Ignorant witterings on classical subjects, followed by some dull details of my everyday life.
I must be feeling unusually grumpy today. Listening to the BBC/British Museum, History of the World in in 100 Objects, which dealt with a bit of the Elgin Marbles, all I could think was what a horrible shower the ancient Athenians sounded like, with their nationalism, showing-off and bullying of other nations. Perhaps, I thought it was a pity that the Persians didn't win at Thermopylae. It would have saved us a dreadful film, at the very least. The Persians, who were on yesterday, seem to have been much nicer people, with a more open attitude to other peoples (after they had conquered them) and a much better-behaved set of gods, adopting stuff from other cultures, rather than sneering at them. They had a very much larger colonial spread than the Athenians ever managed, but seem to have handled it better, adopting things from other They also kept their clothes on in sculptures, which can only be a good thing. It did occur to me that the British Museum, owners (for the moment) of the Elgin Marbles, may not be entirely unbiased on this, but I still don't like the Ancient Greeks much.
In other news, I finally got the patterns for my crochet project from the second g-d, and it looks to be at the very outer limit of my abilities, so it should be an interesting project if nothing else. From the designs, she wants some sort of free-form, spikey foliate shapes, that should interesting, at least. I hope I don't let her down on this. I've also had the offer of a couple of day's work, so will have to get up and go to work on Friday, which will do me good. Things seem to be moving again after winter.
I also went to the doctor again, saw a second different locum (my GP is on holiday in Egypt), and have agreed to another, entirely different plan of physical fitness and weight loss. This time I have to lose at least one inch from my waist and do 5 hours aerobic exercise a week, which would obviously kill me far faster than the slightly high blood pressure it is supposed to reduce. I smiled, nodded and agreed, before wandering home to carry on losing weight (or trying to) and maybe swimming a bit. The problem is that I have no pleasant memories of physical exertion at all. I loathed sports at school, and was comprehensively bullied over them. Walking is possible, but hurts (and is slow and non-aerobic). I used to love dancing, but that's out nowadays. I know some people enjoy physical exertion in a general way, but the main problem for me is that exercise seems so pointless. Which proves, I suppose that I would have made a lousy ancient Greek,
In other news, I finally got the patterns for my crochet project from the second g-d, and it looks to be at the very outer limit of my abilities, so it should be an interesting project if nothing else. From the designs, she wants some sort of free-form, spikey foliate shapes, that should interesting, at least. I hope I don't let her down on this. I've also had the offer of a couple of day's work, so will have to get up and go to work on Friday, which will do me good. Things seem to be moving again after winter.
I also went to the doctor again, saw a second different locum (my GP is on holiday in Egypt), and have agreed to another, entirely different plan of physical fitness and weight loss. This time I have to lose at least one inch from my waist and do 5 hours aerobic exercise a week, which would obviously kill me far faster than the slightly high blood pressure it is supposed to reduce. I smiled, nodded and agreed, before wandering home to carry on losing weight (or trying to) and maybe swimming a bit. The problem is that I have no pleasant memories of physical exertion at all. I loathed sports at school, and was comprehensively bullied over them. Walking is possible, but hurts (and is slow and non-aerobic). I used to love dancing, but that's out nowadays. I know some people enjoy physical exertion in a general way, but the main problem for me is that exercise seems so pointless. Which proves, I suppose that I would have made a lousy ancient Greek,