Ephemeral Isle
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Friday
1 April 2005
Pulp Adverts No. 18
Dude! Mail-order magics! Why didn't we think of that?
Monday
4 April 2005
Pope John Paul II (1920 - 2005)
On Saturday, 2 April 2005 His Holiness Pope John Paul II passed away. He was not only a man of tremendous courage and personality who was one of the key figures in bringing down the Communist empire, but was also a man of God who understood that the real battle was not over land, treasure, or ideology, but over the salvation of men's souls. You don't see too many like him and I for one regard it as a privilege that his papacy occurred during my lifetime.
I'm not a Roman Catholic myself, but I found a great deal of comfort and insight in the Pope's writings and speeches. He consistently came across as a solid churchman who believed the gospel he'd been called to preach and, unlike most Anglican clergy, not as a gay-rights obsessed social worker who felt he had to apologise for bringing religion into the conversation. It's interesting that on the one hand you have an Anglican church which has been madly racing after the will-o-the-wisp of "relevancy" and on the other you have a pope who followed where doctrine led regardless of whether it offended or pleased friend or foe. And you'll notice which one the world actually paid attention to.
Tuesday
5 April 2005
One Day in Zimbabwe
"I am shocked, shocked that there is ballot rigging going on here!"
Wednesday
6 April 2005
Doctor Who Premiere
I had a nice little Christmas in April today. I was reading the the Seattle PI (intelligent as a post) on the Web when I came across a review of the new Doctor Who series. "Oh, great," I'm thinking. "Rub it in. Here I am, stuck in Seattle while Doctor Who is being broadcast back home and now a local paper is pouring salt on the wounds by reviewing a series that hasn't been sold to the States yet." Turns out, however, that even though Doctor Who hasn't been sold to the States, it has been sold to Canada, and it just so happens that I can get CBUT (a Canadian network) on my cable outlet. Upshot: I can get Doctor Who.
Magic! I'd resigned myself to not being able to see the new series for at least a year or until a DVD collection was released, and here I was being handed the lot on a platter! So, first thing's first, I made certain that Emma was fast asleep by 7:30 and then my wife and I were made comfortable for the event.
Okay, I also wiped down the screen and made sure my specs were clean too, but what do you expect?
I'd been looking forward to this premiere with a lot of expectation and foreboding, but I can honestly say that I was pleasantly surprised. It's been fifteen years since the last series and even when Sylvester McCoy was running abut the countryside it was getting so stale and self-referential that I wasn't at all sorry when the axe finally fell, but this new incarnation understands what to keep and what to leave behind. The theme is similar to the original, the Tardis still looks the same-- at least, on the outside, and the noise it makes is the same, and the Doctor still has the same weird mix of comic and serious, but the cliff-hangers are gone, as are the theatrical costumes and wobbly sets. This Doctor Who has solid production values and while I looked forward to Christopher Ecceleston's leather jacket and Salford accent, I was pleased that they didn't make a point of them. (For the American point of view, my wife says that this Doctor reminds her of Wallace from the Wallace & Gromit shorts).
This premiere episode deals with another attempt by the plastic-dominating aliens the Autons to invade the Earth. Since this is episode is intended to introduce the new Doctor and Rose, this is pretty much relegated to the status of a subplot, but the scenes of murderous shop dummies crashing through windows to gun down innocent pedestrians is as a harrowing today as they were thirty five years ago when John Pertwee first confronted them.
The principals were very good. Ecceleston as the Doctor proved to be superb casting with the right mixture of eccentricity and authority, while Billie Piper's Rose is both feisty and gormless enough to make a decent companion (second American point of view, my wife wonders why they had to cast a bimbo).
The faster pace and higher production values do this series a world of good and it has managed to update itself without falling into the hideous trough of Political Correctness. I particularly liked the way they were able to give the Doctor's new companion Rose a black boyfriend (an excellent comic, yet sometimes scary performance by Noel Clarke as both the boyfriend and his plastic doppelganger), yet managed to make him an unsympathetic, cowardly piece of work that she had no trouble leaving behind-- something that would have been unthinkable in the Sylvester McCoy days.
