Another day, another instalment of my fabulous weekend a Paree – alas it is almost a week since I was there…
Did I mention I visited the Palace of Versailles – and very fancy it is, too.
There’s loads to see including a gigantic chair that ladies slept in sitting up (apparently it was the fashion in those days, which is why the beds were so short) and a rather expansive gardens. In fact, you would have to see it for yourself to realise just what a complete understatement the above statement is!
French Cousin 2 and I got up very early for our anticipated visit and were greeted with rain – beaucoup de pleut in fact! We took a double-decker underground train to Versailles, dodged the MASSIVE queue and strolled right in – French Cousin 2 has been taught well by French Aunt at this sort of thing.
Now, much of the tour is done on an audio headphone thingy so French Cousin 2 thought she’d ask for a transcript for me only to be told that such a thing did not exist and no one had ever enquired after one before. Deaf people apparently do not visit Versailles.
So, we had to make do with our sight only and this proved to be very useful at dodging the very annoying tourists who were EVERYWHERE and taking pictures of EVERYTHING! One of them actually pushed French Cousin 2 out of the way to get a picture of a fireplace.
But, all that aside, Versailles really was incredible! Outside was very deaf friendly! There was the loudest music playing in the grounds – it was so loud that I nearly fell over in fact! It really helped set the scene and I half expected to see Louis XIV hiding in the bushes with Marie Antoinette.
There were fountains, too. Incredible, massive, humongous and very very old fountains – all still working amazingly well on their original, and vast, pipework.
In true French style, we picnicked. French Cousin 2 had been very organised and made it all that morning. I wolfed down my baguette with jambon et fromage that I had been thinking about since breakfast time and it was delicious.
The Palace of Versailles really is a massive place – to look at, to walk around (my feet can confirm) and to take in – it’s left quite an imprint on my mind.
This morning for example, I walked past Buckingham Palace and thought, ‘Oooh what a cute little cottage.’
Hmmm!
Friday, 29 August 2008
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Life on Mars
What do you get if you cross a mad scientist with a strange looking Russian woman dressed in tin foil, some political propaganda and a stupid self-loving musician with no respect for the hearing, the deaf or even the dead?!
Well, aside from an ugly, overly amorous French man snoring the deckchair in front of me, you also get Aelita.
Now, for those of you who don’t know – that’s you, me and the rest of the World, I think – Aelita was the first film made by one of the pioneers of the Russian cinema, Yakov Protazanov, after his return from Europe, where he remained during difficult times of Russian Civil War of 1918–1922.
Aelita is a propagandistic story, told in what is basically a sci-fi film attempting to proliferate communist ideas, and it is based on a Sci-fi novel by Alexei Tolstoy. Are you asleep yet?
If you were watching the movie to a different soundtrack to what we had, you wouldn’t be but I can only describe the soundtrack we endured as akin to being locked in the boiler cupboard of a cruise ship with a flute and a saxophone for company and a man who only knew three notes on each!
Let me first set the scene – the scene I was in, not that our dear Aelita was in. French Cousin 2 and Mustard Boy are those enviable Parisians who soak up culture on a daily basis in the same way people over here soak up gin and tonics, although to be fair they are quite fond of a tipple or two.
And, just around the corner from their lovely flat is this incredible restaurant/bar/club/terrace and prairie!
Eh?
Yes, they turned the top floor into a prairie, covered the floor with fake grass, installed a few water features and filled the place with deckchairs and hammocks – there’s even the essential bar serving cocktails. And this, after our eclectic meal downstairs complete with the rudest waitress ever, was where Aelita graced us with her presence.
So, onto the movie… Meet Los, a scientist, who is married to Natasha and working on a spaceship capable of going to Mars. For entertainment value, the Russian Civil War is raging and people are starving.
In the midst of this are a whole host of other characters portraying communist ideal against bourgeois wealth… I got a bit lost to be honest so stole a chocolate brownie of Mustard Boy.
While all this happens on Earth, we also get to see what’s happening on Mars, naturally! On the red planet, there’s regime similar to that of Egyptian pharaohs, where the working class, represented by the slaves, suffers under tyrannical regime of the ruling class. Heck, they took it so far that even the King looks like Cleopatra! And the slaves were stored in a refrigerated unit – although I don’t really know why. French Cousin 2 explained however, that this was to illustrate how disposable the rulers saw society to be.
It's from this delightful planet that Martian princess Aelita observes the life of Los and, as a result, wants to kiss him. I have no idea why she wants this… Los is by no means wonderful – he’s as attractive as an anorexic Herman Munster, has the charisma of lettuce bathed in olive oil and harbours murderous intentions towards his wife.
To be fair, he thinks his wife is having an affair with a rich man so he shoots her and then sets of in his spaceship to Mars with a man dressed up as a woman and a white rat.
Upon arrival, there’s a slave uprising and revolution, which results in the establishing of the Soviet Republic of Mars! The end?
Well it was for me, as it was at this point that the music got so loud and unbearable that I fell into a coma. But apparently, according to French Cousin 2, Los returns and finds his wife is not dead and she forgives him. They were, it seems, as fond as Hollywood endings as um… Hollywood are – except I have just remembered that French Cousin 2 told me that Los tries to kill his wife again… romantic fellow isn’t he!
Just incase my careful synopsis doesn’t have you dashing out to HMV to buy your own copy of the movie… does anyone fancy watching Aelita with me so I can see how it ended?
Well, aside from an ugly, overly amorous French man snoring the deckchair in front of me, you also get Aelita.
Now, for those of you who don’t know – that’s you, me and the rest of the World, I think – Aelita was the first film made by one of the pioneers of the Russian cinema, Yakov Protazanov, after his return from Europe, where he remained during difficult times of Russian Civil War of 1918–1922.
Aelita is a propagandistic story, told in what is basically a sci-fi film attempting to proliferate communist ideas, and it is based on a Sci-fi novel by Alexei Tolstoy. Are you asleep yet?
If you were watching the movie to a different soundtrack to what we had, you wouldn’t be but I can only describe the soundtrack we endured as akin to being locked in the boiler cupboard of a cruise ship with a flute and a saxophone for company and a man who only knew three notes on each!
Let me first set the scene – the scene I was in, not that our dear Aelita was in. French Cousin 2 and Mustard Boy are those enviable Parisians who soak up culture on a daily basis in the same way people over here soak up gin and tonics, although to be fair they are quite fond of a tipple or two.
And, just around the corner from their lovely flat is this incredible restaurant/bar/club/terrace and prairie!
Eh?
Yes, they turned the top floor into a prairie, covered the floor with fake grass, installed a few water features and filled the place with deckchairs and hammocks – there’s even the essential bar serving cocktails. And this, after our eclectic meal downstairs complete with the rudest waitress ever, was where Aelita graced us with her presence.
So, onto the movie… Meet Los, a scientist, who is married to Natasha and working on a spaceship capable of going to Mars. For entertainment value, the Russian Civil War is raging and people are starving.
In the midst of this are a whole host of other characters portraying communist ideal against bourgeois wealth… I got a bit lost to be honest so stole a chocolate brownie of Mustard Boy.
While all this happens on Earth, we also get to see what’s happening on Mars, naturally! On the red planet, there’s regime similar to that of Egyptian pharaohs, where the working class, represented by the slaves, suffers under tyrannical regime of the ruling class. Heck, they took it so far that even the King looks like Cleopatra! And the slaves were stored in a refrigerated unit – although I don’t really know why. French Cousin 2 explained however, that this was to illustrate how disposable the rulers saw society to be.
It's from this delightful planet that Martian princess Aelita observes the life of Los and, as a result, wants to kiss him. I have no idea why she wants this… Los is by no means wonderful – he’s as attractive as an anorexic Herman Munster, has the charisma of lettuce bathed in olive oil and harbours murderous intentions towards his wife.
To be fair, he thinks his wife is having an affair with a rich man so he shoots her and then sets of in his spaceship to Mars with a man dressed up as a woman and a white rat.
Upon arrival, there’s a slave uprising and revolution, which results in the establishing of the Soviet Republic of Mars! The end?
Well it was for me, as it was at this point that the music got so loud and unbearable that I fell into a coma. But apparently, according to French Cousin 2, Los returns and finds his wife is not dead and she forgives him. They were, it seems, as fond as Hollywood endings as um… Hollywood are – except I have just remembered that French Cousin 2 told me that Los tries to kill his wife again… romantic fellow isn’t he!
Just incase my careful synopsis doesn’t have you dashing out to HMV to buy your own copy of the movie… does anyone fancy watching Aelita with me so I can see how it ended?
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
I left my heart in Paris
I had a lovely time visiting French Cousin 2 at the weekend and her man, Mustard Boy. I also had the pleasure of seeing French Cousin 1 and his GIRLF, too. And then, as a complete surprise to all of us, French Cousin 3 dropped by… from Stuttgart
Luckily I had bought lots of chocolate raisins.
Now, this post could have almost been called ‘I left my heart in Brussels’ because the 19.32 to Paris Nord goes from the adjacent platform to the 19.34 to Brussels. So excited was I on Friday night that I wasn’t really paying any attention. I showed my ticket to the nice lady, marched up the moving ramp to my train and got into carriage 3.
Now luckily, I am vaguely paranoid about getting on the wrong train on account of my hearing because while a non-deaf person might get on the Brussels train, they probably wouldn’t stay on it due to a lovely announcement telling them of the destination. I, however, would discover my new weekend-break destination on arrival!
But as I was saying, luckily I am paranoid about these things so I stuck my head out the door and squinted to the other end of the platform to see what the sign said… ‘Brussels’!
Argh!
Cue frantic scrabble for suitcase, book, mobile phone, coat, carrier bag with M&S picnic in, Arrow Word book (shhh don’t tell The Writer) and a mad dash across the platform. Luckily I made it – but I was so unconvinced that I was on the right train after that debacle that I was only happy when I saw the Paris Nord sign and not one that read Abu Dahbi or Timbuktu.
So Paris was great but I can’t tell you about it all today as that would take far too long. There was Versailles, Saint Chapelle, and a 1920s silent movie from Russia that saw the founding of the Soviet Union of Mars that was screened in an indoor park with hammocks and deckchairs – and that… deafinitely deserves a post of its own.
Luckily I had bought lots of chocolate raisins.
Now, this post could have almost been called ‘I left my heart in Brussels’ because the 19.32 to Paris Nord goes from the adjacent platform to the 19.34 to Brussels. So excited was I on Friday night that I wasn’t really paying any attention. I showed my ticket to the nice lady, marched up the moving ramp to my train and got into carriage 3.
Now luckily, I am vaguely paranoid about getting on the wrong train on account of my hearing because while a non-deaf person might get on the Brussels train, they probably wouldn’t stay on it due to a lovely announcement telling them of the destination. I, however, would discover my new weekend-break destination on arrival!
But as I was saying, luckily I am paranoid about these things so I stuck my head out the door and squinted to the other end of the platform to see what the sign said… ‘Brussels’!
Argh!
Cue frantic scrabble for suitcase, book, mobile phone, coat, carrier bag with M&S picnic in, Arrow Word book (shhh don’t tell The Writer) and a mad dash across the platform. Luckily I made it – but I was so unconvinced that I was on the right train after that debacle that I was only happy when I saw the Paris Nord sign and not one that read Abu Dahbi or Timbuktu.
So Paris was great but I can’t tell you about it all today as that would take far too long. There was Versailles, Saint Chapelle, and a 1920s silent movie from Russia that saw the founding of the Soviet Union of Mars that was screened in an indoor park with hammocks and deckchairs – and that… deafinitely deserves a post of its own.
Monday, 25 August 2008
from my Pinkberry
It is a lovely bank holiday today and I'm still marvelling at how great the eurostar is at speeding people so effortlessly from France to here and back. I'd love to wax lyrical about it but I can't as I'm still struggling with my Pinkberry keyboard on which I am currently writing this! Beeb Boy warned me it was tricky and he wasn't lying... Gone are the days of speedy flippant, but well-punctuated, texts! Now you'll be lucky to get two words that make sense! So that's the end of today's post -apologies for any errors, the automatic zoeller is so cocky it thinks it can read my mind and my thn umb is conviced that z is the button for s! Until tomorrow...!
Friday, 22 August 2008
Exciting news!
Fab Friend has contacted me from Peru… she commented on this very blog to say hello and that she was having a lovely time (see Holiday!). I was very pleased to hear from her as she seems, and is, very far away.
But, when my Pinkberry flashed up an alert with her note, it could have been as though she was just around the corner from me, in her lovely London flat.
The internet is great like that – no more echoey (ugly word!) phone lines across the Seven Seas telling us she had arrived safely. Instead, a Facebook status update and a Peruvian hit on my blog visitor counter!
On the bus this morning, I was confined to the ground floor because my Parisian suitcase is extremely heavy – it is stuffed to the brim with Golden Syrup, chocolate raisins and crumpets galore – and I find that being stuck down there does not allow for creative thought or writing, so I let my mind wander.
I began to think, as my Pinkberry buzzed through a pointless email, what it would be like if I went on one of those budget TV shows where you have to give up something that really matters. You know the ones I’m talking about!
I once watched one where a Z-list pop star had to give up make-up for a week… once she’d scraped and steamed it all off, it was quite plain to see why she wore so much in the first place. Natural beauty had not graced her face – I considered sending a trowel and some industrial wall filler to her agent.
Anyway, I think those nasty TV peeps would deafinitely make me give up electronic communication – either that or salad and baked beans for tea, but let’s be honest here, the latter would not make riveting viewing.
That would mean: no mobile – so no texting, and no computer – so no email, Google, online booking, and internet in general. In short, I would be screwed!
I would start my day sleeping through, as my mobile is my back-up vibrating alarm clock. Then I would be in trouble at work as couldn’t phone to say I was going to be late. Then I would spend the whole day getting everything wrong, as without computers, everything would have to be done on that beastly telephone.
I would cry, scream, shout and stamp and probably spend the next 20 years cringing over my cornflakes about my shocking TV debut.
Thankfully, this will never happen, so I’m off to Google the Parisian weather forecast and email my Pa as he’s been poorly.
Au revoir et grosse bises!
But, when my Pinkberry flashed up an alert with her note, it could have been as though she was just around the corner from me, in her lovely London flat.
The internet is great like that – no more echoey (ugly word!) phone lines across the Seven Seas telling us she had arrived safely. Instead, a Facebook status update and a Peruvian hit on my blog visitor counter!
On the bus this morning, I was confined to the ground floor because my Parisian suitcase is extremely heavy – it is stuffed to the brim with Golden Syrup, chocolate raisins and crumpets galore – and I find that being stuck down there does not allow for creative thought or writing, so I let my mind wander.
I began to think, as my Pinkberry buzzed through a pointless email, what it would be like if I went on one of those budget TV shows where you have to give up something that really matters. You know the ones I’m talking about!
I once watched one where a Z-list pop star had to give up make-up for a week… once she’d scraped and steamed it all off, it was quite plain to see why she wore so much in the first place. Natural beauty had not graced her face – I considered sending a trowel and some industrial wall filler to her agent.
Anyway, I think those nasty TV peeps would deafinitely make me give up electronic communication – either that or salad and baked beans for tea, but let’s be honest here, the latter would not make riveting viewing.
That would mean: no mobile – so no texting, and no computer – so no email, Google, online booking, and internet in general. In short, I would be screwed!
I would start my day sleeping through, as my mobile is my back-up vibrating alarm clock. Then I would be in trouble at work as couldn’t phone to say I was going to be late. Then I would spend the whole day getting everything wrong, as without computers, everything would have to be done on that beastly telephone.
I would cry, scream, shout and stamp and probably spend the next 20 years cringing over my cornflakes about my shocking TV debut.
Thankfully, this will never happen, so I’m off to Google the Parisian weather forecast and email my Pa as he’s been poorly.
Au revoir et grosse bises!
Thursday, 21 August 2008
Deaf or not deaf?
Today I was on the bus listening to the Gabe Dixon Band on my new Pinkberry. I have to have it playing quite loud so was very worried about other passengers getting cross – no one sat next to me the whole journey.
I turned it down, still no one sat next to me – so I turned it back up.
Halfway through the journey a ticket inspector boarded the bus and asked to see everyone’s ticket – I have my disabled one – I had headphones in my ears and I could see him eyeing me trying to work out what I’ve got…
It made me feel a bit of a fraud…
If I have trouble believing my deafness, what of other people? Do they think I am a fraud, too? When I achieve something do people question whether I really am deaf?
I had these worries, thoughts and questions for all of five seconds because on getting off the bus I nearly got run over by a police car, didn’t hear a bloke asking me to move out of the way and blanked a colleague in the street.
I am deafinitely deaf alright.
I turned it down, still no one sat next to me – so I turned it back up.
Halfway through the journey a ticket inspector boarded the bus and asked to see everyone’s ticket – I have my disabled one – I had headphones in my ears and I could see him eyeing me trying to work out what I’ve got…
It made me feel a bit of a fraud…
If I have trouble believing my deafness, what of other people? Do they think I am a fraud, too? When I achieve something do people question whether I really am deaf?
I had these worries, thoughts and questions for all of five seconds because on getting off the bus I nearly got run over by a police car, didn’t hear a bloke asking me to move out of the way and blanked a colleague in the street.
I am deafinitely deaf alright.
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Thinking of Adrian
If you only do one thing today, I ask that you click on the sidebar link to Baldy's Blog and have a read. It was written by a 25-year-old journalist called Adrian Sudbury, who was diagnosed leukaemia a while back, and who has since campaigned effortlessly to get people to sign up to the bone marrow register.
I'd never met Adrian but found out about him through his widely-publicised campaign.
When I clicked on Baldy's Blog to read his daily post today, as I always do, I found out that he died this morning.
Have a read about what he did and what he thought and I think you'll find it inspirational. He gave me much food for thought and although I hate hospitals I think joining the bone-marrow register is something I am now going to do.
And it's not just me he convinced either...
perhaps he'll convince you, too.
I'd never met Adrian but found out about him through his widely-publicised campaign.
When I clicked on Baldy's Blog to read his daily post today, as I always do, I found out that he died this morning.
