New Meanings 06.
biosphere--to purchase a ball.
specimen--Italian astronauts.
typhoo---tea that gives you wind.
arson--to sit.
emotions--virtual dumps.
ransom--a half-hearted jog.
binge-where Sean Connery puts his rubbish.
foxglove--Basil Brush
shagpile-- unpleasant experience.
stifle--no room at the pigsty.
otter-- Nice weather in Yorkshire.
pulpit--what to do with Geoffrey Archer's novels.
Several of Linda Smith's.....
maisonette-a very small Chief Constable
pallisade-what the Queen drinks
mushrooms- what Jeremy Lewellen Bowen does
scarve-to eat in Knightsbridge.
All courtesy of R4's 'Sorry, I haven't a clue'
...and some more of my own.....
hamstring--keeping small mammals as pets.
metronome-a French dwarf.
marigold--what trophy girls do.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Living dangerously
Living Dangerously.
The curved window-seat of the Boat House Inn had been made into a kind of low, comfortable couch by the addition of scatter cushions. Behind it was a plate-glass picture window flanked by velvet curtain swatches. The window seat was always occupied, though usually by those who preferred to view the steaming dishes that were often set down on the low table in front of them. Along with those huge, square dishes would often come a carafe of wine or giraffe-tall glasses of Pilsner lager.
I had been lucky enough on a previous visit to have found the window seat vacant and for the following hour had sketched the the view through the picture window, which in fact framed the entire length of Parkgate, its sandstone sea wall and the to-ing and fro-ing of people drawn along its length, this way and that, like worker ants. The ice-cream shops and the fish-and-chip shop were the Mecca for such people.
On this particular afternoon, at four-o-clock, the window seat had been occupied by two large women so that it was difficult to see the view beyond. Through the next window along the curved Inn wall, however, one could view the mesmeric stretches of marshland straddling the Dee Estuary under dark, blotting-paper sky. Because the conditions of light and water (not to mention birdlife) were always in a state of flux, one could not help but be drawn to gaze at this panorama.
Yet somehow, the two large women managed to avoid more than the merest abstracted
glance at the fine view. For them, the windows were merely screens across which to trundle all their daily concerns, and in which there was only some dimly acknowledged movement and meaning.
I settled myself, my rucksack and camera intoa vacantseat opposite the two large women then moved a wrought-iron candelabra that stood in the centre of the deep window-ledge to one side and began to sketch the view in the tattered book I always carried around with me. I started with the vague outline of the Clwydian Range, pencilled in the ragged edges of the stretches of water and mudbank and the striations of Marram grass that lay athwart them, before viciously shading in the dark solidity of the rest of the marshland. My pen hurried over the page, lest I should lose the sense of the view.
The two women chatted, semingly unaware of my presence. Both of them had stoical, pinky-red faces. Both wore expensive, safe, pub jumpers. One jumper was candy-striped, the other was made of a maroon chenille. Though it was a warm afternoon, both women had wrapped themselves up against an imagined cold with mufflers.
The first, whose name was Anne, had her right arm in a flesh-coloured sling, one in which she took some pride, and despite which she was freely able to move her limb; to hold, twiddle and grasp. On her lap was a Nokia mobile phone which she picked up and let fall occasionally. Both women sipped in unison from huge, conical glasses of wine, though after the first glass, the sips became gulps and the conical glasses were tipped at ever more perilous angles. A carafe of the wine responsible for their jollity, a Blossom Hill Merlot, stood on the table.
Both women leaned away from each other as a young girl with a blonde sprig of pony-tail and a long, black apron carried, at chest-height and with arms akimbo, two huge, square plates towards them. One of the plates was piled with potato wedges, rocket, and a ham and cheese panini. The other bore Stilton cheese slices, a fruit salad and bread and butter slices.
Anne's slung arm jerked towards the girl and her plates.
'Ohhh' she gasped, 'I didn't want butter on my bread! Did I ask for butter on my bread?!
'No problem' the waitress cut in, as though she had anticipated that there WOULD be a problem. And with that she turned smartly, testily on her Cuban heels.