On the whole, my daughter is going to have an unbroken series of early bedtimes on Tuesdays until she's old enough to hide behind the sofa with Daddy.
Doctor Who airs on CBUT, Tuesday, 8 PM PST.
Thursday
7 April 2005
Quatermass Live!
I seem to be all swings and roundabouts when it comes to the BBC. One day I discover that I can indeed see the new Doctor Who series thanks to CBUT being available on my local cable, and today I discover that on the Second of April I missed the Beeb's live broadcast of the first Quatermass story, The Quatermass Experiment on BBC Four. Fine. Good. Let me just sleep through the first manned Mars landing and I'm set!
The original Quatermass Experiment is often called the first science fiction television programme. That is, in fact, not true. The first sci-fi broadcast was a thirty minute BBC adaptation of RUR in 1938 and after the war the BBC produced a full-length adaptation of RUR, another of the Time Machine in 1949, and a children's sci-fi serial in the early '50s. But The Quatermass Experiment was undoubtedly the first adult science fiction programme and one of the most successful ever made. At the height of its popularity it was said that the police always knew when a new Quatermass episode was being transmitted because the streets were deserted and the crime rate dropped remarkably for the next hour.
The first series was broadcast in 1953-- live, like the 2005 production, but in this case it was a matter of necessity. There was no such thing as videotape in those days and the huge wooden cameras were the same ones that the BBC used for covering sporting matches and couldn't even be moved, so everything had to be done on the spot in a very limited area. And except for a few bits of stock footage on film, even the special effects had to be done on camera and in real time-- sometimes in amusing ways, such as in the first series where the monster was a pair of rubber gloves with bits of leaves and brush stuck on; and sometimes with alarming results, as in the third series, Quatermass and the Pit, where an actor was in very serous danger of being burned by a massive flash effect that had to go off practically in his face!.
The current version, however, wasn't like some "old time radio" productions that drag out old Orson Welles scripts, coconuts, and boxes of corn starch to recreate a bit of nostalgic old-time wireless fun. The 2005 Quatermass was quite happy to take advantage of modern technology to create an updated version of the drama, though one that remained as true as possible to the original. The 1953 production ran for six thirty-minute episodes while the 2005 version was trimmed to two hours. Other than the cuts, casting a younger set of actors, updating the science behind Quatermass's rocket mission, and changing the British Experimental Rocket Group from a government project into a private venture more along the lines of the company that built SpaceShipOne, Nigel Kneale's original script remained largely intact.
Or so I'm told, because I haven't seen the blasted thing and probably won't unless it comes out on DVD and I can scrounge up an All Regions player. Gads it's frustrating! I have the two of the four Quatermass feature films in my cupboard and the final chapter with John Mills is on order from Amazon, but for some reason known only to the Gods and the American distributors The Quatermass Xperiment has yet to be released in the States on DVD. And no, I don't expect to see the compilation of the surviving television episodes on this side of the pond in any form any time before I get a call from Buck House asking me if I'd mind passing over a couple of knighthoods in part exchange for an earldom.
Well, I suppose I can console myself until such time as I can get together the scratch to justify having the disks shipped from Britain. At least the new BBC production has induced them to update the Cult TV web site on Quatermass and there's even a BERG web page with "bulletins" on the ill-fated space mission.
When all else fails, as they say, watch the clips off the web.
Friday
8 April 2005
And If You Believe That...
According to the BBC:
The IRA is giving "due consideration" to an appeal by Gerry Adams for it to embrace politics and abandon the armed struggle.*
The IRA is "considering" Gerry Adam's appeal. A meeting between Adams and the IRA must be the only one in the world that needs only one chair.
*i.e. stop running protection rackets, robbing banks, blowing up children, and disembowelling people in pubs.
Monday
11 April 2005
Spring Cleaning
Spring Cleaning is one of those things that seems like a good idea until you actually get into it and then you change your mind quickly-- if you can get into it in the first place, that is. Chez Szondy is in particular need of a custodial once-over. Since we moved into our current flat a year ago we have cupboards that are death traps of odds and ends waiting to be sprung, a kitchen with things lurking in the back of the fridge that would make strong men blanche, and accumulations of miscellaneous rubbish that will be featured on future episodes of "Guess What the Heck This Thing Is!" Add into this a deck badly in need of a scrub down, corners crammed with more dust than the Sahara, a wardrobe groaning with books destined for the second-hand shop, and a storage unit that has become a staging area for the rubbish tip and you get the idea.