Have a read about what he did and what he thought and I think you'll find it inspirational. He gave me much food for thought and although I hate hospitals I think joining the bone-marrow register is something I am now going to do.
And it's not just me he convinced either...
perhaps he'll convince you, too.
My day's been aura-lly challenged
The weirdest thing happened to me on the bus this morning – someone sat on my aura…
Eh?
Yes, that’s what I thought, too. But she definitely did and it was quite unpleasant.
Now, for those of you with filthy minds, let me first just clarify what an aura is. According to the dictionary, it can be, amongst other things ‘the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person’
I first came across the notions of auras at school during activities week – a shocking infliction that came about at the end of the summer term and involved the forced signing-up for daily jaunts around the Gloucestershire countryside or in my case, a massage course, which was my final activity of the week.
The other activity spanned the first three days and was called Creative Cake Baking. Now, bearing in mind I was banned from doing Home Economics GCSE for fear of bringing the league tables down, I was surprised to get a place on this. I was a panicky baker in those days and everything tended to go wrong.
I decided to make an upright piano cake, which involved lots and lots of ready rolled icing and brown food colouring – it was all going swimmingly until I dropped the keyboard.
*sniff
Anyway, by the time the massage course started I was in need of one myself and so Best-Friend-From-School and I threw ourselves into it with gusto. The woman teaching us was a bit flaky and looked like she ate compost for breakfast. The first thing she told us to do was rub our hands together and feel each other’s auras – now, in today’s climate, the Government inspectors would have been called in for that comment, the school closed and Compost Woman carted off for a long time to a camp for unsuitables before she had a chance to explain the innocence of the situation.
But do you know what, she totally convinced me that auras exist – they’re kind of like a personal space and mine gets bigger and smaller according to how comfortable I am in a situation.
This morning, I was tired and needing sleep and so my aura was quite large and possibly radiating onto the seat next to me – my bad I guess, as it meant that when this woman – clearly without any sort of aura – sat down beside me, she sat on it. And, even though there were loads of other places she could have moved to as the bus gradually emptied out, she didn’t.
It was the most claustrophobic ride of my life. I silently willed her to move but knew I couldn’t say anything to her. After all, what kind of nutter says to their neighbour on the bus, ‘Excuse me, could you move please, you’re sat on my aura.’
And, on that note, I am off to check the palms of my hands for hair…
Eh?
Yes, that’s what I thought, too. But she definitely did and it was quite unpleasant.
Now, for those of you with filthy minds, let me first just clarify what an aura is. According to the dictionary, it can be, amongst other things ‘the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person’
I first came across the notions of auras at school during activities week – a shocking infliction that came about at the end of the summer term and involved the forced signing-up for daily jaunts around the Gloucestershire countryside or in my case, a massage course, which was my final activity of the week.
The other activity spanned the first three days and was called Creative Cake Baking. Now, bearing in mind I was banned from doing Home Economics GCSE for fear of bringing the league tables down, I was surprised to get a place on this. I was a panicky baker in those days and everything tended to go wrong.
I decided to make an upright piano cake, which involved lots and lots of ready rolled icing and brown food colouring – it was all going swimmingly until I dropped the keyboard.
*sniff
Anyway, by the time the massage course started I was in need of one myself and so Best-Friend-From-School and I threw ourselves into it with gusto. The woman teaching us was a bit flaky and looked like she ate compost for breakfast. The first thing she told us to do was rub our hands together and feel each other’s auras – now, in today’s climate, the Government inspectors would have been called in for that comment, the school closed and Compost Woman carted off for a long time to a camp for unsuitables before she had a chance to explain the innocence of the situation.
But do you know what, she totally convinced me that auras exist – they’re kind of like a personal space and mine gets bigger and smaller according to how comfortable I am in a situation.
This morning, I was tired and needing sleep and so my aura was quite large and possibly radiating onto the seat next to me – my bad I guess, as it meant that when this woman – clearly without any sort of aura – sat down beside me, she sat on it. And, even though there were loads of other places she could have moved to as the bus gradually emptied out, she didn’t.
It was the most claustrophobic ride of my life. I silently willed her to move but knew I couldn’t say anything to her. After all, what kind of nutter says to their neighbour on the bus, ‘Excuse me, could you move please, you’re sat on my aura.’
And, on that note, I am off to check the palms of my hands for hair…
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
Hopelessly addicted to…
Today, O2 is my favourite company in the whole world! I still think its online services for deaf people are positively appalling, but the staff in O2’s shops are amazing. One guy in particular has made my day – after all, it’s because of him that I have a nice shiny new PINK phone, which does everything I want it to… and more!
After several emails to O2, which appeared to be falling on deaf ears (ah-ha-ha-ha) I was getting a bit frustrated and my old phone was starting to die at a rapid rate. But then I went climbing with Beeb Boy and he told me he’d got a great deal with O2 with internet and everything and a nice shiny Blackberry to go with it!
Now, as you know, I have been hankering after an iPhone for quite some time but, as you also know, these only come in uniform black, which isn’t very, um… ME. But did you know Blackberry make a Pinkberry!?
So, it was this I set my sights on and after a little bit of research I tripped my way, rather elegantly, into The Rents’ local O2 shop. There I explained my predicament, ‘No online help, lots of emails, everyone ignoring me, broken phone, loyal customer, yah, yah, yah, sob, sob sob.’ And the guy called them straight up to sort it for me!
Even he got the picture of how frustrating O2 online is after the fourth time the dim-witted imbecile at the other end of the phone asked to speak to me. There are only so many ways of explaining someone is hard of hearing and I thought this guy did pretty well!
So, to cut a long story short, he bargained away until they slashed some prices and threw in some stuff for free and now I honestly think that even if I could hear and make the call myself, I couldn’t have done it better.
I’ve only had my phone for 24 hours and I am already hooked – so hooked in fact, that I can totally see why they call it a Crackberry in America...
I must not check my email every five seconds
I must not check my email every five seconds
I must not check my email every five seconds…
Oh sod it…
After several emails to O2, which appeared to be falling on deaf ears (ah-ha-ha-ha) I was getting a bit frustrated and my old phone was starting to die at a rapid rate. But then I went climbing with Beeb Boy and he told me he’d got a great deal with O2 with internet and everything and a nice shiny Blackberry to go with it!
Now, as you know, I have been hankering after an iPhone for quite some time but, as you also know, these only come in uniform black, which isn’t very, um… ME. But did you know Blackberry make a Pinkberry!?
So, it was this I set my sights on and after a little bit of research I tripped my way, rather elegantly, into The Rents’ local O2 shop. There I explained my predicament, ‘No online help, lots of emails, everyone ignoring me, broken phone, loyal customer, yah, yah, yah, sob, sob sob.’ And the guy called them straight up to sort it for me!
Even he got the picture of how frustrating O2 online is after the fourth time the dim-witted imbecile at the other end of the phone asked to speak to me. There are only so many ways of explaining someone is hard of hearing and I thought this guy did pretty well!
So, to cut a long story short, he bargained away until they slashed some prices and threw in some stuff for free and now I honestly think that even if I could hear and make the call myself, I couldn’t have done it better.
I’ve only had my phone for 24 hours and I am already hooked – so hooked in fact, that I can totally see why they call it a Crackberry in America...
I must not check my email every five seconds
I must not check my email every five seconds
I must not check my email every five seconds…
Oh sod it…
Sunday, 17 August 2008
Spectacular Speculoos
I finally got to taste the much anticipated Speculoos paste at the weekend and have been eating it out of the jar ever since. It's possibly one of the most delicious and moreish things I have ever tasted and I have already been contemplating and planning various culinary experiments centred around it. What a shame that my chief taster, Shakira-Shakira, is currently sunning herself on a Turkish beach – it's so tasty that I am not sure I can guarantee any remaining on her return.
It has the wonderful consistency of smooth peanut butter and taste-bud explosion of sugar, sweet, spice and and what can only be described as GOO. I am planning to whip it into butter icing for a gingerbread loaf, make a Speculoos ice-cream smoothie, and I've also already discovered that it tastes quite nice with lettuce and cucumber.
I am wondering if it might taste nice added to chicken stir fry but as I cannot guarantee it and it's not available over here, I am not going to risk it and waste it on what could potentially be worse than the microwave-sponge incident.
My visit to the rents was great... not only did they turn a blind eye to me eating Speculoos paste out of jar with a long-handled teaspoon, they also took me to see a place called Foxton Locks - which has 10 locks in a staircase that takes a canal boat 55 minutes to go up or down. It was absolutely fascinating and my inner geek got a splendid day out! I am also glad to still be here after tripping and hurtling towards the fast-draining, sure-fire-way-of-drowning lock number 5. Thankfully I was saved from my stumble from my Ma - her blood pressure is only just back to normal... I think.
And now, I am back in The Smoke, and very rested, too – partly aided by my first class ticket down on the train this morning - it really was the cheapest ticket available, how cool is that! I could definitely get used to travelling this way – there was a free newspaper, orange juice and something that should have been tea but that tasted more like coffee – although I am not altogether sure it was either. There was also so much space that I was almost sad that the journey back from my Rents is such a short one...
And now, I am back – ready for the week ahead and my imminent trip to Paris to see French Cousin and Mustard Boy.
C'est bon, c'est trés, trés bon!
It has the wonderful consistency of smooth peanut butter and taste-bud explosion of sugar, sweet, spice and and what can only be described as GOO. I am planning to whip it into butter icing for a gingerbread loaf, make a Speculoos ice-cream smoothie, and I've also already discovered that it tastes quite nice with lettuce and cucumber.
I am wondering if it might taste nice added to chicken stir fry but as I cannot guarantee it and it's not available over here, I am not going to risk it and waste it on what could potentially be worse than the microwave-sponge incident.
My visit to the rents was great... not only did they turn a blind eye to me eating Speculoos paste out of jar with a long-handled teaspoon, they also took me to see a place called Foxton Locks - which has 10 locks in a staircase that takes a canal boat 55 minutes to go up or down. It was absolutely fascinating and my inner geek got a splendid day out! I am also glad to still be here after tripping and hurtling towards the fast-draining, sure-fire-way-of-drowning lock number 5. Thankfully I was saved from my stumble from my Ma - her blood pressure is only just back to normal... I think.
And now, I am back in The Smoke, and very rested, too – partly aided by my first class ticket down on the train this morning - it really was the cheapest ticket available, how cool is that! I could definitely get used to travelling this way – there was a free newspaper, orange juice and something that should have been tea but that tasted more like coffee – although I am not altogether sure it was either. There was also so much space that I was almost sad that the journey back from my Rents is such a short one...
And now, I am back – ready for the week ahead and my imminent trip to Paris to see French Cousin and Mustard Boy.
C'est bon, c'est trés, trés bon!
Friday, 15 August 2008
Holiday!
I am currently writing this from the sun-drenched countryside, a fresh brew of tea is in the pot, there are cats sleeping in a sunny spot in the kitchen, a tractor has just ambled past and I am chewing on a piece of hay. Honestly, the last bit is made up, but I can see a whole field of hay so if I did want to complete the stereotypical country view, it would be possible... just not that pleasant.
What it is about our surroundings that affects the mental pictures that we build? If I was writing this from a penthouse flat in New York, I would probably have my take-out coffee by my side, a small yappy dog nearby and a maid turning down my bed. Likewise, thinking about Fab Friend in Peru right now, I imagine her at a computer with a plait in her hair, tanned and fab, about to hit the beach 'til sundown.
It's not just situations that we can build up whole, often imaginary pictures, about though. Quite often I will build entire mental lives for people I see, without even having spoken to them, not in a nasty way either, just giving them a character based on their appearance. Do hearing people do this, too? Someone must let me know. I was just wondering whether, in that first, fleeting conversation, if you, like me are building more of a visual picture, than one based on what the person is saying?
I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing to do though. It's not judgemental as long as you don't let it get in the way of the person who you are really talking to.
Take the other day, I was out with someone and a tune came on that I recognised. 'Oh, it's David Gray,' I remarked. 'I thought you were deaf,' was his reply. A bit shocked I explained that I was deaf but could hear some stuff. 'It's black and white for me,' he said. 'You're either deaf or you're not.'
So shocked was I, that I didn't even stand up for myself. What I did realise though that was, in those first fleeting moments when he found out about my hearing loss, he built a mental picture. And, rather than letting that change with time as he got to know me, he kept trying to get me to fit it. And, do you know what, it didn't work.
I too had built a mental picture of him in those first, fleeting moments and, it taught me just how wrong those mental pictures can be.
What it is about our surroundings that affects the mental pictures that we build? If I was writing this from a penthouse flat in New York, I would probably have my take-out coffee by my side, a small yappy dog nearby and a maid turning down my bed. Likewise, thinking about Fab Friend in Peru right now, I imagine her at a computer with a plait in her hair, tanned and fab, about to hit the beach 'til sundown.
It's not just situations that we can build up whole, often imaginary pictures, about though. Quite often I will build entire mental lives for people I see, without even having spoken to them, not in a nasty way either, just giving them a character based on their appearance. Do hearing people do this, too? Someone must let me know. I was just wondering whether, in that first, fleeting conversation, if you, like me are building more of a visual picture, than one based on what the person is saying?
I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing to do though. It's not judgemental as long as you don't let it get in the way of the person who you are really talking to.
Take the other day, I was out with someone and a tune came on that I recognised. 'Oh, it's David Gray,' I remarked. 'I thought you were deaf,' was his reply. A bit shocked I explained that I was deaf but could hear some stuff. 'It's black and white for me,' he said. 'You're either deaf or you're not.'
So shocked was I, that I didn't even stand up for myself. What I did realise though that was, in those first fleeting moments when he found out about my hearing loss, he built a mental picture. And, rather than letting that change with time as he got to know me, he kept trying to get me to fit it. And, do you know what, it didn't work.
I too had built a mental picture of him in those first, fleeting moments and, it taught me just how wrong those mental pictures can be.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Tomorrow, tomorrow…
…there will be no post as I am having a day off work and ranting!
Instead I will be out and about harvesting new ideas, shouting at the TV for the shocking subtitles of the Olympic coverage and hoping for a sunshiney day!
Bisous
DG
Instead I will be out and about harvesting new ideas, shouting at the TV for the shocking subtitles of the Olympic coverage and hoping for a sunshiney day!
Bisous
DG
Remember, remember
Ever had a memory triggered because of a certain smell? It’s very common apparently.
Let’s start with a nice bit of science for you… hmmm, actually scrap that – I was never very good at science and all I can find on Google is a lot of complicated stuff that I don’t get. The long and short of it is that when you smell something, your brain often links it to the situation you were in when you smelt it – for example chlorine may make you think of school swimming lessons, curry – university, cheese – your first boyfriend’s feet… etc etc.
Now, while smells do trigger some memories for me, it’s actually sounds that trigger the most – more importantly, music. Weird huh!
Take the other day for example. There I was, driving back from London Aunt’s house when Hazard by Richard Marx came on the radio – something of a regular occurrence if you listen to Heart I think.
Anyway, it catapulted me back, as if by magic, to the early 90s when it first came out, and all these images flashed before my eyes of me and Jenny M, my favourite red jeans from Tammy Girl (they were the height of fashion… kind of) and the last Christmas disco before I changed schools.
It was amazing, it could have been yesterday, and for the remainder of the journey, I reminisced with a big grin on my face.
Then, at work, there’s a song that always comes on the radio – the name of which I don’t know – but it was on a Rosemary Connelly workout video that I bought when I was a teenager. Now, whenever I hear it, I can visualise me dancing around my Rents’ old living room in cycling shorts and a granddad top (the 90s were not great for fashion – Fab Friend did a good line in Lumberjack shirts and leggings apparently). Anyway I can still remember the arm movements and found myself absentmindedly doing them at my desk the other day.
*blush
It’s not just about what sounds trigger memories either, it’s my memory of sounds! I can remember the sounds of things that I can’t hear anymore such as an old music box I had as a child, cats meowing and phones ringing. If someone tells me that a sound is occurring, I will often hear it in my head once I know what it is. But seeing as I last heard a phone ring in the 80s and it was an old bell one, I hear the brring, brring of a circular-dial telephone for even the most modern-looking phones.
I guess in many ways, my memory isn’t deaf even though I now am – how cool is that? It’s like I can sidestep into it and hear things again. When I play my flute, my teacher often plays the tune an octave lower so I can hear it, commit it to memory and then transpose it up an octave in my head – my memory does that! It remembers the pitch, the order and the rise and fall of the notes.
Phew, thank goodness I remembered to collect something good before I was born… I may have been busy collecting my ‘taste for expensive handbags’ instead of my hearing and sight senses but I clearly remembered to get memory, too.
*teehee!
Let’s start with a nice bit of science for you… hmmm, actually scrap that – I was never very good at science and all I can find on Google is a lot of complicated stuff that I don’t get. The long and short of it is that when you smell something, your brain often links it to the situation you were in when you smelt it – for example chlorine may make you think of school swimming lessons, curry – university, cheese – your first boyfriend’s feet… etc etc.
Now, while smells do trigger some memories for me, it’s actually sounds that trigger the most – more importantly, music. Weird huh!
Take the other day for example. There I was, driving back from London Aunt’s house when Hazard by Richard Marx came on the radio – something of a regular occurrence if you listen to Heart I think.
Anyway, it catapulted me back, as if by magic, to the early 90s when it first came out, and all these images flashed before my eyes of me and Jenny M, my favourite red jeans from Tammy Girl (they were the height of fashion… kind of) and the last Christmas disco before I changed schools.
It was amazing, it could have been yesterday, and for the remainder of the journey, I reminisced with a big grin on my face.
Then, at work, there’s a song that always comes on the radio – the name of which I don’t know – but it was on a Rosemary Connelly workout video that I bought when I was a teenager. Now, whenever I hear it, I can visualise me dancing around my Rents’ old living room in cycling shorts and a granddad top (the 90s were not great for fashion – Fab Friend did a good line in Lumberjack shirts and leggings apparently). Anyway I can still remember the arm movements and found myself absentmindedly doing them at my desk the other day.
