Category Archives: General Rambling

For posts that just go on and on and on and on and ……

A pin in the neck.

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It’s new.

Well, it’s been in my wardrobe for a few weeks, maybe months but, yesterday, as there were customers and I was wearing a suit, I wore it because I hadn’t worn it before now and it’s a nice shirt. F had got it for me so it was one of the designer ones. It was nice too, and comfortable and slightly ‘green’ so that caused me a bit of a problem since I didn’t really have a green tie. So I wore a blue and grey striped one. Of course. Especially since I was wearing a brownish suit. It all fitted together perfectly. I work on the basis that if the colours don’t match then you might as well go for contrasts. Hah!

I got up early, as is normal, since F was going out of Milan and, therefore, for him, getting up early – about 2 (nearly 3) hours later than me.

So I walked Rufus and Dino. Rufus now is so slow that it can’t really be called ‘a walk’ but more of ‘a saunter’. Hence I now get up five minutes earlier to (try to) give him enough time to pooh outside rather than inside. Not that it actually works so I don’t know why I bother. I think the only solution to that is to get up at 5 and have at least one hour’s sauntering.

So, I get home and get ready and put on my new greenish striped shirt. It’s nice. It’s been washed, obviously. And ironed (by my new super-cleaning lady).

I go to work. I am a little early since the customers want to be here earlier than I would like. It’s OK. They go away today.

We continue our meeting from the day before. There are a load of pictures they have taken and changes that they want done. To be honest, I fucking hate them and their pickiness even if, sometimes, they are right.

We move, later in the morning to the shop floor to view the part and the changes they want.

My shirt is feeling less comfortable now. It’s the collar, It’s a bit like it’s rubbing which is strange because it’s not too small with plenty of room but there is something. Of course, I don’t actually think about that too much, I just rub my finger round the collar, pulling it away from my neck.

It doesn’t make much difference. It’s not at all painful – just slightly uncomfortable.

The discussions on the shop floor continue. I wish there was a way to tell them ‘No – we’re not doing it’. I’ve been searching for that. But I know it won’t happen, really.

My shirt collar is still a pain in the neck, so to speak.

Again, I rub around the collar.

And, this time I find out why it is a pain in the neck.

It should be, quite literally, a pain in the neck since it still has one of the pins in it – the one that they put near the top button on new shirts. It is sticking out of the shirt straight into my neck. It IS a pin in the neck.

I worry about two things:

1. How can I get this out of the shirt without attracting attention and
2. Does this mean that there is blood all over the shirt.

On point 2, I can’t really do much. Point 1 has my full attention. Since, apart from potentially stopping any more of point 2, it has the added advantage of potentially making the collar less uncomfortable.

Sometimes these pins are difficult to take out having been inserted in the thick part of the area near the button.

As it is, once I have the right end of the pin (now I may have blood on my finger!), luckily, it is an easy pull and it is out.

Now I have point 3 to worry about.

Point 3. Where to put the pin.

I think about putting it in my pocket but:

a) the outside pockets of the jacket are sewn up (it helps the suit to retain it’s shape),
b) the inside pockets of the jacket are not really an option as the pin would be difficult to retrieve later and,
c) the pockets of my trousers are not really an option since the pin, sticking through my pockets and into my legs would be worse and I use those pockets to put my hands in so they might also get lacerated at some point during the day when I had forgotten about the pin I had placed in them.

I have to find a bin.

I find a bin.

I casually (when no one is looking) drop it into the bin.

My pin in the neck has gone.

Later I see there is no bloody mess on my shirt.

Today (for this was yesterday), as I write this, I keep fingering my collar as if this shirt has the same problem. Also, as I write this, I wonder how I missed it when I took the shirt out of its packaging and think that I am sure I checked. Perhaps there were two pins? Having found one and taken it out it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to look for another. I also wonder how my super-cleaning lady could have missed it when ironing the shirt!

The trees are out to get us.

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We’re in bed. It’s morning. The sky is bright and it’s warm. The window, high on the wall, is open.

“Smell that”, he says.

I look out of the open window. Ahead, almost obliterating the sky, is a mountain full of trees. It’s all very uniform – I mean, each tree seems exactly the same. They are a vivid, bright green. I can smell them. It is pine.

We are in a room that is not ours. It is a bed and breakfast, or something like that. It is most certainly NOT winter and, for some reason, it is a place that F knows.

Then the trees start moving towards us. Slowly at first but gathering pace.

The fill the whole window now. It’s some sort of landslide, I think. It’s going to engulf our room!

I wake up.

The game of ensuring a profit.

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Let’s have an imaginary scenario – just like a game.

Let’s say I am a business. My business is to give insurance. I give insurance for a healthy profit, thank you very much. And, by making a healthy profit, I can award myself huge bonuses. It’s a win-win situation.