So, today with the best will in the world we rolled up our metaphorical sleeves, took one look, and realised that we weren't going to get anywhere near even starting to clean today. Why? Because we had too much cleaning to do just to burrow through all the everyday mess to get to the Spring cleaning mess.
Thing is, we are fighting what is basically a three front war. First, there is the fact that our flat is what you might call an "efficiency." Translated that means that it is at the bare minimum of space required for three people to live in without actually hot bunking. That does not leave a lot of room for the "we'll clean this room and ignore that one for now," as its more like one of those machines where if one component goes down they all go down, so cleaning is an all or nothing affair. Second, my wife and I are both insanely busy. She has her hands full with her day job and theatre work, and I have a contract with private client at the moment as well as the web site; Ephemeral Isle; and commitments for a radio play, a screen adaptation, and a Christmas panto. With Emma being an attention black hole and deadlines popping up all over the place, we have so little time for even daily chores that it's a miracle that we aren't all stark naked, filthy, and eating with our hands. Thank God for dishwashers and laundry services, that's all I have to say. And third is our daughter, who I swear is the chief source of entropy on this entire planet. She is the only person I know who can sit stock still in the middle of a freshly cleaned living room and within three minutes have it completely covered in toys, discarded articles of clothing, wet wipes, cracker crumbs, and half-finished art projects.
The upshot is that a full day of working on the flat has resulted in two bags of laundry sent to the service, the dishes cleaned and counters scrubbed, the floors swept and vacuumed, rubbish and recycling taken out, toys picked up and put away (though you wouldn't have known it half an hour later), and a firm resolution on the part of my wife to unpack her spring clothes before Summer actually descends upon us.
As to the Spring cleaning itself, I have decided not to look into any corners or under the furniture if I can help it; to wear a crash helmet whenever looking for something in the kitchen shelves-- especially if tins are involved; carry a cocked revolver with me when opening the fridge; keep the lights dim in the bathroom at all times; practice using the toilet without actually touching it; employing ladders for getting over the taller mounds of yet to be stored soft toys, clothes, books, magazines, and DVDs; and to install large steel bands across the door of the hall cupboard before it explodes from internal pressures and endanger the lives of passers by.
After all, you've got to keep on top of these things or they get out of hand.
Tuesday
12 April 2005
Column Crash
Emma has had another one of her asthma attack, which gave us another of our ever to be looked forward to trips to Casualty, and now I'm down with a case of dodgy pancakes. Blindsided by a flapjack. Never saw that coming.
Wednesday
13 April 2005
Election Update
If you're wondering why I haven't been writing much about the general election going on now in Britain, the answer is a simple one. Whereas the American elections of last year were a real choice about the future of the nation, the course of the war against the Islamofascists, and hence the world, the circus that is playing out in Britain has the horrible feeling of wandering about in a maze without a centre.
Now, I'm not one of those who imagine that there is nothing to choose from between the Conservatives and Labour. Quite the contrary. Nor do I believe that it doesn't matter which party is in power. It most certainly does. Another five years of Tony Blair treating the country as his personal property and our ancient institutions as an obstacle to his blindly modernist ambitions doesn't bear thinking about. No, the problem is that on many of the underlying assumptions of what politics are about there is no real disagreement and on one giant issue there is unnerving silence.
In some ways, this has been a blessing. On the question of the war, for example, it isn't a choice between one side that is dedicated to winning and the other that can't decide if civilisation is worth the candle. If either Blair or Howard is in No. 10 Britain will continue to fight. They may differ on the details (in some ways seriously), but winning is the agreed outcome
In other ways, however, it is a disaster. In 21st century Britain immigration, defence, transportation, the NHS, police, welfare, and education are all a shambles. I'm not talking about problems or inefficiencies, but fundamental flaws to the system that are so deep that they could bring the entire country literally grinding to a halt if something isn't done about it soon. Labour, being the party in power, is understandably promising to spend more here, less there, and tweak the system so it works better. Fair enough. It's a position and they're welcome to fight on that. But what about the Tories? Their position is (tada!) to spend more here, less there, and tweak the system.