*blush
It’s not just about what sounds trigger memories either, it’s my memory of sounds! I can remember the sounds of things that I can’t hear anymore such as an old music box I had as a child, cats meowing and phones ringing. If someone tells me that a sound is occurring, I will often hear it in my head once I know what it is. But seeing as I last heard a phone ring in the 80s and it was an old bell one, I hear the brring, brring of a circular-dial telephone for even the most modern-looking phones.
I guess in many ways, my memory isn’t deaf even though I now am – how cool is that? It’s like I can sidestep into it and hear things again. When I play my flute, my teacher often plays the tune an octave lower so I can hear it, commit it to memory and then transpose it up an octave in my head – my memory does that! It remembers the pitch, the order and the rise and fall of the notes.
Phew, thank goodness I remembered to collect something good before I was born… I may have been busy collecting my ‘taste for expensive handbags’ instead of my hearing and sight senses but I clearly remembered to get memory, too.
*teehee!
Monday, 11 August 2008
My weather obsession
It would seem that I am officially obsessed with the weather and it’s doing my head in. I can’t seem to hold a single conversation with anyone without bringing it up – mainly because it’s depressing me so much.
Rather alarmingly, I have started to talk to myself about the weather too, although I would like to reassure you that this is not the first sign of madness I have displayed. Last night, driving home from London Aunt’s with the rain pelting down, I found myself giving a running commentary on the puddles, the flooding and the crazy bad-weather driving that was occurring up ahead… to who? God knows, but I must have looked totally barmy.
When I was about 7 years old I fell for that old trick of someone telling you that if you had hairy palms you were mad, so I inspected mine closely, and then BAM – I had a sore nose as someone smacked my hand into my face. It hurt, and I was upset – but I went off and, with glee and no guilt, found someone as gullible as me to try it out on. Kids are weird aren’t they?
But anyway, back to the weather – what is going on? Last week I was fantasising about winter food and this weekend I was thinking about buying thick woolly cardigans – it’s all wrong.
And, it would seem that all my London Friends share this view. Shakira-Shakira has escaped to Turkey for some beach hip-shaking fun, with The Writer set to join her next week. Fab Friend leaves for Peru tomorrow for some guaranteed heat – although Machu Whatsit might by a bit chilly as it’s very high up. NikNak has Country Boy to keep her warm, The Photographer is living it up in Sweden and Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words is off to France…
As for me – well I have Paris to look forward to and in the meantime, I am going to my Rent’s house. I don’t need a passport to get there, nor is the weather forecast any more optimistic than the one in London… but there’s an open fire, plenty of home-cooked food on offer and a big Ma-hug waiting for me. What could be better than that?
Rather alarmingly, I have started to talk to myself about the weather too, although I would like to reassure you that this is not the first sign of madness I have displayed. Last night, driving home from London Aunt’s with the rain pelting down, I found myself giving a running commentary on the puddles, the flooding and the crazy bad-weather driving that was occurring up ahead… to who? God knows, but I must have looked totally barmy.
When I was about 7 years old I fell for that old trick of someone telling you that if you had hairy palms you were mad, so I inspected mine closely, and then BAM – I had a sore nose as someone smacked my hand into my face. It hurt, and I was upset – but I went off and, with glee and no guilt, found someone as gullible as me to try it out on. Kids are weird aren’t they?
But anyway, back to the weather – what is going on? Last week I was fantasising about winter food and this weekend I was thinking about buying thick woolly cardigans – it’s all wrong.
And, it would seem that all my London Friends share this view. Shakira-Shakira has escaped to Turkey for some beach hip-shaking fun, with The Writer set to join her next week. Fab Friend leaves for Peru tomorrow for some guaranteed heat – although Machu Whatsit might by a bit chilly as it’s very high up. NikNak has Country Boy to keep her warm, The Photographer is living it up in Sweden and Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words is off to France…
As for me – well I have Paris to look forward to and in the meantime, I am going to my Rent’s house. I don’t need a passport to get there, nor is the weather forecast any more optimistic than the one in London… but there’s an open fire, plenty of home-cooked food on offer and a big Ma-hug waiting for me. What could be better than that?
Friday, 8 August 2008
Friday rambling!
Those who know what I do for job, will know that it requires using a dictionary rather a lot. The one we have in our office is gigantic and has lots of words in it that I have never heard of. But do you know what – nearly every time I open it to hunt for a word, it opens on one that takes me back to A-level English Literature, which is ‘pathetic fallacy’.
The dictionary definition is ‘the presentation of inanimate objects in nature as possessing human feelings’, and if my memory serves me right, Shakespeare was a fan. But then I didn’t really hear much of my A-level classes.
It’s a wonderfully fabulous word to roll of the tongue too, I find. Go on try it yourself – although be prepared for people to look at you oddly! So anyway, today when I opened the dictionary, there was pathetic fallacy staring back at me from the top right-hand corner of the page, and in pencil, right beside it was the word, ‘Hello!’
It left me chuckling for a good few minutes as now the word pathetic fallacy in the inanimate location of the dictionary has been displayed as possessing human feelings! Confused? Great!
So anyway, as it’s Friday, that means it’s time for my usual post of why I am happy today and what I’m thankful for – and today is no different!
Today I am thankful for British bank holidays, the Eurostar, and French Aunt moving to France. All this means that I get to go to Paris to visit French Cousin for the bank-holiday weekend at the end of this month, eat baguette, squeal when I see the Eiffel Tower and do my Carrie run – hopefully minus the horse manure and the bastardly Alexandr Petrovsky!
I love Paris – French Cousin lives in a wonderfully Bohemian area in a fabulous flat with Mustard Boy, her man – he’s from Dijon. It’s small but perfectly formed (the flat), although getting in the shower takes special manoeuvring.
Last time I visited, they threw a magnificent house party with beaucoup d’alcohol and half way through the night they decided to see how many people they could fit in the metre square kitchen. The end tally made London Underground at rush hour look roomy.
It’s also a great place to gather blog material as I don’t really understand English with a French accent, and while I can speak French, I can’t hear the response. Last time I was there I found there was a Turkish shop near French Cousin’s house and spoke Turkish to them. Apparently they still ask after the crazy blonde English girl who came in speaking Turkish, so I will have to go and say hello!
This time around, French Cousin is going to show me more of Paris and I can’t wait. I will pack my beret and a host of exciting English food for French Cousin and Mustard Boy (he particularly favours crumpets and chocolate raisins) and embark on my awfully big adventure.
The dictionary definition is ‘the presentation of inanimate objects in nature as possessing human feelings’, and if my memory serves me right, Shakespeare was a fan. But then I didn’t really hear much of my A-level classes.
It’s a wonderfully fabulous word to roll of the tongue too, I find. Go on try it yourself – although be prepared for people to look at you oddly! So anyway, today when I opened the dictionary, there was pathetic fallacy staring back at me from the top right-hand corner of the page, and in pencil, right beside it was the word, ‘Hello!’
It left me chuckling for a good few minutes as now the word pathetic fallacy in the inanimate location of the dictionary has been displayed as possessing human feelings! Confused? Great!
So anyway, as it’s Friday, that means it’s time for my usual post of why I am happy today and what I’m thankful for – and today is no different!
Today I am thankful for British bank holidays, the Eurostar, and French Aunt moving to France. All this means that I get to go to Paris to visit French Cousin for the bank-holiday weekend at the end of this month, eat baguette, squeal when I see the Eiffel Tower and do my Carrie run – hopefully minus the horse manure and the bastardly Alexandr Petrovsky!
I love Paris – French Cousin lives in a wonderfully Bohemian area in a fabulous flat with Mustard Boy, her man – he’s from Dijon. It’s small but perfectly formed (the flat), although getting in the shower takes special manoeuvring.
Last time I visited, they threw a magnificent house party with beaucoup d’alcohol and half way through the night they decided to see how many people they could fit in the metre square kitchen. The end tally made London Underground at rush hour look roomy.
It’s also a great place to gather blog material as I don’t really understand English with a French accent, and while I can speak French, I can’t hear the response. Last time I was there I found there was a Turkish shop near French Cousin’s house and spoke Turkish to them. Apparently they still ask after the crazy blonde English girl who came in speaking Turkish, so I will have to go and say hello!
This time around, French Cousin is going to show me more of Paris and I can’t wait. I will pack my beret and a host of exciting English food for French Cousin and Mustard Boy (he particularly favours crumpets and chocolate raisins) and embark on my awfully big adventure.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Oh summer, summer wherefore art thou summer?
I have spent the entire morning thinking about food. Perhaps it was yesterday’s post on Speculoos that set me off, or just that fact that I like food so much – but whatever the reason, there has been barely a moment of my free-thinking time that I haven’t been salivating over thoughts of shepherd’s pie, lasagne. Good old winter recipes.
And that’s the weird thing, here I am sat here on 7 August, and I am thinking about food more suited to deepest darkest October. What is going on? The air conditioning is disguising the heat outside, which is frankly quite oppressive this week, so that could be why the grey skies are implying a different season altogether to the one we are in.
But in August I should be dreaming of exotic salad dressing recipes and exciting ways to cook tuna – it really is NOT on.
*exasperated squeak
It’s started raining now, too!
I am quite a stubborn person so have continued to eat salads even it’s too grey and wet, and I have kept my flipflops by my bed, even though it’s my furry slippers I find I am reaching for, to try and force myself to believe that summer really is here.
And then today, I read a book called Little Miss Stubborn And The Unicorn as it was on my desk and realised she was a lot like me. She refuses to believe that the unicorn exists even though all the other Mr Men and Little Miss meet it and tell her. She stomps and shouts and generally behaves very badly.
*sheepish blush
I don’t have a blue nose, fat round body or strange stringy hair like Little Miss Stubborn but I will do something just to prove a point. And, Fab Friend made me realise on Sunday that I may take this to extremes at times as I got on some high horse about deaf rights. But in my defence, the gin & tonics were lethal!
*shameful blush
In the light of this, I thought I should go in search of a new Little Miss Persona…
I considered Little Miss Sunshine – but she looks a bit jaundiced and is always nice to everyone – how exhausting! Then Little Miss Naughty – but I am a bit rubbish at being naughty and always seem to follow rules. And suddenly it hit me, Little Miss Chatterbox – I AM HER! She never, ever shuts up – and even gets a job as the talking clock for the telephone.
I think I am happy with that!
And that’s the weird thing, here I am sat here on 7 August, and I am thinking about food more suited to deepest darkest October. What is going on? The air conditioning is disguising the heat outside, which is frankly quite oppressive this week, so that could be why the grey skies are implying a different season altogether to the one we are in.
But in August I should be dreaming of exotic salad dressing recipes and exciting ways to cook tuna – it really is NOT on.
*exasperated squeak
It’s started raining now, too!
I am quite a stubborn person so have continued to eat salads even it’s too grey and wet, and I have kept my flipflops by my bed, even though it’s my furry slippers I find I am reaching for, to try and force myself to believe that summer really is here.
And then today, I read a book called Little Miss Stubborn And The Unicorn as it was on my desk and realised she was a lot like me. She refuses to believe that the unicorn exists even though all the other Mr Men and Little Miss meet it and tell her. She stomps and shouts and generally behaves very badly.
*sheepish blush
I don’t have a blue nose, fat round body or strange stringy hair like Little Miss Stubborn but I will do something just to prove a point. And, Fab Friend made me realise on Sunday that I may take this to extremes at times as I got on some high horse about deaf rights. But in my defence, the gin & tonics were lethal!
*shameful blush
In the light of this, I thought I should go in search of a new Little Miss Persona…
I considered Little Miss Sunshine – but she looks a bit jaundiced and is always nice to everyone – how exhausting! Then Little Miss Naughty – but I am a bit rubbish at being naughty and always seem to follow rules. And suddenly it hit me, Little Miss Chatterbox – I AM HER! She never, ever shuts up – and even gets a job as the talking clock for the telephone.
I think I am happy with that!
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Spectacular Speculoos
Exciting news! I won a competition!
*beaming smile
My prize is, rather wonderfully, a jar of spreadable biscuit.
‘Eh?’ I hear you say. ‘Spreadable biscuit?’
I am so intrigued by this product that I simply can’t wait to try it! Apparently it tastes like those little spiced ginger biscuits you get free with your coffee when you’re on holiday in Europe. I like them so much that I always try to steal everyone else’s, too. Those biscuits are called Speculoos and this spreadable version has the wonderful name of Pâté de Speculoos Pasta. Can anyone tell me why the word Pasta is there? Does it taste nice on pasta? Can’t imagine it would… but then I like baked beans on lettuce and marmite and salad cream on toast, so I am willing to try anything once!
The Writer and I are eagerly anticipating its arrival, as we’re both a bit in wonder at what it will taste like. We’re also anxious about whether it will make it to the Big Smoke as it’s going via Ma and Pa’s house in the country and if they get wind of what it is, it might be spread on their toast instead of mine!
*sniff
It’s lovely winning competitions though. I once entered one at Harrods when I was about 7 and forgot all about it. The prize was a giant doll and one day the doorbell range and there was the postman with a massive box addressed to me! Remember that fab feeling of getting post when you were younger? I got it that day and to be honest, I still get it now even though I am practically a grown-up and I mostly get bills.
Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat is doing an experiment at the moment. She’s got two children and one is only a few months old, so to wile away the midnight-breastfeeding hours, she reads rather a lot of trashy mags (real life trash not porn I should point out). Those familiar with these mags will know they carry wonderful headlines like, ‘A donkey chewed my big toe off in the bath’ and ‘Six kids by different fathers, but still a virgin’ etc etc…
Anyway, at the back of these magazines there are always lots of competitions and HFPF has decided to enter every single one for a month, to see if she wins anything. Unfortunately with mags of that calibre, the only things she’s likely to win are things like – a tattoo of your baby’s name on your right breast, a lifetime supply of microwavable chips and a pound-shop trolley dash.
I don’t hold out much hope for her but fingers crossed. I entered six different competitions by email last year to win a trip to New York and do you know what I got? A load of spam to my email address asking me if I’d like a bigger penis!
Hmmmmm this was not quite the prize I had in mind!
*beaming smile
My prize is, rather wonderfully, a jar of spreadable biscuit.
‘Eh?’ I hear you say. ‘Spreadable biscuit?’
I am so intrigued by this product that I simply can’t wait to try it! Apparently it tastes like those little spiced ginger biscuits you get free with your coffee when you’re on holiday in Europe. I like them so much that I always try to steal everyone else’s, too. Those biscuits are called Speculoos and this spreadable version has the wonderful name of Pâté de Speculoos Pasta. Can anyone tell me why the word Pasta is there? Does it taste nice on pasta? Can’t imagine it would… but then I like baked beans on lettuce and marmite and salad cream on toast, so I am willing to try anything once!
The Writer and I are eagerly anticipating its arrival, as we’re both a bit in wonder at what it will taste like. We’re also anxious about whether it will make it to the Big Smoke as it’s going via Ma and Pa’s house in the country and if they get wind of what it is, it might be spread on their toast instead of mine!
*sniff
It’s lovely winning competitions though. I once entered one at Harrods when I was about 7 and forgot all about it. The prize was a giant doll and one day the doorbell range and there was the postman with a massive box addressed to me! Remember that fab feeling of getting post when you were younger? I got it that day and to be honest, I still get it now even though I am practically a grown-up and I mostly get bills.
Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat is doing an experiment at the moment. She’s got two children and one is only a few months old, so to wile away the midnight-breastfeeding hours, she reads rather a lot of trashy mags (real life trash not porn I should point out). Those familiar with these mags will know they carry wonderful headlines like, ‘A donkey chewed my big toe off in the bath’ and ‘Six kids by different fathers, but still a virgin’ etc etc…
Anyway, at the back of these magazines there are always lots of competitions and HFPF has decided to enter every single one for a month, to see if she wins anything. Unfortunately with mags of that calibre, the only things she’s likely to win are things like – a tattoo of your baby’s name on your right breast, a lifetime supply of microwavable chips and a pound-shop trolley dash.
I don’t hold out much hope for her but fingers crossed. I entered six different competitions by email last year to win a trip to New York and do you know what I got? A load of spam to my email address asking me if I’d like a bigger penis!
Hmmmmm this was not quite the prize I had in mind!
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
How many people does it take to change a lightbulb?
I used to think just one, until last night, when POOF, my bedside light blew up for the second time in a week! When it happened the first time, I could see the filament in the bulb had gone so last night when Shakira-Shakira and I were in Asda, I bought a new box of bulbs.
Then, I dashed home and popped one in – and nothing happened. So I sat and pondered while watching One Tree Hill and finally decided to check the fuse. I’ve got a rather large collection of fuses on account of the hoover and iron episode last month. I replaced it and proclaimed, ‘Let there be light!’ in my best God voice. And there was, for about 1 second – before POOF, it blew again.
Perhaps it’s my electric personality, I don’t know – but everything electrical I touch at the moment seems to break or blow up. First it was the iron – there I was ironing my favourite jacket in preparation for my visit to the zoo (see Things I Know Now…) when I suddenly heard a POOF, fizzle, and a POP and a whisp of smoke came out of the iron – sadly, not followed by a genie.
It continued to smoke considerably so I unplugged it and put it in the bath, odd I know, but it seemed like the safest place for smouldering electrical equipment! Then, just two day’s later I was vacuuming the hall when SPLUTTER, GASP, GROAN, the hoover ground to a halt.
*squeak
Praying it was the fuse and not something fatal, I dashed off to the hardware store down the road to stock up. But once home, it soon became clear the hoover was dead as a Dodo, kaput, stuffed, a goner. Cue, big Argos order…
Now, is it dodgy electrics, or am I doing to all these things? To be fair, the agency did come round and replace the iron- and hoover-killing plug socket – but what about my lamp? Am I negatively charged somehow? And if I am, can I turn this around to help cut my electricity bills and relieve me of my impending ‘fuel poverty’?
I’m not really sure if that’s the answer to be honest as it’s not just electrical stuff I have an adverse affect on. My poor mobile hates me so much that the display is now permanently upside down. This means that sending a text is a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time. Bloody difficult. Perhaps I should stick to simple technology from now on, like Aga-heated irons, brooms, oil lamps and carrier pigeons. And, if I apply this to every aspect of my life, that means instead of hearing aids, I will have to get a nice shiny ear trumpet, like the one the grandma has in ’Allo ’Allo.