Anne told the other woman in the candy-striped pub jumper 'I can't STAND butter on my bread, Jen. They just assume you want it'. Then, leaning over her own paunch, she added 'anyway, there's enough fat on the plate what with all that cheese!' Jen gave a short, knee-jerk laugh. A hollow silence ensued as Jen then settled over her Panini.
'I want a four-by-four, Anne' she told the other matter-of-factly, probing, then sawing at the Panini with her knife.
'Are you sure, Jen? They guzzle the petrol. You DO know that, don't you?'
Jen had a ready answer. 'W-e-e-ell, I've thought about it. It'd be so much easier to get the dog in for a start. He comes first. He's the boss.'
'Yes' Anne insisted ' but you'll have to watch the petrol...credit crunch etcetera. Soft top or hard top?'
'Oh soft top, of course. I can just see him standing there with the roof down. He loves letting the wind blow through his ears. You should see him Anne, he's a scream!
Pony-tail girl had returned with a fresh plate of salad, this time with unbuttered Ciabatta chunks. Anne's sling-arm was swiftly deployed in re-arranging these and the fresh Stilton slices on the plate.
The conversation meandered as slowly as the Dee itself.
Jen mentioned that she had 'thoroughly enjoyed' a life-swapping programme on Channel 4 'yes, life-swapping, not wife-swapping, although..?' and the pair had burst into peels of dirty, schoolgirl laughter
'It was hilarious' Jen told Anne 'but you had to feel sorry for the the ones who had to take the kids to Blackpool while the other family swanned off to Dubai.'
'Oh my God!' roared Anne.
The volume of their laughter seemed to double with each reckless glass of Merlot. The carafe looked soberly on at the two women. Each wayward remark prompted more dirty, wheezy laughter, more spluttering, more red-faced hilarity. Finally, the carafe was decanted. It stood empty and the two convex glasses were in business again, both now being half-full.
Anne had left the bread she had so volubly insisted upon being unbuttered (along with most of the fresh salad). She plucked playfully at the grapes which had been piled in a Romanesque fashion at the side of her salad platter and arranged the Stilton slabs side by side like dominoes, as if to embellish the naughtiness of her confessions. At times, she would pick up a large fork and stab at one of the cherry tomatoes because it suited her murderous leanings to do so.
'Anyway' Jen told her, straightening her candy-striped torso defensively 'I'm getting a four by four, and that's THAT!'
'Oooogh, living dangerously?!' Anne mocked, and the barely suppressed laughter resumed.
It was now late afternoon, and the sun began to slip graciously behind the Clwyd Mountains, blissfully unaware of the atrocities being committed in other parts of the world. A soft dusk too, was settling over the marshes.
'Have you seen the Blues Brothers, Jen?' Anne enquired, adjusting her sling.
'Errr, don't think so' came the response, rather slower than it might have been. Slow enough, in fact for Anne to continue with 'have you seen the bit where they all...no, I'm not going to tell you, it would spoil it. It's brilliant though Jen. You'd love it.'
I looked away to the marshes, saw a white egret rise up like some tiny angel from the dusk, then land on Anglepoise legs, angelically folding its downy wings away.
Jen had produced a thick Nokia mobile phone (identical to Anne's in fact) from a soft, crumpled, leather handbag. Anne, meanwhile was fumbling with her own in response to a 'Doctor Who' ringtone her son had put on it for her. 'Andy did that for me' she explained to Jen 'don't ask me how. So every time it goes off, I think of him!' They told each other how difficult it was to get the hang of texting. Mildly irritated, petulant, Jen had sighed, shrugged theatrically, had declared 'I'm NEVER going to get the hang of it, but kids, they're texting away like Billio. Let's face it' she concluded 'they're just cleverer than we were at their age, I'm sure of it .'At any age!' came the rejoinder, then, after Jen's peel of laughter, 'my son laughs at me. He says MUM, get rid of that tombstone. TOMBSTONE!' Jen and Anne were thrown forward on their window seat couch with laughter.