I'm sorry, but I have to sit down for a moment. When I catch two parties with such a chasm between their manifestos, I get dizzy from looking into its breadth and depth.
Now, regular readers of EI know that I don't like to talk about politics. I'm quite happy to take the odd jab at a politician or institution that I regard as particularly corrupt, fatuous, or pompous, and long opinion pieces about what my position on the heath services or the railway system is not something that I care wasting valuable page real estate that is better used for making sarky remarks about the UN. But this election is the most exacerbating one I've seen in decades. Today we have a a welfare state that is sucking up such a vast proportion of the national treasury for nothing in return, government services that are little more than job creation schemes for bureaucrats, a Navy that is a a very unfunny shadow of its former self, a police force that is more concerned with political re-education of policemen than catching violent criminals, race relations on a frightening ebb, a political class that feels that it has a right to interfere in every aspect of our lives, and an immigration system that is like a broken fence in a meadow-- and all this while a war is going on!
And how do the two major parties respond to these crises? By declaring that they are going to do exactly what the other chaps are doing, only cheaper and better. If only someone would propose abolishing the welfare state in toto, replacing the armed forces with an international Big Hugs Battalions, setting up Roman Catholicism as the established Church, expanding racism offences to include being white, and declaring war on France then we'd have something to start a real debate over. Anything other than having Blair, Howard, and Kennedy bleating on about how they're going to be 30% less rotten at running things than the others.
But what really throws a wet blanket on the camp fire is the looming loss of our nation for good. This could very well be the last election we will ever have before Britain becomes one of the larger provinces of the European Empire and one would think that the referendum on the EU constitution would be the number two topic after the war with the Islamofascists (and why is everyone so silent on that, I ask.) . If the EU comes fully into power, then parliament becomes nothing more than a regional assembly whose every decision must pass vetting against the decrees of the unelected elite in Brussels. Our borders, our defence, our foreign policy, our finances, and how we live our lives will no longer be ours to control. If the people want that, fine. We can do on our own what Napoleon and Hitler failed to do and two thousand years of British history can vanish into a file cabinet in Belgium.
But you would think that at least one of the parties that claims to speak for the people would say a couple of words about the matter first.
Thursday
14 April 2005
One Day in the Lab
"So that's how they put the bop in the bop she bop?"
Friday
15 April 2005
Shop Talk
So, how do you like the new Tales of Future Past logo? I'm rather pleased with it-- especially since I managed to delete the original job as soon as I finished putting it together and had to start from scratch. I'm not entirely sure at the moment how it'll be used on the site, but if you go to the Shop page you'll see it already gracing everything from fridge magnets to coffee mugs to thongs; all of which are high-quality and available at competitive prices. Makes a perfect gift for any occasion.
Yes I know that this is shameless plug for Tales of Future Past merchandise, but running a web site with this kind of bandwidth isn't cheap (cough, cough, sound of tip jar being rattled).
Speaking of Bandwidth, those of you who have been paying attention to the right-hand sidebar will be aware that davidszondy.com will be hosting original radio plays later this year. As part of setting up for that project, and as a test of our bandwidth requirements (rattle, rattle), we're soon going to be offering streaming audio of classic radio sci-fi programmes from the 1950s--- a new one each month until our original productions are ready for their debut.
So, keep watching this space or subscribe to our updates newsletter for more information.
Monday
18 April 2005
A Pre-Riot Address by the Director
Okay, everyone. Gather 'round. Now, it's only half an hour to curtain and if we're going to get this spontaneous people's Anti-Japanese riot off to a proper start we are going to have to get our skates on. We've had a lot of good reviews in the press lately, but don't let that go to your heads or it'll start to show on the night. And just remember that it isn't what AP thinks of you, but what the Central Committee thinks that counts.
