That's better.

A more appropriate profile picture, I think.

Nicholas Barbon.

How's this for a name?
"If-Jesus-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone"
No wonder he preferred to go through life with a much more manageable "Nicholas Barbon". His father, Praise-God Barebone must have been passing down some sort of resentment of his own appellation! I wonder what Praise-God's father was called?
Anyway, we have a lot to thank him for as If-Jesus-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned was the father of the Fire Service.
Well, creator of Fire Insurance, actually.
So I suppose you could call him "If-Thou-Hadst-Paid-Thy-Premiums-The-Fire-Wouldst-Have-Been-Put-Out-And-Thou-Would-Not-Be-Homeless" Barebone.

"...will haunt you forever!"

Just goes to show how up to date I am.
Apparently, "The Woman In White" is now an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical showing in London's West End and in a theatre in New York, on Broadway, no doubt.
I had a look at the website and I must say that Simon Callow is a very good choice for the part of Count Fosco but the actress photographed playing Marion is just too pretty. Much is made in the book of how plain and masculine she is. Marion admits this herself many times.
I can't say that I have ever been a fan of musicals. This is confirmed by the Flash introduction to the site which plays some of the music from the play.

The Woman in White,
Will haunt you, will haunt you.
The Woman in White,
Will haunt you forever!


Oh dear...
I have never seen a screen adaptation of the novel. I shall have to look out for one.

The world's fuel crisis: solved.

I have it!
Fossil fuels heat up the planet. Nuclear energy is too dangerous. Wind farms - they seem to be a good idea but who wants one next door?
The solution?
Well, move over electricty and make way for ECCENTRICITY!
Eccentrics spend a lot of time on harebrained, unnnecessry activities and schemes which require huge amounts of energy. Ah! but if we could only harness that energy.
The British Isles would surely become a net exporter of eccentricty with people like Boris Johnson, John McCririck and Ivor Cutler connected to the national grid.
Caution must be exercised, of course.
Ivor Cutler and his like (i.e. genuinely talented yet eccentric individuals) should be used sparingly, perhaps only on Christmas Day when demand is high due to the energy needed to boil a billion sprouts and power the nation's televions for the "Two Ronnies" repeats. Boris and John McC could remain plugged in permanently, which would enable them to function as "normal" human beings while syphoning of the excess energy. This would also have the side effect of reducing the number of embarassing gaffs and modifying poor dress sense.

I will put this idea to Her Majesty's Government.

More eccentrics.

It's well worth taking a look at this Wikipedia list of people widely considered eccentric. Some of the people here really worth reading up on.
I have been looking through the "Politicians, artistocrats and rulers" section and what appeals to me about the list is the way that it lists Idi Amin, Rudolf Hess and Kim Jong Il alongside Boris Johnson. Poor Boris! He's a bit of a twit but hardly in the same league as the other three. He would make a good Nero if they ever remade "I, Claudius" but that is no comment on the character of the man, just his physique.
As for Jean-Bédel Bokassa, I don't think feeding people to crocodiles is just a symptom of eccentricity. Or is it? Perhaps eccentricity is just insanity that amuses other people and no doubt there are some who like a good laugh at croc feeding time.
Further up in the "Entertainers" section, Pete Doherty gets a mention. I had never thought of drug addiction as eccentric behaviour before. If you follow the Pete Doherty link you will see that under the heading "Influences", it lists 'Class A drugs'!

Squid: sinister but delicious.

What is it with squid?
Why are they so secretive and what are they trying to hide?
Most people know or have a vague idea what a squid looks like but every time they are mentioned in natural history programmes a reference is made to how mysterious they are. For example, we have only just found out about how they nurture their young (see this BBC news item).
How can something so mysterious end up draped over crushed ice on the supermarket fish counter and on the menu of many a good restaurant?

Eccentrics.

