On the brink

Please dear God in the misguided blogger’s heaven, do not make me go down the route of misusing this as a shoulder I don’t have to cry on this very minute.

I am just about to do what I abhor. Oh no, I won’t.

U

Appealing to my sense of the ridiculous

Friends, neutrals and everyone else:

The world of the blog is a world to behold in wonderment.

It’s marginally better than watching weeds grow but, by golly, if anyone tells me ever again that we live in a time poor, cash rich society I shall send them straight to some rather extraordinary sites where people have time to describe and give photographic evidence of their clothes and aftershave. If you do so, say in the privacy of your email exchange with someone who genuinely cares how much you paid for which item, fair enough. As I said to AJ the other day (he does write a great page), and do I not just love the Irish (and the Welsh, of course), one of the most wonderful features of his blog is that he doesn’t let us know whether he cut his toenails earlier in the morning.

By the way if you are in a rush when typing “blog” it can easily come out as bog.

I think we have all gone mad.

U

Talking to myself

I have finally realised what my blog is good for.

Nine o’clock BST on a Sunday morning no one, and I mean no one, in which ever part of the world, is awake. My dear M, since we only spoke a few hours ago and you were going to work through the night, who could blame you. As to the rest of you…

Anyway this is about gardening. Paul, it’s ok, you don’t need to bring the mower after all; the lawn is, as of yesterday, under control – does wonders for your biceps. (Do you think Roshan would lend me a hand if forced to show it?) As not to disturb the neighbours I only started weeding the front about an hour ago. I don’t mind battling with nature but you have to ask yourself some serious questions in the face of a suburbian front garden.

And if you are hoping for any answers: Forget it.

Sometimes I think life is like a steeple chase, jumping unnecessary hurdles. No wonder, I bunked off so many PE lessons. Which reminds me of you, my dearest sweetest Vern, taking the easy way out: You are into cacti which, you hope, won’t need watering. But they do need talking to; or they start wilting from the inside out. How did you once advise me: Throw caution to the wind.

Which I think I have just done with this self indulgent post.

U

The missing link

You make a friend; a bond from heaven almost as intoxicating as if in the flush of romance. You connect, you exchange confidences; you have fallen in love without the need for exchanging bodily fluids (if ever there was a phrase I hate).

Time goes by. And then, slowly but steadily … you get to know your friend’s other friends. Most of them perfectly fine, in line as it were; yet there is the odd bit of brass in the jewel box. Now what?

Should we judge and decide on our friends by the friends they keep? Or should we just go and stuff ourselves?

U

A bargain

“My life is on eBay. It comes with house, job, car and good mates”

44 year old Briton selling up in Australia for a fresh start. Starting price one Australian Dollar, current bidding at 1.8 million Dollars, his size 8 collection of flip flops thrown into the bargain. You have till Sunday to up the stakes. With the proceeds the seller plans to travel the world.

As luncay goes the scheme is pretty sane. Though, chum, take it from me, you will take your sorrows with you, wherever you go.

Any time soon someone will sell their soul on ebay; not quite as poetic as a Faustian pact. What reserve would you put on yours?

U

Crumbs

Sometimes life is like chasing your own tail, only you haven’t got one.

So instead of running round in circles you do a neat zig zag, promptly finding yourself in the woods.

I grew up on fairy tales and, to this day, they are my treasure trove helping me to interpret life and its inhabitants. Forests featuring heavily – not least in Hansel and Gretel. I thought it so awful how they had led that trail to help them find their way back home, only to realise that all the birds had eaten the breadcrumbs. And, whilst I am not for the death penality, there was a certain satisfaction to my four year old self when, at the end, the witch found herself burning in her own oven.

Now if I have lost any of you – as I did you, Gruel, earlier – please let me know and I’ll tell you the full story; though not before asking your assorted mothers why they didn’t read you fairy tales – and not just at bedtime.

U

The vanishing act

It’s fascinating. One moment you have an idea, then you get interrupted for a second, and what do you know? It’s gone.