Right, now a few notes on last Friday's spontaneous people's Anti-Japanese riot. You all did a super job, darlings. Lots of energy out there; lots of sincerity. That's what I like to see. Chou? There you are. Loved what you did with the dust bins. Keep it in. Sen? Good anger there. Well done. And all of you from the People's Industrial Collective, I'd like to say thank you for the way you rushed that police line. Looked real. Beautiful. Riot police? You were stern, authoritative, but sympathetic. Good job as always.
But there's still loads of room for improvement, people. Yes, I know that we're here because of the cameras, but, and I cannot stress this enough, don't play directly to them. But that being said, I don't want to see you spread out all over the road either. Crowd the television crews, people, crowd them. I want this to look like a huge mob; a real mass uprising of popular unrest. Innocent bystanders? Don't bolt for cover as soon as the demonstration starts. Wait until some actual violence flares up. Right? And I want to see the "Kill Japanese" signs in English in plain view at all times. That's very important. It's a memo from Beijing. Enough said, I think? Right.
Umm... Oh, yes. One word, people. Levels, levels, levels. I know you want to give a hundred and ten percent, but don't peak in the first five minutes. Rioters? Keep something in reserve. Build with that righteous anger. Start out small. Chant a bit. Then shout some. Then go for the cobbles. And don't turn over cars like it was an alternative parking scheme. Less is more, darlings. You'll see.
Riot police? Yes. Shoot the tear gas downwind. It's not realistic, I see that, but otherwise it blocks the sight lines. Also, we want the Western press to get most of it, not the rioters. Give them an excuse for that personal experience touch to get our point across while thinking it's theirs.
Okay, now everyone take a deep breath. That's it. Shake out all those tensions, do some stretches, and if you've got lines remember to do your voice warm ups.
That's all from me, darlings. Now get out there and break a leg!
Tuesday
19 April 2005
Papal Trivia
The cardinals have been cloistered and the process of selecting the new pope is underway. What many people don't know is that in the event of a deadlock, an intense round robin of rock, paper scissors will be invoked until the new pope is selected.
Wednesday
20 April 2005
Papal Update
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has been elected Pope by the College of Cardinals. Taking the name of Benedict XVI, he is rumoured to be Catholic, though this has not yet been confirmed.
Next: What a bear does in the woods.
Update
Maybe it's just me, but when John Paul II became pope back in 1978 I don't recall him taking a victory lap around St. Peter's Square in full papal regalia. I certainly don't remember him punching the air and high-fiving the faithful.
Good form when he spiked the censer, though.
That's Enough
Seriously, now. God bless Pope Benedict XVI.
Thursday
21 April 2005
I Smell a Series!
The Mesa, Arizona police force has recruited a capuchin monkey to work on its elite SWAT team.
Am I the only one who sees a hit cop show here?
He's a tough, right-wing street cop who worked his way up through the ranks to Homicide. His new partner is a with-it capuchin monkey fresh out of the academy before he got his detective badge. Together they take on the mean streets of Mesa one perp at a time. It's Carl and the Cap, Fridays on FOX.
This week's episode: Yes, We Have No Bananas, Punk! Carl is getting sick of the squad car smelling of bananas and monkey poo while Cap must come to terms with shooting his first suspect during a crack bust gone wrong.
Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy
In a piquant case of poetic justice, the Respect party MP George Galloway was attacked by an angry gang of Islamofascists and threatened with death for enticing Muslims to participate in the un-Islamic practice of voting. Galloway gained infamy for his open support for Saddam Hussein before the Iraq campaign of 2003 and has a reputation for cozying up to every radical Islamic group he can, so it was particularly satisfying to see his chickens come home to roost as he ran for his life from an angry mob of fundamentalists who threatened to string him up and kill anyone who voted for his party.
As ye sow, George, as ye sow.