*Ediiiiiiiiiith? Ediiiiiiiiith?
Then, I dashed home and popped one in – and nothing happened. So I sat and pondered while watching One Tree Hill and finally decided to check the fuse. I’ve got a rather large collection of fuses on account of the hoover and iron episode last month. I replaced it and proclaimed, ‘Let there be light!’ in my best God voice. And there was, for about 1 second – before POOF, it blew again.
Perhaps it’s my electric personality, I don’t know – but everything electrical I touch at the moment seems to break or blow up. First it was the iron – there I was ironing my favourite jacket in preparation for my visit to the zoo (see Things I Know Now…) when I suddenly heard a POOF, fizzle, and a POP and a whisp of smoke came out of the iron – sadly, not followed by a genie.
It continued to smoke considerably so I unplugged it and put it in the bath, odd I know, but it seemed like the safest place for smouldering electrical equipment! Then, just two day’s later I was vacuuming the hall when SPLUTTER, GASP, GROAN, the hoover ground to a halt.
*squeak
Praying it was the fuse and not something fatal, I dashed off to the hardware store down the road to stock up. But once home, it soon became clear the hoover was dead as a Dodo, kaput, stuffed, a goner. Cue, big Argos order…
Now, is it dodgy electrics, or am I doing to all these things? To be fair, the agency did come round and replace the iron- and hoover-killing plug socket – but what about my lamp? Am I negatively charged somehow? And if I am, can I turn this around to help cut my electricity bills and relieve me of my impending ‘fuel poverty’?
I’m not really sure if that’s the answer to be honest as it’s not just electrical stuff I have an adverse affect on. My poor mobile hates me so much that the display is now permanently upside down. This means that sending a text is a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time. Bloody difficult. Perhaps I should stick to simple technology from now on, like Aga-heated irons, brooms, oil lamps and carrier pigeons. And, if I apply this to every aspect of my life, that means instead of hearing aids, I will have to get a nice shiny ear trumpet, like the one the grandma has in ’Allo ’Allo.
*Ediiiiiiiiiith? Ediiiiiiiiith?
Monday, 4 August 2008
My Innocent weekend
My, what a weekend of change it’s been. First there was the arrival of New Housemate and then there was the weather!
Innocent’s Village Fete was on in Regents Park this weekend – it’s the social event of the year and having missed it the last two years, I was eager to check it out. The Writer is well connected don’t you know, so on Saturday Shakira-Shakira and I arrived as VNPs (Very Nice People) and made our way to the Secret Garden area where The Writer assured us food and drink in abundance would be waiting for us.
But Shakira-Shakira and I got a bit lost, and then it started to pour with rain, and then we got trapped by a Friends Of The Earth charity person – and nearly 2 hours later we finally arrived at the Secret Garden, tired, hungry and in need of a sit down.
*phew
And what a sight greeted us – there was tea and cake, Innocent smoothies on tap and the nicest, and possibly strongest, G&Ts I have ever had!
*hic
Naturally due to the rain, we stayed in the food and drink tent for quite some time and then, once the sun was shining again, we ventured out and it was lovely! There was live music, a helter-skelter that The Writer and I went on together with her shrieking, ‘Ow, I’m getting friction burns!’ the whole way down. I loved it and Fab Friend has photographic evidence of my big beaming smile as I hit the bottom – looking like a 5 year old!
Then, there was the secret after party – not suitable for 5 year olds – which had very loud music and left me feeling as though someone had stuffed a trumpet mute in each ear.
I returned to the fete on Sunday, tired and hungover, as a mortal with Lovely Freelancer and her friends and it was grey and dry, then rainy, then dry, then torrential downpours, and it continued like this all afternoon until I found myself hallucinating a nice cup of tea and a sit down. I was beginning to sway on my feet when I decided enough was enough and headed home for just that and some nice back-to-back episodes of Top Gear.
I do wonder if we’ll ever have a summer – I spent the whole weekend in winter clothes – alas I haven’t even burnt my nose this year…
Perhaps Deafinitely Girly should go on location for a bit, just temporarily to somewhere like Australia – I’m sure the accent would give me plenty of material and I’ve heard the weather’s lovely and warm.
I’m just off to daydream…
Innocent’s Village Fete was on in Regents Park this weekend – it’s the social event of the year and having missed it the last two years, I was eager to check it out. The Writer is well connected don’t you know, so on Saturday Shakira-Shakira and I arrived as VNPs (Very Nice People) and made our way to the Secret Garden area where The Writer assured us food and drink in abundance would be waiting for us.
But Shakira-Shakira and I got a bit lost, and then it started to pour with rain, and then we got trapped by a Friends Of The Earth charity person – and nearly 2 hours later we finally arrived at the Secret Garden, tired, hungry and in need of a sit down.
*phew
And what a sight greeted us – there was tea and cake, Innocent smoothies on tap and the nicest, and possibly strongest, G&Ts I have ever had!
*hic
Naturally due to the rain, we stayed in the food and drink tent for quite some time and then, once the sun was shining again, we ventured out and it was lovely! There was live music, a helter-skelter that The Writer and I went on together with her shrieking, ‘Ow, I’m getting friction burns!’ the whole way down. I loved it and Fab Friend has photographic evidence of my big beaming smile as I hit the bottom – looking like a 5 year old!
Then, there was the secret after party – not suitable for 5 year olds – which had very loud music and left me feeling as though someone had stuffed a trumpet mute in each ear.
I returned to the fete on Sunday, tired and hungover, as a mortal with Lovely Freelancer and her friends and it was grey and dry, then rainy, then dry, then torrential downpours, and it continued like this all afternoon until I found myself hallucinating a nice cup of tea and a sit down. I was beginning to sway on my feet when I decided enough was enough and headed home for just that and some nice back-to-back episodes of Top Gear.
I do wonder if we’ll ever have a summer – I spent the whole weekend in winter clothes – alas I haven’t even burnt my nose this year…
Perhaps Deafinitely Girly should go on location for a bit, just temporarily to somewhere like Australia – I’m sure the accent would give me plenty of material and I’ve heard the weather’s lovely and warm.
I’m just off to daydream…
Friday, 1 August 2008
Goodbye Lovely Housemate
On Friday I always seem to think about what I am thankful for and, not wanting to break the habit, today’s post is going to be similar.
I am thankful that we are finishing work at 4pm today – this gives me lots of time to go home and sort out the flat for New Housemate’s arrival and help Lovely Housemate move to her new pad.
I am also thankful that I met Lovely Housemate in our first flat four years ago. We met in a flatshare on the river with a psycho landlord and some equally bizarre housemates including one who thought an acceptable way of saying hello was ‘Who are you shagging?’. Thankfully he never got the chance to meet my parents and say, um, hello.
Then, we moved to another flat where we had our first pets, mice. There we waged an endless battle with the little blighters that I think in all honesty they won. They were such frequent visitors that they had worn a bit of carpet down by their entrance to the lounge. Lovely eh?
On one occasion I came out of my room to find a mouse in the hall between mine and Lovely Housemate’s door – and I screamed, probably very loudly. Lovely Housemate flew out her room to see what was going on, saw the mouse, and flew back in again, with a scream to rival mine.
Thankfully, there was a man in the house at the time who took care of the situation and took the poor bewildered and, probably deafened from all the screaming, mouse outside.
If New Housemate is reading this – I would like to confirm that there are NO mice in our current flat. It’s been good to us, this little flat – it’s seen its fair share of dramas and the flat below has joyfully shared occasions such as belly dancing evenings and drunken meals at 3am with us. They love us in the flat downstairs, honest!
I shall miss Lovely Housemate – she always says nice things about my cooking and is happy to be a taste tester for my cakes. More importantly she’s happy to be adventurous and try out new recipes such as Marmite and Salad Cream dip with crudités and oatcakes and microwave syrup sponge that looks more like a bath sponge than an edible one – it tasted pretty shocking, too – but then i had forgotten to add the eggs!
She’s also been the most amazing ears to me and I know that if the fire alarm was going off she’d rescue me. Having said that, I don’t really worry as she’s only living down the road, so she’ll probably be able to hear the fire alarm from there and I know that if I ever need ears, she’ll gladly step up to the job.
So it’s TaTa to the Lovely Housemate in this blog and she will forever more be known as Shakira-Shakira – come out with us on Saturday and you’ll see why!
I am thankful that we are finishing work at 4pm today – this gives me lots of time to go home and sort out the flat for New Housemate’s arrival and help Lovely Housemate move to her new pad.
I am also thankful that I met Lovely Housemate in our first flat four years ago. We met in a flatshare on the river with a psycho landlord and some equally bizarre housemates including one who thought an acceptable way of saying hello was ‘Who are you shagging?’. Thankfully he never got the chance to meet my parents and say, um, hello.
Then, we moved to another flat where we had our first pets, mice. There we waged an endless battle with the little blighters that I think in all honesty they won. They were such frequent visitors that they had worn a bit of carpet down by their entrance to the lounge. Lovely eh?
On one occasion I came out of my room to find a mouse in the hall between mine and Lovely Housemate’s door – and I screamed, probably very loudly. Lovely Housemate flew out her room to see what was going on, saw the mouse, and flew back in again, with a scream to rival mine.
Thankfully, there was a man in the house at the time who took care of the situation and took the poor bewildered and, probably deafened from all the screaming, mouse outside.
If New Housemate is reading this – I would like to confirm that there are NO mice in our current flat. It’s been good to us, this little flat – it’s seen its fair share of dramas and the flat below has joyfully shared occasions such as belly dancing evenings and drunken meals at 3am with us. They love us in the flat downstairs, honest!
I shall miss Lovely Housemate – she always says nice things about my cooking and is happy to be a taste tester for my cakes. More importantly she’s happy to be adventurous and try out new recipes such as Marmite and Salad Cream dip with crudités and oatcakes and microwave syrup sponge that looks more like a bath sponge than an edible one – it tasted pretty shocking, too – but then i had forgotten to add the eggs!
She’s also been the most amazing ears to me and I know that if the fire alarm was going off she’d rescue me. Having said that, I don’t really worry as she’s only living down the road, so she’ll probably be able to hear the fire alarm from there and I know that if I ever need ears, she’ll gladly step up to the job.
So it’s TaTa to the Lovely Housemate in this blog and she will forever more be known as Shakira-Shakira – come out with us on Saturday and you’ll see why!
Thursday, 31 July 2008
I have a drinking problem
Remember that movie Airplane! where the main character, Ted Striker, says, ‘It was then I discovered my drinking problem,’ and throws his drink down his face?
Well, recently I have been doing a fantastic impression of that, most memorably in a swish Moroccan restaurant last Saturday.
There I was with NikNak and The Writer, genteelly sipping my mint tea and nibbling on baklava – it was quite delicious. The ambience however, didn’t lend itself to efficient lipreading as it resembled a sort dark cavern with lanterns for mood lighting. The music was also rather loud. This meant that in order to follow what was going on I had to keep my eyes on NikNak and The Writer at all times.
Cue my drinking problem – first I missed my mouth with the mint tea and sent it down my dress and then, I tipped it too far and got a rather large piece of mint – sprig, stem, the lot – the kind you see garnishing very large cakes, wedged in my throat.
*rasp
With visions of the Heimlich manoeuvre flashing through my mind, I tried desperately to will it to go up, or down – I didn’t really care which way it went but halfway, like that rhyme with the Duke of York isn’t really very productive.
*wheeze
Eventually I resorted to a large mouthful of baklava to help it on its way and thankfully it worked but it left me a bit shaken and wondering about all the other times I have found myself doing similar things.
Lipreading instead of focusing on the task in hand has got me into all sorts of strife in the past. Last year at work, I was bouncing around the office like an excitable puppy, as Lovely Housemate and I were due to fly to Istanbul the next day. My Boss gave me a simple job of cutting out photographs using a craft knife and as I did so, I chatted to a colleague about my impending trip looking up to lipread her rather than down at what I was doing.
And then, suddenly, I was aware that the last slice I did felt like I was cutting through butter rather than paper and then I felt pain.
*owwwwwwwwwwwww
There on the cutting board was the side of my fingertip and where it used to be attached, was rather a lot of blood.
*sniff
Now, I pride myself on not being that squeamish but this was grim – the blood just kept coming – and I was soon slumped in the nearest chair asking dumbly if it was possible to stick my finger back together.
It wasn’t – but I got it patched up for my holiday and was ordered to hold it up as much as possible. Easier said than done when lugging heavy luggage to a different continent.
But that trip was amazing, and when the blood started to drip through the bandage, Lovely Housemate and her ma took me to this fantastic hospital under a mosque where a nice Turkish doctor redressed it for me. This was incredibly painful and made me say a very rude word as the last bandage had fused itself to my finger. (It clearly was a universally rude word by the look of shock on his face).
*blush
I never bothered to develop any photographs from that trip though. You see, my finger continued to bleed for the next three days, so as instructed, I continued to hold it up – so in every single flipping photograph I’m there with my gigantically bandaged finger pointing at sod all!
Classy.
Well, recently I have been doing a fantastic impression of that, most memorably in a swish Moroccan restaurant last Saturday.
There I was with NikNak and The Writer, genteelly sipping my mint tea and nibbling on baklava – it was quite delicious. The ambience however, didn’t lend itself to efficient lipreading as it resembled a sort dark cavern with lanterns for mood lighting. The music was also rather loud. This meant that in order to follow what was going on I had to keep my eyes on NikNak and The Writer at all times.
Cue my drinking problem – first I missed my mouth with the mint tea and sent it down my dress and then, I tipped it too far and got a rather large piece of mint – sprig, stem, the lot – the kind you see garnishing very large cakes, wedged in my throat.
*rasp
With visions of the Heimlich manoeuvre flashing through my mind, I tried desperately to will it to go up, or down – I didn’t really care which way it went but halfway, like that rhyme with the Duke of York isn’t really very productive.
*wheeze
Eventually I resorted to a large mouthful of baklava to help it on its way and thankfully it worked but it left me a bit shaken and wondering about all the other times I have found myself doing similar things.
Lipreading instead of focusing on the task in hand has got me into all sorts of strife in the past. Last year at work, I was bouncing around the office like an excitable puppy, as Lovely Housemate and I were due to fly to Istanbul the next day. My Boss gave me a simple job of cutting out photographs using a craft knife and as I did so, I chatted to a colleague about my impending trip looking up to lipread her rather than down at what I was doing.
And then, suddenly, I was aware that the last slice I did felt like I was cutting through butter rather than paper and then I felt pain.
*owwwwwwwwwwwww
There on the cutting board was the side of my fingertip and where it used to be attached, was rather a lot of blood.
*sniff
Now, I pride myself on not being that squeamish but this was grim – the blood just kept coming – and I was soon slumped in the nearest chair asking dumbly if it was possible to stick my finger back together.
It wasn’t – but I got it patched up for my holiday and was ordered to hold it up as much as possible. Easier said than done when lugging heavy luggage to a different continent.
But that trip was amazing, and when the blood started to drip through the bandage, Lovely Housemate and her ma took me to this fantastic hospital under a mosque where a nice Turkish doctor redressed it for me. This was incredibly painful and made me say a very rude word as the last bandage had fused itself to my finger. (It clearly was a universally rude word by the look of shock on his face).
*blush
I never bothered to develop any photographs from that trip though. You see, my finger continued to bleed for the next three days, so as instructed, I continued to hold it up – so in every single flipping photograph I’m there with my gigantically bandaged finger pointing at sod all!
Classy.
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
I blurry love you
Phew, I woke up this morning and thought it was Saturday, then Friday and then
*sniff
I realised that it was only Wednesday. This week has been a hectic one to say the least and I think I am bit tired. One of the first things to go when I am tired is my hearing… swiftly followed by my speech.
But lets start with the hearing. Last night I was on the phone to my Pa who was visiting my Gma – I can hear my rents surprisingly well on the phone normally, which I love.
My Gma is cool – she’s an octogenarian who moves with the times. She writes texts in txt spk and goes on computer courses so she can whiz around the wireless internet on her speedy laptop.
Her latest move-with-the-times thing is a brand-spanking-new kitchen – all beech and modern and last night my Pa informed me that she had chosen a black door. ‘Where?’ I said as my Gma has three doors in her kitchen and I was struggling to work out why she’d want any of them to be black. ‘The door is black,’ my Pa said. ‘I know,’ I replied, ‘but there are three, which one?’
‘Three?’ my Pa said.
There was a pause and then he clicked…
‘F-L-O-O-R!’ he said to me very slowly and then I clicked. A black floor made much more sense – how trendy my Gma is! She’s got a fancy oven and black granite work surfaces too, apparently!
Oooh that reminds me, this morning the subtitles supporting the BBC weather presenter informed deaf readers of the following, ‘If you are expecting sunny weather, URINE for a shock!’ and yes – if I was expecting sun and I got a golden shower instead, it would be shocking.
But enough deviating from the point of today’s post and onto the speech…
I was once on a date with a boy who was more like Austin Powers than I should have found attractive and he asked me if I was drunk as I appeared to be slurring my voice. Once I had got over the surprise of him asking me that, particularly as I was sat behind the wheel of my car at the time, I replied that no, I wasn’t drunk, I was deaf and tired. Which I guess makes a change from sick and tired.
It’s quite a nice statement to come out with actually – I am deaf and tired of this week/programme/date/boy*
*delete where applicable.
But it’s true nonetheless that when I am tired my speech goes a bit funny. This morning it took me three attempts to say a word coherently to Lovely Freelancer. She was very patient but I did feel a bit silly.
In order to speak the way I normally do, I have to concentrate quite hard on getting the letters out properly, sounding out the ones I don’t hear anymore and finishing words properly. When I am tired, this goes, I no longer concentrate and so quite often sentences come out in a slurring jumble.
But perhaps the weirdest thing is that when I am actually drunk the opposite happens – I suddenly have the intonation of a newsreader and instead of slurring, ‘I blurry love you,’ to everyone in sight, it’s far more likely that I will come out with, ‘I say, I love you ever such an awful lot.’
