Fuel – full to bursting!
Then I shouldn’t need to buy any more
Well, until next week to get to work.
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Tag Archives: General Rambling
Checklist
Car clean – check.
After all, we know how obsessive F can be. For me it was fine. For him it would have been terrible and even if he hadn’t complained, I would know.
It’s life Jim, but hardly logical.
When you look at it, logically, there’s nothing actually wrong.
Just like those times when I feel angry for no reason at all.
But I am really pissed off.
Except when I’m with F. For some reason, everything just lifts when I’m with him.
Take last night. After a really dreadful day, followed by a lesson and then a dreadful drive home, meaning I was later than I wanted to be, meaning that, although I really rushed a shower, I arrived at the shop later than I wanted to, once I was with F, I was relaxed and happy. For the next couple of hours, even if he wasn’t with me all the time, I was still happy and relaxed. I knew he was there. It was enough.
It was the “Aperitivo”. They were holding it because it is the Furniture Fair. It was nice. I had several glasses of prosecco. And a couple of the small finger food ‘dishes’ they were handing out. There were lots of F’s colleagues there, of course. They are always so nice to me.
One thing struck me though. F, not usually overly demonstrative towards me, completely changes when there are a lot of his colleagues around. It’s quite funny. He seems, almost, to be jealous of any attention given to me – but not jealous that I’m getting the attention and he’s not. Rather jealous in that I’m his. Phrases such as ‘keep your eyes off him, he’s mine’ tend to come out (or something similar, since it is in Italian). It does make me laugh, inwardly. Of course, part of it is for show, I know that. He is, after all, a showman. It’s what he does best. It’s why he’s good at his job.
And now, as we rapidly approach 4.15, it is the weekend. And the weather should be OK (average for this time of year) and so, I hope, F & I will spend some time together and take the dogs for a walk, etc.
These are the times that make me really happy.
a
The Box of Chocolates
As my regular readers know, I quite like some of my spam comments. This one, when reading the first line, made me laugh.
Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you’re stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there’s a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they’re gone too fast and the taste is – fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you’re desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.
But it got me to thinking. First of all, I would have left the peanut butter cups and the English toffee, since they’re not my favourites at all. I much prefer the hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, myself!
And I was talking to S yesterday afternoon, after our lesson. And we were talking about luck. And I was trying to explain that, as you will know, dear reader, I think I am very lucky in life but that, depending on how you look at it, so is she. To be honest, most people are quite lucky. There are many things that fill us with happiness and contentment. They may be little things; they may not seem very important in themselves but they are the peanut butter cups or the teeth-shattering nuts in chocolate – depending on what you like.
We should all be very grateful for the good things we have for tomorrow is another day and might bring something not so welcome.
Today is a good day.
Does the future exist?
Well, it’s not like I didn’t warn you.
OK it’s typically sensationalist, as one would expect from the Daily Hate Mail but, if their facts are anything like correct, be assured, this is just the start.
After the Second World War, when the state pension age was set at 65 for men, their life expectancy was 66.4 years and women’s was 72.5 years. These figures have risen to 77 years for a man and 82 years for a woman.
Now, unless there is a huge increase in the number of people working (and, therefore, paying) to enable the ‘system’ to support many more pensioners, something has got to change. Either we start dying off earlier or we must work later. Obviously, the ‘working later’ bit is preferable.
The comments by the Daily Hate Mail readers make me laugh though. It seems that it’s all the previous (Labour) government’s fault. Of course it is! How stupid of me?
Apart from the fact that their spelling is really atrocious, their ideas seemed so warped as to be really quite scary (the readers/commentators – about the Labour government I couldn’t possibly comment). Sometimes it makes you think that there should be a rule only allowing people of a certain intelligence to be permitted to vote or have children, etc.
However, in reality, it was not any government’s ‘fault’. Well, they could have seen this coming and done something about it earlier, of course. But it’s hardly a ‘vote winner’ now, is it?
I mean to say, ‘Vote for us and we’ll make you work longer’. Not really catchy.