Friday
22 April 2005
Sleep and Seals
This is one of those nights when I dread trying to get a column in. Normally I have no trouble putting up something, even if it's a photo feature or a news item, but tonight it's like Sisyphus trying to get that boulder up the hill. It isn't lack of interest on my part or even interesting things to say. I have notes on the reaction to the ascension of Benedict XVI, some photo humour, and some barbs about the general election, but that doesn't help me now because I am so tired and groggy that I can barely ;lasdkhofdskkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
Sorry; I fell asleep on the keyboard. Fact is, that this has been a gruelling week. Between my various commitments I've been putting in something like seventy hours while shoe-horning in as much family time as I can and the result has been that the only capital that I've been able to tap has been sleep, which is not a good thing to cut back on if you're past the age when sitting on the roof chucking champagne bottles into the canal seems like a good idea. Normally I try to get to bed relatively early, or if not that, then at least with some pre-bedtime relaxation time involved and in the morning I reserve the first hour for that initial cup of tea and a browse of the headlines. For the past week, however, it's been up, tea at the desk, pound away on the client work until supper, then family time, then pound away on the web site and other projects until past midnight when I drag myself off to bed. That sort of thing is feasible for a few days, but by Thursday my batteries are as dead as disco and when I sit down to write my EI entry I am looking like an extra in a zombie movie who's been propped in front of a keyboard.
The real hell of it is that I've looked at my calendar and this is going to be my normal state until at least July. And so I fear that I'm going to be facing many a night like this one in the interim.
For instance, I really did want to write about the baby seal that we ran across yesterday. It was one of those glorious spring evenings when the air is clear and the Sun is warm and a walk on the beach before supper seems like just the thing. The beach is an ideal place to walk with Emma along. With the wide-open sight lines there's no place she can vanish behind and at 2 ¾ she insists on stopping every ten steps to scoop another spade-load of sand into her bucket, so I don't have to move any faster than an easy stroll.
Anyway, we were perambulating along like this on Golden Gardens beach when we saw a wide, ragged semi-circle of about half a dozen people standing around what looked like a Gladstone bag someone had left in the surf. As we drew closer, I could see that it was a small harbour seal.
Well, this is a surprise, I thought. A pity that Emma wasn't old enough to appreciate this. My wife and I sat in the sand about twelve feet away from the animal while Emma only glanced at it before starting work on a sand castle. If had been something exotic like a doggie she'd have been all over it, but a seal? No chance.
To me, this was something unusual, but not particularly odd. I've been on and around the sea most of my life and seals are like somewhat plumper and damper squirrels in my book. I'm used to seeing them hanging about on rocks and sand bars and even on piers, where they're droppings and destructive antics are less than welcome with local boat owners. Around Golden Gardens you could often hear the seals barking out beyond the break water and during early morning walks in the winter I often saw signs of their having dragged themselves up on to the beach that dawn. What was unusual was to see one during full day while people were still walking about. Clearly the local marine animals, having been free of hunting in the Sound for decades, had lost all fear of man. Interesting, but not odd, if you see what I mean.
The odd thing was the reaction to this by the people standing about watching the seal, including my wife. They clearly thought that something was horribly wrong with the "baby." Actually, it was a juvenile, but by no means a pup, but we'll let that pass. Opinion seemed to be split as to whether the seal was injured or had become separated from its mother. During the half hour that I sat there I saw at least two people phone the authorities about the seal in alleged distress. Even my wife suggested that I go over and check to see if it was all right.
I couldn't help laughing at that and I remarked that I no more wanted to disturb the creature than I would a dog sleeping on a hearth rug. The seal, I explained, was just sunning himself and if he seems unusually calm it's because he doesn't give a fig for the two-legged beasts that are standing around him. This was overheard by a group of girls near us, who gave me a profoundly dirty look.
I've always been amazed by this sort of thing. The Pacific Northwest is a region where people have a passionate, I would even say inordinate, regard for wildlife. People in Seattle regard wearing fur as a barbarism and are ready to sign any wildlife petition faster than you can say Endangered Species Act, but along with this near-reverence for wild animals goes a remarkable lack of anything like practical knowledge of the beasts they adore. I'm no expert on seals. I've just been around them a lot as I have many things that live in and around the ocean, so I've had an opportunity to learn a thing or two. One of them is that wild animals do what they do because it suits them and not because they're expected to fulfil a particular role in our human drama. (One of the other things I know is exactly where to shoot a seal, but that is something that my temporary companions would not have appreciated.) You would think that the eco-enthusiastic people of Seattle would at least seek out such knowledge, but that seems not to be the case. Many city dwellers are incredibly ignorant of animals of any sort and so used to seeing them only in a zoo, on television, or through binoculars from a tour bus or excursion boat that they cannot comprehend that they might come face to face with one sans bars or glass and that the animal's reaction will be one of wary indifference.
