Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[Tal]

Writers Block, the bane of a few lives

carry a small notebook around with you, and jot down stuff as it comes to you rather than feeling as if you are having to force it at a particular moment with a blank screen...

Tell me about it. am trying to write my Bluff column today. Been staring at a blank piece of paper for an hour. I've had a month to do this, & the deadline is noon today. I am such an idiot.

My mood was not helped by having a quick look at my last Bluff article - it's part of my method, to remind myself of the tone, style & tempo needed for a Magazine. It's different to blonde, & different again to Next Door.

So I looked it up & FOUR exclamation marks have been added by the Editor.

FFS.

One Giles Coren email coming up...

[tikay]

My mood was already dark. Gill is coming down tonight, so I went to Tesco at 8am to buy some bits & bobs, get her some flowers, etc.

I use those self-service tills, love them. CBA with regular checkouts, & some sniffy girl commenting on my purchases.

"So you prefer the quilted Andrex then?"

And I'm thinking MYOB, but you just have to smile & nod. I'd love to say "well my arse is precious" but you can't, can you?

So, get to the Self Service till, & press that START button.

And an electronic version of Jingle Bells emits from the damn thing. Great.

Ding ding ding, ding ding ding, ding ding ding ding ding.

God give me strength.

I hold my poise & try to forget about it.

All done, inset credit card, "PLEASE REMOVE CARD, THANK YOU", job done. Phew, that was not so bad after all.

And then. Then. It does, in that bloody electronic noise.......

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas.

Pardon my language, but GTFO.  

Does some knobhead in Tesco Headquarters really think that is likely to make me return to Tesco, or that Tesco give a shit what sort of Christmas I have?

[tikay]

Writers Block, the bane of a few lives

carry a small notebook around with you, and jot down stuff as it comes to you rather than feeling as if you are having to force it at a particular moment with a blank screen...

Tell me about it. am trying to write my Bluff column today. Been staring at a blank piece of paper for an hour. I've had a month to do this, & the deadline is noon today. I am such an idiot.

My mood was not helped by having a quick look at my last Bluff article - it's part of my method, to remind myself of the tone, style & tempo needed for a Magazine. It's different to blonde, & different again to Next Door.

So I looked it up & FOUR exclamation marks have been added by the Editor.

FFS.

One Giles Coren email coming up...

Ooh, if only.


It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

[MrDickie]

My mood was already dark. Gill is coming down tonight, so I went to Tesco at 8am to buy some bits & bobs, get her some flowers, etc.

Got exactly what you deserved for buying Gill flowers from Tesco.

[tikay]

My mood was already dark. Gill is coming down tonight, so I went to Tesco at 8am to buy some bits & bobs, get her some flowers, etc.

Got exactly what you deserved for buying Gill flowers from Tesco.

Ha, guilty as charged.

Buying flowers has changed SO much these days.

It used to entail a trip to a florists, those crowded shops with that damp odour, with flowers presented individually. "2 of  those, 3 of those, & 6 of them please".  That'll be £15 Sir.

Now, walk into a supermarket, & you can buy a lovely bunch of roses - which used to be the Rolls Royce of flowers - in any colour, for £3.50, & they even give you a little pack of powder which (supposedly) makes the flowers last longer.  

It's amazingly good, & so much better than previously. And so convenient. Bit like the bottled water market - supermarkets have helped created these huge markets. 

PS - You ever tried buying a Christmas Tree in Tesco, & scanning it in a Self Service till? Nope, me neither. Ho ho ho.

[TightEnd]

this may appeal to you Tom

it was promoted on the radio this week, a book following an exhibition

http://www.groupphoto.co.uk/

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/fulmodeston_man_s_two_decades_of_research_come_to_fruition_in_ground_breaking_exhibition_1_4316473

a 21 year project researching a 46 person photograph from a regiment 1915

what happened to each soldier in the war, family trees subsequent

extremely poignant

[Doobs]

My mood was already dark. Gill is coming down tonight, so I went to Tesco at 8am to buy some bits & bobs, get her some flowers, etc.

Got exactly what you deserved for buying Gill flowers from Tesco.

Ha, guilty as charged.

Buying flowers has changed SO much these days.

