Little Nutter has broken my wireless network card. This was a thingummy that fitted into the PCMCIA slot on the side of my laptop and allowed me to browse t’Internet from the comfort of my sofa.
Now I have to watch Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs with him. To cheer myself up I have been thinking up adult lyrics to the theme tune.
Altogether now, “They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight, shagging trucks and humping freight…”
I’ve been very tardy when it comes to DIY.
OK, so downstairs in our house is almost finished, but I haven’t added the final coats of paint to any of the rooms or doors, for the simple reason that with builders due to arrive in the next couple of years to add another storey to the house, what was the point in decorating?
It’s also been a fantastic excuse for not stripping wallpaper, painting or otherwise updating the bedrooms upstairs.
Today, notice has been given that this excuse will expire in six months time. The builders think that they can squeeze us in soon, and will “definitely be finished by May.”
Even if this is a “builder’s promise” (which I doubt, because occupational therapy? and social services departments are? involved in order to make the house suitable and safe for Little Nutter, which? means that a council architect will be supervising the project) it means that I am about to find myself bereft of all excuses.
Next summer, I shall mostly be painting.
Here it is:
Don’t expect art; it’s just a positive, productive hobby that involves learning a technical skill (that is currently beyond me) and developing an eye for images (for which I have absolutely no aptitude.)
Should be fun.
I bought a Chocolate Oranda (a type of freshwater fish) because it has a potential lifespan of 25 years. And I had high hopes for Cromarty. In fact, I thought of him as a challenge.
And this morning he croaked. (Gurgled? Glugged?)
He appears to have picked up the same swim bladder infection that Dogger has recently recovered from, but with less success. A lot less success. Well, let’s be frank: he died.
The little bugger.
“Road Runner,”? the iconic Looney Tunes cartoon,? was created on the principle of? two rules set down by its creator, Chuck Jones:
However, aficionados of Wikipedia will be led to understand that there are, in fact, 9 official and two further unofficial rules governing the action in these classic moving pictures. According to the Wikipedia entry on Road Runner, later cartoons are criticised because of their lack of pace and the lazy, repeated use of the same visual and audio clips.
As ever, though, the deterioration in the quality of the Road Runner cartoons is not down to the lack of effort on the part of later animators; it is down to the loss of the original guiding principles through overcomplication, dilution, and misinterpretation: the three classic errors of? 21st Century? reform. Chuck Jones’ original two rules are now eleven with explanations and exceptions; the essence of the original gag that spawned the cartoons has? drowned in a sea of crap, and the simple, slapstick point of the cartoons is no longer funny.
Ironically, Wikipedia, the Internet’s finest repository of heresay, urban myths, popular? truisms and unchallenged given truths,? has the answer - but is describing Wile E. Coyote rather than 21st Century reformers when it quotes the Spanish philosopher George Santayana, “A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.” (Curiously, all mentions of this quote on Google are referring either to the Road Runner cartoons or? US politicians…)
Anyone who has endured the reforming zeal? that has gripped society? for the past decade will instantly recognise the sentiment behind Santayana’s comment - we are being driven harder and harder to meet the standards and targets of reform, and in so doing are straying further and further from the essence and purpose of the service? we chose to work for.
Hence the National Health Service now has more administrators than patients; police officers in North Wales have been told to stop making drug related arrests as they have reached their current targets; the council on the Isles of Scilly has been criticised for failing to reduce the number of deaths on the roads from the current intolerable rate of zero deaths in the last century,? and teachers, as I have complained so many times before, are no longer allowed to educate children.
The lastest Road Runner cartoons (just three years old) satisfy every single one of the eleven rules described by Wikipedia - but they just aren’t funny.