I'll wager that most of the people standing there, from the best of intentions, had been taught for most of their lives that animals are essentially a client class which receives human charity as the proper order of things; not as a fellow creature of God who stands in a certain natural relationship with man whether as companion, servant, prey, or fellow traveller. So, naturally the bystanders assumed that this seal could only enter their lives so calmly because it needed their help. The idea that its situation was more that of a Labrador wrapped in blubber minding its own business simply didn't occur to them. In fact, I was rather worried that somebody was going to be fool enough to try to "help" and get bitten for his trouble.
Fortunately, that didn't happen. After a while, a man, totally lost in his own thoughts, walked past the seal at a distance of no more than a few inches; unaware of what it was he'd encountered. A couple of minutes later, the seal decided he'd had enough. With a flip he splashed into the surf and slid under the waves. He surfaced for a quick gulp of air and then vanished for good.
Emma called out "Seal, where are you?" a few times, then as we walked back to the car she shouted at the Sound, "Bye, Seal! I love you!"
It came out more like "lao ooo," but I think the Pinniped got the idea.
Monday
25 April 2005
Happy St. George's Day
(Two Days Late)
Happy St. George's Day from Ephemeral Isle.
Okay, it's two days late, but it was the weekend. There were things to do. Not my fault. It's not like I didn't try. Anyway, it's up to the local council, isn't it? I mean, if they can't have it together enough to make sure that April the 23rd falls on a weekday, what can I do about it?
And I wrote a letter and everything:
Dear Sir,
Please make sure that April the 23rd is a Monday this year, as it knocks my column off-topic otherwise and I'll look silly.
Yours sincerely, etc.
And did it do any good? 'Course not. Didn't even send a man 'round.
And this is what I pay my rates for. Goes to show.
Tuesday
26 April 2005
Pinking a Fad
Is the metrosexual fad dead? The Daily Telegraph says it is and If there's a God in Heaven, I certainly hope so. I thought from the start that the metrosexual idea of straight men obsessively grooming themselves like vanity-stricken homosexuals was a load of spaghetti squash. From the get go it came across less as the vanguard of some peacock era than as another one of those male fashion "trends" such as skirts for men and male make up that turn out in the cold light of day to be a journalistic fantasy thought up by a bored features page editor.
According to the Telegraph, not only are men less metrosexuals in fact than they are simply claiming to be so as a chat up line, but women actually find popinjays who go in for sarongs and bikini waxes to be a turn off. It appears that Daniel Craig is getting more of a look in than Jude Law, whose slenderness sometimes made Gwyneth Paltrow seem better casting for the title role in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
One of the things that made the metrosexual thing so annoying is that it is one of those portmanteau words that scoops up everything before it until you find yourself using the same term to refer to two things that are completely the opposite. At the beginning metrosexual referred to men who look gay, but aren't and it ended up including everyone from outright fops to chaps who took it upon themselves to bath at regular intervals and threw a question mark over the masculinity of any man who polished his shoes and brushed his teeth on the same day. This last part was captured beautifully in a recent episode of South Park where the townsmen were caught up in a metrosexual wave and the gay schoolteacher Mr. Garrison cried out, "They took gay culture from real gays and their asses are ours!"
It wasn't that long ago that one understood that a man could be well dressed, even fashionable, without having his manhood interrogated. Think of the vital role of Jeeves, Bertie Woostrer's gentleman's gentleman who fought valiantly to steer his master clear of yellow socks and mess jackets. Or Raffles, Simon Templar, or James Bond; men who knew their way around a silk tie, a gun-metal cigarette case, and a pair of brass knuckles. They might have been regarded as overly fussy about their dress and may have driven their tailors to distraction, but at best you would have thought a Bond shallow rather than effeminate. Before the world started to tip upside down in the 1960s it was understood that a gentleman was expected to understand the intricacies of selecting a waistcoat, what time of the day to wear evening dress, and how to wear cologne without smelling like a Turkish pimp.