But, if you think about it, what else is to be done? Either work longer or get paid much, much less. I know which I’d prefer.
People on the newspaper site are complaining that the government are ‘making you work ’till you drop’. Well ….. erm ….. yes – but then, they are also the government that, should you live a long time in retirement, will be paying you something. These same people would complain if the government said ‘OK, you don’t have to pay so much tax but, after you retire, you’re on your own’.
It’s the stupidity that gets to me. It’s the lack of an overall awareness. It’s a lack of the basic understanding of how such a system as this is supposed to work.
I despair.
But, as I’ve said for years, I expect that I will never retire – dropping dead prior to retirement almost certainly. But I’m not blaming anyone except myself and, if I had really wanted to retire with lots of money, I should have saved more. Much, much more. But it’s OK since life should be about living now not living sometime in the future. We know about now. The future is uncertain and may not even exist.
More or less, God
In this case it was as I got out of the shower.
Usually, these crazy thoughts occur when I’m under the shower.
A realisation came to me. It was, kind of, about my father but it could be anyone. And, in some way, it was about me. No, not in some way. It WAS about me. It was a bit like a waking dream, dreaming whilst I am awake which, in any case, is a mute point since, at that time in the morning, there is a blurring between being fully awake and fully asleep.
Anyway, back to the point of this. I realised that, those people whom we put up on a pedestal and think that they ‘know’ everything are, in fact, like me. I mean to say, they may know something or some things really well and in depth – but they don’t, in spite of what we think, know everything.
When you are a child, your parents are like gods. They know everything. Except, of course, they don’t. They know more than you. That’s really not difficult. As you grow older and learn more, you start to question their knowledge, their experience. Or, at least, I did. I also questioned their values since my experiences and my knowledge suggested that their values weren’t shared by me, aren’t shared by me.
Their place is usurped by others – who, again, know more than you. Until your increased knowledge and experience makes you realise that, in fact, these new people don’t really know more than you, have not really experienced more than you. Or, rather, may have experienced more than you but in different ways or have different experiences. People’s knowledge on certain subjects may be more than yours. That doesn’t make them god-like.
And then you get to my age and you realise that no-one knows like you do. They may know more than you do about a thing but in something else they know less. They may have experience in some things but they don’t have your experience.
In fact, no-one has your knowledge and your experience. How can they? It doesn’t matter who they are.
This fact does not make you a god either. Unless we are all gods, in which case it does.
But, it’s an interesting change in perspective.
It doesn’t mean that other people don’t deserve your respect. Indeed, in my opinion, all people deserve your respect as they have knowledge that you don’t and have experienced a different life to you. It doesn’t mean they can’t lose that respect if they turn out to be idiots or jerks. But they deserve a reserved respect …… just in case.
Of course, as I stepped out of the shower and dried myself, all these thoughts I have written down didn’t fill my head, exactly.
No, what I started thinking was that I didn’t know everything and hadn’t experienced everything and that’s how it must have been for my father when, at the age of 5 or 6, I thought he DID know everything and HAD experienced everything. And I wondered if he thought the same as I, even when I was thinking he was, more or less, God?
Black Swan
I watched Black Swan, in English. This is another ‘just in case’ thing. F has mentioned that he wants to see it – and that would be in Italian.
To be quite honest, I had read some reviews that didn’t exactly praise the film. And, anyway, ballet is not really my thing, even if I did treat V to the ballet at La Scala some years ago and, surprisingly, quite enjoyed it. I guess ‘live’ is different, as it usually is.
So, although I didn’t particularly want to see it, I thought it better to watch it in English first.
First I had to get it from work to home which proved a little more difficult than I thought it would. Then, at home, I couldn’t get it onto the Mac but had to put it onto the laptop. The resulting CD had no sound on the Mac. Nor on the laptop! So, a couple of night ago, I sat and played the original file through the laptop.
This is not ideal. The picture quality is good but not as good as on my Mac. The sound quality is not really good at all. Very tinny, as one might expect. And, of course, I was also doing other things on my Mac so found I had to rewind a bit a couple of times.