My mother says that if that happens the thought can’t have been important. I disagree: The thought might have been complete rubbish, but a thought is a thought and, just like an apple expects to fulfill its destiny by being eaten rather than rotting on the ground, a thought has a right to be cherished and given consideration, even if only to be scrunched up into the recesses of the recycling bin of your brain.

U

The world of the blog and its comments

It’s becoming a full time job. A bit like one of those country house weekend parties with people milling around for three days until you have run out of food, drink and cereal, and everyone remembers they have a home to go to.

I am in meltdown, and – according to The Times – I am in bad company: Its front page announcing same affliction as mine, only this time the church wiping its brow; I quote, “Church in meltdown over gays and women”.

I don’t like being lumped in with any job lot, be it women, gay lorry drivers, people whose lawnmovers have just broken down (yes, my grass is now too long to invite polite company; the pains they take to overlook it is excrutiating to me).

And no, I haven’t read the article yet, neither do I intend to. I am spell bound by the picture above: The Queen, her husband and George W Bush (however did he find his way over here) gazing at something on the ceiling of St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle. Talk about a cushy job. And yes, he did have trifle for dessert.

U

A cautionary tale

Yesterday was the blogging equivalent of Waterloo to me. Yes, down the toilet.

A few days ago I clicked on a blogroll link given by a friend.

Judging by the name and reading a few of the entries I thought the blogger to be a young woman, slightly lost, perhaps a little lonely, at a crossroad in her life. I felt compelled to comment on one of the entries since this person seemed genuinely upset about a friend’s dilemma; my “input” being politely acknowledged.

Yesterday, there was another entry; this time with photographs of the blogger. It showed the torso, no face. One fashion show and an Adam’s apple later, and in the first flush of how wrong I’d got it, I wrote to him saying that I must be very dim indeed since I had not realised that he is a man. I expressed what a pleasant surprise it was.

Consequently one of his friends (I guess female but then - as she said – who am I) jumped down my throat accusing me of all sorts of things; culminating in that I am a troll in the dense woods of the blogging world (she didn’t put it quite as poetically as that).

If anyone can explain to me what on earth can be offensive about mistaking gender identity in the mysterious world of blogging and expressing it, please do. I’d be grateful because I am clearly missing something. My comment was meant friendly, now I am an outcast; not that the poor man himself has had a chance to make his view known.

I did apologize profusely (though it’s hard to apologize for something when you don’t know what you have done wrong); not that the apology has been accepted.

It’s taught me one hell of a lesson, on top of all the others I have learnt in the last nine months since I started taking an interest in a handful of blogs.

Why do so many people assume the worst and will lash out without giving you a chance?

Oh, and yes, just in case: I am a woman.

U

Under the weather

BBC Radio 4 news casting is the very impersonation of a happy family, safe and secure.

John Humphreys, in the morning, being the stern – but not unkind – father who will take good care of all the bullshit being dished out early in the morning by politicians so full of themselves it’s a miracle that they don’t spill out of the radio onto your own breakfast table; James Naughtie, in the role of the benign uncle: and my dead hot favourite, Eddie Mair, at 5 pm, being your brother; the latter having seduced me on both the merits of this calmness – in the face of complete bollocks of some of his interviewees - and his voice. I am in love with the guy. And no, I have no idea what he looks like, neither does it matter; after all, you don’t bed your brother.

However, considering that I live in the country where weather is the number one conversation opener, it’s beginning to annoy me that my BBC homepage gets our local weather prediction consistently wrong. So today we were basking in sunshine whilst the forecast - throughout the day - was “heavy” rain. Not that it matters, unless you are planning a day of skateboarding or a barbecue; all I need to do is take my own reading by setting a foot in front of either door.

Yet it does raise the question: Who on earth would ever wish to become a weather forecaster? We all screw up in life occasionally, some more, some less. But to seek out a profession which will put you in the wrong most of the time?

U

Edit: Dear Eddie, so sorry I spelt your surname wrong first time round