I can, almost, decide on any premium I choose because there are only a few of us companies in this ‘game’. I decide that this insurance is very risky – so I make everyone who wants it pay more than they really need to.

Unfortunately, some of the organisations that take on this insurance are not as good as I am. They have found themselves in some sticky situations. They rely on other companies making a profit. Unfortunately, those other companies don’t always do that.

Now, I want the insurance business. But I don’t really want the risk of the other companies underperforming.

It’s a difficult situation. I mean, I want the organisations to keep insuring with me and they’ll only do that whilst the other companies continue to exist. If all the other companies went bust there’d be no need for my insurance. So, I need to keep the other companies in business – even if they have to sack many of their workforce; even if they have to reduce the pay to the workers that are left; make cuts in everything – just to ensure the company can stay in business. I don’t really care at all. It’s just important that the other companies continue to survive.

So, recently, I’ve had a few of the other companies that have been having a few difficulties. Obviously, my premiums to cover the organisations rises and I make more profit. Which is great. But it’s no good if the other companies go to the wall.

So I have come up with a very cunning plan.

Some of my employees, who have all become very rich working for me, have agreed to go and ‘help’ those companies survive as I want. Of course, we need to keep this below the radar as much as we can. So keep it quiet, please. It’s just our little secret.

You may know one of those employees (or should I say EX-employee). He goes by the name of Mario Monti. He’s going to make sure that that particular other company continues so that I can collect huge amounts of money. He’s going to do exactly what I say he should do.

Let’s face it. The banks, in the pursuit of huge profits, permitted loans to everyone. And investment banks set up the CDS scheme – which, from what I can see is completely unregulated. Eventually it all caught up with them. Now, some high-powered (ex-)employees of those very banks are running Greece and Italy. Obviously, what must not happen is for everyone to stop paying the debts, which generate huge profits for the people running the CDS industry. If they stop paying the debts then the CDS industry goes down and the whole system collapses taking with it, erm, well, the people who’ve been earning bigger and bigger profits and bonuses whilst making everyone else suffer a lot.

I mean, that would be a bad thing, right? Right?

Missing

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“…….I miss you and miei pipinelli”

Of course, he was a bit drunk when he sent this.

His words of affection are few. I miss him every time he goes away and regularly tell him. He doesn’t. However, after being away for week in Germany and being out with his friend on the Friday night, he was already quite drunk (so much so that he hardly touched wine all weekend).

I know that he does but, sometimes, it’s just nice to be told, even if it is by sms. Or, perhaps, as it’s in writing, better still by sms?

And, although it doesn’t really fit, I do love this song ……

John Waite – Missing You

An end to the world crisis?

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If you’re working for a company, for example, and you feel something is wrong (or something is wrong), going on strike, on your own, doesn’t actually work very well. In fact, you are likely to be sacked.

That’s why Unions were born. With Unions, all the people go on strike, meaning that it is not good for the owners of the company. Therefore, the idea being that the owners of the company and the Union come to some sort of agreement.

But it doesn’t seem to work in all circumstances and there are risks, of course.

But I was just wondering, if we think of a country as an individual and think of the owners of the company as the banks (and, therefore, the money markets) ……….

What would happen if all the countries got together and said that they had all decided not to pay the debts – i.e. they went on strike?

I mean to say, if one country does it, they have a rough time for a number of years. But if every country did it, all at the same time?

Doesn’t bear thinking about, right?

Or, maybe it should bear thinking about?

Don’t look back ……… except sometimes.

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“That’s why I prefer to have my own place”.

Apparently.

After discussion about Buddhism, brought on by R’s new religion, it developed into something else. As these things do.

For F, this new Buddhism thing was a way of escaping from looking at himself and fixing that.

“You shouldn’t look back”, he says, followed by, “You should look forward”.

We continue talking about various things about R, An explains that she didn’t realise he had lived in Milan. The ‘history’ was explained. He was supposed to be coming to Milan for 3 months to cover maternity leave. F said he could stay with them (F and S) but the problem was that, when R came, already F and S were having a few problems. F said that he found it difficult to cope with sorting S and looking after R. So R only stayed a month, in the end.

And that was why he preferred to have his own place so that, should anything happen between us, he could also go back to his place for ‘a month or two’.

Of course, I wanted to say something like ‘but you should never look back, you said’ but I didn’t. Not least ‘cos he is a little stressed at the moment and also because I like things the way they are and I would, if I was being honest, only say this as a means to play Devil’s advocate – which is not the right reason at all.

There’s time. And I can wait until it is right. Or, if it’s never right then that’s OK too.

Some words beginning with …………..

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The big thing at the moment is the V for Vendetta masks.

Vendetta. Not really a good thing.

Vindictive. Neither is that.

There’s a bit of vindictiveness going on right now. Not to or from me, of course. And I refuse to get involved. But some people have a vindictive nature and it’s not attractive.

