bucketFountain

I have a munty eye. It is infected and feculent. People on the tube think I’m Freddie Kruger. That’s probably why a woman in my carriage was crying today. “Oh my god, my nightmare has become real!” she sobbed. Speaking of people on the tube, there is “Slightly Disabled Loud Talking Woman” who talks loudly to anyone and everyone about her journey. “I have to change at Piccadilly to get the Piccadilly Line and then go to Holborn” she told a young man in a charcoal suit, “what platform is that? Do you know?” He politely tells her that he has no idea and returns to his newspaper while I try not to piss myself and thank heavens she’s not sitting next to me.

Reminds me of “Chinese Walking Man”, a local of Wellington, NZ, an old chap who had a distinctive walking style. Rather a charming kind of walk, which earned him the nickname. Except I never knew him to talk to people. And there is no underground rail system in Wellington, which no doubt contributed to his habit of walking from place to place in his delightful manner.

People are probably sitting at home right now, watching the telly, having a cup of tea before turning in, and saying, “I wonder if we will see “Munty Red Eye Man” on the tube tomorrow?”

An aside, for posterity: It snowed in London today. The burbs are black and white. Rather lovely.

Clunk clunk clunk goes Outlook. Is it a just a matter of what you know is what you like? The mail template in Notes 4.5/4.6 wasn’t ideal. The funny thing is that up until now, when I thought of Notes mail I always thought of the 4.5/4.6 era template. In my opinion Notes 4.5/4.6 was too good for its own good. No one bothered upgrading and these days the old template is still common. It looks like shit. The Notes 6 mail template kicks Outlook 2000’s arse. In most areas. What’s this assertion based on? Hmmm. Things like how in Notes to read my email I can use the enter or backspace key to open and then browse through my email instead of enter, then ctrl+> and ctrl+

Nope – no briefcase blues but I have come out of ‘retirement’ and started work again. This is not a Domino role, instead I am using the feculent tools of the devil – ASP, Frontpage, and, *shudder*, Outlook. =) It will be interesting to compare how the technologies work.

I thought that I was reading an extract from ‘Mein Kampf’ before I realised that it was only a young Conservative . Phew. This guy really needs to get laid….

“I believe that reality, morality and even to an extent aesthetics, are objective; independent even of God’s feelings. I value true talent, disliking most modern art and music and in general prefering (sic) the great accomplishments of Western Civilisation. I am strongly patriotic, and see the British – through its democracy, its learning and its empire – as having been the greatest civilisation in human history, the Romans following closely behind.”

His weblog includes his opinion on homosexuality and other ‘disagreeable and nasty’ things.

They say that the banana may become extinct . I’ve been shocked by the sarcastic nature of some of the reports I have read on the news. Maybe it’s something about the name. Banana. It’s kind of funny.

I’m trying to imagine a world without the banana. If the banana were to become extinct(something that I can’t accept anyway) it would surely be the most widely felt extinction of any life form in modern times. Imagine telling young kids in 10 years or so that their banana flavoured ice cream was actually based on a fruit that no longer existed. No more ‘slipping on the banana skin’ gags. What would happen to B1 and B2? No more banana splits. And then there are the people who actually depend on the banana for their livelihood.

The BBC World Service strikes again. This time a report on plastic bags. I’m serious, it was really interesting. In Bangladesh, plastic bags have been banned. They were responsible for all kinds of environmental problems. I think it’s a great idea. Our perception of the plastic bag has to change so that we either ban them or use them over and over before recycling them.

In Ireland, there is a 15 cent levy on plastic bags. The BBC reporter put his foot in it somewhat in the following exchange:

“What do you think of paying the tax on plastic bags? The Irish have always been pretty good at avoiding tax.” *cringe*

“Yes, well this is our own tax, not a colonial tax imposed by someone else.”


Ha ha. Made me think of this . The imperial attitude is alive and well in Great Britain.

Oh yeah – I watched Tron last night. Interesting movie, I can see its influence in movies like The Matrix and Blade Runner. And that web site the wayback machine . There are rumours of a remake too….

“We can cover ourselves in Deep Heat and get up against a radiator. Keep ourselves alive until twelve.”

So said Withnail during a cold London winter. I’m close to doing the same thing. The flaw in this scheme is that the boiler is on the blink and so the radiators aren’t all that warm. The lads shower has no hot water, although ours has a mini power-shower thing that heats the water. At least it’s not as cold as Dunedin used to get. For some reason it was often warmer outside than inside. The kind of houses I lived in down there made this place look like a mansion (which, technically it is, it has the word ‘mansion’ in the name). Jeez, I remember one place, 8 (or was it 9) Dundas Street. It had at one time been a beautiful and huge colonial family home. We shared it with rats and hairly fungi. Ah, the good old days!