Apologies for being unusually serious, as we breach the Rule of No Current Affairs in a major way. By now you will have heard of the events in Manchester as of 22nd May 2017, and the grievous loss of life.
Normally this blog consists of nonsense, the surreal and whatever peculiarities pop into my head; to sum up, entirely frivoulous, and I considered not doing it today.
The Manchester Arena is literally a stones-throw from where I was working for the past 5 years, you could look out of the windows and pick it out. I've been there at concerts and walked past en route to various gigs, and only this morning was pondering about whether I would mention it as a venue for "Manchester events" if required to prove my background knowledge*. The various streets and venues that journalists are reporting from on the television news are all streets I've walked, places I've been and buildings I recognise.
Suffice it to say that this hits very close to home indeed.
"Perhaps not today," was my thought about the blog, and then I reconsidered. Whatever the toxic twod who carried out this attack intended, I wasn't going to let him dictate anything to me. I've lived in Manchester (and environs) all my adult life, by choice, and if the city and it's citizens can carry on despite this atrocity, so can I.
| My city |
We shall now resume normal service, and apologies for nearly swearing in the title.
A Bewildering Change In The Natural Order Of Things
To bring you up to speed, both Jenny our cat and Edna the Wunderhund are firmly convinced that the human denizens of The Mansion are there to provide i) Food ii) Play and (most importantly) iii) Lap. "Lap" as in the platform provided by legs, not drinking water a la cat or dog.
So, here we have Exhibit One:
Edna, rendering it difficult for your humble scribe to move, and increasing the difficulty of looking for jobs online (Universal Credit work coach please note that screen). Not making it impossible, just harder to reach the keyboard. And no, I can't move her off my lap - that would be ill-judged should Wonder Wifey find out.
And yet what madness is this!? Art?
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| Jenny in pole position |
An Addendum To Mailbox Baseball
Our resident South Canadian expert, Mr Derek, was familiar with this - er - sport, and also mentioned another rather anti-social one, that of road-sign bingo.
Well, I say "bingo" and this applies if you play bingo with guns and bullets. Degsy alleged that a conspiracy theory arose in the Land Of The Free about subliminal messages being encoded into road signs. "Eat more greens", "Don't tailgate", "File your tax return", that sort of thing. What's that? No? Far more sinister messages? Art has some evidence.
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| I'm convinced! |
| Ha! Take that, Gubmint! |
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| Roadsign in Crete |
Nutritional News
Conrad is making a bold and brave attempt to eat more fruit and vegetables, as part of his Trying Not To Die Thanks To Diabetes***. Part of this means hitting the target of Five A Day, widely touted as the number of different F & V needed to be consumed daily; although, worryingly, Doctor Vance did mention "Ten A Day", though surely that was a slip of the tongue.
Anyway, Conrad, ever curious, wondered if pickles count towards this total.
Possibly not. Only possibly, however. The British Heart Foundation's website insisted that pickled onions and pickled gherkins didn't count towards this total, due to the amount of salt present.
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| But they are so delicious! |
"Fopp" The Shop
For those unfamiliar with city-centre Manchester, this off-the-beaten-track shop is the place to go for music. Down the side-street that Tesco Metro is on, and rather low-key, the staff there have an obvious delight in music and I know because I'm in there so often, frequently asking "What's that playing?" or "Do you have 'I Met A Man Who Spoke Like An UCCA Form' by The Deep Freeze Mice?"^
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| The shop |
* Job application for "Fopp" the shop
** Who are part of the conspiracy anyway
*** Eff you as well, diabetes!
^ A real song by a real band
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