But because history of any sort has been relegated to, well, history, that point tends to get lost these days and you end up with articles like this one urging men to add pink to their wardrobes.
When I read that I roared with laughter to the point of my wife asking me if I'd finally lost my mind. I showed her the article and told her that it was a complete load of bollocks and that there isn't a unmarried man alive who hasn't had at least one pink item amongst his clothing.
My wife, fully aware that I'd never bought anything in that realm of the colour wheel, looked at me with surprise.
"Of course," I explained. "Red shirt, white boxers, laundry day; you do the maths."
Wednesday
27 April 2005
Another Victory
Boy Assad has pulled his troops out of the Lebanon a couple of days early. Probably for medical reasons; i.e. being made to look such a weakling pratt isn't making things too healthy for him back home.
Rumour has it that the Lebanese showed their friendly concern for the well being of their erstwhile occupiers by asking them to make sure that the door didn't hit them on the way out.
Thursday
28 April 2005
Another Song, Another Dance
Between all my commitments these days I am clocking in eighty hour weeks and I think that it is downright inconsiderate that there aren't more major holidays and earthshaking events for me to hang a column on. It's bad enough having to bang out five of these things every week, but this having to actually come up with something original is really the limit. You would think that we could schedule a few more alien spaceship crashes, natural disasters, religious leaders falling off the twig, or even another dictator having to sit behind bars while his former subjects carry out free elections-- anything that can generate about eight hundred words of boilerplate tribute, headshaking, tears, or righteous indignation as the matter at hand requires. But having to cut a column out of whole cloth? It's the sort of pressure that had Shakespeare making up new words so he could meet his deadlines.
Part of the problem is that for the past couple of weeks I've been living in something of a vacuum. Oh, I still manage to skim the news and I even manage to squeeze in an episode or two of Doctor Who, but between work and family I've been pretty much cut off from the modern world. Heck, I don't even get much of a chance to type with the light on, since Emma is still on the settee as I write this; valiantly fighting against bedtime, so the living room lights have to stay off until she succumbs to the sandman's clown hammer of Morpheus.
Of course, part of this is due to my distaste for the radio. What the heck, I hear you say? Okay, maybe not "heck," but doubtless some other oath or epithet was used. What I mean is that I cannot stand to work with a radio or television playing wide and free in the room when I'm working. I find it more than a distraction. It's an irritant, because if I've no interest in a programme or a piece of music I haven't the slightest intention to waste brain-cell hours paying even the minimum of subliminal awareness of it and even less desire to expend energy trying to tune out the offending noise. On the other hand, if I'm working at an inherently dull job, such as proofing the code for a web page, I've got to have some sort of intellectual stimulation or I'll go spare. To the rescue comes the Internet with all sorts of on-demand radio at my beck and call. When time starts to telescope until each minute takes an hour to pass, I browse over to a classic radio web site or to the BBC 7 Listen Again page and select a programme to keep the frontal lobes occupied while I'm hunting for page errors. Thing is, I'm rather fussy about what I listen to and I like my radio as I do my books, friends, and wine; the older the better. It's all good fun as the speakers blare out Journey into Space, Hancock's Half Hour, Dimension X, and The Price of Fear, but listening to a steady diet of fifty year old radio, spending an hour watching my daughter running around the playground, and then sitting down to a thirty year old DVD (I can't abide modern television programming either) in the evening before going to bed with a book of seventy year old short stories is hardly the way to stay au courant, as the Finns say.
Come to think of it, that just goes to show how tired I am these days. Stupid nit; if you're stuck for a topic because the old radio stuff is pushing out the modern, why not just write about old time radio? Argh! Just goes to show what fatigue can do to you.
You know, I had some idea of what I was going to write about when I started this column, but I think I'm going to quit while I'm behind.
29 April 2005
Election Update
Mr. Blair and Mr. Brown develop a novel means for handling awkward questions about the government's policies.
(I've been saving this joke for six months)
Ephemeral Isle