tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-748828213375020012010-03-18T15:47:28.167-07:00Being MeOne day a fairy tale, another day a bus journey. One day a rant about punctuation in public places, another day a poem. One day an embarrassing moment, another day a story about stuffed animals. Expect the unexpected and you won't be disappointed.Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-33430670153770690982010-03-15T15:32:00.000-07:002010-03-18T15:43:38.031-07:00Evidence that bus stops are the place to be if there's nothing good on tellyJust in case you're Across the Pond, here's the definition of a British <b>queue:</b><br /><br />a long, long line, often found in supermarkets or banks or post offices or public toilets, of people who are outwardly patient ('No, no, of course, you first, go ahead, you were here before me, yes, yes, of course I don't mind') but inwardly seething ('you dare go ahead even though I've said you can or I'll batter you to death with this frozen lamb joint I just bought').<br /><br />Of course, you also find queues at bus stops.<br /><br />Oh yes! Another bus post!<br /><br /><br />Here's a picture of a bus to celebrate two things: 1) Another bus post after a bus-less few weeks and 2) the fact that I now know how to include pictures.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56mT4D3KVI/AAAAAAAAAEg/_T62633dwVY/s1600-h/Red+Bus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56mT4D3KVI/AAAAAAAAAEg/_T62633dwVY/s200/Red+Bus.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So, here's the story. There's me and Husband, heading for the bus stop to go shopping last Saturday. I'm wearing my normal Saturday wear: plunge neckline gold sequinned ballgown, pearls and a fur wrap, and he's in his usual garb of cordorouy trousers, old coat and -</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Sorry, I need to take a short break before I can bring myself to say this. In fact, I'm not even going to say it. I'm going to find a picture of one ....</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56nu7xfVII/AAAAAAAAAEo/hEFOcMy6p74/s1600-h/flatcap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56nu7xfVII/AAAAAAAAAEo/hEFOcMy6p74/s200/flatcap.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And just to prove that my computer obviously feels just the same way as I do about the Husband wearing a c*p, even though he is only in his early 50s, this is the nearest to the picture of the c*p it would allow me to type. I tried to type right underneath it, to the right of it, but, no. I had to leave a great big g*p under the c*p.<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Here is a picture of </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56o2RoiBiI/AAAAAAAAAEw/ozmlXAQ4UUo/s1600-h/flat+cap+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56o2RoiBiI/AAAAAAAAAEw/ozmlXAQ4UUo/s200/flat+cap+2.jpg" width="160" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">no, not the Husband, but what it does demonstrate is what wearing tweed flat c*ps can do to a man.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Fortunately, it hasn't quite got that bad yet. But (and you're probably wondering by now what all that queue stuff was about) it does GET YOU TO THE FRONT OF THE QUEUE.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> But is this something for me to be happy about? No, it is not. I am only 47. Granted, I lied about the ballgown and fur wrap, but last Saturday I looked as normal as a 47 year old can. As in, not OLD.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And, yet, because I was with Fl*t C*p M*n, a girl of about fifteen, who should know better at her age than to show respect to her elders (what are things coming to?), gestured us onto the bus as though we were a couple of octogenarians. I demurred. She insisted. I tried to get her to go in front. She insisted again, her eye on the fl*t c*p. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">'Right, that's it,' I sn*pped *t Fl*t C*p M*n when we got on the bus. 'Th*t's the l*st time I'm coming shopping with you on a S*turday if you're going to wear th*t Fl*t C*p.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I know there's a first time for everything, and I know there are reasons why I have wrinkles, flabby bits and a bit of hip pain that had BETTER NOT BE ARTHRITIS.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But I don't want to be allowed on buses yet. I want to take my proper place in the queue.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But what IS the proper place? A bus queue is a strange and wonderful thing. In fact, it seems to be different from a supermarket. People are less stressed (not having nearly slipped in a spill in the pickle aisle or had to control sweet-snatching babies). They are more likely to respect the queue hierarchies and put up with it. Or maybe they just pretend better. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(This is another blog post, really, but I'm just carrying on from the previous one to save paper.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Bus queues form and then reform and then reform again, depending on who arrives. The hierarchy is pretty set in stone. It goes a bit like this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">10.01 Teenage girl at bus stop on own.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.02. Couple arrives (woman looks quite young and sexy but man wears fl*t c*p). Young girl steps back so couple now lead.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.03 Older couple arrives (he wears fl*t c*p, she wears flowered sc*rf tied under the chin) so couple 1 moves back. Older couple now lead.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.03 Teenage girl with three young children, a buggy, a breastfeeding baby and a rabid dog arrive. Everyone else moves back (quickly) so that she and family take the lead.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.04 Young, healthy looking man but using crutches and with a plaster cast on his leg the size of an ice floe arrives. He goes to the front and takes the lead.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.05 Everyone has to move because someone in a wheelchair approaches. There is a communal intake of breath, but the person in the wheelchair just wants to get past everyone. </div><div style="text-align: left;">10.10 That done, everyone re-forms into the previous hierarchy.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.11 Another young, healthy looking man but in military uniform, on crutches and with a plaster cast on his leg the size of an ice floe arrives. All the old people salute. The buggy woman's kids stare and ask if he's a terrorist. The buggy woman tells them to shut their gobs. He moves to take the lead.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.12 The bus comes into view and everyone shuffles into a line, preserving the order established.</div><div style="text-align: left;">10.12 + 3 seconds A blind woman with a white stick approaches the bus stop. There is general panic. Everyone knows she NEEDS TO BE AT THE FRONT. The whole queue shifts chaotically aside and slams itself into the hedge at the side of the pavement. No one says a word. (Why does this happen when blind people appear? Why do we all stay silent and just move out of the way as if we weren't there?) The blind woman tap taps her way to the bus stop. Everyone re-forms, as quietly as possible, behind her. </div><div style="text-align: left;">10.12 + 10 seconds The bus pulls up at the stop, only the driver stops so that the door is level with the BACK of the queue. <br /><br />Aarrgghhh!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Still, the hierarchies MUST be preserved. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Result?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56xkSmyJoI/AAAAAAAAAE4/X386QXQmkeo/s1600-h/a-big-crowd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S56xkSmyJoI/AAAAAAAAAE4/X386QXQmkeo/s320/a-big-crowd.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">10.53 Bus leaves the stop.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One day, someone will turn up to the bus stop who is in military uniform, blind, with a plaster cast, a fl*t c*p, a flowered sc*rf, a rabid dog, three kids and a breastfeeding baby.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If they manage to sort that one out - even the British - I'll eat my h*t. Or, alternatively, I'll even agree to be seen out with Fl*t C*p M*n.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-3343067015377069098?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-39355089858040451192010-03-07T14:48:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:57.155-07:00Evidence that Tony Blair should just have got one of the kids to take the picture ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S5Qn5ysooFI/AAAAAAAAAEY/PTEQrzl2IOk/s1600-h/tony+blair+journey+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S5Qn5ysooFI/AAAAAAAAAEY/PTEQrzl2IOk/s200/tony+blair+journey+book.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />Blurb on back cover ...<br /><br />In Blair's long-awaited political memoir, read about the most complicated journey of his life. Was it his 'I caused a war' journey? No. Was it his 'I said I would help the poor but didn't' journey? No. Was it the 'I intended to improve the country's economic prospects but ... er ... forgot' journey? No. <br /><br />No, the journey of his life started at the hairdresser for a trendy crop, then to the tanning salon for that 'private island' look, then to the funeral parlour to borrow the shirt, then to the specialist contact lens shop to make his blue eyes even bluer, then to the photographer, who asked him to take just one final step to the left so that he could be slightly off-centre for the book cover, then to stand on a step so that the bald patch at the top of the head wouldn't show on the picture. (That was the photographer's story, anyway ...)<br /><br />Blair's journey from ineffective PM to ineffectively-photographed book cover. Read all about it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-3935508985804045119?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-19766649638424668042010-03-06T13:37:00.001-08:002010-03-06T13:37:38.666-08:00Just to make up for the last post ...Hi.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-1976664963842466804?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-40681927631081041742010-03-03T13:34:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:17.844-07:00Another adapted fairy tale from Miss's pen - Jack and the Beans Talk<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">HEALTH WARNING: THIS POST IS WELL LONG. YOU MAY NEED A PLATE OF SANDWICHES, SLICE OF PIZZA AND A BEER OR TWO. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU. I PROMISE A HAIKU OR SOMETHING NEXT TIME ... </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span><br />Once upon a time, there was a boy called Jack who lived with his mother. They were poor, so poor that they only had the choice of fifty-four channels on their cable TV network. Yes, <b>that </b>poor. <br /><br />One day, Jack's mother, frustrated with this lack of choice, switched off the shopping channel, lobbed the remote control at Jack's head and yelled, 'Get off your backside and go and sell our cow at the market. We need more money.' <br /><br />Jack was shocked. Not because she'd suggested selling the cow that they had bought as a calf, fed, raised and nurtured like a member of the family, but because the day before he had already sold the cow to a local abattoir for a good price and updated his collection of Grand Theft Auto games with the money. <br /><br />But he had to pretend. 'Okay, mum,' he said, and went out into the back garden where he did his best impression of a cow being led down the alley and into the road at the front. (Fortunately, he had done a vocational course in 'How to Impersonate a Cow being Led Down an Alley and Into the Road at the Front', and the serendipity of this caused Jack to muse for a while on the value of further education.)<br /><br />He wandered along the road, wondering what he was going to do, when he met some beans. There were five of them. They came towards him. <br /><br />He wasn't sure, at first, what to do. (He only had himself to blame for this, he knew. The course after the 'How to Impersonate a Cow being Led Down an Alley and Into the Road at the Front' had been 'How to Communicate with Beans You Meet While Out Walking'. He knew he should have signed up rather than spending his days blowing computer images to bloody smithereens. Still, there was no time for regrets now. There he was, with the beans, and they were obviously expecting conversation.)<br /><br />'Hi,' he said, uncertainly. He held out a hand, but, being beans, his conversation partners had none. 'Damn', he thought. 'Mum always warned me about acting in ways that highlighted other people's deficiencies.' (This had, it has to be said, been hypocritical on her part, as his now-disappeared father had had a rogue nipple in the middle of his forehead and she had spared him nothing in pointing this out regularly over dinner.)<br /><br />One bean stepped forward. 'Hi there,' it said. 'We were just thinking, as you walked towards us, how downbeat you were looking. You looked, as I said to the guys here, like someone who had been told by your mother to go and sell a cow to get more money, had had to impersonate a cow being led down an alley and into the road at the front because you had, in fact, sold your cow the day before for Grand Theft Auto money, and now didn't know what to do. Am I anywhere near the truth?'<br /><br />Jack was tempted to say, 'No, I'm fine,' but this did seem churlish, especially as it had taken the bean a fair amount of effort to say all that and it had lost some of its green tinge. A bean has only a limited amount of breath to spare on protracted discourse, he supposed. And, he had to admit, he had recently considered going for therapy to deal with his GTA addiction and the strange compulsions he felt occasionally to ram the remote control down his mother's throat. Therapy was expensive, though. Here were some beans, offering a free counselling service. Why not?<br /><br />The beans and Jack walked together to a nearby Starbucks. They ordered Jack a Cappuccino and themselves a Coke and five straws. Over their drinks, Jack shared the sorry story of his life, and the beans listened, murmuring sympathetic noises occasionally. At the end of Jack' s tale, he said to them, 'So, what do you think I should do?'<br /><br />The beans suggested that Jack came with them to visit a friend of theirs who had a golden goose which laid golden eggs. 'Come on, you're kidding me,' Jack said. The beans looked offended. 'For someone whose daily reality is the world of Grand Theft Auto,' one said, 'you're surprisingly sceptical.'<br /><br />So Jack went with them. <br /><br />The friend turned out to be an ogre. He lived in a castle in a valley. 'I thought most castles were in high places,' queried Jack of the beans as they made their way down some steps towards the door. They told him a sad story of subsidence which explained everything. 'That's just as well,' Jack explained. 'I have vertigo.'<br /><br />The ogre looked suspiciously at Jack, as he stood on the front doorstep of the castle with the five beans. 'Who's this punk?' he said. 'He needs a haircut and a good wash.' But the beans convinced him that Jack was an okay sort and, what's more, in need of friends, and so they all trooped in. <br /><br />The ogre turned out to be the hospitable type despite the gruff first impressions. The offer of mint tea and thin slices of poppy seed cake came as a surprise to Jack, but he took them. One doesn't, he decided, refuse food from someone fourteen times your size and with a chest like a cliffside. <br /><br />Conversation sooned moved to the topic of the golden goose and its eggs. One of the reasons for this was that, as they all sipped tea and nibbled at cake, the goose was in the middle of the room, straining away at producing one of the afore-mentioned eggs. It wasn't pleasant and Jack felt almost nostalgic for home, eating a meat pie with his mum while she cut her toenails and nudged the fungal-infected clippings under the rug with the edge of her foot.<br /><br />Jack wondered how he could steer the talk round to a gentle hint such as 'Can I have one of the eggs?' But he couldn't get a word in edgeways. The ogre and the beans were obviously old friends, and with five beans, all voluble, and an ogre, not the type one interrupts, opportunities were rare. Then Jack thought of something.<br /><br />'I used to have a pet, too' he said, quickly. <br /><br />There was a silence. All the beans looked at him. The ogre looked at him. 'And what happened to it?' the ogre asked, his voice a rumble of distant storm.<br /><br />This was tricky. Jack hadn't actually thought about what to say after his first sentence, and this didn't seem the time to say, 'I sold it to a meat factory to buy computer games.' He'd noticed how fond the ogre was of his goose, having watched him stroke its white head every now and again when it was having a contraction.<br /><br />Fortunately, though, another course Jack had been on was called, 'What to Say to an Ogre In Awkward Silences You Have Created Yourself.' <br /><br />Jack began to sob. (Lesson 1: Best to either let the ogre speak, or cry and disconcert the ogre.)<br /><br />The ogre and the beans gathered round Jack. The ogre put his arms round the boy. As for the beans, Jack had to be content with knowing they were there, and sympathetic. <br /><br />The ogre, Jack knew, must have presumed something terrible had happened to his cow. (After all, it had. But terrible in an 'I gave my pet cow to be axed' kind of way and not 'My pet cow died of a long-term illness' kind of way.)<br /><br />The beans, he realised, knew the true story. But they weren't saying, and this he appreciated. He hadn't known beans could be so loyal, although there were probably reasons for that.<br /><br />Suddenly, Jack felt a warm, smooth, rounded object being placed in his lap by the ogre. He opened one eye, hopefully. It was the egg! Granted, it was a little slimy and had a couple of golden feathers sticking to it, but as long as Jack didn't think too hard about where it had been, he could cope. (He'd been just the same at school when they'd shown the birth film in Personal, Social and Health Education.) <br /><br />Jack looked up into the ogre's face and saw that he was crying too. Jack felt ashamed, but he knew that, if you didn't admit the truth to an ogre the first time, then it was best just to keep quiet and not risk admitting that you'd been lying. He hadn't been on a course to learn that but, hey, sometimes a guy just has to use his common-sense. Education isn't everything. Ask Holden Caulfield.<br /><br />Later, Jack and the beans struggled back up the hill, Jack carrying the egg under one arm and some poppy seed cake in the other. The beans chatted away. They really were the most conversational beans. But they hadn't said a word about Jack's dissembling and he knew he owed them a big favour. <br /><br />This was how Jack arrived home with a) the beans, but also b) the golden egg, meaning that all that guff about climbing up beanstalks and being put in the oven by a Mrs Ogre and having to listen to a silly poem about 'Fee fi fo fum' that didn't even have proper words became unnecessary. His mother was delighted to find that the beans weren't the kind of beans you threw out of windows into the back garden, but were marvellous company, happy to chat about absolutely anything, and surprisingly nimble with the remote control when Channel 33 proved unsatisfactory. In fact, with the money got from selling the golden egg to a local gold merchant, Jack and his mother were able to buy a house next door in which the beans could live. <br /><br />The beans never mentioned what happened to Jack's cow, and the mother never asked. Her new-found wealth had made her content. Jack gave up playing so much on Grand Theft Auto and bought himself and his mother a range of family board games which the beans would come round and play with them. They sometimes needed help with the dice and pushing the counters round the board, but this gave Jack and his mother rare opportunities to help others. Jack bought his mother some expensive anti-fungal lotion for her toenails which made these board game evenings much more pleasant for everyone. And he bought a subscription to 'Which Cow?' magazine, thinking that this might be a good move, just to put things right even more.<br /><br />And they all lived happily ever after.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-4068192763108104174?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-12287377203101910772010-02-28T10:30:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:57.163-07:00More reasons why posh literary magazines reject my submissionsOn the other hand, perhaps I'm wrong, and it's not that some famous novelists hyped up their stories too much as I suggested in my recent post in which I <a href="http://beingmiss.blogspot.com/2010/02/another-post-explaining-why-i-will.html">dumbed-down novel titles</a>.<br /><br />Perhaps novelists have, in fact, been over-cautious. Maybe some classic literature would be improved if the authors had just pushed the limits a little and not been so circumspect......<br /><br />Louisa May Alcott might have written <b>Great Big Humungous Women, </b>in which a genteel 19th century American family reacts to the pressures of life with Marmee and life without Dardee by slathering Nutella onto enormous pieces of cornbread, making the search for contentedness in family life somewhat more difficult, particularly when the budgeting for dress material gets tricky. When one of the four daughters gets a terminal illness, there are unseemly fights over who gets her portion, and Marmee becomes distressed, particularly as, when a wealthy neighbour offers them a Christmas feast, the girls are too stuffed to appreciate it.