OK, OK the last bit is a slight exaggeration – but next time I’m out with you, buy me and rum and coke and then you can see for yourself.
*sniff
I realised that it was only Wednesday. This week has been a hectic one to say the least and I think I am bit tired. One of the first things to go when I am tired is my hearing… swiftly followed by my speech.
But lets start with the hearing. Last night I was on the phone to my Pa who was visiting my Gma – I can hear my rents surprisingly well on the phone normally, which I love.
My Gma is cool – she’s an octogenarian who moves with the times. She writes texts in txt spk and goes on computer courses so she can whiz around the wireless internet on her speedy laptop.
Her latest move-with-the-times thing is a brand-spanking-new kitchen – all beech and modern and last night my Pa informed me that she had chosen a black door. ‘Where?’ I said as my Gma has three doors in her kitchen and I was struggling to work out why she’d want any of them to be black. ‘The door is black,’ my Pa said. ‘I know,’ I replied, ‘but there are three, which one?’
‘Three?’ my Pa said.
There was a pause and then he clicked…
‘F-L-O-O-R!’ he said to me very slowly and then I clicked. A black floor made much more sense – how trendy my Gma is! She’s got a fancy oven and black granite work surfaces too, apparently!
Oooh that reminds me, this morning the subtitles supporting the BBC weather presenter informed deaf readers of the following, ‘If you are expecting sunny weather, URINE for a shock!’ and yes – if I was expecting sun and I got a golden shower instead, it would be shocking.
But enough deviating from the point of today’s post and onto the speech…
I was once on a date with a boy who was more like Austin Powers than I should have found attractive and he asked me if I was drunk as I appeared to be slurring my voice. Once I had got over the surprise of him asking me that, particularly as I was sat behind the wheel of my car at the time, I replied that no, I wasn’t drunk, I was deaf and tired. Which I guess makes a change from sick and tired.
It’s quite a nice statement to come out with actually – I am deaf and tired of this week/programme/date/boy*
*delete where applicable.
But it’s true nonetheless that when I am tired my speech goes a bit funny. This morning it took me three attempts to say a word coherently to Lovely Freelancer. She was very patient but I did feel a bit silly.
In order to speak the way I normally do, I have to concentrate quite hard on getting the letters out properly, sounding out the ones I don’t hear anymore and finishing words properly. When I am tired, this goes, I no longer concentrate and so quite often sentences come out in a slurring jumble.
But perhaps the weirdest thing is that when I am actually drunk the opposite happens – I suddenly have the intonation of a newsreader and instead of slurring, ‘I blurry love you,’ to everyone in sight, it’s far more likely that I will come out with, ‘I say, I love you ever such an awful lot.’
OK, OK the last bit is a slight exaggeration – but next time I’m out with you, buy me and rum and coke and then you can see for yourself.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Sounding out
This morning I got woken up by the bin men – they were very loud, and my window was open as it was slightly tropical in London last night.
Most of the rubbish in the two big wheelie bins is Lovely Housemate’s and mine as, in preparation for her departure, we have been having a bit of clearout. The ill-fated and downright-annoying pedometer/rape alarm was in today’s consignment and I was quite happy to see the back of it.
Once up, I went into the kitchen to burn my toast and make tea and was rummaging in a drawer when I came across this strange piece of black cord with a pin on the end…
A pin… a pin…
*Exasperated squeak
I had – 48 hours too late – discovered the silencer for the rape alarm that had almost ruined the Saturday of everyone within a 3-mile radius of my flat. Bizarrely I wondered if it was too late to catch the bin men, but what was I going to do, hurl myself into the lorry to find the bits of the offending noise-maker? Not very dignified and I would probably end up a bit smelly.
*Sigh
To be honest, I am not sure carrying a rape alarm is a good idea for me as if it was in my bag and there was other noise going on I am not convinced I would hear it going off. Actually I have to confess, I am actually speaking from *blush personal experience.
When I first moved to London, my Ma bought me a black rape alarm to keep in my bag, which was lovely of her. And, keep it in my bag I did. Then one day I thought I was having one of those self-conscious episodes where everyone seemed to be staring at me, so I checked my pants were not showing, concealer was rubbed in and hair was in place – and it all was so I decided I was being paranoid.
Once at work I was aware of an unrest in the office but as I don’t hear general chatter I didn’t take much notice. Until Boss-At-That-Time suddenly said to me, ‘WHAT IS THAT NOISE?’
‘What noise?’ I replied, wondering what she was on about.
‘It’s sort of going nnnneeeeeergh, neeeeerrgh,’ she replied.
Like a dog with a bone she combed the area until she was finally holding my handbag aloft as the offending item. So I went through it until I finally found my rape alarm, pin missing. Luckily on this occasion, the pin was also in my bag and the two were reunited and silent again.
But, the fact that it was going nnnneeeeeergh, neeeeerrgh would imply it had been going for quite some time and the batteries were going flat. This meant that there was a distinct possibility that I had gone all the way to work with a people deterrent in my handbag – no wonder I had sat alone on the bus and people had been staring. But why hadn’t anyone told me?
I never understand this in London – no one communicates. The other day my bus terminated and I only knew from the flashing lights on the upper deck but the tourists did not. Everyone filed past them and not one person told them… so I did. It took 30 seconds of my time…
So please, if you ever see me walking down the street, my bag emitting a high-pitched screech or some other random sound, tap me on the shoulder and help me track down the offending item – you will make my day!
Most of the rubbish in the two big wheelie bins is Lovely Housemate’s and mine as, in preparation for her departure, we have been having a bit of clearout. The ill-fated and downright-annoying pedometer/rape alarm was in today’s consignment and I was quite happy to see the back of it.
Once up, I went into the kitchen to burn my toast and make tea and was rummaging in a drawer when I came across this strange piece of black cord with a pin on the end…
A pin… a pin…
*Exasperated squeak
I had – 48 hours too late – discovered the silencer for the rape alarm that had almost ruined the Saturday of everyone within a 3-mile radius of my flat. Bizarrely I wondered if it was too late to catch the bin men, but what was I going to do, hurl myself into the lorry to find the bits of the offending noise-maker? Not very dignified and I would probably end up a bit smelly.
*Sigh
To be honest, I am not sure carrying a rape alarm is a good idea for me as if it was in my bag and there was other noise going on I am not convinced I would hear it going off. Actually I have to confess, I am actually speaking from *blush personal experience.
When I first moved to London, my Ma bought me a black rape alarm to keep in my bag, which was lovely of her. And, keep it in my bag I did. Then one day I thought I was having one of those self-conscious episodes where everyone seemed to be staring at me, so I checked my pants were not showing, concealer was rubbed in and hair was in place – and it all was so I decided I was being paranoid.
Once at work I was aware of an unrest in the office but as I don’t hear general chatter I didn’t take much notice. Until Boss-At-That-Time suddenly said to me, ‘WHAT IS THAT NOISE?’
‘What noise?’ I replied, wondering what she was on about.
‘It’s sort of going nnnneeeeeergh, neeeeerrgh,’ she replied.
Like a dog with a bone she combed the area until she was finally holding my handbag aloft as the offending item. So I went through it until I finally found my rape alarm, pin missing. Luckily on this occasion, the pin was also in my bag and the two were reunited and silent again.
But, the fact that it was going nnnneeeeeergh, neeeeerrgh would imply it had been going for quite some time and the batteries were going flat. This meant that there was a distinct possibility that I had gone all the way to work with a people deterrent in my handbag – no wonder I had sat alone on the bus and people had been staring. But why hadn’t anyone told me?
I never understand this in London – no one communicates. The other day my bus terminated and I only knew from the flashing lights on the upper deck but the tourists did not. Everyone filed past them and not one person told them… so I did. It took 30 seconds of my time…
So please, if you ever see me walking down the street, my bag emitting a high-pitched screech or some other random sound, tap me on the shoulder and help me track down the offending item – you will make my day!
Monday, 28 July 2008
Saturday fun
This weekend was a weekend of unexpected learning, exploration and discovery!
I woke up on Saturday looking forward to a work out at my gym and then an amble round the shops before a leisurely chat with Big-Words-Friend. The perfect Saturday in my book.
Instead I ended up with mopping up a flooded kitchen, dismantling a washing machine and sitting on a 15 cushions and an activated rape alarm (that even I could hear) for 15 minutes while my whole neighbourhood went cra-azy.
But let’s start at the very beginning – so Saturday morning after yet another load of washing emerged soaking wet even after the fastest spin cycle, I decided something needed to be done. So I rolled up my sleeves and began taking bits of the machine off to see if they were blocked. I also thought a good rinse through would help so put it on a hot wash.
So far, so good. Except while I was cleaning the powder tray that was thick with grime and mould in the sink, I was suddenly aware of the kind of sloshing you feel around your feet when you are paddling in the sea.
*Squeak!
Looking down I realised the whole kitchen was rapidly flooding but I wasn’t quite sure where the water was coming from. To counteract this I used every tea towel in existence in my little flat to mop up the water and switched the washing machine to drain, which it did – all over the floor. And so I repeated the tea towel episode with bath towels.
While recovering from the ‘wax on, wax off’ exertion that drying a kitchen floor requires I thought hard about what the problem could be and decided to tackle the filter. Bravely I went where no one had clearly been before and unscrewed the little white disc at the base of the machine – but it got stuck and I couldn’t tighten it back up, so guess what? I flooded the kitchen… again.
*Sigh
Once I had mopped up the water for the third time I used a bit of brute force and left some skin behind as I prised the white disc out and what a sight greeted me. The filter was rammed… with some extremely suspect looking items and about 90p worth of small change. It was vile and my breakfast nearly joined the contents of the filter in the double-layered black sack I was emptying it in to.
*Bleurgh
Giving up hope of ever making it to the gym, I put the washing machine back together again and put it on for another test run and decided not to leave the house just in case flooding number 4 occurred. Instead I sorted the lounge for the arrival of New Housemate.
Cue exploration – where I found a pedometer/rape alarm that I got given free from work one day. I had never used it but The Writer has got me walking lots recently so I thought it might be useful.
Cue discovery – I can hear rape alarms!
*Argh
As it was new, it had a piece of paper stopping the battery from connecting so I pulled it out eager to start counting my steps… and then, I fell over.
Seriously, this rape alarm was the loudest thing I have heard in quite some time, which is saying something. I frantically prodded all buttons but nothing worked, still it went on and on and on. Frantically scrabbling for the instructions, I located the what to do if rape alarm is activated…
‘Replace Pin’
Pin? What pin? There was no flipping pin. It also said it would ring for 15 minutes before the batteries ran out!
*Squeak
By this time I was running around the flat like a headless chicken and suddenly had the bright idea of lobbing it out of the window but on arriving at the window I was greeted by the site of the neighbours in the garden looking around wondering what the racket was.
So I stuffed it under every cushion in my living room, which is quite a few, and sat on it while I tried to think. My first idea was hope that the batteries would run out after 15 minutes, but this time came and went and it showed no sign of abating. So I stamped on it, I hit it with a rubber mallet and I tried to ignore the crowds of people all checking their car alarms and trying to locate the mystery noise.
Eventually I found a screwdriver and took the whole thing apart and only when I removed the very last battery did it stop. And then, there was silence – and I have never been so grateful to hear absolutely nothing as I was then.
And so I sat there, in shock and silence for a good half an hour, wondering if I had burnt as many calories cleaning up flood water and running around with a rape alarm as I would have done at the gym.
I decided, yes… and went and had a nap instead.
I woke up on Saturday looking forward to a work out at my gym and then an amble round the shops before a leisurely chat with Big-Words-Friend. The perfect Saturday in my book.
Instead I ended up with mopping up a flooded kitchen, dismantling a washing machine and sitting on a 15 cushions and an activated rape alarm (that even I could hear) for 15 minutes while my whole neighbourhood went cra-azy.
But let’s start at the very beginning – so Saturday morning after yet another load of washing emerged soaking wet even after the fastest spin cycle, I decided something needed to be done. So I rolled up my sleeves and began taking bits of the machine off to see if they were blocked. I also thought a good rinse through would help so put it on a hot wash.
So far, so good. Except while I was cleaning the powder tray that was thick with grime and mould in the sink, I was suddenly aware of the kind of sloshing you feel around your feet when you are paddling in the sea.
*Squeak!
Looking down I realised the whole kitchen was rapidly flooding but I wasn’t quite sure where the water was coming from. To counteract this I used every tea towel in existence in my little flat to mop up the water and switched the washing machine to drain, which it did – all over the floor. And so I repeated the tea towel episode with bath towels.
While recovering from the ‘wax on, wax off’ exertion that drying a kitchen floor requires I thought hard about what the problem could be and decided to tackle the filter. Bravely I went where no one had clearly been before and unscrewed the little white disc at the base of the machine – but it got stuck and I couldn’t tighten it back up, so guess what? I flooded the kitchen… again.
*Sigh
Once I had mopped up the water for the third time I used a bit of brute force and left some skin behind as I prised the white disc out and what a sight greeted me. The filter was rammed… with some extremely suspect looking items and about 90p worth of small change. It was vile and my breakfast nearly joined the contents of the filter in the double-layered black sack I was emptying it in to.
*Bleurgh
Giving up hope of ever making it to the gym, I put the washing machine back together again and put it on for another test run and decided not to leave the house just in case flooding number 4 occurred. Instead I sorted the lounge for the arrival of New Housemate.
Cue exploration – where I found a pedometer/rape alarm that I got given free from work one day. I had never used it but The Writer has got me walking lots recently so I thought it might be useful.
Cue discovery – I can hear rape alarms!
*Argh
As it was new, it had a piece of paper stopping the battery from connecting so I pulled it out eager to start counting my steps… and then, I fell over.
Seriously, this rape alarm was the loudest thing I have heard in quite some time, which is saying something. I frantically prodded all buttons but nothing worked, still it went on and on and on. Frantically scrabbling for the instructions, I located the what to do if rape alarm is activated…
‘Replace Pin’
Pin? What pin? There was no flipping pin. It also said it would ring for 15 minutes before the batteries ran out!
*Squeak
By this time I was running around the flat like a headless chicken and suddenly had the bright idea of lobbing it out of the window but on arriving at the window I was greeted by the site of the neighbours in the garden looking around wondering what the racket was.
So I stuffed it under every cushion in my living room, which is quite a few, and sat on it while I tried to think. My first idea was hope that the batteries would run out after 15 minutes, but this time came and went and it showed no sign of abating. So I stamped on it, I hit it with a rubber mallet and I tried to ignore the crowds of people all checking their car alarms and trying to locate the mystery noise.
Eventually I found a screwdriver and took the whole thing apart and only when I removed the very last battery did it stop. And then, there was silence – and I have never been so grateful to hear absolutely nothing as I was then.
And so I sat there, in shock and silence for a good half an hour, wondering if I had burnt as many calories cleaning up flood water and running around with a rape alarm as I would have done at the gym.
I decided, yes… and went and had a nap instead.
Friday, 25 July 2008
Hurrah, it's Friday!
This morning I woke up at 6am bright eyed with a spring in my step happy that after today, it’s the weekend and I can relax.
Today I am thankful for many things. Firstly, that this is the third consecutively warm and sunny day we have had – which is something of a 2008 record I think. This means that I can finally wear my white jeans without worrying that some stupid white van driver is going to speed through a puddle and cover me in London drainwater.
Which brings me on to the second thing I am thankful for – and that is, that I am not the woman who was five metres ahead of me on the pavement this morning. Actually I may have to add some sub-thanks to this – I am also thankful I am not her because she had the most bizarre hair and also because her trousers were so tight she was at risk of squeezing her vital organs up through her chest cavity and out of her mouth.
*Meow
But cattiness aside (I obviously have more similarities with the cat from Shrek than just my eyes) I am mostly thankful that I am not her because if I was, I would be unconscious on the pavement right now with a very sore head.
There I was walking to my office down quite a narrow street, marvelling at how this lady had apparently got dressed in the dark and not passed any mirrors on her way out the door when I heard a low roar. Then I saw her duck like a mad woman as if sniper fire was coming our way and after this I realised that there may have been a beep.
And then, *whoosh, a white van tore past us, his large black, sticky-outy wing mirror missing her mad frizzy hair with millimetres to spare.
*phew
She was obviously not deaf, her reactions were amazingly quick, which was just as well as the white van man was not for slowing down.
Now, thinking about this, if that had been me, this is what would have happened: I’d have been happily striding down the street feeling clean and shiny in my white jeans, heard a roar, all too late distinguished a beep, turned around and then
*Thwack…
a wing mirror would have smacked me in the face. Now, I was smacked in the face last weekend by a foot and it was incredibly painful (but kind of funny, too – you had to be there I guess)… so imagine a smack from a van!
By this point I would probably be on the floor, nose resembling my Pa’s after his adventure in Clogland at Big Bro’s wedding and white jeans ruined.
Happily this little scenario did not happen and I am now safely ensconced in my office but, when I go out for lunch today, I think I am going to pick a pedestrianised route… just in case.
Today I am thankful for many things. Firstly, that this is the third consecutively warm and sunny day we have had – which is something of a 2008 record I think. This means that I can finally wear my white jeans without worrying that some stupid white van driver is going to speed through a puddle and cover me in London drainwater.
Which brings me on to the second thing I am thankful for – and that is, that I am not the woman who was five metres ahead of me on the pavement this morning. Actually I may have to add some sub-thanks to this – I am also thankful I am not her because she had the most bizarre hair and also because her trousers were so tight she was at risk of squeezing her vital organs up through her chest cavity and out of her mouth.
*Meow
But cattiness aside (I obviously have more similarities with the cat from Shrek than just my eyes) I am mostly thankful that I am not her because if I was, I would be unconscious on the pavement right now with a very sore head.
There I was walking to my office down quite a narrow street, marvelling at how this lady had apparently got dressed in the dark and not passed any mirrors on her way out the door when I heard a low roar. Then I saw her duck like a mad woman as if sniper fire was coming our way and after this I realised that there may have been a beep.
And then, *whoosh, a white van tore past us, his large black, sticky-outy wing mirror missing her mad frizzy hair with millimetres to spare.