It was an ‘interesting’ film. However, to me, it seemed as if it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be. Was it a would-be horror movie, a psychological thriller or a movie about relationships? It was, in some ways all three – but in trying to cover all three things it failed to cover any of them well.
The relationship and development of the mother’s character could have been much better; the complexity of the relationships could have been clearer; the development of the other dance characters would have been useful, if only for comparison with the ‘star’, to see that she was different.
I don’t want to give anything away in case you intend to see it.
For me, I would say I was right not to want to go and see it as it left me with a feeling that things had been missed. Of course, that could have been because, whilst trying to see the film AND work on my Mac, I actually missed things 
Still, as I say, it was interesting. I will watch it again but I won’t be too bothered if F doesn’t want to go and see it in the end.
The end of a rather peculiar week.
It has been a rather peculiar week, to be honest.
Ask me to put my finger on it and I can’t. There are so many half-written posts about things I found strange (but in reality weren’t that strange) or things that got me a bit miffed (drivers, dog shit, other people’s stupidity, etc.). At times I’ve felt as though I was somewhere else, some other-worldness.
And it’s been cold. Like winter, which, as you know, I hate. And there’s wind, making it seem much, much colder.
I got a bit drunk the other night. I’ve been teaching English, except not nearly as much as was planned but I might have another student, maybe. And then, before M was due to come (but didn’t because he finished work late but he’s going to pay me anyway), S texted asking if I can do lessons over the weekend. Very strange. She hasn’t been for a lesson since Christmas and then, suddenly, last night, ‘Can you do a lesson at the weekend?’. When I suggested either Saturday or Sunday afternoon, she plumped for Sunday afternoon – but then added that maybe she could do Saturday as well! Two lessons in two days after a couple of months of nothing? The only thing that crosses my mind is that she has a new boyfriend and, maybe, he’s English or American or Australian or something? I am, as you may be able to tell, intrigued. She has led a rather strange life.
I got home last night to see that my bedroom had been changed. A little. It seems I have been given a connection to next door by means of two new holes. To be honest, the first thing I noticed was plaster on top of the chest of drawers whereupon my first thought was ‘Shit! I guess the ceiling is coming down'; the plaster work in Italy seeming to be really crap. And, yes, some of the plaster was down but not from the ceiling. From a couple of holes, fairly high up on the wall. This wasn’t some crappy plasterwork but, rather, because someone had been drilling and inserted some sizable bolts from the other side!
My second thought was that I could go and get the hammer and punch the screw/bolt back through. That would mean, of course, that whatever was being held up on the other side might fall down. But I didn’t do that. I’m not quite that mischievous! But the thought made me smile.
Apart from a thought of ‘what the fuck?’ when I first saw the holes, I am, as usual, fairly relaxed about it all. After all, it’s only a wall and someone can come and fix it. It’s not really that big a deal. In fact, it’s quite amusing.
So, apart from the lesson (or lessons) over the weekend, we have no plans. F is going to Germany next week so there will be a lot of preparation that needs to be done and a ‘beauty farm’, as he calls it. This means that, invariably, I won’t see him that much over the weekend. However, I’m hoping that I can convince him to go to the cinema to see The Kings Speech which, now I’ve seen it in English, I really want to see in Italian (see, I told you it was a peculiar week 
). Anyway, the weather forecast says it will be a bit brighter than of late and, much more importantly, warmer. Not warm enough, of course, but warmer is better than colder.
And, did I tell you that I have booked our week in the agriturismo for August? The same place as last year. We’ve ‘been going to do it’ since Christmas but then things have happened and we never got round to it. And, then, recently F was so stressed. So I rang them up a couple of days ago and booked it. I was a bit nervous about doing it in case F didn’t really want to go (even if he had been saying that he really wanted to). Anyway, it seems it was the right thing to do and F seemed very happy that I had done it. I know what he’s like when he’s stressed at work and, I suppose, as time goes on, I shall be able to do more of this kind of stuff.
