Hit it!

I have a magnificent singing voice. Even when I'm full of cold, it is extremely rare for me to hit a bum note. And, as for my vocal range, it's phenomenal. I'm not quite sure what an octave is, but, believe me, I can do them all. I am an undiscovered musical genius. If that tosser from Pop Idol wasn't such a tosser, he would snap me up immediately.

I spend a lot time in my car each week, so I get plenty of time to practice my singing. Recently, I've been singing along to my new iPod, which I've had cranked up to eleven. Yesterday, on the way home, I outbellowed Beefheart, did the Ressurection Shuffle with Sir Tom Live at Caesar's Palace, hit the high notes with Emmylou, and made the Boss sound like a laryngitic softie. Forget the ginger-headed yodeller from that Bunnymen tribute band, Coldplay, I'm the chap with the voice of the decade!

Honestly, I know you'll think I'm joking, but my singing really has to be heard to be believed. Unfortunately for you, you never will get to hear it: I am a shy, retiring and modest man, and my music is a private pleasure.

And, no, before you ask, you won't be hearing about any of my other private pleasures either. This is a family website.

Can't be done

I've just entered week three of the 48-hour cold I caught between Christmas and New Year.

Now I know He's omnipotent and everything, but I can't help feeling that, if I were God, I'd have given colds a miss. Colds and cats and athlete's foot: they're just not necessary. If I were Him, I'd have taken an extra day off instead, or spent a bit more time back at the old drawing-board, trying to sort out the total mess that is the human knee. Don't get me started on knees.

Talking of design faults in the human body, here's something I've noticed since I've had my cold: have you ever tried blowing your nose into a handkerchief using only one hand—while you're driving a car, for instance? I know it doesn't sound like much of a big deal, but I've discovered it's impossible. It can't be done.

Try it, if you don't believe me.

Mystery solved

I'll tell you one thing that's really cool about the internet: you can ask any stupid question you want, and maybe, just maybe, several years later, out of the blue, someone will send you an answer:

Gruts (23-Jun-2001): Two Black & White Masterpieces

Photo at O'Donoghue's
Photo of the photo in O'Donoghue's back room.
(Sorry about the blurring - it's very dark in there.)


…A sticky label stuck on the bottom of the photograph presumably once gave some details of who the distinguished gentlemen were, but it has faded over the years and is now completely illegible. If anyone reading this knows anything about this photograph, please e-mail me.

Just before Christmas, I received an email from a chap named Cliff, who lives in New York:

Hello Richard, I regularly read your page. We both enjoy drinking in O'Donoghues in Dublin. I was there recently and found out (with a high level of certainty) that the middle fellow in the picture in the back room is the Irish singer Joe Heaney. No one knew who the other men in the photo were. Joe Heaney sang mostly in Gaelic and died in 1984.

And, damn it, if he isn't right:

O'Donoghue's photo
Joe Heaney

(Note the two very different approaches to problem-solving: the Brit simply wonders out loud and doesn't do anything about it; the American flies across the Atlantic to ask the people in the bar.)

Thanks, Cliff. Mystery solved.

Paws for thought

A silly thought occurred to me on Friday: could dogs (or, indeed, volcanoes) who are just good friends be said to have Plutonic relationships?

Tiff

I don't claim to know much about women, but one thing I do know is that you should never offer an opinion in front of one of them—even if they ask you for one. Life's too short. It just isn't worth the hassle.

Which is why, if Jen puts the kettle on and asks whether I'd prefer tea or coffee, I naturally assume it's a trick question, and insist she tells me the right answer. You might think there couldn't possibly be a wrong answer to the question would you prefer tea or coffee?, but, believe me, there can be.

Far, far worse than expressing an opinion, however, is to accuse a woman of being downright wrong: "You're wrong" is the second* most dangerous thing you can say to a woman. Trust me, don't go there.

But I forgot this golden rule when I was out with Stense last week: Stense asked me a question, I rather stupidly gave her a straight answer, she told me I was wrong, I stood my ground, she stood hers, things started to turn a bit nasty, so, of course, I eventually had to back down—even though Stense was totally wrong, and, I have to say, totally out of order.

In over 15 years of friendship, it was our first falling out. I record the momentous argument here for posterity:

"How tall are you, Rich?"
"Five foot eight."
"No you're not."
"Yes I am."
"You're not."
"I am! I'm five foot eight!"
"No way!"
"Well how tall am I, then?"
"Five foot seven, at the very most."
"No, I'm five foot eight—172 centimetres—it says so on my passport."
"Richard…"
"OK, OK, you're right, I'm five foot seven."

(I can always tell when I'm skating on thin ice with Stense: she starts using my full name.)

OK, so maybe it wasn't exactly the world's biggest tiff, and we soon made friends again afterwards, but the episode has been niggling me ever since. Who the bloody hell did Stense think she was, telling me I didn't even know my own height?

So, on Sunday afternoon, I asked Jen to measure my height. Yes, that's right, Stense had reduced me to this: I actually stood in my bare feet with my back against the coal-hole door, while Jen made a mark on the wood. And it was all done scientifically, so that Stense couldn't possibly object: Jen stood on the bottom rung of a step-ladder to ensure that her eyes were level with the top of my head (no parallax errors there); she placed a horizontal ruler on top of my head to make sure her mark was level; she checked that my heels and toes were on the floor as she did so (no cheating!); and she measured the height of the mark above the floor with a long, metal tape measure.

And it turns out that, just as I had said, I am five foot eight inches tall.

…Well, five foot seven-and-a-half.

* Footnote:
For those chaps amongst you who haven't yet learnt the Number One most dangerous thing you can say to a woman, it is "Shush!". You have been warned.

Plane ridiculous

BBC: Indian budget air market hots up

A new Indian budget airline took to the skies on Tuesday, with a flight from the capital, Delhi, to Mumbai (Bombay)… Spicejet is offering some seats for as low as 99 rupees ($2.30) for the first three months of operations, and hopes to woo train passengers.

Don't see it myself: all those passengers sitting on the plane roofs sounds a bit dangerous.

Published
Filed under: Nonsense

Chicken Run

Jen, consulting the TV guide last week:

Hey, Chicken Run is only an hour and a quarter long!

…Mind you, it would have been a fuck of a lot shorter if I'd had it to do.

Brief Encounter

Stense/Elvis
Stense giving it the Elvises.

Stense and I had a fab day out in Llangollen yesterday.

It was cool.

We had tea and scones, went browsing in our favourite second-hand bookshop, drank beer, ate omelettes (without any stupid cress), took a ride on a steam train, and had a walk along the canal.

Actually, I stand corrected: it wasn't so much cool as bloody freezing.

Actually, no, I stand corrected again: it wasn't so much bloody freezing as five degrees below bloody freezing. Hence Stense's rather fetching womble-fur jacket.

Prezzies!

Jen and I bought each other iPods for Christmas. They are very cool. We bought them direct from Apple, which meant that we could have customised engravings added free of charge. Jen, rather too sensibly, if you ask me, had hers engraved with her name and an abbreviated version of our address. I, on the other hand, plumped for the opening couplet from my favourite Captain Beefheart song:

Richard's iPod

Very Rock 'n' Roll.