What I Did At The Weekend, by Scroobious Scrivener, age 31 and 1/4

This weekend my mother and my husband and me went to visit my aunt and my cousins up in Yorkshire. It was gr8. My cousins have all grown up and are looking really pretty and cool. I like them. My aunt is really nice, much more fun than my mum. She drove us all over, to a place called Robin Hood Bay and another one called Beck Hole and we got out and walked around and explored the forests and rivers and picked up stones and walked across lots of squishy seaweed, yuck, and then we drove some more and ate snacks. We ate pizza and chips for supper. Also we took my mum clothes shopping because her wardrobe is a Disaster she says, so we found lots of lovely new things to wear so she doesn't look such a Fright.

Then we wanted to come home but it was raining, oh boy oh boy, it was raining SO MUCH we got really wet while we were shopping, our train was late but we got on anyway and then the conductor told us we would have to get off at Hull and find out what to do next. But at Hull they said no trains to London today lady, oh noez! So we thought we would have to go back on the next train to Beverley to my aunt (but her name's not Beverley that's the town where she lives) but then I had this REALLY BRILLIANT IDEA and I went to the nice Hertz man but he said no way, we have no cars today, try Europcar, but Europcar had no cars also, but then the Hertz man showed how reallyreally nice he was cos he said would you like a dirty car? I thought he was maybe being funny but no he had a car after all! I don't know why he called it dirty it was reallyreally clean and also quite a nice car, it was big and solid which was gr8 bcoz we had to drive through lots of huge big puddles. We had to drive through one place where the road was TWO FEET UNDER WATER and the trucks looked like they were swimming thru lol. But we were fine cos my husband's a really good driver and after that it was easy anyway and we got to London really quickly, well sort of, and my cats were really happy to see us so yay. And then I heard that the motorway had been closed off after we came through so we were really lucky I said.

The End.

Sticking my nose where it doesn't belong

Well the breakneck pace of this blog is just going to have to ease off a bit, kids. No no, don't beg, please, it's demeaning. Look, I have commitments. Obligations. These trivialities* must take a back seat. I have... *shudder* my mother coming to stay.

Anyway, putting that behind us (would that I could) and moving on to the title subject. This is so not my thing to hijack, but for those of you in the UK who know extemporanea, and think refined pianofortes should be made to lead active and useful lives, rather than lying indisposed in a corner, maybe we could help the lovely wolverine nun to the rescue? I mention it only because the exchange rate works so very much in our favour, and if we gang up on the evil capitalist swine who run international banking, we can make the bank charges work rather less against us. So I am nominating myself Official British Collector for the Upliftment of Pianofortes in Reduced Circumstances Fund.

Not the most elegant acronym.

Anyway, again, please email me if you're feeling generous. I don't mean to pressure anyone, hence the public forum, rather than the more directed and personal email. Since I never write here any more, you can quite easily pretend you haven't seen it.

If, you know, you're cheap.

_____
* Though other trivialities still get my blogging time, yes they do. I mean, free wine, yes? There'll be a few more of those in my future. I admit it's not that interesting, but if you are really pining for scroobious verbiage, go to.

Wanted for crimes against language

In the course of just a single day, there are countless times when I read or hear something that makes me want to scream.

Well, I say countless. Today there were maybe three. (No. There were a lot more than three, but memory is mercifully short.)

Would the perpetrators of the following please hit themselves very hard over the head and get a job that doesn't involve communication:

"How can their leverage at different parts of the value chain be increased?"
(Good question.)

"Click here to continue the experience in Flash."
(Dude, it's a website. It is not an "experience". I'm just looking for your phone number. ...Actually, I think we may have a deeper problem here than just the language, but never mind.)

And most annoying of all, if only because I hear it so damn often, and somebody has clearly written this bloody sentence out as a script and none of the idiotic guards thinks to maybe paraphrase and spare themselves the embarrassment of saying something WITHOUT MEANING, the following two snippets from the South West Trains announcements...
"...should you require any help or assistance..."
and
"...at the next station or stop..."

Ooh, bonus round, from a recently watched ep of Grand Designs*: "The house has so much personality and character."

Words, words, words. Such lovely things. So abused.

_____
* Blame Beloved.

If only they could have come on a Monday. Mondays are good.

This post is coming to you Live!! from the exotic environs of... er, my dining table. Because my (shared) study has been co-opted by Sky's crime correspondent, now broadcasting Live!! to the interweb (in the form of Second Life), because for some esoteric reason the tech wasn't working in the Sky studios. So Beloved brought them home.*

Which is all well and good, but you see, it's the fag-end of the week. Our cleaner comes on Sundays. And also, I don't seem to be able to keep my desk clear during the week, it gets piled high with crud. And I cannot tell you how distressing I find it to have my home, my not greatly loved home, with its crappy rented furniture and its crowded rooms and its seriously grotty carpets, and on top of all that a week's worth of dirt**, exposed to strangers. Senior meeja type strangers, who probably live in moderately posh houses in Richmond or similar. I feel so exposed.

I want to tell them, hey! We sorted out the garden last weekend! ...but that doesn't really help.

_____
* What tech we have that Sky doesn't have, I can't imagine.
** Two very fluffy cats. Don't underestimate the effect.

Ok, I give in.

The problem with lolcats is that, well, they're generally not so much lol. Sorry. They're not.



HA HA HA HAAAAaaaa...

*ahem*

Mostly they're not.