<br /><br />Harper Lee might have written <b>To Bash the Brains Out of a Whole Flock of Mockingbirds, </b>a<b> </b>touching coming-of-age tale set in 1930s Alabama in which Scout Finch and her brother Jem decide to take absolutely no notice of their moral and upstanding father's advice and, while a court case is going on, distracting the rest of the town, sneak out with a couple of hammers. They re-enact a computer game called 'Shock the Flock' they have been shown by Boo Radley, who is, in this version of the novel, just as bad as everyone feared. <br /><br />And William Golding might have written <b>Lord of the Giant Hornets, </b>a sad tale in which a group of schoolboys lands on a desert island, having been in a plane crash caused by a swarm of millions of giant hornets. The hornets' leader, though - Lord Hornet - recoils instinctively at the sight of the schoolboys, having never seen anything so disgusting before, and gets his swarm to retreat into the forest while they think about how to deal with the situation. Eventually, they decide to huddle really close together, forming the shape of a pig. One silly boy hurls a spear into the middle of the swarm, being fed up of vegetables and thinking it is pork. Later, a captain of a passing ship sees what he thinks is a plume of smoke signifying an SOS, but it is in fact the hornets in their 'We Just Ate Lots of Boys' celebratory formation: something the captain only finds out too late when he is examining the corpse of a child and Lord Hornet takes a chunk out of his backside.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-1228737720310191077?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-26369324852401885432010-02-21T09:07:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:32.324-07:00Why Gordon Brown should get a new slogan writerI'm very sorry, Gordon Brown, to pick linguistic nits so early on in your campaign, but I am not impressed with your just-announced campaign slogan ...<br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S4FnWg1jElI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/L5jgSWFIRCU/s1600-h/gordonbrown-420x0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S4FnWg1jElI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/L5jgSWFIRCU/s320/gordonbrown-420x0.jpg" /></a></div><br />I think I am right in thinking what you think we will think this means ... but I'm not sure.<br /><br />I <b>think </b>it means 'things are going to improve for everybody', but it could also mean any/all of the following:<br /><br />1. The Labour government is, at some point in the future, going to hold an enormous garden fete, theme as yet unknown. <br /><br />2. The Labour government is going to hold, at an unspecified time, a future-fair, an enormous garden fete with the theme of time travel or space.<br /><br />3. The Labour government is going to make it illegal to be a brunette (a leaflet plus a sachet of hair dye will be sent to all households)<br /><br />4. The Labour government promises that Britain's weather will, under its supervision, become more moderate and less unpredictable. <br /><br />5. Under a Labour government, anyone called 'All' (Allan? Allison?) is going to have a great time, but the rest of you, forget it. Get in some good DVDs, stock up on toilet roll, and prepare for some bad times.<br /><br />6. The Labour government can't really promise to achieve 'excellent', 'very good' or even 'good' on its reports.<br /><br />So, you see, Gordon, it's all potentially ambiguous, confusing, misleading, and, what's more, I'm not sure what you mean.<br /><br />And, Gordon, what's with the syntax thing? Why not 'a fair future for all' to remove the ambiguity and make the adjective do its work better? Have you been reading too much poetry? Are you subtly trying to imply a 'new order' (in which case, that's quite clever, Gordz, old chap) or is it a typo (in which case, stick to the new order story).<br /><br />And, Gordon, just with a little tinkering, this could become 'a future free-for-all', and that's unfortunate.<br /><br />And, Gordon, what's with the string of 'f's? It's not the most attractive example of alliteration I've heard lately. Anyone with buck teeth is going to have a real problem with this, so think about it if you're recruiting. And you're inviting people to put other 'f' words in there ... and I don't mean 'freedom', 'fun' or 'frankfurters'.<br /><br />And, Gordon, it's a BIG claim, to say that you're going to make it fair for ALL. Okay, maybe you'll convince everyone over 17, and good luck with that. But there's a nation of kids out there whose parents didn't buy them an Ipod/gave their brother an extra sweet/won't let them stay out in the dark/prefer them not to play shoot-em-up games before bed. Gordon, you've given yourself a real job there.<br /><br />And, Gordon, I've just looked up the origin of the word 'fair'. It says it comes from the Old English <i>faeger</i> meaning 'beautiful' (okay so far), which comes from a prehistoric Germanic word meaning 'suitable' (not so promising), which itself is also the ancestor of the word 'fake'.<br /><br />(Whoops.)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-2636932485240188543?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-14998571953603157292010-02-20T05:44:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:57.172-07:00More evidence for why I will never get published in literary magazinesSome authors, you know, just need to CALM DOWN a little, get less emotional, exaggerate less about stuff. The literary canon could be so different, so much quieter and softer and less stressy ...<br /><br />The Grapes of Mild Annoyance - John Steinbeck<br /><br />Minor Offences and Verbal Warnings - Fyodor <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Dostoevsky</span><br /><br />A Short Scuffle and Peace - Leo Tolstoy<br /><br />Narrow Strip of Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys<br /><br />Slightly Unstable Medium Slopes - Emily Bronte<br /><br />To Threaten a TeasingBird - Harper Lee<br /><br />Not Particularly Cheery House - Charles Dickens<br /><br />A Touch of Arrogance and A Mild Tendency to Judge Others - Jane Austen<br /><br />Minor Influence - Jane Austen<br /><br />The Kinda Okay Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald<br /><br />The Trip - Homer<br /><br />Lady Chatterley's Casual Acquaintance - D H Lawrence<br /><br />A Room with a Windowbox - E M Forster<br /><br />Minimal Adaptation - Franz Kafka<br /><br />The Divine Lame Joke - Dante<br /><br />Moderate Hopes - Charles Dickens<br /><br />Les Mildly-Fedupables - Victor Hugo<br /><br />Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Peeping Tom - John Le Carre<br /><br />The Somewhat Yellowed Notebook - Doris Even-Lessing<br /><br />Catch 2 Point 2 - Joseph Heller<br /><br />Gulliver's Flicking through Holiday Brochures - Jonathan Quite-Swift<br /><br />Liked - Tony Morrison<br /><br />The Good Hair Day of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark<br /><br />The Nap - Raymond Chandler<br /><br /><br /><br />That's enough for now. Off to plan some lessons on Shakespeare's 'The Mild Squall'.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-1499857195360315729?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-40377213610664433352010-02-15T14:21:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:23.076-07:00Why I should be more tactful when making fun of namesYikes! I've lost a follower, straight after writing my new Valentine poems. Was it someone called Valentine? I'm sorry, Val, I'm sorry ..... it's not really a stupid name, honest.<br /><br />How do I find out who went off me? Anyone know?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-4037721361066443335?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-22124274011599766572010-02-15T10:01:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:38.041-07:00Five things I learned at the shops today1. Shopping for jeans then having scampi, chips, peas and French bread with a pint of Diet Coke afterwards is a good plan. Having scampi, chips, peas and French bread with a pint of Diet Coke <b>then </b>shopping for jeans is a less good plan. I'll say no more about this, other than, I own no more jeans than I did yesterday, but I do have happy memories of some of the best chips in town. I also have an extra kilo on each thigh, a free gift which came with the chips. <br /><br />2. If you're looking to buy a trendy jacket for work, let me tell you that big flappy collars the size of schooner sails are in. What's more, they are in on little bitty jackets which only reach to just below your waist. Effectively, there is enough material in each of the collars to make three more of the jackets plus a matching A-line skirt. When the spring breezes blow up, your bum will be freezing cold, but your shoulders will be as sweaty as a wrestler's armpit.<br /><br />3. Trying on waterproof padded jackets in sports shop is not something to do on a low self-esteem day, especially when shop assistants are watching. There are so many zips to unzip, strips of Velcro to un-Velc, detachable hoods to untach and press-studs to unpress that you end up needing Kendal mint cake just to try the thing on. The Velcro sticks to your jumper. You can't do up the zip because it's halfway down your thighs and you can't see past all the material which bunches up when you bend over. When you unzip the hood it comes off OK but seems only to want to go back on inside out or upside down. And what looked fine on a hanger makes you look like Mike Tyson turned mountaineer. In pink and grey. <br /><br />4. The generosity of a shop's sizes does not change from week to week. So, what you couldn't get the buttons done up on last week, on the same garment, in the same size, in the same shop, isn't going to be a success story this week either. The words 'It's worth a try' and 'What's there to lose?' are not a magic formula. It is very much not worth it, and there is a heck of a lot to lose.<br /><br />5. Lime green may have enhanced your complexion when you were twenty and all your hair was still very very dark brown, almost black. Thirty or so years later, when your hair is going grey and your skin has lost its teenage bloom, you cannot complain when a lime green jacket makes you look as though you need emergency hospitalisation. (The clue is in the fact that the jacket actually matches your face beautifully.)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-2212427401159976657?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-48554077794453810222010-02-14T07:31:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:49.619-07:00Evidence that I am really a true romantic<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Verses in Valentine cards are just too predictable. How about these? No one can say they aren't different ...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I will always love you dearly, Valentine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I will always be so glad that you are mine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I love everything about you, in the main,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Except that Valentine is such a stupid name.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I will always love you dearly, Valentine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I'll adore you 'til the very end of time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Sharing all I have with you is just divine, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">But should I win the Lottery, the cash is mine.