3rd October 2005
Hi all,
Have been absolutely shattered over the last week. Going to bed early, still struggling to get up in time for work and then yawning my head off throughout the day.
Really not good, especially when I think about journalist (and new father) Krishnan Guru-Murthy's quote about about fatherhood (along the lines of think of the most tired you have ever been, double it, double that and double that again, and you're somewhere near how tired you actually are). If I'm this tired now how tired will I actually be come December?
Anyway, in the absence of me actually doing anything interesting this week here are some other news snippets and bits of information:
"There's only one Fernando Alonso!" Err, hold on a second...
Spanish driver Fernando Alonso recently won the Formula 1 World Championship (can't say I was paying attention as I've been enjoying the proper racing via A1 Grand Prix and NASCAR) and has obviously been enjoying the attention. For some reason he chooses to live in Oxfordshire. Must be fairly unique there you would think?
Well as it turns out there are two Fernando Alonsos in Oxfordshire. The other one is also Spanish, but works in publishing, earns ?15K a year and doesn't even drive a car! Now he's getting more than his fair share of fan mail, not all of which is entirely wholesome.
I'm actually trying to figure out why any 24 year-old Spaniard would choose to live in Oxfordshire. In the brief time I've had to research this I can't see if Alonso qualifies under the rule my Mum told me: "They say the Spanish are nice people, but Catalans have nice houses." (Sorry, I think you have to know my Mum to know why this is funny. Incidentally I have no idea if this is true or not, it sounds like a mythical slur against Catalans if ask me.)
Nice houses/nice people - a living example
Speaking of nice houses as opposed to being nice people the Marples have been stirring again this week. Wednesday morning, the day the recycling bins get emptied. It seems there's was full, so they decided to fill ours, without even having had the decency to ask first.
Yep, go ahead, have your nice bits of ivy around your window, have your stupid lattice around your front door and the ridiculous gate around your bin, none of it changes the fact that you're still complete trash. Why don't you build a periscope for your It was a sad day when the previous residents left that house, it really was.
The thing is the street is becoming full of people like them. There are the Marples, the Carwashes, the backstabbers next door and now the silent sneering family who moved in where a really lovely family previously lived. Perhaps it is time to change the name of the village to Little Catalonia?
The difference between here and there
While I'm still on the subject of neighbours next door's brat has been annoying Lorraine by staring at her again. I remember growing up around Portsmouth and hearing the "What are you staring at?" question. It stopped you from staring at anything pretty quickly.
I'm hoping that at some point this little waste of space spends some time in Portsmouth because it's a lesson he needs to learn.
"Nonsense!"
There tend to be two types of elderly person. There are those are merely existing (see the aforementioned Marples) and those who get on with life and make the most of it. I'd rather be like Walter Wolfgang, the 82 year-old who interrupted Jack Straw's speech at the Labour Party conference by shouting "nonsense" while Straw attempted to defend the government's policy in Iraq. For having an opinion Wolfgang was taken out of the hall by two stewards.
Fair play to Wolfgang for speaking his mind. Shame on the Labour party for attempting to silence him. And yet the most amazing thing for me is that the conference was held in Brighton and yet the Labour Party had to get stewards from Sunderland for the event.
Roast Potatoes - can that be an understatement?
Was over at the in-laws on Thursday night, and as I had come straight from work I had dinner there. Chicken in sauce with roast potatoes. The potatoes were of the frozen variety, but had been fairly well nuked by my mother-in-law. In fact they were nuked to the point where it caused the inside of my mouth to blister - I might as well have just ironed my tongue when I got home to complete the deal.
Weekend redemption
After an up-and-down week some redemption came on Saturday night. A few of us went to the cinema, and while the girls took in a different film the guys all chose to watch "Goal", a football film with a half-decent plot, half-decent acting, wonderful imagery, some unexpected moments of humour and a fantastic (Oasis-led) soundtrack. Highly enjoyable and very much recommended if you can overlook a few little details here and there.
Have a good week!
Tony
Main Archives
