Thursday 23 September 2010

Red Balloons



When I was walking past the Corrie set this morning I noticed that they were blowing up bunches of red balloons. No idea what story they will be for; surely it is too early to be filming next year's valentine episode?



Anyway, the effect of the red balloons against the early morning cobbles and the misty grey sky was rather fetching.

Here's a tune about red balloons that you may remember from the olden days:



And here is a jigsaw which you might enjoy piecing together while you listen to the music.

That's enough about balloons for now, I'm off home to cook my tea.

Monday 20 September 2010

Modern Manners


It has now become quite acceptable to separate from one's partner or sack one's employees by text message. UR sackd. This apparently is Yoof Culture, and therefore a good thing.

The Pope has been visiting Britain over the weekend, and this got the Crab wondering: does the Catholic Church excommunicate its members by text? Because if they do, the word EXCOMMUNICATED would involve quite a lot of button pushing. Even if you substituted 8, as in EXCOMMUNIC8D it would still involve a lot of clicks - and I'm guessing the Catholics have more manners than that anyway.

Does anyone know what you have to do to get excommunicated? I don't either, but here is a papal beer mat from the recent tour:



I don't know very much at all about religion, so my mind wandered on to other long words.

Here's a big one: somatoparaphrenia

I looked it up on Wikipedia (naturally) and it appears that this is a "delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one's body. As an example, a patient would believe that her or his own arm would belong to the doctor, or that another patient left it behind."

That's really rather sad isn't it? I am delighted to have a full set of limbs and fingers and toes, and I hope they are as happy to be with me as I am with them. There's something quite forlorn about trying to leave one's leg on the bus.


(These are from this blog. I've read it, and still don't know what it's about.)

Anyway, back to the Pope. He went to Scotland and he went to the South but he didn't come here, and thus I am none the wiser. Pretty well everything I know about the Catholic Church I have learned from multiple viewings of Father Ted, and what I have learned is:

As a place of employment it is shambolic, largely pointless, and layered in petty jealousy, greed, ignorance, spite and aggression, and most of the time, a bloody good laugh. So, all in all, very much like working in a Library.

Friday 3 September 2010

Northern Lights


I have been walking again. (I'm not sure why I say "again" like that; it's not like I ever really stopped walking.) Anyway, I have now walked 1,300 miles so far this year. To be exact, 1,306.

If I was to set off in a straight line, how far would this get me?

Tromsø!



It's a long way north isn't it?

To be honest, I don't know a lot about Tromsø, so maybe I should go there. I do know they have an internationally renowned botanic garden, which I would love to see:



There's another lovely photo here.

And of course, who can forget the famous game between Tromsø and Chelsea in 1997? Oh how we laughed.



I shouldn't laugh too much, we've played in some pretty poor visibility ourselves. No, actually I should laugh, we've always won in the fog. Here we are, at home to Hednesford a couple of seasons ago:



and at Nantwich earlier this year:



(I'm in that fuzzy haze somewhere - bet you can't see me, he he.)

Many more marvellous Mick Dean photos here.

Anyway, enough football and fog for now. Back to Tromsø.

Here is the most compelling reason of all to visit that lovely northern city:



How stupidly, gobsmackingly beautiful is that!