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;">I will always love you dearly, Valentine.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;">I think you're clever and intelligent and fine.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;">And it's a good thing that I love you for your mind.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;">Because the body ........</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;">No, that would be too unkind.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-4855407779445381022?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-48479351428691822612010-02-08T12:41:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:13.037-07:00How I know I must be in labour<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Just checking out a fellow blogger's baby experiences and a big advert pops up with great big letters asking me, 'ARE </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">YOU </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">IN LABOUR?'</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Well .... I wasn't expecting to be, and I'm 48 next birthday, and certain surgical procedures have been undertaken that we were assured were usually permanent ...</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">but I guess it's POSSible.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So, maybe I AM.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Hang on! But that means .... Oh, gosh, I'm so reLIEVED. This explains EVERything .....</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The gradually increasing waistline (now I don't feel so bad about that elastic giving way and pinging into the face of the lady on the bus).</span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The feeling that I need to lie down in a bed most of the day (now I can tell my boss that there is a REASON I need to teach from a supine position).</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The flutterings in the tummy I keep thinking are hunger (now I know there's a baby in there needing food, I can have three cakes instead of two).</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The mood swings (now I can carry on moving from 'I feel great' to 'I feel lousy' through to 'If you turn it over to classical music one more time, sunshine, you're getting this crunchy nut icecream down the back of your neck' without feeling bad when accused of being volatile).</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The groaning scales (now I can celebrate each kilo as evidence of a growing baby and can just carry on blaming the weight gain on someone else - as I have been already).</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The fact that I can't reach the sink to wash up the dishes any more (now I can leave Husband to do this while I put my feet up, eat chocolates and yell my normal instructions about wiping the surfaces down properly from the lounge).</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The deep abdominal contractions (I thought that was just my normal instinctive reaction at the sight of chocolate but now I know they are the first stirrings of an arriving infant I can eat as much chocolate as I like in preparation for the hard work of delivery).</span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">You know, I am so glad I have finally identified the source of all these signs and symptoms. For a moment there, I thought I was going to have to DIET! Ha ha ha. How funny! And there was me, all ready to go and buy Ryvita and lettuce. How silly I'd have felt, thinking I was just getting FAT, when all the time I was in labour.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">All the time since Christmas, in fact!</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Which is quite a long labour, when you think about it.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But, at my age, you expect things to slow down a little.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I reckon that baby's not coming until at least May.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And before May is my birthday. Chocolate time.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And Easter. Chocolate time.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And, of course, everyone brings chocolates when you've just had a baby. Including your other children (ages ranging from 19-26).</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Who will be quite surprised by the baby.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As I was.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As will my Husband be.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Hm. Interesting times ahead. I'll let you know.</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(Ooohhh! That was a sharp one! Maybe I'll call the ambulance, just in case. I'll just finish these chocolate-covered brazils first.)</span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> </span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-4847935142869182261?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-77088195133132318692010-02-05T15:00:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:49.629-07:00How I have time to write poetry and still eat lots of chocolate<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><u><span lang="EN-GB">An appropriate name for a handy form of poetry which you can write but still have lots of time for doing other things because it only consists of two words <o:p></o:p></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB">Terse</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB">Verse</span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><u><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><span lang="EN-GB">What I do after six hours in town desperately searching for an original present for a male relative and have lost the will to live and no longer care that it's what everyone else will get him, too<o:p></o:p></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Buy</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Tie</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><span lang="EN-GB">The result of spending too much time eating chocolates and cakes and biscuits and puddings and not enough time working out in the gym</span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><br /></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Bigger</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Figure</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><span lang="EN-GB">What I got when I accidentally put my sleeping tablets in Rover’s food bowl instead of worming tablets<o:p></o:p></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Groggy</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Doggy</span></div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" /> </span> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p><u><span lang="EN-GB">A description of the feelings of a pet bird when its cage door has been left slightly open by mistake and the family cat is approaching</span></u></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Wary </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Canary</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><span lang="EN-GB">A poem about a guy who sits in the corner of the pub drinking only lemonade but insists on repeating funny stories everyone has heard before<o:p></o:p></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Anecdotal</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Teetotal</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><span lang="EN-GB">The most difficult thing to be doing in the middle of the night when you got to bed late anyway and now desperately need to get back to sleep because you’ve got a busy day tomorrow<o:p></o:p></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><br /></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Ignoring</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Snoring</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u><br /></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-7708819513313231869?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-87867915743686160212010-01-30T14:58:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:57.180-07:00More evidence that spelling matersI once saw a student misspell 'Turn of the Screw' as 'Turn of the Shrew' ...<br /><br />So, what else to do, but to browse one's bookshelves for other potential animal classics ...?<br /><br />'<b>Mansfield Bark'</b> - a novel set in 18th century England countryside in which the main characters are well brought up dogs who wear bonnets, bows and dresses. These dresses reveal a not-inconsiderable portion of their chests. They live in a manor house and hold a ball for all the local, lower-class dogs, during which there is a competition to see which of the dogs has the best bark. Of course, the Mansfield dogs win, as it would not be seemly for dogs of a lower status to do so. The dogs leave the ball, but do not dare complain about the injustice until they reach the end of the two mile long driveway. Then, they all leave their calling cards just inside the tall, iron gates, even though that usually only happens between 2 and 3 in the afternoons.<br /><br />'<b>Purrsuasion'</b> - Same story, but with cats. <br /><br />'<b>Pride and Prejudice'</b> - same story, but with lions.<br /><br /><b>'Northanger Rabbit' </b>- same story, but with ........... oh, okay, then, I'll stop the Jane Horseten books there and try something else.<br /><br /><b>'Lice in Wonderland'</b> - A fantastical but tragic tale in which, finding themselves homeless after successful application of a strong chemical to a child's head, a family of nits discover a door which leads them into a strange and wonderful land. They live on a rabbit for a while, but he is always rushing about and, as many of the family suffer from vertigo, they decide to move on. A chess board provides a temporary home, but they have to live on the black bits in order to avoid being spotted and this proves tedious. In the end, they are all attracted by a sweet and cloying smell one day, fall into a jam tart, are eaten by a Queen wearing lots of make-up, and die.<br /><br />'<b>The Big Sheep'</b> - A sheep stands out among her peers as being unacceptably large and clumsy. After years of teasing from others in the flock, and cruel jibes thrown at her by visitors to the farm such as 'Blimey! You'd need a lot of mint sauce for that great lump!', she decides to throw in her career as a farm animal and try something else. A couple of evening courses later, she goes into detective work, taking the name of 'Baa-lowe'. She finds all the corpses unpleasant, and the staggering number of characters she meets makes her giddy at times - there has never been much need before to remember anyone's face. But she turns out to be surprisingly handy at following criminals around in the wintry season, when camouflage is not so much of a problem for her. She never works out who murdered the chauffeur, but she can cope with not knowing, because it's a damn sight better than being on a plate with roast potatoes.