*phew
She was obviously not deaf, her reactions were amazingly quick, which was just as well as the white van man was not for slowing down.
Now, thinking about this, if that had been me, this is what would have happened: I’d have been happily striding down the street feeling clean and shiny in my white jeans, heard a roar, all too late distinguished a beep, turned around and then
*Thwack…
a wing mirror would have smacked me in the face. Now, I was smacked in the face last weekend by a foot and it was incredibly painful (but kind of funny, too – you had to be there I guess)… so imagine a smack from a van!
By this point I would probably be on the floor, nose resembling my Pa’s after his adventure in Clogland at Big Bro’s wedding and white jeans ruined.
Happily this little scenario did not happen and I am now safely ensconced in my office but, when I go out for lunch today, I think I am going to pick a pedestrianised route… just in case.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Hear no good, see no good, speak no good
I was able to catch up with School-Best-Friend last night, which was lovely. She recently went to a wedding of someone from school and it got us reminiscing about the olden days in the Wild West… um Country.
When I was doing my A-levels, I hung out with three people, School-Best-Friend, Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words and Beebop. We all had mostly the same classes except for FWKBW – who was doing things like French, Politics and Spanish – so we spent most of our time together.
This involved stalking boys in the library of the adjacent grammar school, eating Bounty bars and KitKats until we felt sick, and going to the pub for chips and mayonnaise instead of RE – oh, what healthy lives we led in those days.
Every morning we would converge in the portacabin – also known as our common room – and catch up before registration. This usually involved me antagonising Beebop, who was not a morning person, until she flipped.
On this particular occasion I can’t recall exactly what I was doing, but she was getting close to breaking point. Unbeknown to me, our fierce head of year had arrived in the common room and wanted silence. I didn’t hear her and Beebop was a bit too engrossed in trying to finish her RE essay.
Eventually Beebop broke, turned to me and screamed, ‘Shuuuut uuup!’ Except she didn’t scream it at me – she screamed it at our fierce head of year who had put her head between us to tell us to be quiet.
Ever had one of those moments where everything becomes slow motion and you feel like the whole world is looking at you? I think Beebop had one of them, while I was frantically cramming my jumper into my mouth to try and contain my hysterics.
I had one of those moments several years later at midnight mass. Every Christmas Eve the four of us used to gather at my rents’ house, eat, drink and be merry and then go to church.
Now, School-Best-Friend and Beebop both go to church regularly but Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words and I do not. But it was a tradition so off we popped to SBF’s church in my little green mini Jennifer.
So there we were, with me struggling to hear, when Beebop suddenly said, ‘I forgot my glasses, I can’t read a thing.’ Big-Word-Friend then piped up, ‘What is going on? I don’t get any of this.’ We were like a religious version of the Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys – much to School-Best-Friend’s exasperation. In the end, we had to leave as none of us had a clue what was going on.
And, as if things couldn’t get any worse, I suffered Deaf Tourettes at top volume upon leaving the church and may have said a very rude word while falling down the steps.
Then there was definitely silence, definitely shock and I was most definitely aware of 40 pairs of pensioners’ beedy eyes starting at me agog.
*Eek
For this reason and the Tabasco sauce incident – which really deserves a whole post of it’s own – I don’t go back to that village much anymore…
When I was doing my A-levels, I hung out with three people, School-Best-Friend, Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words and Beebop. We all had mostly the same classes except for FWKBW – who was doing things like French, Politics and Spanish – so we spent most of our time together.
This involved stalking boys in the library of the adjacent grammar school, eating Bounty bars and KitKats until we felt sick, and going to the pub for chips and mayonnaise instead of RE – oh, what healthy lives we led in those days.
Every morning we would converge in the portacabin – also known as our common room – and catch up before registration. This usually involved me antagonising Beebop, who was not a morning person, until she flipped.
On this particular occasion I can’t recall exactly what I was doing, but she was getting close to breaking point. Unbeknown to me, our fierce head of year had arrived in the common room and wanted silence. I didn’t hear her and Beebop was a bit too engrossed in trying to finish her RE essay.
Eventually Beebop broke, turned to me and screamed, ‘Shuuuut uuup!’ Except she didn’t scream it at me – she screamed it at our fierce head of year who had put her head between us to tell us to be quiet.
Ever had one of those moments where everything becomes slow motion and you feel like the whole world is looking at you? I think Beebop had one of them, while I was frantically cramming my jumper into my mouth to try and contain my hysterics.
I had one of those moments several years later at midnight mass. Every Christmas Eve the four of us used to gather at my rents’ house, eat, drink and be merry and then go to church.
Now, School-Best-Friend and Beebop both go to church regularly but Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words and I do not. But it was a tradition so off we popped to SBF’s church in my little green mini Jennifer.
So there we were, with me struggling to hear, when Beebop suddenly said, ‘I forgot my glasses, I can’t read a thing.’ Big-Word-Friend then piped up, ‘What is going on? I don’t get any of this.’ We were like a religious version of the Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys – much to School-Best-Friend’s exasperation. In the end, we had to leave as none of us had a clue what was going on.
And, as if things couldn’t get any worse, I suffered Deaf Tourettes at top volume upon leaving the church and may have said a very rude word while falling down the steps.
Then there was definitely silence, definitely shock and I was most definitely aware of 40 pairs of pensioners’ beedy eyes starting at me agog.
*Eek
For this reason and the Tabasco sauce incident – which really deserves a whole post of it’s own – I don’t go back to that village much anymore…
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Subtitled travel
Last night I was sat on the bus with NikNak trying to ignore two people in front of us who were actually in advanced stages of foreplay. As a result of them, we were looking anywhere other than directly ahead and it was because of this that we noticed that the bus is now subtitled! At each stop, the name came up and a woman’s voice said, ‘Phna nana naa’ – well that’s what I heard anyway!
I was very impressed with this – although it would be great if they could subtitle the driver announcements as well. Trains often have subtitles now too – I went on one recently that appeared to subtitle every single announcement. It was great – I was able to sit back, relax and enjoy my journey instead of wondering what the muffled tinny voice was saying.
The tube is getting there slowly, or so I am told, as I rarely venture on to it. The District line will now tell you in scrolling red writing what destination you are going to but again, if you’re stuck in a tunnel and the driver is announcing that you should make yourself a bed for the night, shouldn’t they subtitle this, too?
I was once on the Northern line between Angel and Kings Cross when the train stopped suddenly. It was quite late at night and there were three other people in the carriage. Ten minutes later I still didn’t know what was going on and I was starting to feel a teensy bit panicked – actually, to be truthful, my eyes were so wide that I resembled the cat from Shrek. But I stuck it out.
Ten minutes after that however, still with no clue what was going on, I asked the people opposite me what the driver announcements were. And, after a few confused looks, it transpired that they were Greek and didn’t speak a word of English. Luckily my hearing aids were in my make-up bag so they knew I was deaf not bonkers.
But by this time, my Shrek-cat eyes were starting to spout tears and the tourists looked a bit alarmed. So what they decided to do was to phonetically repeat every single word the driver said and gradually we pieced together what was going on. They were amazing and I could have kissed them all.
Perhaps the form of transport most behind in the subtitled stakes is the plane. Very little is subtitled on them, although Turkish Airlines do have a signing person on the screen for the safety announcement. But what I really want is subtitled movies – I want to be able to watch more than just the pictures and get all the jokes – not accidentally watch American movies all the way through in French without realising.
It would also be great if they could subtitle the captain’s announcements, too. You see, when I can make out a voice but not what is being said, my imagination runs wild. And, depending on my frame of mind, this can be a good or bad thing.
A few years ago, I was flying from London to Amsterdam to see Big Bro and the turbulence was chronic. Suddenly, halfway through the flight, the captain started talking and went on and on and on. I desperately tried to make out words, as I was a teeny bit scared by the bouncing. But all my brain could hear was, ‘And, the plane is crashing and we’re all going to die.’
Irrational? Totally, but it’s kind of hard to be rational 33,000 feet up and fear is your dominant emotion. Nowadays though, used to prattling captains and their endless pointless spiel, I just look at the other passengers’ faces and if they look calm, I stay calm.
If they look panicked however…
Actually, let’s not even go there!
I was very impressed with this – although it would be great if they could subtitle the driver announcements as well. Trains often have subtitles now too – I went on one recently that appeared to subtitle every single announcement. It was great – I was able to sit back, relax and enjoy my journey instead of wondering what the muffled tinny voice was saying.
The tube is getting there slowly, or so I am told, as I rarely venture on to it. The District line will now tell you in scrolling red writing what destination you are going to but again, if you’re stuck in a tunnel and the driver is announcing that you should make yourself a bed for the night, shouldn’t they subtitle this, too?
I was once on the Northern line between Angel and Kings Cross when the train stopped suddenly. It was quite late at night and there were three other people in the carriage. Ten minutes later I still didn’t know what was going on and I was starting to feel a teensy bit panicked – actually, to be truthful, my eyes were so wide that I resembled the cat from Shrek. But I stuck it out.
Ten minutes after that however, still with no clue what was going on, I asked the people opposite me what the driver announcements were. And, after a few confused looks, it transpired that they were Greek and didn’t speak a word of English. Luckily my hearing aids were in my make-up bag so they knew I was deaf not bonkers.
But by this time, my Shrek-cat eyes were starting to spout tears and the tourists looked a bit alarmed. So what they decided to do was to phonetically repeat every single word the driver said and gradually we pieced together what was going on. They were amazing and I could have kissed them all.
Perhaps the form of transport most behind in the subtitled stakes is the plane. Very little is subtitled on them, although Turkish Airlines do have a signing person on the screen for the safety announcement. But what I really want is subtitled movies – I want to be able to watch more than just the pictures and get all the jokes – not accidentally watch American movies all the way through in French without realising.
It would also be great if they could subtitle the captain’s announcements, too. You see, when I can make out a voice but not what is being said, my imagination runs wild. And, depending on my frame of mind, this can be a good or bad thing.
A few years ago, I was flying from London to Amsterdam to see Big Bro and the turbulence was chronic. Suddenly, halfway through the flight, the captain started talking and went on and on and on. I desperately tried to make out words, as I was a teeny bit scared by the bouncing. But all my brain could hear was, ‘And, the plane is crashing and we’re all going to die.’
Irrational? Totally, but it’s kind of hard to be rational 33,000 feet up and fear is your dominant emotion. Nowadays though, used to prattling captains and their endless pointless spiel, I just look at the other passengers’ faces and if they look calm, I stay calm.
If they look panicked however…
Actually, let’s not even go there!
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
What Bridge?
Everyone has their little rituals in the morning, don’t they? Some people lay out their clothes the night before so that they need to do as little as possible before scooting to work – some people may even sleep in their clothes. Lovely Housemate is one of the few people I know who can go from fast asleep to being dressed, fully made-up with fantastic hair in 15 minutes flat – it’s a strange phenomenon I will never master.
At uni, my morning ritual was tea and cereal in front of Trisha with Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat – I only had two hours of lectures a week, on a Thursday afternoon I think, so there was very little need to rush in those days!
These days, my morning ritual is burnt toast and peanut butter, a cup of green tea and BBC Breakfast News. It was London Aunt who introduced me to the delights of this programme when I stayed with her in her flat in Notting Hill and did work experience for Reuters in my school holidays.
And now, it’s imperative that I watch it every day – I need to know how the tubes are running – even though I don’t take the tube, what the weather will be like – even though it’s all lies, and what Declan thinks about the FTSE thingmajib, even though footsie to me is something to be done under the table at a boring dinner party.
This morning I was in a rush – I was trying to achieve Lovely Housemate’s 15-minute record, so had one eye on the news and was forgoing my usual tea and toast for a packet of oatcakes, which I munched on the bus to work. In between hair brushing and outfit picking I absentmindedly read the subtitles, which were telling my about a guy who takes photos of Black Fry Ass Bridge.
*Eh?
Intrigued, I paused for a moment and carried on reading and there, sure enough were the words Black Fry Ass Bridge over and over again. Black Fry Ass Bridge…
Blackfryass Bridge…
Aaaaaah get it?
*teehee
I guess that the BBC have a voice-activated subtitling machine, at least I hope they do – otherwise it would appear they have employed a Teletubby to ensure that morning news is subtitled um… wrongly.
It’s worrying though isn’t it that there are over 8 million deaf or hard of hearing people in the UK (just to warn you, I got this statistic from the BBC) and that when they tune into BBC Breakfast they get to read about something completely different to what hearing people are getting.
What if there was something important we needed to know about – if it was serious, the whole of the UK would be panicking and 8 million deaf or hard of hearing people would be wandering about quite calmly, oblivious to the fact that the apocalypse was just around the corner. Although I would like to hope the BBC would have a ‘breaking news’ banner at the bottom of the screen for this type of calamity.
Of course I am over-reacting about this and it’s quite fun to tell you the truth – but really it does make me quite cross that technology is so advanced in some ways and so crappy in others. I tuned in to a programme on Channel 4 the other day and there were subtitles to a completely different programme on. Channel 5 doesn’t even bother to subtitle half it’s programmes.
Perhaps I should write a book – the kind you get for your brother for Christmas that they sell by the tills in HMV – you know the sort: ‘The Little Book of TXT Love’, ‘101 Ways To Kill A Bunny’ etc etc. Mine will be called ‘Subtitles – What’s Really Going On In The World’ and will document all the wrong subtitles I can possible find – how great is that? Maybe the BBC will help me make my fortune after all!
At uni, my morning ritual was tea and cereal in front of Trisha with Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat – I only had two hours of lectures a week, on a Thursday afternoon I think, so there was very little need to rush in those days!
These days, my morning ritual is burnt toast and peanut butter, a cup of green tea and BBC Breakfast News. It was London Aunt who introduced me to the delights of this programme when I stayed with her in her flat in Notting Hill and did work experience for Reuters in my school holidays.
And now, it’s imperative that I watch it every day – I need to know how the tubes are running – even though I don’t take the tube, what the weather will be like – even though it’s all lies, and what Declan thinks about the FTSE thingmajib, even though footsie to me is something to be done under the table at a boring dinner party.
This morning I was in a rush – I was trying to achieve Lovely Housemate’s 15-minute record, so had one eye on the news and was forgoing my usual tea and toast for a packet of oatcakes, which I munched on the bus to work. In between hair brushing and outfit picking I absentmindedly read the subtitles, which were telling my about a guy who takes photos of Black Fry Ass Bridge.
*Eh?
Intrigued, I paused for a moment and carried on reading and there, sure enough were the words Black Fry Ass Bridge over and over again. Black Fry Ass Bridge…
Blackfryass Bridge…
Aaaaaah get it?
*teehee
I guess that the BBC have a voice-activated subtitling machine, at least I hope they do – otherwise it would appear they have employed a Teletubby to ensure that morning news is subtitled um… wrongly.
It’s worrying though isn’t it that there are over 8 million deaf or hard of hearing people in the UK (just to warn you, I got this statistic from the BBC) and that when they tune into BBC Breakfast they get to read about something completely different to what hearing people are getting.
What if there was something important we needed to know about – if it was serious, the whole of the UK would be panicking and 8 million deaf or hard of hearing people would be wandering about quite calmly, oblivious to the fact that the apocalypse was just around the corner. Although I would like to hope the BBC would have a ‘breaking news’ banner at the bottom of the screen for this type of calamity.
Of course I am over-reacting about this and it’s quite fun to tell you the truth – but really it does make me quite cross that technology is so advanced in some ways and so crappy in others. I tuned in to a programme on Channel 4 the other day and there were subtitles to a completely different programme on. Channel 5 doesn’t even bother to subtitle half it’s programmes.
Perhaps I should write a book – the kind you get for your brother for Christmas that they sell by the tills in HMV – you know the sort: ‘The Little Book of TXT Love’, ‘101 Ways To Kill A Bunny’ etc etc. Mine will be called ‘Subtitles – What’s Really Going On In The World’ and will document all the wrong subtitles I can possible find – how great is that? Maybe the BBC will help me make my fortune after all!
Monday, 21 July 2008
Deafinitely deafer?
Apologies for the late post – it appears I am now so deaf that I am capable of sleeping through my vibrating alarm clock. Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! It meant that I woke late and couldn’t get in early to write.
So here I am chowing down Pret soup in my lunch hour and wondering what else I can’t hear anymore that I used to be able to.
Take yesterday for example – I didn’t hear the announcement at the climbing wall that said it was closing – I don’t normally ‘hear’ it but I can normally hear a muffled ‘phnea fghha-wall is pnew clfining’ type thing – but yesterday I didn’t even get that.
*sniff
When I get this kind of realisation that something’s changed I normally spend lots of time working out what’s changed – but seeing as work is quite busy at the moment I will have to be content with writing a list and referring to it when I get the chance.
So, as we already know number 1 on the list I can’t hear – my vibrating alarm clock – I know I should be able to feel this too, but it was by my feet this morning for some reason! Then there’s number 2 – the climbing wall announcement.
Next to check should be the volume of the radio in my car I think – it’s usually ridiculously loud, which means when I am at traffic lights I always turn it down really quickly so people can’t hear the classic beats of um… Steps and *cringe Take That coming out of my car, boy-racer stylee!
I guess when I go home to the rents, I will have to hold the cats up to my ears to see if I can still hear them purring (the meowing went years ago). Having said that, this may not work as Merlin is afraid of heights and none of them likes being picked up that much, so I doubt they’ll be purring. They will probably scratch my eyes out too, and then this blog will have to be renamed Deafinitely Blind Girly!
The final test I should do is my flute. Last time I checked I could hear it up to an octave and a half above middle C – the lowest note on the flute. So tonight, I will go home and ramble up and down the scales and see what I can hear – this will technically be practise, too – so I will be multi-tasking.
*hurrah
If I can hear less, I won’t be sad – I will adapt. I will go to the zoo and try and get the lions to purr and I will look into getting an industrial alarm clock and a bass flute…
After all, a girl, deafinitely or not, has got to move with the times.
So here I am chowing down Pret soup in my lunch hour and wondering what else I can’t hear anymore that I used to be able to.
Take yesterday for example – I didn’t hear the announcement at the climbing wall that said it was closing – I don’t normally ‘hear’ it but I can normally hear a muffled ‘phnea fghha-wall is pnew clfining’ type thing – but yesterday I didn’t even get that.
*sniff
When I get this kind of realisation that something’s changed I normally spend lots of time working out what’s changed – but seeing as work is quite busy at the moment I will have to be content with writing a list and referring to it when I get the chance.
So, as we already know number 1 on the list I can’t hear – my vibrating alarm clock – I know I should be able to feel this too, but it was by my feet this morning for some reason! Then there’s number 2 – the climbing wall announcement.
Next to check should be the volume of the radio in my car I think – it’s usually ridiculously loud, which means when I am at traffic lights I always turn it down really quickly so people can’t hear the classic beats of um… Steps and *cringe Take That coming out of my car, boy-racer stylee!
I guess when I go home to the rents, I will have to hold the cats up to my ears to see if I can still hear them purring (the meowing went years ago). Having said that, this may not work as Merlin is afraid of heights and none of them likes being picked up that much, so I doubt they’ll be purring. They will probably scratch my eyes out too, and then this blog will have to be renamed Deafinitely Blind Girly!
The final test I should do is my flute. Last time I checked I could hear it up to an octave and a half above middle C – the lowest note on the flute. So tonight, I will go home and ramble up and down the scales and see what I can hear – this will technically be practise, too – so I will be multi-tasking.
*hurrah
If I can hear less, I won’t be sad – I will adapt. I will go to the zoo and try and get the lions to purr and I will look into getting an industrial alarm clock and a bass flute…
After all, a girl, deafinitely or not, has got to move with the times.
Friday, 18 July 2008
The phone ain't listening
Lovely Housemate walked into the kitchen last night to find me holding a pair of giant red lips against my ear.
Hmmm… wait, let’s try that sentence again. Lovely Housemate walked into the kitchen last night to find me holding our entire telephone against my ear – which happens to be in the shape of a pair of giant red lips.
I got it free from work.
The reason for this was the rents were phoning from France, where they are staying with French Aunt, and it’s free to call my landline but not my mobile. The only problem is, I can’t hear the phone ring – hell, I can hardly hear the phone fullstop – but if I pressed the base of it against my skull, just behind my ear, I could feel the vibrations, so knew when it was ringing and therefore, when to pick up.
It’s weird how I can talk to my rents on the phone more easily than everyone else. I sometimes wonder if I’ve got some sort of audio memory because the more time I spend listening to someone, the better I start to hear them. And, seeing as I have been listening to the rents for nearly 28 years, I pretty much know every lilt, quirk and sentence that they’re likely to say.
Sure, it’s a lot of guess work, too and I don’t always get it right. New Housemate called me last night and seeing as I haven’t really explained my deafness as yet, I had to pick up. I know there was talk of a meeting tonight, I know NH had had a good day at work but there’s a big blank bit in the middle where for all I know, NH could have been saying, ‘Thanks but I’ve changed my mind.’ With me going, ‘’Yaaas, great, great, OK, well I’ll see you tomorrow then.’
When I was younger, I met a boy on the beach in Fiji – he was from London and had a kind of hybrid Aussie/Kent accent that I couldn’t understand for the life of me. But I thought he was great. And being 14 it was so cool that when we got back from holiday he used to call me. I used to sit there eyes shut, phone pressed right up against my ear willing myself to hear at least one sentence of what he was saying. But I rarely did. Instead I would say lots of hmmmmms and aaaaahs and vague responses that I thought matched the tone of his voice and, after 10 minutes he would hang up.
‘How’s Fiji Boy?’ my Ma used to ask.
‘No idea,’ I’d reply.
And do you know, he kept calling me for nearly 10 years!
That’s the weird thing about the phone… to look at there’s nothing intimate about it – it’s a piece of plastic, which according to the BBC has more germs on it than your toilet seat. And yet, people who use it can achieve amazing levels of intimacy with the people at the other end.
For me, that all has to happen in person, or by text message because if you start whispering sweet nothings down the phone at me, it will fall on deaf ears.
Hmmm… wait, let’s try that sentence again. Lovely Housemate walked into the kitchen last night to find me holding our entire telephone against my ear – which happens to be in the shape of a pair of giant red lips.
I got it free from work.
The reason for this was the rents were phoning from France, where they are staying with French Aunt, and it’s free to call my landline but not my mobile. The only problem is, I can’t hear the phone ring – hell, I can hardly hear the phone fullstop – but if I pressed the base of it against my skull, just behind my ear, I could feel the vibrations, so knew when it was ringing and therefore, when to pick up.
It’s weird how I can talk to my rents on the phone more easily than everyone else. I sometimes wonder if I’ve got some sort of audio memory because the more time I spend listening to someone, the better I start to hear them. And, seeing as I have been listening to the rents for nearly 28 years, I pretty much know every lilt, quirk and sentence that they’re likely to say.
Sure, it’s a lot of guess work, too and I don’t always get it right. New Housemate called me last night and seeing as I haven’t really explained my deafness as yet, I had to pick up. I know there was talk of a meeting tonight, I know NH had had a good day at work but there’s a big blank bit in the middle where for all I know, NH could have been saying, ‘Thanks but I’ve changed my mind.’ With me going, ‘’Yaaas, great, great, OK, well I’ll see you tomorrow then.’
When I was younger, I met a boy on the beach in Fiji – he was from London and had a kind of hybrid Aussie/Kent accent that I couldn’t understand for the life of me. But I thought he was great. And being 14 it was so cool that when we got back from holiday he used to call me. I used to sit there eyes shut, phone pressed right up against my ear willing myself to hear at least one sentence of what he was saying. But I rarely did. Instead I would say lots of hmmmmms and aaaaahs and vague responses that I thought matched the tone of his voice and, after 10 minutes he would hang up.
‘How’s Fiji Boy?’ my Ma used to ask.
‘No idea,’ I’d reply.
And do you know, he kept calling me for nearly 10 years!
That’s the weird thing about the phone… to look at there’s nothing intimate about it – it’s a piece of plastic, which according to the BBC has more germs on it than your toilet seat. And yet, people who use it can achieve amazing levels of intimacy with the people at the other end.
For me, that all has to happen in person, or by text message because if you start whispering sweet nothings down the phone at me, it will fall on deaf ears.
Thursday, 17 July 2008
I'm deaf, please speak slowly
In my experience of being deaf, (hahahaha, ahem sorry but I just mistyped that as ‘dead’), you come across several species of people and often, right from the start, it’s easy to work out what breed a person is.
First, there’s the ‘Ears’. Lovely Housemate is one of these, as is School-Best-Friend-and-Head-Girl and NikNak. These wonderful people don’t think twice about making phone calls for me, queuing up in shops and listening for the all important bag question and generally hearing out for everything that I don’t.
Then, there’s the ‘proactive doers’. These people want to fix situations for me that I find difficult, don’t like seeing me upset about being deaf, and often appear to move heaven and earth to make life easier. Not surprisingly my parents are the King and Queen of this category… long may they reign.
In third place, there are the non-believers. They’re a rare species and have the endearing qualities of a female praying mantis right after she’s mated. I have encountered quite a few of these in my lifetime, including the Special Needs person at my uni, which was incredibly frustrating as she wouldn’t sort out any support for me as she thought I was faking it. I actually can’t remember her name, but I can remember her face – think of the ugliest character ever created by Roald Dahl and times it by 10 and you’re halfway there.
Then, there’s the really special species, pungent, disgusting and rarer than the likelihood of Jesus being born in Stonehouse. Luckily, I have met very few of these, but unfortunately I had the misfortune of coming across one when I was just 16 and my hearing was on its way out.
There I was at a line dancing evening with Friend-Who-Outed-Me-As-Deaf, Jen, (no laughing about the line dancing – I defy you to try it and not like it) and I had bought a raffle ticket. At the end of the night, the compère started to call the winners… and I was one, except I didn’t hear him call my number.
Jen finally nudged me to let me know I’d won and I went up to collect my prize. The guy, clearly frustrated by my slow reactions asked me, using the microphone if I was stupid, and I whispered to him that I was deaf, as I was quite shy about it in those days. The next thing I heard was his voice booming down the mic saying, ‘so you are stupid then.’
To this day I still wonder how long the surgery would have taken to remove the microphone from his small intestine and I guess, if I ever meet him again, I’ll be able to let you know.
First, there’s the ‘Ears’. Lovely Housemate is one of these, as is School-Best-Friend-and-Head-Girl and NikNak. These wonderful people don’t think twice about making phone calls for me, queuing up in shops and listening for the all important bag question and generally hearing out for everything that I don’t.
Then, there’s the ‘proactive doers’. These people want to fix situations for me that I find difficult, don’t like seeing me upset about being deaf, and often appear to move heaven and earth to make life easier. Not surprisingly my parents are the King and Queen of this category… long may they reign.
In third place, there are the non-believers. They’re a rare species and have the endearing qualities of a female praying mantis right after she’s mated. I have encountered quite a few of these in my lifetime, including the Special Needs person at my uni, which was incredibly frustrating as she wouldn’t sort out any support for me as she thought I was faking it. I actually can’t remember her name, but I can remember her face – think of the ugliest character ever created by Roald Dahl and times it by 10 and you’re halfway there.
Then, there’s the really special species, pungent, disgusting and rarer than the likelihood of Jesus being born in Stonehouse. Luckily, I have met very few of these, but unfortunately I had the misfortune of coming across one when I was just 16 and my hearing was on its way out.
There I was at a line dancing evening with Friend-Who-Outed-Me-As-Deaf, Jen, (no laughing about the line dancing – I defy you to try it and not like it) and I had bought a raffle ticket. At the end of the night, the compère started to call the winners… and I was one, except I didn’t hear him call my number.
Jen finally nudged me to let me know I’d won and I went up to collect my prize. The guy, clearly frustrated by my slow reactions asked me, using the microphone if I was stupid, and I whispered to him that I was deaf, as I was quite shy about it in those days. The next thing I heard was his voice booming down the mic saying, ‘so you are stupid then.’
To this day I still wonder how long the surgery would have taken to remove the microphone from his small intestine and I guess, if I ever meet him again, I’ll be able to let you know.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Deaf awareness…
It’s lovely when you come across a friend who is so deaf aware that they see problems coming before you do.
Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat is like that –she’s bloody brilliant in fact!
I went to stay with her last weekend and we went to Party In The Park – a scaled-down West Country version of its Hyde Park namesake. There was mud, there were burgers and there was very, very loud music. So loud in fact that she kept checking that I was able to remain standing… I was and, at the time I was more concerned about my very wet foot.
It would seem that No More Nails is not quite what I needed to mend my boots with and in spite of my attempts they were rapidly falling apart. No More Nails also doesn’t stop leaks in bathroom ceilings – and I guess when you think about it, why would it – it’s not like nails stop leaks in ceilings either.
But enough about that…
Anyway, later that night we went back to her rents house where about half of her family were – there are lots of them – she’s one of six and they’ve all got children! While there, she constantly made sure it was light enough for me to hear and translated the babble of her over-excited nephew Alfie – who, in his hurry to get his sentences out, sometimes didn’t get the words in the right order.
The next day, due to exhaustion and in her husband’s case, a hangover, we were all chilling out in her living room. Husband was captivated by a political programme (he’s a politician, you see) and had his back to HFPF while she was talking to him.
Suddenly she said a little bit crossly, ‘Turn and look at me when I am talking so I know you can hear me!’ at which, both him and I looked at her rather oddly! Bless her, she’d been so conscious of the fact that I needed to see her face that she thought everyone did!
*teehee
It got me thinking about deaf awareness and on Sunday, while round at Fab Friend’s house having tea, we looked up a cassette from the 70s that was called ‘Now Hear This’. In its time, it was the height of technology in explaining to hearing people what deaf people heard. I’d never come across it before but FF said they played it at her school once. And, would you believe it appears that this is still the only Deaf Awareness tape of its kind. So we ordered it – and had a good chuckle about the online order form asking us where we had heard about Forest Books, which is a deaf publisher. Wonder how many of their customers do ‘hear’ about them.
I am quite excited about this tape and am secretly hoping that it will provide me with a way of explaining how I can hear the sound of the TV in the flat downstairs but need subtitles to understand my own. Perhaps it will, perhaps it won’t… but it’s worth a try, surely!
Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat is like that –she’s bloody brilliant in fact!
I went to stay with her last weekend and we went to Party In The Park – a scaled-down West Country version of its Hyde Park namesake. There was mud, there were burgers and there was very, very loud music. So loud in fact that she kept checking that I was able to remain standing… I was and, at the time I was more concerned about my very wet foot.
It would seem that No More Nails is not quite what I needed to mend my boots with and in spite of my attempts they were rapidly falling apart. No More Nails also doesn’t stop leaks in bathroom ceilings – and I guess when you think about it, why would it – it’s not like nails stop leaks in ceilings either.
But enough about that…
Anyway, later that night we went back to her rents house where about half of her family were – there are lots of them – she’s one of six and they’ve all got children! While there, she constantly made sure it was light enough for me to hear and translated the babble of her over-excited nephew Alfie – who, in his hurry to get his sentences out, sometimes didn’t get the words in the right order.
The next day, due to exhaustion and in her husband’s case, a hangover, we were all chilling out in her living room. Husband was captivated by a political programme (he’s a politician, you see) and had his back to HFPF while she was talking to him.
Suddenly she said a little bit crossly, ‘Turn and look at me when I am talking so I know you can hear me!’ at which, both him and I looked at her rather oddly! Bless her, she’d been so conscious of the fact that I needed to see her face that she thought everyone did!
*teehee
It got me thinking about deaf awareness and on Sunday, while round at Fab Friend’s house having tea, we looked up a cassette from the 70s that was called ‘Now Hear This’. In its time, it was the height of technology in explaining to hearing people what deaf people heard. I’d never come across it before but FF said they played it at her school once. And, would you believe it appears that this is still the only Deaf Awareness tape of its kind. So we ordered it – and had a good chuckle about the online order form asking us where we had heard about Forest Books, which is a deaf publisher. Wonder how many of their customers do ‘hear’ about them.
I am quite excited about this tape and am secretly hoping that it will provide me with a way of explaining how I can hear the sound of the TV in the flat downstairs but need subtitles to understand my own. Perhaps it will, perhaps it won’t… but it’s worth a try, surely!
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Deafinitely duvet day
Today I am on holiday... a nice day off to break up the week and it's lovely!
One of the reasons I did this is because Boo, my little black Peugeot is due her first MOT. Lovely Housemate booked her in for this on the phone, which I am very grateful for - shepherds pie will be cooked as a thank you - but I thought it would be easier to take the day off rather than faff about with phone calls to and from the garage all day about the state of my little car. Housemate is a Very-Important-Money-Bod don't you know, so I don't like to ask her very often to make calls for me, even though I know she wouldn't mind at all.
I have left Boo in the capable hands of Merlin and he assures me that she will be fine. And, what's even better is that when she's ready he's going to call my mobile and leave a message and, thanks to a great mobile phone service called Spinvox, I will understand it.
Spinvox is great - it converts speach into text and just a few minutes after a phone call, I get a lovely text message with the number the call came from, the time, and their voice mail all typed out for me.
I only discovered this service a couple of months ago - it was a necessity after a crazy scottish woman kept phoning me and leaving me voicemails that even my hearing friends couldn't understand. Rather bizarrely, after I had got the service, she never called again, and to this day I still don't know what she wanted... I wonder if it was to tell me I had won £1,000,000 or a holiday in the Caribbean?
*sniff
Right, I'm off to the gym now as the sunny day the BBC promised has, as yet, failed to materialise.
*mental note to self - must try and stop slagging off the BBC
One of the reasons I did this is because Boo, my little black Peugeot is due her first MOT. Lovely Housemate booked her in for this on the phone, which I am very grateful for - shepherds pie will be cooked as a thank you - but I thought it would be easier to take the day off rather than faff about with phone calls to and from the garage all day about the state of my little car. Housemate is a Very-Important-Money-Bod don't you know, so I don't like to ask her very often to make calls for me, even though I know she wouldn't mind at all.
I have left Boo in the capable hands of Merlin and he assures me that she will be fine. And, what's even better is that when she's ready he's going to call my mobile and leave a message and, thanks to a great mobile phone service called Spinvox, I will understand it.
Spinvox is great - it converts speach into text and just a few minutes after a phone call, I get a lovely text message with the number the call came from, the time, and their voice mail all typed out for me.
I only discovered this service a couple of months ago - it was a necessity after a crazy scottish woman kept phoning me and leaving me voicemails that even my hearing friends couldn't understand. Rather bizarrely, after I had got the service, she never called again, and to this day I still don't know what she wanted... I wonder if it was to tell me I had won £1,000,000 or a holiday in the Caribbean?
*sniff
Right, I'm off to the gym now as the sunny day the BBC promised has, as yet, failed to materialise.
*mental note to self - must try and stop slagging off the BBC
Monday, 14 July 2008
Where do I begin…
It’s taken me much of the day to calm down enough to write this post in a way that is coherent, not a series of indignant squeaks… And what is on my chest today? The BBC’s latest programme – Britain’s Missing Top Model.
One day the BBC are going to tie their Politically Correct bloomers in an incredible knot and trip themselves up and I sincerely hope I am there to watch them do it. If I were director general of the BBC, I would have pulled this embarrassing farce of a programme off the schedule and headed down the pub for a swift half, in disguise, for fear of a deaf person kicking me on the shins.
The last episode saw a rather beautiful deaf girl get selected for a fashion show and a girl in a wheelchair, called Sophie, rant because deafness wasn’t a visible disability so it was unfair. What they failed to tell Sophie was that she had zero charisma at the casting regardless of the fact she was in a wheelchair and the deaf girl was brilliant.
This ‘poor me’ mentality drives me nuts – why should people who are crap at modelling get the chance to become models just because they’re disabled… ugly able-bodied people don’t get that chance? It has to be said that the two deaf girls are very pretty and yet they seem to be constantly discriminated against for not having a ‘real’ disability.
But this week really took the gold award for insensitivity. Sophie moaned non-stop about the deaf girls so much that the makers had the great idea of taking away their interpreter… because they wouldn’t always have access to one in the modelling world and foreign models cope so why can’t they?