And I must remember to buy a couple of work shirts. There are some at a shop round the corner for €6! Seems a bit of a bargain to me – and they’ll only be for work anyway. And get some soap. And relax a bit as this week, with all the bits and pieces going on, I have been a tad busy.
And you? Are you doing something slightly more exciting than me (which, to be honest, wouldn’t be difficult )?
Thick, thin, bushy or not. Why do they want to make mine different?
Facial hair. For men, it’s something you either like or don’t. For women, of course, it’s different.
But, there’s one bit of facial hair that, without them, it looks strange and so most people leave them although most people, it seems, these days, make them as small as possible.
I’m talking eyebrows.
To be honest, what is the point of them? Other than allowing other people to tell when you are surprised or angry or thoughtful. Unless you’ve been botoxed up top, in which case it’s not possible to move them, which I always find quite amusing.
But, other than giving indicators of your mood, they seem pointless.
But they are there. And, love them or hate them, you would look pretty odd without them.
However, why is it, when I go to the barber’s, they always want to ‘trim’ mine? It’s not like mine are so bushy as to seem like overhanging rocks. They’re quite flat, really, though thick ….. ish.
I suppose the only strange thing about mine is that there are certain individual hairs that grow quite long. You can’t actually see that normally, since they flatten out along the brow. But, if I pull them down, sometimes the odd one will reach my cheek. But mostly you’d never know this.
These days, for both men and women, the art of plucking or shaving your eyebrows so that there is a thin line or, at least, less than was originally is widespread. But these are, generally, people under 30 or those with huge eyebrows. I am not under 30 and mine aren’t huge.
So why does the barber ask me? Worse, why does he feel he should make sure that I really, really do want them left alone?
They may have no specific meaning or use but they are a part of the character of your face and I like mine just the way they are. It’s bad enough that I have to shave most days and have my haircut once a month. I don’t want to be worrying about whether my eyebrows are too thick and need trimming. Bah!
Move along. Nothing to see here.
There’s a disturbing thing about polls. The results will depend on the question asked.
There’s also a disturbing thing about the media. The headline will not necessarily reflect the actual truth. After all, it is a headline and they want you to read it.
There’s another disturbing thing about the media. Or is it about people, in general? It seems that the media, far from reflecting public (or even popular opinion), seem to have taken on a role that was, at one time, the role of the church. They ‘encourage’ certain thinking in their readers.
Take the Daily Mail. Sometimes called the Daily Hate Mail. If you can stay above the overall hatred that is not reserved for anyone in particular but is directed at all people at some time or another, it makes for an interesting read. They hate ‘benefit scroungers’, ‘gay people’, non-white people, white people, Christians, non-Christians. In fact, they hate everyone at some time or another. However, apart from those people who ‘cost the taxpayer’ they seem to hate Muslims most of all.
So, it would be fair to suppose that most of their readers (I say most as I am one of their readers – who disagrees with most, if not all, of their ‘reports’) also hate Muslims.
And so, their article about the latest ‘poll’ has a headline that is quite astounding. Half of people would support a right-wing party if it gave up violence. Except, if you actually read the article and look at the question posed, the headline should read ‘The majority of people don’t want an English parliament, don’t want more controls on immigration and don’t want to challenge Islamic extremism’. Of course, that wouldn’t make you read the article, would it? The reality is that 48% of people said they would support a right-wing, fascist party that didn’t use violence. But, history has shown that they do use violence, since that is part of the fascist make-up. And so, the result is that MOST people wouldn’t support the normal fascist party.
And, anyway, it’s the Daily Hate Mail that is always banging on about how it’s terrible how English people are treated in England; how there is never enough controls on immigration; how Islamic extremism is in every British city whereas, in fact, none of these things is true for the MAJORITY of people. In the same way that MOST people who clam benefits are not low-life, work-shy, scroungers – but every day they have an article about someone that they have found who is like this and readers would think that EVERYONE on benefits is like this.
It disturbs me that so many people can believe the headlines without thinking about the reality.
So, move along now. Nothing to see here.