What year is it?

So we appear to be ‘enjoying’ the 2020 Olympics. Is this simply because they had the posters and signage done? I think it would have been very cool and 21st-century if they had simply send around a bunch of people with Sharpies and spray cans to alter the signs!

Does this mean that in the future we can attach unrelated numbers to events rather than follow the clearly outmoded practice of using the actual year? Assuming this to be the case, and due to the fact that I have recently had a significant birthday, I am planning to use 2000 as my year of birth from now on. Not only that, I shall adjust it every fifth year to ensure that I am permanently in my twenties.

Back to the roots . . . .

I just can’t understand people who believe that Radio 4 is elitist and middle class . . . . I’d like to stay and chat but I must dash …. just caught a bit of the Archers when somebody is describing her stressful life and she’s reached the point where ‘then the au pair left . . . .’

Urban tragedy in the raw . . .

That’s OK then . . . .

Overheard in the pub: ‘Modern chainsaws are so safe they’d only cut half way through your arm before they cut out!’

My questions is this: what sort of mentality is required to put the word ‘only’ in this statement?

If not for me . . . .

This is a great book – beautifully written. And it inspired me to write this song.

‘If not for me…..’

on the album

‘New Start, New Day’ by Rowland Jones

On Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon

The (lost?)beauty of language

 

 

In yesterday’s Independent, Simmy Richman was looking at how the British perception of queuing has changed. Apparently Aaron Gillies in his new book suggests that: ‘Get to the back of the queue, you prick’ as the modern response. But how much more comforting to read Guy Browning’s description of the British way  from his book ‘The British Constitution :first draft:

” In the event of a verbal warning failure, the queue is allowed to seethe with resentment accompanied with barely audible muttering.”

As British as it comes— but then what else could one expect from a man who is named after the leader of the  Dambuster’s from a family named after a gravy making ingredient?