The big thing, if it is directed at you, is not to respond, not to feed the flame.

It doesn’t mean it will go away just that the flame will not last so long.

But some people seem to delight in being vindictive. Or, maybe it’s just that they’re scared themselves. Or, maybe, it’s just that the anger that is inside them, means they cannot help themselves. To me it’s one of the last two things and, either way, means that they stop thinking with a cool head.

I’ve rehearsed my response, should I ever be called on – from one of dissolving into fits of laughter to being quiet and listening and empathetic.

In any event, the answer would be ‘no’, of course. How could it be otherwise? And, after all this time?

But the response would only become necessary if there was real desperation and I’m not sure if even then?

Still, the vindictiveness, which although confirming any of my previous decisions, is both saddening and infuriating.

Ah well, not really my problem now.

Breaking news: Christians kill a Christain! Muslims kill a Muslim! Jews kill a Jew!

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In fact, people kill people. Sometimes it is racially motivated, sometimes because of an argument and sometimes by accident. Even, sometimes, it is because the murderer objects to what the other person is saying/doing. Like Road Rage!

So, it beggars belief when I read this story.

Unfortunately, I am unable to check out what he actually says at http://dinoscopus.blogspot.com/ because I can only read it if I am invited and, quite obviously, I wouldn’t ever get the invitation ;-)

However, given that the Guardian might be telling the truth, he has, basically, said that there was this Jew who was killed by Jews about 2000 years ago.

Of course, Christians would like to think that Jesus was a Christian. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He was born and he died a Jew. However, he did have a different view of God and how we should practice our faith in God which did, somewhat, slightly upset the leaders of the Jewish faith at the time (so it is said/written).

But, because we think that Jesus was a Christian, when someone says that the Jews killed Jesus, the Jews get a bit upset since some Christians undoubtedly think that it makes the Jews terrible people.

Which it certainly does not.

After all, if Jesus hadn’t died, would the Christian faith exist at all? I mean, his death and the supposed events afterwards (like rising and going to heaven) are pretty central to the Christian faith, aren’t they? And if he had died of some disease or old age at, say 68, I doubt it would have started the worldwide craze known now as Christianity.

So, rather than Christians being all aggrieved about some Jews from 2000 years ago who killed (or forced the Romans to kill) one of their own for having some different thoughts, they should be very happy and be thanking the Jews for making it all happen!

Well, that’s my thoughts on it. Not that it will make any difference.

Four things

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I have to tell you that the weekend away was fabulous.

No, better than fabulous.

But more on that later (or, even, another post).

The four important things were:

1. “Why should you cut your hair?”
2. “What is that perfume? I like it.”
3. “If we moved in together …….”
4. He bought me a present and, as last year, I didn’t buy him one.

1. I was saying that I really should do something with my hair and pick a style or cut it. His response made me think that he quite likes it.

2. I told him that it’s one of my favourites and that I had worn it before and he replied that he knew that but he really liked the smell. I told him that they didn’t make it any more, which is a shame. I also said that I thought it suited me and he agreed. With his sense of smell, it’s nice that he likes it.

3. It was a ‘what if….’ thing that came up, instigated by him, obviously. But, I got the impression that, as time goes on, he is seriously considering it. We shall see. Nothing can possibly happen for a year, anyway. But he did say that it seemed quite stupid to have a flat and not actually use it and that if we got together, for the same amount as we are paying now, we could get quite a large place.

4. Yesterday was our anniversary. I can hardly believe that it has only been 2 years. It feels like much longer. But it has been a fabulous couple of years and I do hope for many, many more. I don’t know why I don’t get him a present. However, I had paid for the weekend away, as he pointed out. So, I suppose it was something.

Look what they’ve done to my cigs, ma!

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Funnily enough, I had thought of writing a post about this last week or the week before.

You see, a week or two ago, I noticed there seemed something strange about my cigarettes. No longer, if I left them in the ashtray, did the cremated corpse of the cigarette with the shape perfectly preserved serve to remind me that, really, I should have put it out or not bothered to light it up in the first place. At which point, I would immediately light up another one, of course.

No, now it went out. This was good and bad. Good in as much as I didn’t waste a whole cigarette for, once relit, it was fine. It was bad in that I was concerned they had, somehow, changed the composition and wondered if they were going to be bad for me. Of course, that’s a relative statement since they are bad for me. I meant, they had put something in that made them more dangerous.

I meant to ask F if his were the same. But I didn’t.

I meant to mention it to others but, to be honest, forgot about it. I thought, maybe, it was just that one batch until …….

Well, until I saw this from the BBC.

So now you know. No longer will I waste about 10% of my cigarettes but, thanks to some new law, I will just have to relight them. So a good thing after all :-) (depending on your point of view, of course).

And, I don’t know why I thought of Melanie’s song as the title (more or less) but she is one of my favourites and so here it is: