...possible?

And if you do this material, never... NEVER repeat the trick.
Lazarus? The resurrection?
Life from death?
The same trick?
Well perhaps. But a different method. He was a pro after all. Nobody’s saying he wasn’t good.

This the exception known to magicians. Repeat the trick... but only if use a different method.
As a doctor I have difficulty with life from death. The brain cannot be rescued after 6 minutes of lack of oxygen - anoxia.
However should Lazarus be excommunicated from his church, a charismatic self-styled prophet can welcome him back to his new church. Effectively, allegorically, resurrecting him from the dead.
Obvious when you think of it.
The great think about the truth is it feels so right.
You CAN handle the truth. You know it when you hear it. But you don’t hear it so much nowadays. It tends to be conditional....flavoured like a quarter of midget gems where every tenth one is black and you don’t know if it going to be a moreish blackcurrant or fairly disgusting liquorice.

It does rather makes you wonder about the miracles that did not make the cut when the stories were written up.
There must be some: some less impressive ones, some that did not impress with a literal interpretation and stand the test of time.
Lean back in a comfy chair, tap a pencil on your front teeth and imagine a few.

Personally I would like to see that sundial go backwards.

Oh... and it's shekels by the way.