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December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 |
Well, five months on and the world has failed to end once again. Let's agree that if the deluded old codger who comes up with these predictions announces yet another date for the end of the world, we'll just ignore him. Bored now.
Current mood: bored "It must have got lost."
Current mood: exasperated It may be that I'm imagining it but I think people are staring at me. Not overtly, you understand, but surreptitiously, slyly. They hurriedly look away when I notice them. Not only that, but people are acting very oddly about me. Perhaps it's just me but they seem awkward, embarrassed even when I talk to them. What's going on? Is there something wrong with me? I've started to notice other things too. Everyone seems much taller than me. I only come up to the bellies of most people. Am I a midget? No, I don't think so. Also, it's very weird, but I believe that they don't actually have wheels. I know; that's absurd, right? How to they get about? Well, don't laugh, but I swear they seem to lope about balanced precariously on their legs. No really; I'm not making this up. I've seen it with my own eyes. These people seem to be everywhere. It's getting so I don't feel normal any more. Who are these strange tall, ambulatory people with uncomfortable social interaction skills? Where did they all come from? I'm really worried about this. I think I'm going mad. I can hardly bring myself to say it out loud but I can't avoid the possibility any longer. I think I may be... Yes, I really do. I think I may be disabled.
Current mood: paranoid Friday, 29th. July 2011 On 26th. May last year, I wrote an entry about devoteeism, the phenomenon of able-bodied people being sexually attracted to people with disabilities, particularly focussing on women attracted to male amputees. Whilst I stand by everything I wrote then, my feelings on the subject have changed somewhat in the intervening period so I feel I should update that posting. Apart from anything else, the overall tone was overbearingly smug and holier-than-thou, not to mention strident and hectoring. I believe I made some valid points but forgot that old truism, there are two sides to every story.
Current mood: revisionist Tuesday, 26th. July 2011 7:19 a.m. Are You Hanging Up Your Stocking? I have just read that Harrods and Selfridges are opening their Christmas departments this week. I must say it has crept up on me this year and caught me a bit unprepared but, as I'm not one to miss out on seasonal cheer, can I just wish all my readers a Merry Christmas.
Current mood: depressed Saturday, 16th. July 2011 8:18 p.m. The Right To Be Stupid I have read, over the past few days, a story about a guy who fell to his death from a rollercoaster in a tragic accident in the US. The guy in question was an amputee who had lost both legs all the way up to his hips. Apparently, he toppled over the restraining safety bar. Now, this resonates with me because, when I was a child, I was forced to wear a safety strap when in a wheelchair. This strap went around my waist (as all wheelchair safety straps do). For someone with legs, such a device is a fine thing. In the event of an abrupt stop or a tipping forward, the strap holds the person and stops him falling out of the chair onto the ground. However, the thing that my olders and betters, i.e. the moron experts, failed to grasp was that, if you have no legs, like me, the waist strap offers no restraint at all. In fact, it is positively lethal, because, if you find you have occasion to need it, you have no legs to anchor you. Your momentum pushes you forward and, as most of your mass is above the waist, in the absence of legs, all the strap does is to flip you over as you fly out of your seat. You are most likely to land head-first on the ground, making what mght have been a few bruises into a potentially serious head injury. As a child, this danger was obvious and I was scared of being strapped in around the waist. As with so many other things in my childhood, no one would listen to the kid. Is it any wonder that I grew up having little but contempt for disability experts? (Actually, the same problem exists in a different guise as an adult. Aeroplanes have lap restraints which you're forced to wear. I know that, even in a comparatively survivable incident, I will be pitched head first into the seat ahead of me. I know I would be safer without the strap; the only passenger for whom this is true. Sadly, I also know that no one would get it so I've never even bothered to speak out.)
Current mood: confrontational 10:28 p.m. Electronic Dialogue If someone asked me if I'd like a cup of tea, I would consider it most impolite and not a little confusing of me to decline it by saying cancel. But this is what we get on computer dialogue boxes all the time. "Do you want to save the file?" It should say yes or no but the choice you mostly get offered is OK or cancel. The clue is in the name; it's a dialogue box. Perhaps I'm being hopelessly out of date in thinking that a dialogue is a polite conversation between civilised people. Imagine the reaction you would get if your answer to your girlfriend's question about whether her posterior looks big in her new dress was cancel. Or, even worse, what if you answered "do you love me" with OK? It wouldn't be hard to provide more appropriate and polite responses in these boxes so let's start a new campaign for good manners in IT.
Current mood: picky Monday, 6th. June 2011 10:00 p.m. Extraterrestrial Perambulation Now, as my regular readers will know, walking is not something I actually do so I'm not an expert but what's with space walking? I mean, how can climbing into a person-shaped balloon and floating about be called in any way walking? I would understand space floating; or even space drifting. But space walking? No, I'm not buying it. And while I'm on the subject, how does moon walking, as perpetrated by the late and only occasionally great Michael Jackson, get it's name. As far as I can remember, real moon walking resembles a kind of loping bunny hop. There's certainly nothing like the formerly alive pop star's moves going on. Michael Jackson's foot dragging backwards shuffle would have been a better name, However, I am prepared to concede I may have missed something as walking is not my specialist subject.
Current mood: perplexed So the monster, Ratko Mladić, is being sent to the international court in The Hague. It sounds so nice when it's "sent to Holland". Tulips, bicycles, free love, relaxed culture, no drug busts. But if it's "sent to the Netherlands", that sounds dark, ominous, foreboding, cold, harsh. Let's hope it's the latter.
Current mood: recovering Thursday, 26th. May 2011 5:14 p.m. I'm Going Into The Garden To Eat My favourite historical event? I'm glad you asked. It can only be the Diet Of Worms. What a great name!
Current mood: historical 4:53 p.m. Unto Us A Child Is Born I received an email from Encyclopaedia Britannica today with the momentous news that today, yes, this very day, is the 428th. anniversary of the baptism of Susanna, the elder daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. Now, I don't know about you but, up to now, I had thought my life to be pretty good but with today's revelation, I realise that it was just an empty shell of hollow nothingness. I am now made whole.
Current mood: apathetic Sunday, 22nd. May 2011 4:59 p.m. Will This Wind Be So Mighty Ah, the rapture didn't happen, then? Again. I'm beginning to suspect that it may all be just made-up nonsense. What? It was an arithmetic error and it's now happening on the 21st. October? Oh, OK. See you on the 22nd. October, then.
Current mood: amused |
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