It's hard to know whether I would have found Lord Berners amusing or just plain irritating! I remember reading about the signs he liked to put up around his Faringdon House estate. My favourite was:

"Please do not throw stones at this sign".

Also, I believe that he convinced some local residents that his folly tower was going to be used as an inland lighthouse and would also be fitted with a fog horn when visibility was poor.

Pyramid graves.

I was reading about John “Mad Jack” Fuller the other day. I remembered reading about his grave a long time ago.
He is buried in a pyramid shaped tomb in Brightling, Sussex. It's 25ft high and legend has always maintained that it's occupant is buried sitting at a table, wearing a top hat with a chicken and a bottle of wine. Apparently, recent repair work found his final resting to be much more convential.
He was a great builder of follies which were all intended to help his name live on after his death and it seems to have worked!

A festive gesture.

I bought some mince pies today (4 for 99p). I made the mistake of checking whether they were vegetarian. The assistant very kindly ran out the back door to leaf through a ring-binder stuff with nutritional information.
Luckily for my vegetarian co-worker, they are meat free so I was not forced to lie. Apparently all of the bakery’s products contain no animal products. I will think carefully before buying another sausage roll from them!

Live and learn.

I learned today that Adrien Brody drives a Hummer and owns a Chihuahua. Apparently, Arnold Schwarzenegger drives a Hummer and Paris Hilton owns a Chihuahua so Mr Brody is the link between them.
If you think about these three you can imagine it all somehow.

The benefits of e-shopping.

Buying something on Amazon, eBay, CD Wow or in my case Play.com means that you don’t have to deal with the embarrassment of someone else in the queue thinking that the James Blunt album is for you and not a gift for someone else.

Fictitious text messaging

As mentioned in my last post, I did go through a phase of trying to get my text messages read out on Radio 2.
At the time Stuart Maconie (pictured left in the most unattractive pose I could find, sorry Stuart) was filling in for Johnnie Walker in the "Drivetime" slot. I used to listen to him on the way home from work.
I began to work out what sort of emails and text messages appealed to him and tried my hand at trying to get mine read out, with some success. My record was three in one week.
I found if I followed some simple guidelines I was more likely to get on:
1. Messages claiming to be sent from the north of England seem to take precedence.
2. Make sure it has a certain "down to earth" quality.
3. Quirky texts (within reason) work well.
4. Pathos - be pathetic.
5. Two of my successful texts were food related (burgers, thai fish curry).

Quirkiness is a hard one to excel at. I wrote (or rather, beat out with my thumbs) an excellent text about finding a Swindon Town football programme in a gutter in Basel but he didn't go for that one.
At the end of his stint in the Walker chair, I felt I had to confess that I had been sending fictitious texts. I felt a duty to do this having enjoyed his programme so much (especially the Belle and Sebastian sessions) and also so that it might stop me lining Vodafone's pockets!
Listen to his truly excellent programmes on BBC6 and BBC radio 2.

As featured on national radio

I had my email read out on PM this evening. Recognition of my talent at last! This probably out does my three text messages in one week record read out by Stuart Maconie! More on that story later, as Kisty Wark would say.

Ave Centurion!

This fellow stands outside a shop selling replica swords and such like in York. I think at one time he must have had a gladius in his left hand which has been removed for reasons of Health and Safety, no doubt. Despite his rather jaundiced pallor, I think he'll do as a profile pic for now!

A challenge

Felicific calculus. I really do think that I need to apply myself to understanding this. It would certainly help me in designing worthy projects that will attract funding! Unfortunately, it looks extremely complicated (see the Wikipedia article on Felicific calculus).

Do not relax.

Why is it that when you just get yourself ready to sit back and coast your way into the Christmas holidays that work starts to flood in?
I have just been told that the funding for one of our children’s projects is going to be halved next year. Unfortunately, funder’s expectations usually remain at 100%.
So, I have two and a half days to come up with a new project plan as well as do all the other stuff I have to complete before Christmas…

"She watches over you!"