The two conical glasses, meanwhile, stood guarding their lees. Anne's arm, swinging outwards in its sling, was drawn towards her dinner plate with its bits and pieces. Her fingers arranged the three remaining Stilton slices creatively, in layers, one on top of the other, a thing she would not ordinarily have done but which she now had a wine-inspired compunction to do.
In my own window seat, having completed my sketch of the watery tract of marshland with its faint backdrop of mountains, I awaited the possibility of seeing a Short-eared Owl or a Barn Owl come ghostlike to scour the half-lit grasses for water voles and beetles. This evening, none was forthcoming.
'Look at the TIME' Anne sighed. 'Oh my God, it soon goes' said the other, 'we'd better settle up.' They both rose stiffly from the low couch, uncrumpling themselves, and dutifully packed their mobiles away. Then they shambled to the darkened recesses of the Boat House Inn bar.
The low couch where they had been sitting was suddenly dumbfounded.The brown seat leather rose like bread being leavened. The picture window with its curtain swatches had entirely steamed up over the course of the afternoon's conversation and was now sweating beads of condensation. I mused at the notion that so much hot air had been produced, then turned miraculously into water.
The curved window-seat of the Boat House Inn had been made into a kind of low, comfortable couch by the addition of scatter cushions. Behind it was a plate-glass picture window flanked by velvet curtain swatches. The window seat was always occupied, though usually by those who preferred to view the steaming dishes that were often set down on the low table in front of them. Along with those huge, square dishes would often come a carafe of wine or giraffe-tall glasses of Pilsner lager.
I had been lucky enough on a previous visit to have found the window seat vacant and for the following hour had sketched the the view through the picture window, which in fact framed the entire length of Parkgate, its sandstone sea wall and the to-ing and fro-ing of people drawn along its length, this way and that, like worker ants. The ice-cream shops and the fish-and-chip shop were the Mecca for such people.
On this particular afternoon, at four-o-clock, the window seat had been occupied by two large women so that it was difficult to see the view beyond. Through the next window along the curved Inn wall, however, one could view the mesmeric stretches of marshland straddling the Dee Estuary under dark, blotting-paper sky. Because the conditions of light and water (not to mention birdlife) were always in a state of flux, one could not help but be drawn to gaze at this panorama.
Yet somehow, the two large women managed to avoid more than the merest abstracted
glance at the fine view. For them, the windows were merely screens across which to trundle all their daily concerns, and in which there was only some dimly acknowledged movement and meaning.
I settled myself, my rucksack and camera intoa vacantseat opposite the two large women then moved a wrought-iron candelabra that stood in the centre of the deep window-ledge to one side and began to sketch the view in the tattered book I always carried around with me. I started with the vague outline of the Clwydian Range, pencilled in the ragged edges of the stretches of water and mudbank and the striations of Marram grass that lay athwart them, before viciously shading in the dark solidity of the rest of the marshland. My pen hurried over the page, lest I should lose the sense of the view.
The two women chatted, semingly unaware of my presence. Both of them had stoical, pinky-red faces. Both wore expensive, safe, pub jumpers. One jumper was candy-striped, the other was made of a maroon chenille. Though it was a warm afternoon, both women had wrapped themselves up against an imagined cold with mufflers.
The first, whose name was Anne, had her right arm in a flesh-coloured sling, one in which she took some pride, and despite which she was freely able to move her limb; to hold, twiddle and grasp. On her lap was a Nokia mobile phone which she picked up and let fall occasionally. Both women sipped in unison from huge, conical glasses of wine, though after the first glass, the sips became gulps and the conical glasses were tipped at ever more perilous angles. A carafe of the wine responsible for their jollity, a Blossom Hill Merlot, stood on the table.
Both women leaned away from each other as a young girl with a blonde sprig of pony-tail and a long, black apron carried, at chest-height and with arms akimbo, two huge, square plates towards them. One of the plates was piled with potato wedges, rocket, and a ham and cheese panini. The other bore Stilton cheese slices, a fruit salad and bread and butter slices.