<br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></b><br /><b>'The Adventures of Huckleberry Fish' </b>- Huckleberry Fish knows he should be in a school, but instead he prefers to wander around the sea, getting into scrapes and occasionally climbing onto a raft, although he soon finds that breathing is easier underwater and so that's only temporary. He loves the free life, but when another young fish comes along and says, 'I saw yer swimmin' along and wunnered whether you'd fancy a comin' along with me and meetin' my ole Aunt?' he goes along with it for a while. But when the Aunt starts trying to tidy up his fins and make him swim along in an ordered and civilised way he decides to go back to his old life.<br /><br />'<b>Pigmalion' </b>- A young farm pig is taken on by an older one (Professor Piggins) who attempts to teach him to behave in a more socially acceptable way. After many, many sessions in which the young pig walks around the pen balancing books on his head (disconcertingly, a set of cookery books found in the farmyard kitchen, one entitled 'Ways with Pork') they embark on improving the way he pronounces his 'oink'. There is progress, but some unfortunate incidents at social events hold things back. Also, reciting 'The Rain in Spain falls Mainly on the Plain' doesn't seem to get them anywhere with making 'oink' sound more cultured. In the end, though, the young pig flowers, suddenly and very surprisingly, into a beautiful young woman with many social graces, and she goes off on her own, leaving Piggins to meet his fate as one of the recipes in the book.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-8786791574368616021?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-29285526355971579132010-01-28T13:08:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:49.639-07:00Evidence that Miss can get a link right twice in a rowHey, you poets, and even you not-poets-but-why-not-have-a-go-darn-its. Have you seen the Applehouse Poetry Workshop blog? It's coolio. You get set a challenge like 'Write a 100-line poem containing no vowels' and 'Write a sonnet shaped like a limerick' <br /><br />No, not really - I'm only joking - although it sounds a great idea for a blog.<br /><br />You do get set a challenge, but they're a bit more sensible than that. I loved the New Year one in which you write a list of things you've never done and then finish with something you have. You'll see my poem in the comments (I've mentioned it in my 'What I've Just Read' list - go and see why) and there are some fab poems being offered. <br /><br />Here's the LINK, THE LINK, THE LINK, TO LILY THE PINK, THE PINK, THE PINK ... or, in fact, to the<br /><br /><a href="http://applehousepoetryworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-new-year.html">Applehouse Poetry Workshop Blog</a><br /><br />Happy poeming.<br /><br />(Will this woman ever stop using stupid made-up words, using capital letters, and digressing from the point?)<br /><br /><br /><br />(No.)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-2928552635597157913?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-78096021398987124202010-01-26T10:44:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:49.648-07:00Evidence that it's never too late to learn, even if you are going grey and have saggy bits<a href="http://markerstetter.blogspot.com/2010/01/guest-blogger-fran-hill.html">Yay! Yay! I have learned how to create a link which isn't just the boring old URL by attending the Mark Kerstetter school of blogology and listening carefully, so thank you, Mark. The link (I did a link! I did a link!) is way, way longer than the URL itself which is the kind of irony I really, really like. If you press on this link (link! link! I did a link!) you will get to my guest blogger spot on Mark's blog on which he posts arty-farty things I barely understand but also Friday Flash pieces which I think are great. Enjoy using Miss' s very first ever link. Yay! Yay! Yay! I'm not as past it as I thought I was. (Yawn, yawn, oh my word, is that 8pm, it must be bedtime, bring me my cocoa, dear.) </a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-7809602139898712420?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-27552624038019076452010-01-20T14:02:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:57.188-07:00Evidence that spelling really does materHave you heard of the novel called 'Turn Off the Screw'? I noticed it mentioned in a student's exercise book recently and I was most intrigued. I have read one with a similar title by Henry James, but this one was new to me. Perhaps it was about some children whose governess has special skills in plumbing and who, to keep them busy and to keep their minds off some strange behaviours she indulges in, gets them involved in helping her sort out all the water systems in their large Gothic house. (Large Gothic houses are well known for not having the best plumbing - this explains why so many of them burn so easily and quickly in books.) <br /><br />How different things would have been if similar misspellings had changed the titles of other well-known classic texts ... <br /><br /><b>The Picture off Dorian Gray</b> - the tale of Mr Gray, a handsome young Victorian who has his portrait painted, but then refuses to have it hung on the wall, instead insisting on taking it everywhere with him. This makes romantic relationships difficult, particularly when necessitating close contact, as none of his lovers can persuade him to let them relieve him of the painting, even for five minutes of bliss. Bigger, more spacious beds are purchased, but this does not help. Sales of a recent (under the counter) text entitled 'Pleasing Your Man While Negotiating Large Artefacts' soar through the roof. But still, relationships founder and he dies alone. Well, not quite alone. <br /><br /><b>The Portrait off a Lady</b> - A short but tragic tale written by a Mr Gray about the one time a lady friend managed to grab off him a picture he had had painted of himself and about the ensuing struggle he had to get it back. (This book did not sell well - there were many mistakes in it as the publishers found it hard to read Mr Gray's awkward style of handwriting.)<br /><br /><b>The Lord off the Rings</b> - a long, long story about The God of Jewellery who, suddenly sick of the sight of celebrities wearing necklaces and bracelets thicker than their hip circumferences, decides he will take a break for a while. For a time (a long, long time) he sits on a cloud in despair, wondering what else to do, but as his skills lie solely in looking after the world's gold and silver, eventually, to everyone's relief, he comes back to his first love. While he was on the cloud, though, a worldwide recession hit, of which he was unaware, and he finds that many people are buying cheap costume jewellery instead and saying that it's 'the new Cartier'. He has less and less to do as a result, gets bored, feels disaffected, and starts scrawling graffiti on cloud formations and TWOCing chariots off angels. Riding one of the chariots too fast one day, he veers off the heavenly road and crashes into a lorry delivering harps (just as news comes in that the recession is on the turn).<br /><br /><b>Lord off the Flies</b> - a tale about a group of boys who are stranded on a desert island and, while exploring, find a native chief who lives solely on the insects of the island. He seems to have done very well on this diet, but suddenly, the sight of pre-teen boys in public school uniforms, picking their noses and singing out of tune, turns him off his food, and he dies of starvation. The boys examine his cupboards and refrigerator with interest as they are hungry, but the selection (fly pie, fly casserole, flies in aspic, fly jam, flies with salmon and rocket in a cream sauce garnished with a sprig of parsley) does not appeal and they eat each other instead.<br /><br /><b>One Hundred Years off Solitude </b>- An elderly, wizened gentleman from a remote South American settlement has lived a lonely life. Up until now, he has been content - he has managed to avoid the other things which have entertained his local community (Spanish galleons beached in the jungle, flying carpets, an iguana in a woman's womb, the coming of the steam engine). He has lived a hermit's life. One day, however, he emerges from his house, to the shock of all his neighbours, and declares that having lived for eighty-three years alone, he now intends to live another hundred, but this time as part of the community. He wishes for full involvement and signs up to several local committees. Having been so isolated, his community realises, has left him ignorant of the normal life-span of a South American gentleman. Still, they say nothing. He dies a month later.<br /><br /><b>The Grapes off Wrath</b> - a family from America travel to find work. They find it difficult. No oranges are in sight. However, on their travels, living hand to mouth, they try to entertain each other in the evenings to boost morale. Suddenly, they discover that one member of the family has a tremendous talent. Whenever he gets angry, bumps appear all over his face - green bumps, with stalks, which then fall off. At first, the family take him to the doctor but the doctor is baffled. It is only when the family realise that, as they tramp around the field they are camping in, treading on all these green bumps which have fallen off their kinsman, a rich, tasty liquid is forming which, when sipped from the ground with a straw, makes them feel very happy and not so disappointed about not having found where the oranges grow yet. They exhibit their kinsman at travelling shows, and become rich. The kinsman isn't happy at all, as he feels somewhat used, but that only makes more green bumps appear, which is good for family finances, if not for his feelings of self-worth.<br /><br /><br /><br />Okay, that's enough drivel from me. I'm of to bed.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-2755262403801907645?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-9003787503387703812010-01-15T13:10:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:49.656-07:00Reasons why you should do army training before teacher training<h1><span style="font-size: medium;">A tragic and moving poem in which a new teacher realises that her expectations may have been somewhat unrealistic ...</span></h1><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p>I’d read all the guide books on classroom control.</o:p></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’d got it all sussed; a quiet class was my goal.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’d a will made of iron and peace in my soul.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I was calm.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’d browsed on the Web for discipline tips.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I was fully prepared and completely equipped.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And I just would not tolerate anyone’s lip.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’d no qualms.