Monthly Archives: September 2006

Apology

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I think I might owe Stense an apology.

OK, I know I owe Stense an apology:

She and I talked with each other on the phone last night. I was feeling very tired, and my brain wasn’t working properly—which is my only excuse really. We were talking about the last time we saw each other, when we went out for a meal at a posh(ish) restaurant. I was trying to be complimentary, for Pete’s sake, saying that she had dressed very smartly, whereas I had let the side down by dressing a bit too casually. But what I actually said—I don’t know what came over me—was:

“I looked like a pimp.”

Which naturally made Stense assume that I was implying that she had looked like a prostitute—which, in her good-natured way, she laughed off.

Stense, if you’re reading this, please accept my humble apologies. You looked extremely sophisticated and elegant that evening. I am truly sorry that I inadvertantly implied that you looked like a prostitute. For the record, you did not look anything like a prostitute.

Not even a very high-class one.

See also: Look, I said I was sorry!

Pigeon English

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Stense might think she’s the Queen of Ditzy, but Carolyn can knock her into a cocked hat.

Yesterday, as Carolyn and I were walking through the main shopping street in Liverpool, there was a hawker selling Mr Punch-type throat whistles: Wa-wa-waaaah!! he cried in throat-whistly type of voice… That’s the way to do it!!

“How did it do that?” gasped Carolyn, completely freaked out.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“How did it do it?“

“It’s a special type of whistle.”

“No, seriously, how did it do it?”

“I am being serious. It’s how they do the Mr Punch voice in Punch and Judy.”

At which point, Carolyn burst into uncontrollable laughter and started choking something incomprehensible at me. It took me 30 seconds or so to work out what she was trying to say:

She’d thought the noise had been made by a pigeon.

Postscript: Chat message between me an Carolyn half an hour after I posted the above:

Carolyn: … and I don’t remember the pigeon saying ‘that’s the way to do it’ – you made that up!!!
Richard: NO I DIDN’T! He definitely said ‘That’s the way to do it’! Have you been checking my website?
Richard: … What am I talking about? Of course the pigeon didn’t say ‘that’s the way to do it’ – the MAN said it! Are you trying to trick me?
Carolyn: NOBODY said it – it was just a loud pigeon noise. I would’ve known a pigeon can’t talk – it was just a loud cooey caw.
Richard: A ‘cooey caw’?? A ‘cooey caw’ doesn’t sound anything like ‘that’s the way to do it’. Are you crazy?

Houston, we have an unscheduled eventuality

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Compare and contrast:

BBC (30-Jan-2002): ‘Minimal’ risk from deorbiting spacecraft

The American space agency’s Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) spacecraft is due to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and break-up sometime during the next 24 hours.

BBC: (20-Mar-2001): Mir re-entry is unprecedented

… The de-orbiting of Mir would be a routine procedure if it were not for platform’s size. At 135 tonnes, Mir is far larger than any other manmade object brought to Earth before.

BBC (03-Sep-2006): Probe crashes into Moon’s surface

Europe’s lunar satellite, the Smart 1 probe, has ended its mission by crashing onto the Moon’s surface in a controlled collision.

American and Russian spacecraft de-orbit; European ones crash.

57 Channels…

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Jen and I finally succumbed (or should that be succame?) to Sky+™ telly last week, having become totally fed up with the incessant ads on the BBC telling us what we were missing. We had already tried a Freeview™ digital box, but there is no coverage at our house, the tallest transmitter (and, indeed, tallest free-standing structure) in the UK being, rather infuriatingly, just out of view behind the hill. 100 yards up the hill, fine; 100 yards down the hill, fine; but where we live, not fine. Not fine at all. Cable TV is but a distant dream this far out in the sticks. So Murdoch finally parted us from our hard-earned.

Isn’t there an awful lot of shite on telly these days?