I can't remember where I found this picture but I was looking for an image of a "luminous Virgin" that I saw advertised on the back of Tele A-Z in France about 12 or 13 years ago. "Elle veille sur vous!", that was the tag line.
The one pictured here is much more subtle. The lights are not multicoloured and, of course, she is not luminous!
Writing this has got me thinking though. Why is it that this sort of object should seem so strange to a Protestant like me? Is it the lights or is it the fact that it is the Virgin that doesn't sit well?

Meeting place.

I have been re-reading Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White". The scene where Walter Hartright meets the mysterious woman takes place, as I now realise, at what coupossiblybly be the exact spot where my wife and I met for the first time; on the Finchley Road in London near the crossroads with Fortune Green Road (which becomes West End Lane) and Platt's Lane.

I had now arrived at that particular point of my walk where four roads met--the road to Hampstead, along which I had returned, the road to Finchley, the road to West End, and the road back to London. I had mechanically turned in this latter direction, and was strolling along the lonely high-road--idly wondering, I remember, what the Cumberland young ladies would look like--when, in one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me.

Hartright's encounter with Anne Catherick may well have been much further down the Finchley Road and this is much more likely given the location of his Collins's childhood home on which Hartright's home may be based. In that case they may have met closer to Swiss Cottage but I wonder if the road would have been a 'lonely high road' this far south. He also intended to 'stroll home in the purer air by the most roundabout way I could take; to follow the white winding paths across the lonely heath; and to approach London through its most open suburb'.

As a further coincidence, my wife comes from Cumberland (now part of Cumbria) but not from the coastal part. Our meeting was a lot more pleasant at a bus stop which now no longer exists. Perhaps I should campaign for two blue plaques. One for us and one for Wilkie Collins.

Find out more about Wilkie Collins

Le retour de Martin Guerre

We watched the film this evening. I saw it a long time ago but surprisingly had no recollection of how it ended. I feel inspired to find out more about the story. Interesting that the judge should find the events compelling enough to record them. I expect that the real events were not as dramatic as the film version. Did the real Martin Guerre really turn up just as the case was about to be dismissed? And why did he come back anyway? Just to prove his identity? Was he searched for by his uncle?

I don't know how I'll get on with the mobile. It's an ancient Ericsson a1018 which I've got hooked up to a D127 infra-red modem and my old Psion 5. Unfortunately, the phone is very temperamental and the back-up battery on the Psion has gone - suspiciously quickly.
We shall see if this retro-technology improves my blogging rate. I suspect not.

Back on mobile!

Just got my Psion and old Ericsson + D127 to work again!

Eponymous

I watched Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot again the other day.
I remember going to see it in Bordeaux at the little arts cinema (Le Trianon? It may have changed name or no longer be there, this was back in '88 or '89). I went with an English friend, Maggie.
I can't remember ever laughing so much before, or since. There were times that I struggled to catch my breath. I really did think it was the funniest film ever made.
But, I'm sorry to say that it doesn't transfer well to the small screen. It is definitely an experience that needs to be shared. There is so much humour in the film but not all of it "clicks" with everyone. With an audience present, there is always someone who finds something funny and one gets swept along with their laughter.
I have a great affection for the film (hence the title of this blog) and I will return to it. I am not laugh at every gag but I will always feel a little bit like I am back in that audience in Bordeaux.

Si je me souviens...

...la ballade etait bien.
What a great song.
Still haven't worked out how to get accents.

Blogging

I've just been looking at the Stephen Duffy/Lilac Time website (http://www.thelilactime.com).
I am impressed that SD updates the blog section frequently. It's something I've decided to try to aspire to. (Some might say, to which I have decided to try to aspire). I have to admit that for someone who has a blog, I'm not much of a blogger.
Henceforth, I intend to get more onto this blog and see what transpires.
Looking back at previous posts, it's hard to see how seeing a cowboy on a bridge can be of any relevance to anyone (and I include myself in that assertion).
I have already discovered a marked tendency towards parentheses (or brackets).
More soon.