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">These things I remember now, here in the gloom,</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Locked by Tyler O’Neill in the stationery room </span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Hoping someone from Senior Staff will come soon</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">With a key.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">These things I recall as I massage the bruise</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Shazza Rogers inflicted with mile-high shoes</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When I dared to mention her F—k me tattoos.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Silly me.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Those nostalgic days when the future seemed bright</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Before Shannon and Julie used set squares to fight</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And Ryan McPhee set the waste bin alight</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">With a fag.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’ll be here all night long on this chewing-gummed floor</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Reading John Barrett’s conquests he’s scratched on the door.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’d be screaming and yelling for help now, but for</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This damn gag.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-900378750338770381?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-36403579651062560802010-01-09T14:18:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:42:42.032-07:00Reasons why one should live in a detached house if one thinks one might be misunderstood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0kBVLK4JLI/AAAAAAAAAEI/Zo1TJX-wRgw/s1600-h/birdsong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0kBVLK4JLI/AAAAAAAAAEI/Zo1TJX-wRgw/s320/birdsong.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />I bought my husband a CD about birdwatching for Christmas for him to listen to. It has information about different kinds of birds and their individual songs and calls. He plays it very loud. The neighbours are bound to be able to hear it.<br /><br />What are they thinking is going on? It's the middle of winter, for heaven's sake, and thick snow is on the ground. Basically, there ARE no birds around. Just, it must seem to them, in the living room of those crazy people next door.<br /><br />So, our neighbours could be thinking any of the following.<br /><br />1. We are trying out some unusual romantic games from a book written by an ornithologist/sex therapist entitled 'Whisper Tweet Nothings in His Ears and Spice up your Marriage'. <br /><br />2. One of us has developed a rare form of Tourette's which means we punctuate our sentences erratically with bird noises ... 'Darling, would you like a cup of CHIRRUPCHIRRUPCHIRRUP - sorry, I can't help it - hot chocolate and a TWEETTWEET - oh, I'm really bad today - biscuit?'<br /><br />3. We have just bought new mobile phones and, as part of the deal, were offered a range of free ringtones. This free offer was sponsored by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Therefore, each tone is a birdsong. You can select different ones depending on who's ringing, so mother-in-law can be an old crow, your therapist a wise owl or your boss an fresh-blooded-beaked eagle.<br /><br />4. We were bored of the usual Christmas presents we gave each other each year and vowed we would find 'original' one for a change. Both of us decided, coincidentally, on a free 'Start your Own Aviary' kit.<br /><br />5. We have an infestation of garden worms in our living room carpet and couldn't think of any other way of dealing with them but to let in the sparrows and thrushes, making sure they set their alarm for dawn so that the early birds could catch the worms. <br /><br />6. My husband is going slightly deaf but is also going through a mid-life crisis and when someone told him that 'beards' were a sign of virility, he immediately went to the pet shop and bought fourteen canaries, twenty-two pigeons and a couple of parakeets. <br /><br />Whatever the neighbours are thinking, I wouldn't be surprised if that 'For Sale' sign goes up pretty soon.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-3640357965106256080?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-86583897802422914572010-01-06T11:39:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:43:43.708-07:00Evidence that I too can write about Art. Just not in an intellectual way ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0UOWcktkNI/AAAAAAAAADY/oYkCtFXpSQ8/s1600-h/mona+lisa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0UOWcktkNI/AAAAAAAAADY/oYkCtFXpSQ8/s200/mona+lisa.jpg" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>'<b>'Okay, so diagnose ahead, Mr SmartyPants Doctor, but try sending me the bill! Ha ha.'</b></i><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i><br /></div>I wonder how the Mona Lisa feels about getting her medical diagnosis hundreds of years after she's died. I thought waiting lists in the UK were long, but that's taking it too far. (See the link below if you haven't heard the story. And can someone let me know how to do the link thing properly so it's included in the sentence and I can overwrite it with something like 'do your clicky thing here for a dead fascinating story about the Mona Lisa's cholesterol' and then people can just link to it straight away?) <br /><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8444202.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8444202.stm</a> (I mean, does that link look boring, or does that link look boring, compared to 'do your clicky thing here for a dead fascinating story about the Mona Lisa's cholesterol'?)<br /><br /><br /><br />Anyway, doesn't this diagnosing of medical conditions in famous paintings take the romance out of art just a tad?........<br /><br />'Darling, I am so looking forward to our weekend in Paris, making violent love to each other in a hotel with silken-papered walls and glittering chandeliers. Shall we breakfast on oysters and champagne in the morning? And then shall we stroll hand in hand round the art galleries? Shall we go to the Louvre and gaze in wonder at that painting of that woman whose arteries were lined with fatty tissue and who has a lump in her eyelid?'<br /><br />'Oh, yes, my love. And why don't we make a pact together to celebrate our love by visiting all the famous paintings in the world? We could view Botticelli's 'The Birth of Venus'. I love that one.'<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YCfAYQAYI/AAAAAAAAADg/S6lzsmgkdEM/s1600-h/SandroBotticelli-The-Birth-of-Venus-1490.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YCfAYQAYI/AAAAAAAAADg/S6lzsmgkdEM/s320/SandroBotticelli-The-Birth-of-Venus-1490.jpg" /></a><br /></div><br />'You mean the one where she's got heartburn and is holding her hand to her chest? And a suppurating pustule at the top of her left thigh which she's covering up with her hair?'<br /><br />'Yes! Such a work of art! Then, what about seeing Titian's 'Bacchus and Ariadne'? I love the way Ariadne is scratching her haemorrhoids. I just have to gaze at that one for AGES.'<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YCnYirJWI/AAAAAAAAADo/STxCfDFes48/s1600-h/bacchus+and+ariadne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YCnYirJWI/AAAAAAAAADo/STxCfDFes48/s320/bacchus+and+ariadne.jpg" /></a><br /></div><br />'Oh darling! Then after that, we could go and visit Holman Hunt's 'The Awakening Conscience'....<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YCx80cLAI/AAAAAAAAADw/JokyJe8QvZE/s1600-h/the+awakening+conscience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YCx80cLAI/AAAAAAAAADw/JokyJe8QvZE/s320/the+awakening+conscience.jpg" /></a><br /></div>... I am SO loving her shyness and the way she won't show the guy that psoriasis on her hand. I just can't get enough of the pre-Raphaelities, honey. Hey, why don't we finish our tour by seeing 'The Raft of the Medusa', that Gericault painting?'<br /><br />'You mean, that one where they're all so OBVIOUSLY suffering from anaemia?'<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YC5acvzWI/AAAAAAAAAD4/wqXuYOohEOo/s1600-h/raft+of+the+medusa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/S0YC5acvzWI/AAAAAAAAAD4/wqXuYOohEOo/s320/raft+of+the+medusa.jpg" /></a><br /></div><br />'Oh, yes, they're so romantic and pale and white. I find looking at their iron-deficient red cell platelet-lacking bodies just so, like, inspirATIONAL.'<br /><br />'My sweetheart, I love it when we talk about art together. It makes me feel so ... so .... in fact, I can hardly breathe. I feel quite faint. In fact .... ' [slumps]<br /><br />'Darling? Darling? Wake up! Darling! ........................................................................ Oh, bother. She's dead. And she looks so lovely, just lying there, blue-lipped and blank-eyed and all puffy round the neckline. I must fetch my paintbrush.'<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #464646; font-family: verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br /><div style="font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-8658389780242291457?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-3263631410039283742010-01-02T14:43:00.000-08:002010-01-16T13:12:36.263-08:00A shape poem. Unfortunately, not my shape.<div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>DIET</b><br /><br />or<br /><br /><b>MENSTRUATION IS NOT THE ONLY CYCLE A WOMAN GOES THROUGH</b><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">I went on a diet on January First.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> By Feb I felt quite a success.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> By March I was thirteen<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> pounds lighter and<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> could get on<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> my little<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> black<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> dress.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> In April<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> I stayed on<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> a plateau, but<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> by May I was finding<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> it tough. In June I had<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> quite a few bad days. By<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> July I had had quite enough.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> I decided, as it was near Christmas,<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> Though the pounds were beginning to tell,<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> I would eat fit to burst until January the First<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> And<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> from<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> then<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> on<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> just<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> diet<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> like<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> hell.