It used to entail a trip to a florists, those crowded shops with that damp odour, with flowers presented individually. "2 of  those, 3 of those, & 6 of them please".  That'll be £15 Sir.

Now, walk into a supermarket, & you can buy a lovely bunch of roses - which used to be the Rolls Royce of flowers - in any colour, for £3.50, & they even give you a little pack of powder which (supposedly) makes the flowers last longer.  

It's amazingly good, & so much better than previously. And so convenient. Bit like the bottled water market - supermarkets have helped created these huge markets. 

PS - You ever tried buying a Christmas Tree in Tesco, & scanning it in a Self Service till? Nope, me neither. Ho ho ho.

for some reason the self service tills going ho ho ho at me is starting to grate.  Its a machine I don't want it ho ho hoing me, I want it to just give me the right change and only ask if I am usnig my own bag once (which is another thing that grates).  If I wanted ho ho ho, I'd go to see bloody santa, and if I wanted human contact I'd be in the other queue.

[tikay]

^^^

And the Staff, all wearing bloody silly Christmas hats.

Pisses me right off.

[RED-DOG]

this may appeal to you Tom

it was promoted on the radio this week, a book following an exhibition

http://www.groupphoto.co.uk/

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/fulmodeston_man_s_two_decades_of_research_come_to_fruition_in_ground_breaking_exhibition_1_4316473

a 21 year project researching a 46 person photograph from a regiment 1915

what happened to each soldier in the war, family trees subsequent

extremely poignant

Thanks Rich. I'll save this until I have a quiet half hour.

[doubleup]

So I decide to have a go at some xmas cards this morning.  Making good progress then I notice my laptop is playing up a bit.  If I click on anything it flashes up and then disappears.  Naturally I tioatiboa, but it is still misbehaving, if anything it is getting worse.

I turn it on in safe mode, but still it doesn't work.  I open up firefox and 20 windows open.  Random help screens pop up.  An excel sheet suddenly formats bizarrely.  So a system restore seems like the next move in this arms race of me vs the machine.

As it is starts the restore I decide to make a coffee.  As I get up I notice the Xmas card box is lying on a keyboard I have connected to the laptop, depressing several of the F keys at the top sending random functions to the bewildered computer.......

[RED-DOG]

So I decide to have a go at some xmas cards this morning.  Making good progress then I notice my laptop is playing up a bit.  If I click on anything it flashes up and then disappears.  Naturally I tioatiboa, but it is still misbehaving, if anything it is getting worse.

I turn it on in safe mode, but still it doesn't work.  I open up firefox and 20 windows open.  Random help screens pop up.  An excel sheet suddenly formats bizarrely.  So a system restore seems like the next move in this arms race of me vs the machine.

As it is starts the restore I decide to make a coffee.  As I get up I notice the Xmas card box is lying on a keyboard I have connected to the laptop, depressing several of the F keys at the top sending random functions to the bewildered computer.......

I Lolled.


I'm so ad it's not just me that does stuff like that.

[RED-DOG]

I quite liked this reasoning.



Jeff Mason argues that the concept of death has no subjective meaning.

Philosophers and non-philosophers stand on a level of equality with respect to death. There are no experts on death, for there is nothing to know about it. Not even those who study the death process have an edge on the rest of us. We are all equals in thinking about death, and we all begin and end thinking about it from a position of ignorance.

[nirvana]

I think that's a bag o bollocks, there's plenty of subjective meaning about death if you're not the one doing the dying

[RED-DOG]

I think that's a bag o bollocks, there's plenty of subjective meaning about death if you're not the one doing the dying

Glen.

You've gradually become one of my favorite blondes. I was going to make a post about you but when I was thinking about what to put, I couldn't decide what was real and what was imagined.

When I know a bit about someone but not everything, I kind of subconsciously fill in the gaps. I don't know if that's just me btw, or if everyone does that, but you know what I mean, it's a bit like criminal profiling, start with what you know and take your best guess at the rest.

So anyway, I decided it might be quite fun to take a stab at doing your profile, but then I realised that some of it be wildly inaccurate or you might find it insulting.

So I'll let you decide. Do you think it would be amusing to see how much I get wrong? Do you want me to do your 'criminal' profile?

[nirvana]

If I can help you unblock then fill yer boots :-) You don't even have to be overly gentle and I'll give you honest feedback to boot.