Anne's slung arm jerked towards the girl and her plates.
'Ohhh' she gasped, 'I didn't want butter on my bread! Did I ask for butter on my bread?!
'No problem' the waitress cut in, as though she had anticipated that there WOULD be a problem. And with that she turned smartly, testily on her Cuban heels.
Anne told the other woman in the candy-striped pub jumper 'I can't STAND butter on my bread, Jen. They just assume you want it'. Then, leaning over her own paunch, she added 'anyway, there's enough fat on the plate what with all that cheese!' Jen gave a short, knee-jerk laugh. A hollow silence ensued as Jen then settled over her Panini.
'I want a four-by-four, Anne' she told the other matter-of-factly, probing, then sawing at the Panini with her knife.
'Are you sure, Jen? They guzzle the petrol. You DO know that, don't you?'
Jen had a ready answer. 'W-e-e-ell, I've thought about it. It'd be so much easier to get the dog in for a start. He comes first. He's the boss.'
'Yes' Anne insisted ' but you'll have to watch the petrol...credit crunch etcetera. Soft top or hard top?'
'Oh soft top, of course. I can just see him standing there with the roof down. He loves letting the wind blow through his ears. You should see him Anne, he's a scream!
Pony-tail girl had returned with a fresh plate of salad, this time with unbuttered Ciabatta chunks. Anne's sling-arm was swiftly deployed in re-arranging these and the fresh Stilton slices on the plate.
The conversation meandered as slowly as the Dee itself.
Jen mentioned that she had 'thoroughly enjoyed' a life-swapping programme on Channel 4 'yes, life-swapping, not wife-swapping, although..?' and the pair had burst into peels of dirty, schoolgirl laughter
'It was hilarious' Jen told Anne 'but you had to feel sorry for the the ones who had to take the kids to Blackpool while the other family swanned off to Dubai.'
'Oh my God!' roared Anne.
The volume of their laughter seemed to double with each reckless glass of Merlot. The carafe looked soberly on at the two women. Each wayward remark prompted more dirty, wheezy laughter, more spluttering, more red-faced hilarity. Finally, the carafe was decanted. It stood empty and the two convex glasses were in business again, both now being half-full.
Anne had left the bread she had so volubly insisted upon being unbuttered (along with most of the fresh salad). She plucked playfully at the grapes which had been piled in a Romanesque fashion at the side of her salad platter and arranged the Stilton slabs side by side like dominoes, as if to embellish the naughtiness of her confessions. At times, she would pick up a large fork and stab at one of the cherry tomatoes because it suited her murderous leanings to do so.
'Anyway' Jen told her, straightening her candy-striped torso defensively 'I'm getting a four by four, and that's THAT!'
'Oooogh, living dangerously?!' Anne mocked, and the barely suppressed laughter resumed.
It was now late afternoon, and the sun began to slip graciously behind the Clwyd Mountains, blissfully unaware of the atrocities being committed in other parts of the world. A soft dusk too, was settling over the marshes.
'Have you seen the Blues Brothers, Jen?' Anne enquired, adjusting her sling.
'Errr, don't think so' came the response, rather slower than it might have been. Slow enough, in fact for Anne to continue with 'have you seen the bit where they all...no, I'm not going to tell you, it would spoil it. It's brilliant though Jen. You'd love it.'
I looked away to the marshes, saw a white egret rise up like some tiny angel from the dusk, then land on Anglepoise legs, angelically folding its downy wings away.
Jen had produced a thick Nokia mobile phone (identical to Anne's in fact) from a soft, crumpled, leather handbag. Anne, meanwhile was fumbling with her own in response to a 'Doctor Who' ringtone her son had put on it for her. 'Andy did that for me' she explained to Jen 'don't ask me how. So every time it goes off, I think of him!' They told each other how difficult it was to get the hang of texting. Mildly irritated, petulant, Jen had sighed, shrugged theatrically, had declared 'I'm NEVER going to get the hang of it, but kids, they're texting away like Billio. Let's face it' she concluded 'they're just cleverer than we were at their age, I'm sure of it .'At any age!' came the rejoinder, then, after Jen's peel of laughter, 'my son laughs at me. He says MUM, get rid of that tombstone. TOMBSTONE!' Jen and Anne were thrown forward on their window seat couch with laughter.