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-326363141003928374?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-61155764444008075182009-12-28T11:12:00.000-08:002010-01-17T10:08:51.529-08:00A seasonal poem from the hand of Miss<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Their Sixtieth Christmas Together<o:p></o:p></span></b><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I’ll pass you the basket of nuts, eh, my dear?</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">We do like a few nuts at this time of year.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Try not to drop them – it’s so hard to bend</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">And I’m really not sure we would get up again.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Crack me a walnut, oh won’t you, my pet?</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">I do think they’re quite the best nuts you can get.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Crack carefully, dear – you can get a bit keen.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Last year you shot pecans at our bust of the Queen.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Pass me the crackers, we’ll pull one or two</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">But first put these ear muffs on. Yes, you <i>must </i>do.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">You don’t like the bangs and you leap to the floor</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Thinking it’s 1915 and the war.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Put on the hat, love – oh, <i>you're </i>a smart fellow!</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">And it matches your eyes, dear, that nice shade of yellow.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Pass me the jokes and I’ll pour you some wine.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Turn your hearing aid up or you’ll miss the punch-line.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Give me those sweets, here’s a toffee for you.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Your teeth aren’t so good, dear, go slow when you chew.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">You should have the soft ones, but I like those best</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">And you dribble the orange creme all down your vest.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Well, isn’t this fun, pet, the two of us here?</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">Though you're struggling a bit with the toffee, my dear.</span><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;">You're finding it too hard to deal with, no doubt. <br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.0pt;">Hand over your teeth and I’ll prise the stuff out.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-6115576444400807518?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-26645798100781949842009-12-22T05:29:00.000-08:002010-01-16T13:13:35.375-08:00Another letter from SantaDear Miss<br /><br />I have received letters recently from all three of your grown-up children expressing some real anxieties; I understand they are all coming to stay with you over the Christmas period. They seem to feel there is no one else to appeal to and have asked me to contact you, taking on the role of a mediator. Whether I will be successful in getting you to modify your behaviour is in doubt; after all, we have corresponded before, haven't we, without much success in this regard*?<br /><br />I have read their letters and the grievances they express - some of the material was quite distressing - and have compiled the following list of things I think you should keep in mind if you want to make Christmas bearable for your offspring this year.<br /><br />1. Perhaps it is time to stop hiding a Brussel sprout amongst the children's Christmas dinners. They didn't find this funny when you began doing it twenty years ago and don't find it funny now. They feel that now they are adults it should be up to them to decide whether or not they like sprouts, and that having to forage amongst their festive meal to look for the sprout before they start eating is demeaning and does not engender Christmas cheer in them.<br /><br />2. It really is not a matter for tears whether you get the big end of the Christmas cracker or not. Your children feel this is an over-reaction, particularly when the prize is a set of playing cards one centimetre square or a plastic fish key ring. Last year, particularly, they say things got rather out of hand and that clearing up the jug of custard you threw at the wall took a while and was the reason why you all missed the Queen's Speech.<br /><br />3. Your children feel it is time you dropped the tradition of wrapping yourself a present from a supposed 'secret admirer' and feigning great surprise when you open it on the day. Each of the children, in their separate letters to me, quoted you: 'Oh, <em>how </em>did he know what I wanted?' and 'He <em>always </em>gets the right thing! It's incredible!' If your children know these phrases off by heart, it seems to me this might indicate that they feel rather tired of the whole thing. Your eldest, particularly, is worried, as her father tells her that as well as the usual present from 'Your loving secret admirer' there is another present under the tree this year labelled, 'From your secret admirer's twin'. Your daughter dearly hopes this does not mean an escalation in the whole charade.<br /><br />4. Your children also feel that it is about time you stopped giving them a pound coin wrapped first in paper and then in fifteen different cardboard boxes. When you began doing this they were at Infants School, and there was double pleasure for them in receiving a pound coin and in the fun involved in unwrapping all the boxes. Now, however, as they are all earning their own wages and feel disinclined to spend an hour unwrapping a pound coin, they wonder whether it is time this practice ceased.<br /><br />5. Finally, I have to deal with the tricky matter of the word games. The children realise that, as an English teacher, you feel that word games are enjoyable. However, they do not feel the same. They say that they have spoken to you about this year by year in as gentle a way as possible so as not to hurt your feelings, but that you still insist, whenever conversation lapses for more than fifteen seconds, that everyone play 'Alphabet Vegetables' or 'Word-Association-but-you-can-only-use-words-beginning-with-vowels'. Being pointed at and told 'You're starting, yes you are, don't argue, think of a vegetable beginning with A' is, they feel, more than they can bear for yet another year.<br /><br />I do hope you will take my comments on board for the sake of your children.<br /><br />Yours sincerely<br /><br />Santa Claus<br /><br />PS You will realise I have acknowledged none of the fourteen letters I received from you during November and December with what are quite outrageous requests. I must repeat: I have absolutely NO power or influence with either George Clooney or Johnny Depp, their publicity agents or their managers. I would suggest, anyway, that neither star would want anything to do with crazy women who hide sprouts under other people's turkey and stuffing. Perhaps you should bear this in mind.<br /><br /><br />*Other letters from Santa you might enjoy:<br /><br /><a href="http://beingmiss.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-santa-isnt-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be.html">http://beingmiss.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-santa-isnt-all-hes-cracked-up-to-be.html</a><br /><br /><a href="http://beingmiss.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-i-am-already-disappointed-about.html">http://beingmiss.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-i-am-already-disappointed-about.html</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-2664579810078194984?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-37176973255991939902009-12-16T10:14:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:46:54.078-07:00Reasons why I should just ignore everyone's needsOkay, so it's a dark winter morning, and I'm on the bus. (Is she ever not? When does she sleep? How does she go to the toilet?) I'm loaded with my handbag and various bags of schoolbooks and marking. I look like I've left home for good, but I'm merely on the way to work.<br /><br />The bus is crowded. Even though I could have done with a double seat to myself (because of the bags, because of the bags ... what were <em>you </em>thinking I meant?), I've had to squeeze in next to a woman who's in the window seat (Window Woman, from now on). She has that mad rabbit look in her eyes that belies someone who's anxious about where to get off the bus, and that means she's got to get past me at some point, but I have no other choice.<br /><br />I will now present the rest of the disastrous narrative in a series of numbered points. It helps me to distance myself from distressing material.<br /><br /><br />1. As soon as I've sat down, Window Woman makes a slight movement towards me. I think it's because she's getting off. I'm nearest the bell. Honestly, some people. Why didn't she just say when I sat down? Still, my natural philanthropy takes over, and I stretch right over to press the bell for her which entails complicated rearrangement of myriad bags and lots of rustling and clutching of handles and huffing and puffing.<br />2. JUST as I'm about to press the bell, Window Woman catches on. She says, 'no, no, sorry, sorry, I no want off bus yet'. This tells me three things. She's not from England. She doesn't want to get off the bus yet. I look like a plonker.<br />3. I rearrange all my luggage and settle back into the seat. Then Window Woman taps me on the shoulder and asks, 'You know Blacklow Road? Need Blacklow Road.'<br /><br />4. I think, yay! A chance to help someone to their destination, and this time, I <em>know </em>where the road is!<br /><br />(A word of explanation, and a break from the numbered points which you may be finding annoying. There are many people, I am sure, still wandering around England aimlessly, looking for the right turning or the pub or the garage I assured them would be there. I am to lost foreigners what a large steak with sausage and egg would be to a vegan. Many times in my life I have confidently directed people to their destinations, then had to hide behind bushes or in shops when they come back the other way, looking puzzled and stressed. I should just say, 'Sorry, I don't know' if anyone asks me for help, and protect the general public that way, but the problem is, I always think, 'No, this time, I <em>know </em>I'm right'<em>, </em>and it's always just as they move off, looking grateful, that I realise that, again, I wasn't, and that they're going to finish up in the river.)<br /><br />5. So, adrenaline rushing as I realise I actually <em>do </em>know where Blacklow Road is, I nod effusively and forgive Window Woman for twitching and making me think she needed to get off. She needs help, and I do so love HELPING. 