Cowboy

As I drove into work this morning, I saw a cowboy (or rather a man dressed as a cowboy) crossing a footbridge over the dual carriageway. This was at about 9.15 in the morning.
Surely most cowboys have already hit the trail by then...

Election

Well, I got one of my wishes: that the Conservatives would not sneak in. The other wish that my Tory MP would be ousted did not come true. I really had hoped that the local Lib Dem candidate would break through his slim majority but the Tories had obviously mobilised their rural voters. His slim majority was more that doubled. Just goes to show how you can put the frighteners on some people.
Just before I voted I overheard someone hissing "asylum seekers" to a friend as she walked along, polling card in hand. I may be wrong but I don't think this was a positive comment she was making...
I just hope that the Labour government won't be tempted to inch further towards the Tories hateful (hatefilled?) policy on the issue of asylum. I just hope that Blair hasn't "listened and learned" from Howard on this.

Post Office

Large, central Post Offices are odd places.
Quite aside from that disconcerting voice that beckons you to the counter ("cashier number five, please") there is the clientele*.
Now, I don't want to appear non-PC but odd people seem to visit central Post Offices. It's a fact.
Today while queueing to post my banker's draft to Belgium (see previous post) there was a woman in a tracksuit shouting instructions to the cashier while listening to a portable radio. This made communication somewhat difficult. Then, at one point, she stopped and said in a loud clear voice:
"This music is doing my f###ing head in!"
At the other end of the row ("cashier number two, please") there is a mum with a pushchair and a face full of stainless steel piercings. At the risk of sounding like Seinfeld/Larry David, what's the deal with lip piercings? When you do that big gulp of coffee thing where you swirl the liquid over your front teeth there must be some sort of incidental fine spray.
If I make a point of not sitting near these people in cafes** and bars, this could be taken the wrong way.
Perhaps I will need to think about this one.

* I need to work out how to do accents on this thing
** My education demands an accent here but it isn't necessary in English. I can't just leave that sort of thing hanging though without a footnote. As someone once said : "a pedant is what someone who is wrong calls someone who is right".

Bonjour, Monsieur...

Awoken this morning at half-seven by a 'phone call from Belgium. I grant you that I should have been up and about and sorting out breakfast for the children by then but I was still asleep at that point.
Despite speaking, reading and writing a lot of French recently (and the fact that I have qualifications in French coming out of my ears), communication was difficult at that hour. Luckily my caller (who is renting us his apartment in the south of France) is a jolly fellow and had more to say to me than I had to ask of him. At least I now know how to pronounce his Flemish surname. It involves a lot of digging deep into the back of the larynx, a fair amount of saliva and a handy packet of throat lozenges in case it all goes wrong.

I suppose it's only right that I put in a brief mention of the holiday we are planning. I must have subconsciously named this blog after a famous French holiday as it has been occupying a huge amount of my thoughts of late.

Now it's time to show off my Flemish pronounciation at the bank as I order a banker's draft.

Language barriers

I rang a guy called Lyn (Lin? Lynn?) today about hiring or perhaps puchasing a pair of PA speakers. This was on behalf of my Congolese friends, of course.
I offered to talk to "a guy called Lyn" (he is very emphatic about the "guy" bit) because my African friends command of English is patchy. I don't really know whether I was any use as Lyn spoke a third language - "Roadiese". He kept referring to "cabs". "A couple of cabs", "a decent pair of second-hand cabs".
It turns out that "cabs" are speaker cabinets. Why? Everyone else calls them speakers, so why "cabs"? And, apparently, they "chuck out" sound. For example: "You'll need a decent pair of 15 inch cabs to chuck out two mikes and a keyboard, obviously".

Obviously.

My francophone African friends have it just right when they refer to them as "baffles"!