The two conical glasses, meanwhile, stood guarding their lees. Anne's arm, swinging outwards in its sling, was drawn towards her dinner plate with its bits and pieces. Her fingers arranged the three remaining Stilton slices creatively, in layers, one on top of the other, a thing she would not ordinarily have done but which she now had a wine-inspired compunction to do.
In my own window seat, having completed my sketch of the watery tract of marshland with its faint backdrop of mountains, I awaited the possibility of seeing a Short-eared Owl or a Barn Owl come ghostlike to scour the half-lit grasses for water voles and beetles. This evening, none was forthcoming.
'Look at the TIME' Anne sighed. 'Oh my God, it soon goes' said the other, 'we'd better settle up.' They both rose stiffly from the low couch, uncrumpling themselves, and dutifully packed their mobiles away. Then they shambled to the darkened recesses of the Boat House Inn bar.
The low couch where they had been sitting was suddenly dumbfounded.The brown seat leather rose like bread being leavened. The picture window with its curtain swatches had entirely steamed up over the course of the afternoon's conversation and was now sweating beads of condensation. I mused at the notion that so much hot air had been produced, then turned miraculously into water.
A380(Think big)
A very big idea (A380)
Think big.......
So why can't WE build
the world's biggest aircraft.
Big is good (as in America).
The skies are full of minnow aircraft.
It's time for the Big Fish
to move in.
We've built a hangar
one million foot square at Broughton
where we'll build the tail fin.
When that's finished, we can take it
by barge to Shotton,
then ship it to France,
then transfer it to a superlorry
which will wind its way at 5m.p.h.
down to Toulouse,
where it will be attached to the
rest of the airbus.
Just think; five hundred people
at a time will be able
to eat and sleep
( not to mention other things)
in this great Superaircraft.
We'll have a gym on board,
and waterfalls too;
they'll think they're in a huge holiday villa
only they'll be practically in the stratosphere,
in the BIGGEST AIRCRAFT IN THE WORLD.
Who says Britain's run out of ideas?
Think big.......
So why can't WE build
the world's biggest aircraft.
Big is good (as in America).
The skies are full of minnow aircraft.
It's time for the Big Fish
to move in.
We've built a hangar
one million foot square at Broughton
where we'll build the tail fin.
When that's finished, we can take it
by barge to Shotton,
then ship it to France,
then transfer it to a superlorry
which will wind its way at 5m.p.h.
down to Toulouse,
where it will be attached to the
rest of the airbus.
Just think; five hundred people
at a time will be able
to eat and sleep
( not to mention other things)
in this great Superaircraft.
We'll have a gym on board,
and waterfalls too;
they'll think they're in a huge holiday villa
only they'll be practically in the stratosphere,
in the BIGGEST AIRCRAFT IN THE WORLD.
Who says Britain's run out of ideas?
'Suicidal' Haiku
A general Haiku for the times we live in.
Wrestling with words is
so hard. Maybe I should just
commit Hari-Kiri!
Wrestling with words is
so hard. Maybe I should just
commit Hari-Kiri!
News International 'dirty tricks'
09 07 09 The Guardian ran an expose on Rupert Murdoch's red top journalists having hacked into the mobile phone numbers of prominent politicians.
Hacks hack into red
top hack's having hacked into
private phone numbers.
Hacks hack into red
top hack's having hacked into
private phone numbers.
Monday, July 6, 2009
G8 Summit 7th July 09
Aftershocks have rocked the Italian town of L'Aquila where this year's G8 summit is due to open this week. The Italians are considering moving the conference to Rome and briefing papers have gone out to the leaders on 'what to do in an earthquake.'
G8 leaders will
be fiddling while Rome burns (or
rather L'Aquila).
G8 leaders will
be fiddling while Rome burns (or
rather L'Aquila).
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