'Sure,' I say, putting on my 'I'm England's gift to foreigners' face. 'It's just a little further on. I'll press the bell for you when it's time.' She has on her 'I'm so grateful' face. My 'I'm England's gift to foreigners' face gets even more 'England's gift' than before.<br /><br />5. We pass the bus stop before the one I think she needs. I'm cool. We're approaching a massive roundabout and road junction pretty fast, but I sure there's a bus stop right opposite Blacklow Road before we get to the junction. I ring the bell. 'All you need to do,' I say to Window Woman, smiling indulgently, 'is cross straight over the road when you get off the bus. It will be directly opposite the stop. You'll see a terribly busy roundabout and junction ahead of you, but you don't need to go that far.' She is looking so adoring, I'm wondering if I'm going to get a free holiday in a cheap Eastern European country soon.<br /><br />6. There's a minor struggle involving the temporary loss of a couple of bags and a few Steinbeck essays while I turn sideways to let her get past and then rearrange myself into her old seat.<br /><br />7. I am now Window Woman. As I watch ex-Window Woman making her way down the bus, I feel an inner glow of satisfaction. Yes! For once, I have directed someone right!<br /><br />8. As ex-WW makes her way to the front of the bus, we pass Blacklow Road. No bus stop. We hit the massive roundabout and road junction. We sail past the massive roundabout and road junction. Ex-WW has trouble holding on as we swerve round. Then the bus stops. Seems I was wrong about where the stops were. Oh, hell.<br /><br />9. I realise that, having shot so far past Blacklow Road, Ex-WW may not know where she's meant to go. Panicked, I get up and rush down the aisle, knocking passengers left, right and centre with my bag collection, and I tap her on the shoulder. She turns. I make various manic gestures about her having to make it back over the roundabout and junction and she nods uncertainly. I don't think she recognises any of my gestures from her 'Speak English in a Week' textbook. She looks unhappy. I don't think I'm going to get my holiday after all.<br /><br />10. Point 10 should be the end of the whole sorry tale. But I'm afraid it isn't.<br /><br />11. I turn round (not easy, considering the fact that I am masquerading as a hotel porter) to find that another woman, obviously thinking that me careering down the bus in a pother meant I was getting off, was overjoyed to find a seat vacated by two people at once, and has moved from her shared seat to that one. She, too, has several bags with her. And she is now Window Woman, a usurper. I am ex-Window Woman. The woman who's just got off (and is currently battling with the morning rush-hour to make her way to Blacklow Road and thinking, 'Was England the right choice for me?') is Window Woman Twice Removed.<br /><br />12. I say to Usurper Window Woman, 'I'm sorry. I wasn't getting off. I was just helping that lady.' Fifty-nine other passengers stare at me, thinking, 'Well, you may have been helping <em>her</em>, but we all now have bruises and have lost our places in the newspaper what with all the distraction'.<br /><br />13. Usurper WW is really embarrassed, and has no option but to try and squeeze up so I can sit down again. She's not exactly slim, and I won a competition in a fancy dress party once when I went as a barrel. Our joint collection of bags is rammed up against the seats in front of us. Our thighs are enjoying close fellowship. We exchange awkward smiles. At least, I think she is smiling. That may just be how she looks when she's crammed up against the side of the bus with no room to breathe.<br /><br />14. Ironically, jammed in as we are, the bus ride is a lot more comfortable now. However suddenly the driver brakes or however many bumps in the road he goes over, UWW and I are lodged together so tightly that we feel nothing. We absorb all the shock together with the combined force of our bodies and bags. The only discomfort I'm in is thinking about Ex-WW, who is probably still, 10 minutes on, negotiating with supermarket lorries and nose-to-tail traffic to get across the roundabout. Shame. I quite fancied Romania in the spring.<br /><br />15. We reach the bus station. UWW and I wait until everyone else has got off, then we gradually separate, coming apart like a pair of doughy sweet buns which came from the baker's attached, and I struggle down the bus's aisle with her behind me. As we get off, she gives me a big smile. We have shared a lot together this morning - embarrassment, discomfort, thigh cells - and it's only 7.45am.<br /><br />16. As I walk the rest of the way to work, bags clocking against my shins, I send up a prayer for Ex-WW, who has perhaps by now got to Blacklow Road, with no help from me. I think: How good it is to be able to help one's fellow humans. Then I think: What a shame I always cock it up.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-3717697325599193990?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-53694176351812654562009-12-08T10:45:00.000-08:002010-03-18T15:46:54.087-07:00Evidence that I am finally losing it. (Okay, then. More evidence.)I have amused myself greatly with my own foolishness today.<br /><br />Was on the bus (where else?) and opened up the book I'm currently reading or, more accurately, struggling with. You might have spotted in my 'What I am currently reading' sidebar that I was complaining about a book by William Trevor in which he seemed to have introduced a wide variety of sub-plots which I was hoping would come together at some point. I knew the novel was all set in Ireland, but apart from that, couldn't see any links at all between the characters or their situations. Chapter by chapter, it just seemed to get even more complicated.<br /><br />Still, I was determined to persevere. In fact, I was even a little proud of myself for sticking with a postmodern narrative. I'm an English teacher, after all, I comforted myself. I ought to be able to cope.<br /><br />Opened up to the seventh chapter. A new character, a new story, a new setting.<br /><br />That was it! I slapped the book shut. English teacher, or no English teacher, I decided I didn't have to keep going if the author wasn't doing his job properly.<br /><br />And that's when I saw the blurb on the back praising this collection of diverse short stories.<br /><br />Ah.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-5369417635181265456?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74882821337502001.post-24496737715154749852009-12-01T14:52:00.001-08:002010-03-18T15:44:20.114-07:00Reasons why stretched earlobes can still be useful when you're old<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/SyQgm_7iAbI/AAAAAAAAADQ/q-MjQMSr9EU/s1600-h/ear[1].jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414488506374422962" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GOOkSpT_IK8/SyQgm_7iAbI/AAAAAAAAADQ/q-MjQMSr9EU/s200/ear%5B1%5D.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 200px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 109px;" /></a><br /><div></div><div>Granted, plain earlobes are just boring. I mean, there's a nice little piece of flesh, just aching for a diamond or a dangly silver thing, and if you just leave it as it is, in the end it's just a little piece of flesh: redundant or what? And I don't know about you, but I have enough little pieces of flesh hanging around my body doing nothing useful; I don't need more. So I may as well decorate the bits that are decent enough to be on show. <br /></div><br /><div></div><div>I'm not sure I'd go as far as some, though. For me, the delicate silver stud or the faux diamond are as far as I'm prepared to take earlobe enhancement.<br /></div><br /><div></div><div>But there's now a fashion, and not just in remote tribal areas, for making the holes in your earlobes massive by putting, firstly, small discs in the holes in them, then bigger discs, then bigger ones, etc etc, until they'll take jewellery the size of dinner plates. <br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>But what happens when you get old? You wake up one day. You're 73. And suddenly, the gaping holes in your earlobes, which now dangle down to your elbows, don't seem so cool any more, along with the love/hate tattoos on your knuckles and the stud in your left nipple.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Well, here I am to help. I have some ideas for you, so that even if you don't want to put jewellery in those holes which gets you laughed at down at the dinner club, they won't go to waste.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>Ways to use your redundant stretched earlobes:<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>1. You know how hard it is normally to carry French sticks home? They don't fit in any average-sized bag. They knock against other people on the bus. Carrying them under your arm makes the bread smelly, especially when you popped in to buy them half way through your marathon run. It's such a pain. So just slide them into those earlobes and you've got your hands free for the rest of the shopping or for that vital bottle of water that will get you to the finish line.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>2. Broken your arm? Broken both arms? Save on expensive slings. No need for those nasty plaster casts which your friends always want to write rude jokes on. Just support those injuries by crossing your arm over and sliding a hand inside the earlobe. <br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>3. Short on ideas for party games? How about 'leap through the lobe', a popular pastime in which contestants take a run at your ear then jump up and dive through? Those who get through cleanly without touching any of your flesh get prizes. Anyone who gets stuck doesn't get birthday cake.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>4. Irritated by the fact that you have no pockets and nowhere to keep your Ipod while you're listening to your fave tracks? It's so tedious, having to carry the machine as you walk along. Now you can keep both earphones and Ipod above neck level by lodging your music device inside a stretched earlobe. There are rumours that the techie guys are even now working on a round version of the Ipod Nano (from Eyepod to Earpod) for a perfect fit.<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>5. Know any short people who like to keep fit? It's a well known fact that height-challenged individuals often compensate by building up their muscles. But many can't afford their own set of parallel rings. You could be the answer to their problem. <br /></div><br /><div></div>You know, suddenly, just putting jewellery inside stretched earlobes sounds oh so yesterday. Be the first to wear a French stick instead and hit the headlines.<br /><div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/74882821337502001-2449673771515474985?l=beingmiss.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Fran Hill @ Being Misshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935088780461825341noreply@blogger.com14