I'm mostly posting because it's 12/12/12. In case anyone asks what I did on 12/12/12.
1. Things that make me laugh:
a. Most of the things that Graeme Garden says.
b. That footage of the Apollo 17 astronauts singing 'I was strolling on the moon one day' and then arguing about whether or not they ought to be singing 'May' (for the rhyme) or 'December' (for the truth). Singing and arguing on the actual moon. Everything everyone else did on the moon was comparitively rubbish.
c. Small dogs.
d. Wrinkly dogs.
e. Petty ranting.
f. I had LOADS of things for this list and I've forgotten them all.
g. I'm not going to start listing sitcoms, 'cause I'm sensitive.
h. Albert and Harbottle.
2. I was on a bus yesterday and the left rear tyre exploded. It was less exciting than it sounds: there was a whacking great bang that felt and sounded like someone had dropped a cannonball. And the cannonball was full of nitroglycerin. Well, not quite like that. We all looked around to see whose elephant had expired or which window had fallen onto whose head, and then we noticed that the bus (which hadn't veered off the road or anything and was carrying on relatively regardless) sounded unwell and felt a bit draggy and rumbly and as though it were slightly more in contact with the tarmac than it strictly ought to be, and then people started saying 'Tyre, maybe', and the driver pulled up and had a look. And it was indeed a tyre maybe. Luckily we were only about a mile from our destination by that time, and another bus turned up to rescue us. So now I know what it's like to be sitting on a bus when its tyre explodes. I'm glad it wasn't more exciting. The driver did say 'I'm just glad we're all here', which suggested that it had the potential to be considerably more exciting, but very little fun.
3. This morning, while sort of working, I watched a DVD of a King's Singers Christmas concert at LSO St Luke's, which I think is where I saw Paul Simon a few years ago. I was only sort of working because I found the King's Singers' faces too interesting to ignore, and staring at them cut into my writing time. I like the King's Singers. They're about the closest I'll ever come to enjoying classical music, which I mostly can't abide, and yes, I am happy to make massive generalisations about classical music. It's ALL like that. (Except the William Tell overture, and the 'We Like Sheep' song.) I count the King's Singers as sort of classical because sometimes they sing in Latin, though also they sing Jingle Bells. Into camera. Terrifyingly. I'm over my MASSIVE fear of the King's Singers these days though, mostly. When I was four I found them quite upsetting, partly because they're echoey and ominous and sound a bit like Tim Follin's theme to Ghouls 'n' Ghosts on the C64, and partly because a leaflet got stuck under the turntable one time and warped 'Hark Now Hear the Angels Sing' to a nightmarish degree. That also gave me a short-lived fear of leaflets. I didn't know what leaflets were when I was four and my mother told me, not expecting it to lead to trauma, that the record had gone evil because of the corrupting effects of a leaflet. I took it for some sort of plague or zombie invasion or general force of decay. Like Zalgo. (If you don't know what Zalgo is, don't look it up and still expect to sleep tonight.) (He comes.) Hence a lot of 'Let's look at these leaflets', 'ARRRRRGGGGGH, LEAFLETS'. In my head, obviously. I wasn't the sort of child to scream and run away from something that terrified me. I was the sort of child to wish I had the strength of character to scream and run away from things that terrified me instead of meekly submitting. I still am. Anyway, that's not a problem anymore, and I enjoyed the DVD. I especially liked matching the voices to the faces. I got them all wrong. The man I picked as the baritone turned out to be the counter tenor.
4. I do not self-identify as clever. This isn't going to turn into a paragraph. I just didn't know what to write in point 4 and decided to write the first string of words that came into my head, and those are they. They're quite true, though a weird and wordy way to say 'I'm not clever'.
5. Boo to the five things rule.
a. Most of the things that Graeme Garden says.
b. That footage of the Apollo 17 astronauts singing 'I was strolling on the moon one day' and then arguing about whether or not they ought to be singing 'May' (for the rhyme) or 'December' (for the truth). Singing and arguing on the actual moon. Everything everyone else did on the moon was comparitively rubbish.
c. Small dogs.
d. Wrinkly dogs.
e. Petty ranting.
f. I had LOADS of things for this list and I've forgotten them all.
g. I'm not going to start listing sitcoms, 'cause I'm sensitive.
h. Albert and Harbottle.
2. I was on a bus yesterday and the left rear tyre exploded. It was less exciting than it sounds: there was a whacking great bang that felt and sounded like someone had dropped a cannonball. And the cannonball was full of nitroglycerin. Well, not quite like that. We all looked around to see whose elephant had expired or which window had fallen onto whose head, and then we noticed that the bus (which hadn't veered off the road or anything and was carrying on relatively regardless) sounded unwell and felt a bit draggy and rumbly and as though it were slightly more in contact with the tarmac than it strictly ought to be, and then people started saying 'Tyre, maybe', and the driver pulled up and had a look. And it was indeed a tyre maybe. Luckily we were only about a mile from our destination by that time, and another bus turned up to rescue us. So now I know what it's like to be sitting on a bus when its tyre explodes. I'm glad it wasn't more exciting. The driver did say 'I'm just glad we're all here', which suggested that it had the potential to be considerably more exciting, but very little fun.
3. This morning, while sort of working, I watched a DVD of a King's Singers Christmas concert at LSO St Luke's, which I think is where I saw Paul Simon a few years ago. I was only sort of working because I found the King's Singers' faces too interesting to ignore, and staring at them cut into my writing time. I like the King's Singers. They're about the closest I'll ever come to enjoying classical music, which I mostly can't abide, and yes, I am happy to make massive generalisations about classical music. It's ALL like that. (Except the William Tell overture, and the 'We Like Sheep' song.) I count the King's Singers as sort of classical because sometimes they sing in Latin, though also they sing Jingle Bells. Into camera. Terrifyingly. I'm over my MASSIVE fear of the King's Singers these days though, mostly. When I was four I found them quite upsetting, partly because they're echoey and ominous and sound a bit like Tim Follin's theme to Ghouls 'n' Ghosts on the C64, and partly because a leaflet got stuck under the turntable one time and warped 'Hark Now Hear the Angels Sing' to a nightmarish degree. That also gave me a short-lived fear of leaflets. I didn't know what leaflets were when I was four and my mother told me, not expecting it to lead to trauma, that the record had gone evil because of the corrupting effects of a leaflet. I took it for some sort of plague or zombie invasion or general force of decay. Like Zalgo. (If you don't know what Zalgo is, don't look it up and still expect to sleep tonight.) (He comes.) Hence a lot of 'Let's look at these leaflets', 'ARRRRRGGGGGH, LEAFLETS'. In my head, obviously. I wasn't the sort of child to scream and run away from something that terrified me. I was the sort of child to wish I had the strength of character to scream and run away from things that terrified me instead of meekly submitting. I still am. Anyway, that's not a problem anymore, and I enjoyed the DVD. I especially liked matching the voices to the faces. I got them all wrong. The man I picked as the baritone turned out to be the counter tenor.
4. I do not self-identify as clever. This isn't going to turn into a paragraph. I just didn't know what to write in point 4 and decided to write the first string of words that came into my head, and those are they. They're quite true, though a weird and wordy way to say 'I'm not clever'.
5. Boo to the five things rule.