*squeak of rage
This resulted in both the girls nearly missing a casting much to the joy of Sophie… but lets be honest here – would she have been smiling if she’d had to get by without her wheelchair and a taxi?
I very much doubt it.
If I wanted to become a model it would be tough – I wouldn’t hear the photographer shouting instructions, I couldn’t phone my agency every day about castings and this would be a disability. OK, it wouldn’t show in the pictures, but if the BBC wanted disabilities to show in pictures, they should have had a bigger think about who they put in this programme.
But the point is – I can’t become a model – I am too short, too wide and this is OK. I accept this. I am not deluded in thinking I can blame everything I can’t have in life on my disability. If I wasn’t deaf, I still couldn’t be a model. I couldn’t be an astrophysicist, a doctor, an acrobat or a ballet dancer either,
but that’s life – that’s not disability discrimination and it’s certainly not something that can be fixed with a crass, insensitive TV show.
For the sake of what dwindling sanity I have left, I am boycotting Britain’s Missing Top Model – otherwise I fear my flat screen TV may have a rather large platform trainer-shaped hole right in the middle of it.
One day the BBC are going to tie their Politically Correct bloomers in an incredible knot and trip themselves up and I sincerely hope I am there to watch them do it. If I were director general of the BBC, I would have pulled this embarrassing farce of a programme off the schedule and headed down the pub for a swift half, in disguise, for fear of a deaf person kicking me on the shins.
The last episode saw a rather beautiful deaf girl get selected for a fashion show and a girl in a wheelchair, called Sophie, rant because deafness wasn’t a visible disability so it was unfair. What they failed to tell Sophie was that she had zero charisma at the casting regardless of the fact she was in a wheelchair and the deaf girl was brilliant.
This ‘poor me’ mentality drives me nuts – why should people who are crap at modelling get the chance to become models just because they’re disabled… ugly able-bodied people don’t get that chance? It has to be said that the two deaf girls are very pretty and yet they seem to be constantly discriminated against for not having a ‘real’ disability.
But this week really took the gold award for insensitivity. Sophie moaned non-stop about the deaf girls so much that the makers had the great idea of taking away their interpreter… because they wouldn’t always have access to one in the modelling world and foreign models cope so why can’t they?
*squeak of rage
This resulted in both the girls nearly missing a casting much to the joy of Sophie… but lets be honest here – would she have been smiling if she’d had to get by without her wheelchair and a taxi?
I very much doubt it.
If I wanted to become a model it would be tough – I wouldn’t hear the photographer shouting instructions, I couldn’t phone my agency every day about castings and this would be a disability. OK, it wouldn’t show in the pictures, but if the BBC wanted disabilities to show in pictures, they should have had a bigger think about who they put in this programme.
But the point is – I can’t become a model – I am too short, too wide and this is OK. I accept this. I am not deluded in thinking I can blame everything I can’t have in life on my disability. If I wasn’t deaf, I still couldn’t be a model. I couldn’t be an astrophysicist, a doctor, an acrobat or a ballet dancer either,
but that’s life – that’s not disability discrimination and it’s certainly not something that can be fixed with a crass, insensitive TV show.
For the sake of what dwindling sanity I have left, I am boycotting Britain’s Missing Top Model – otherwise I fear my flat screen TV may have a rather large platform trainer-shaped hole right in the middle of it.
Friday, 11 July 2008
Deafinitely driving
As you know, I am off to see Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat this weekend and I am sad because whenever I see her, I always see Very-First-Uni-Friend, too. This time around however, she can’t make it.
*sniff
VFUF is a Mini fan like me and used to bomb about in a red one when I had Jennifer. We used to spend hours lamenting about the rusty sills that were sure to cause our cars to fail their MOTs, and swap tips on traffic jam overheating problems – we shared an invaluable knowledge on our little cars.
Now she has a posh new BMW Mini that’s rather nippy and when we’re together, this is our chosen mode of transport. Both HFPF and VFUF are incredibly thoughtful when it comes to car travel. At 8 month’s pregnant, HFPF insisted on levering herself into the back bucket seats of VFUF’s Mini so that I could sit in the front and hear them both. Had she gone into labour, we would have been screwed and VFUF’s seats would have been a bit ruined.
We made the mistake once, however, of taking my car, Boo, out shopping. This meant that I had to lipread VFUF in the rear-view mirror and look at HFPF when she spoke, which was a rather large recipe for disaster. Thankfully however, HFPF wasn’t pregnant at the time or I would almost certainly have caused her to go into premature labour – luckily I am an expert on such things!
On one roundabout VFUF’s eyes were open so wide with fear, that her eyeballs almost fell out. Once we arrived home, and HFPF had downed a strong cup of tea, she sat me down and explained that speed bumps are not the car-equivalent to skateboard ramps and that I really should slow down for them. Do I have to stop at stop signs, too?
It’s not that I don’t know how to drive – I passed first time with an instructor who spent the majority of each lesson asleep in the passenger seat. It’s just I guess that along the way, you pick up habits – and, after going over a speed bump with my Pa recently, I know where that habit came from!
Perhaps it’s time to refamiliarise myself with The Highway Code. Did you know, just the other day, The Writer asked me if I knew the old-fashioned way of indicating – before the days of orange blinkers? Rather randomly, I did… but that’s not enough. So at lunchtime, I am going to Waterstones to buy the original copy of The Highway Code that I spotted there the other day – it has a wonderfully dog-eared cover and a picture of a dashing man – and I plan to study everything in it and adhere to every road rule religiously. I wonder if the modern version has any rules about lipreading while driving? In the era of disability discrimination, surely there must be something!
*sniff
VFUF is a Mini fan like me and used to bomb about in a red one when I had Jennifer. We used to spend hours lamenting about the rusty sills that were sure to cause our cars to fail their MOTs, and swap tips on traffic jam overheating problems – we shared an invaluable knowledge on our little cars.
Now she has a posh new BMW Mini that’s rather nippy and when we’re together, this is our chosen mode of transport. Both HFPF and VFUF are incredibly thoughtful when it comes to car travel. At 8 month’s pregnant, HFPF insisted on levering herself into the back bucket seats of VFUF’s Mini so that I could sit in the front and hear them both. Had she gone into labour, we would have been screwed and VFUF’s seats would have been a bit ruined.
We made the mistake once, however, of taking my car, Boo, out shopping. This meant that I had to lipread VFUF in the rear-view mirror and look at HFPF when she spoke, which was a rather large recipe for disaster. Thankfully however, HFPF wasn’t pregnant at the time or I would almost certainly have caused her to go into premature labour – luckily I am an expert on such things!
On one roundabout VFUF’s eyes were open so wide with fear, that her eyeballs almost fell out. Once we arrived home, and HFPF had downed a strong cup of tea, she sat me down and explained that speed bumps are not the car-equivalent to skateboard ramps and that I really should slow down for them. Do I have to stop at stop signs, too?
It’s not that I don’t know how to drive – I passed first time with an instructor who spent the majority of each lesson asleep in the passenger seat. It’s just I guess that along the way, you pick up habits – and, after going over a speed bump with my Pa recently, I know where that habit came from!
Perhaps it’s time to refamiliarise myself with The Highway Code. Did you know, just the other day, The Writer asked me if I knew the old-fashioned way of indicating – before the days of orange blinkers? Rather randomly, I did… but that’s not enough. So at lunchtime, I am going to Waterstones to buy the original copy of The Highway Code that I spotted there the other day – it has a wonderfully dog-eared cover and a picture of a dashing man – and I plan to study everything in it and adhere to every road rule religiously. I wonder if the modern version has any rules about lipreading while driving? In the era of disability discrimination, surely there must be something!
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Hearing aid day
As I was getting ready for work this morning, I noticed my hearing aids sat on my bedside table… with flat batteries and looking distinctly neglected.
Feeling in the mood for a challenge I decided to give them brush down, a new set of batteries and pop them in my ears. And I have now been wearing them for three whole hours.
So far a dustbin lorry has nearly given me a heart attack, a man coughing almost caused me to fall of my bus seat, and a police car came close to becoming my nemesis as it left me staggering about like a drunk on roller-skates.
But I am going to persevere… I want to see if it will help me pick up office gossip. So far it hasn’t, but it does make the radio a bit louder and I can also hear the alarming whirring noise that my MAC seems to be making.
I guess my hearing aids are a bit like that dress you keep at the back of your cupboard with no clear reason of why you bought it. You love it, it looks quite nice on but something is not quite right about it and yet you can’t bring yourself to throw it away. So instead it sits there and every so often you get it out, try it on, think for a moment, take it off and put it back in the wardrobe.
I know that at the end of the day, this is what I will do with my hearing aids – if not before actually. I wonder if I will lose it with them at lunchtime as I peruse the shops, or during a meeting later on this afternoon? Whenever it happens, you can be sure that before nightfall they will have been removed until such time as I feel the need to try them out again.
And, you can also be sure that this will happen because I never learn. I will always remain slightly optimistic that my hearing aids will someday miraculously help me do something more constructive than fall over when I hear a loud noise. I will always have a place in my heart for them because they are, after all, only trying to help me.
I’m not sure I will ever be able to shake off this strange affection for my hearing aids. When I was 10, I named my first pair Percy and Perdita and they lived in my pencil case at school and frequently got covered in ink or Tippex. Not a lot has changed except the new ones, which shall remain nameless as I am practically a grown-up, now live in my make-up bag, at the mercy of loose eye shadow and perfume. And this is a good thing as it means that they always have a sparkly sheen to them and smell lovely!
Feeling in the mood for a challenge I decided to give them brush down, a new set of batteries and pop them in my ears. And I have now been wearing them for three whole hours.
So far a dustbin lorry has nearly given me a heart attack, a man coughing almost caused me to fall of my bus seat, and a police car came close to becoming my nemesis as it left me staggering about like a drunk on roller-skates.
But I am going to persevere… I want to see if it will help me pick up office gossip. So far it hasn’t, but it does make the radio a bit louder and I can also hear the alarming whirring noise that my MAC seems to be making.
I guess my hearing aids are a bit like that dress you keep at the back of your cupboard with no clear reason of why you bought it. You love it, it looks quite nice on but something is not quite right about it and yet you can’t bring yourself to throw it away. So instead it sits there and every so often you get it out, try it on, think for a moment, take it off and put it back in the wardrobe.
I know that at the end of the day, this is what I will do with my hearing aids – if not before actually. I wonder if I will lose it with them at lunchtime as I peruse the shops, or during a meeting later on this afternoon? Whenever it happens, you can be sure that before nightfall they will have been removed until such time as I feel the need to try them out again.
And, you can also be sure that this will happen because I never learn. I will always remain slightly optimistic that my hearing aids will someday miraculously help me do something more constructive than fall over when I hear a loud noise. I will always have a place in my heart for them because they are, after all, only trying to help me.
I’m not sure I will ever be able to shake off this strange affection for my hearing aids. When I was 10, I named my first pair Percy and Perdita and they lived in my pencil case at school and frequently got covered in ink or Tippex. Not a lot has changed except the new ones, which shall remain nameless as I am practically a grown-up, now live in my make-up bag, at the mercy of loose eye shadow and perfume. And this is a good thing as it means that they always have a sparkly sheen to them and smell lovely!
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
It's raining, it's pouring
This morning, I was up a ladder with some filler desperately praying for the rain to stop both in my bathroom and out – and I don’t think somehow that my prayers have been answered. What I am hoping, however, is that my paltry DIY attempts will be enough to stem the Niagra Falls inside my flat even if they continue outside.
Being deaf in this case is great because it means that I don’t hear the drip, drop, drip, drop of the water hitting the lino. I don’t even hear the splish, splosh, splish, splosh as the drips start to hit the growing puddle on the floor. There is a bucket there now, so I am sure that there will soon be a plip, plop, plip, plop to be heard instead.
But enough about the acoustics properties of my bathroom, and on to more important things. This weekend I will be taking a trip to the Wild West… um Country! There I will see the wonderful Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat – good job I got the word ‘flat’ in there or you’d all be thinking quite different things about her. We lived together at university in the most fabulous flat with the most idiotic boys and the most wonderful view of the sea. The idiotic boys thankfully moved on to be idiotic elsewhere but our friendship remains!
She is quite wonderful and has given me one of the best jobs on earth – I am a godmother! Which means I get keep a watchful eye on her daughter, Daisy, and spoil her rotten! HFPF was clever about her choices of godmother and also selected Very-First-Uni-Housemate and one of her Pompey friends as well – they are going to teach Daisy about the responsible things in life, at least until I am a grown-up.
Very-First-Uni-Housemate is ultra responsible! She was on my course and became my notetaker when things got tough. She went to every lecture for me, took notes and typed them up for me so I could teach myself the finer points of Shakespeare, Hardy and Machiavelli. The difference she made was incredible and I went from getting thirds in my literature essays to getting firsts. And, while VFUH was being studious, HFPF and I could often be found sipping hot chocolate with cream in Costa Coffee on the High Street before perusing the delights of Top Shop. And, we did this for three whole years.
Come to think of it, 6 years later, not a lot has changed. When we are together and even apart, we will still automatically gravitate to Costa for hot chocolate and Top Shop for retail therapy. Cereal will still be eaten in our pyjamas with cups of tea and morning chat shows for company. Except she is now a mum of two, and I am a godmother. I wonder when she is old and deaf and I am old and deafer, if anything will have changed?
Being deaf in this case is great because it means that I don’t hear the drip, drop, drip, drop of the water hitting the lino. I don’t even hear the splish, splosh, splish, splosh as the drips start to hit the growing puddle on the floor. There is a bucket there now, so I am sure that there will soon be a plip, plop, plip, plop to be heard instead.
But enough about the acoustics properties of my bathroom, and on to more important things. This weekend I will be taking a trip to the Wild West… um Country! There I will see the wonderful Housemate-From-Penthouse-Flat – good job I got the word ‘flat’ in there or you’d all be thinking quite different things about her. We lived together at university in the most fabulous flat with the most idiotic boys and the most wonderful view of the sea. The idiotic boys thankfully moved on to be idiotic elsewhere but our friendship remains!
She is quite wonderful and has given me one of the best jobs on earth – I am a godmother! Which means I get keep a watchful eye on her daughter, Daisy, and spoil her rotten! HFPF was clever about her choices of godmother and also selected Very-First-Uni-Housemate and one of her Pompey friends as well – they are going to teach Daisy about the responsible things in life, at least until I am a grown-up.
Very-First-Uni-Housemate is ultra responsible! She was on my course and became my notetaker when things got tough. She went to every lecture for me, took notes and typed them up for me so I could teach myself the finer points of Shakespeare, Hardy and Machiavelli. The difference she made was incredible and I went from getting thirds in my literature essays to getting firsts. And, while VFUH was being studious, HFPF and I could often be found sipping hot chocolate with cream in Costa Coffee on the High Street before perusing the delights of Top Shop. And, we did this for three whole years.
Come to think of it, 6 years later, not a lot has changed. When we are together and even apart, we will still automatically gravitate to Costa for hot chocolate and Top Shop for retail therapy. Cereal will still be eaten in our pyjamas with cups of tea and morning chat shows for company. Except she is now a mum of two, and I am a godmother. I wonder when she is old and deaf and I am old and deafer, if anything will have changed?
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Ear, ear
I was watching QI last night – it’s a fabulous opportunity to absorb random facts and figures and a great source of revision for future pub quizzes.
It was during this programme that I discovered that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, claims his left ear is there for purely decorative purposes. I guess meaning that he is deaf in that ear – but what a brilliant way of describing it.
Following this train of thought, I suppose in a way it means that both my ears are there for decorative purposes, too. That, and holding my glasses up I guess. But do I really give them enough attention – should I ensure that they are always looking their best – I mean how much do people notice each other’s ears?
My Pa likes his ears – one has a frilly edge from where my Great Aunt Wanda Nut accidentally trimmed it when she was meant to be cutting his hair when he was a child. She also once nearly gassed him with a lamp (does this give away his age?) but that’s a whole other story.
I guess, aesthetically, I have been quite fortunate with my ears – they are not too big or too small, they each have a nice little lobe for hanging earrings from, and they certainly don’t stick out. But I guess I don’t really relate the deafness part of me to the two bits of cartilage sitting at the top of my jawbone. To me, they are something attached to my head. My hearing, on the other hand, is something inside my head that no one can fix, get to, or apparently it seems, even really explain very well.
When Eldest-London-Cousin was very little she had an extremely quiet voice and if I was looking after her and couldn’t hear her very well, I used to tell her that my ears were poorly. She would then spend the next 10 minutes examining them, staring at them and trying to work out what on earth I meant.
Deafness is not a visible disability. In most cases the ears give very little away about the hearing prowess of their owner… people will jug-shaped ears are not likely to hear better than people with little ones tucked in so neatly they barely show.
Should I be thankful for this? Absolutely! Although, this morning when I was sat on the bus, engrossed in a Freya North book it would have been beneficial for the person who, by the look of disbelief and desperation on their face, had been asking for me to move and let them out of their seat for quite some time, to know that I was not rude but aurally challenged. And, in the meantime, I am going to make my ears as decorative as possible… therefore all diamond earrings will be gratefully received…
It was during this programme that I discovered that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, claims his left ear is there for purely decorative purposes. I guess meaning that he is deaf in that ear – but what a brilliant way of describing it.
Following this train of thought, I suppose in a way it means that both my ears are there for decorative purposes, too. That, and holding my glasses up I guess. But do I really give them enough attention – should I ensure that they are always looking their best – I mean how much do people notice each other’s ears?
My Pa likes his ears – one has a frilly edge from where my Great Aunt Wanda Nut accidentally trimmed it when she was meant to be cutting his hair when he was a child. She also once nearly gassed him with a lamp (does this give away his age?) but that’s a whole other story.
I guess, aesthetically, I have been quite fortunate with my ears – they are not too big or too small, they each have a nice little lobe for hanging earrings from, and they certainly don’t stick out. But I guess I don’t really relate the deafness part of me to the two bits of cartilage sitting at the top of my jawbone. To me, they are something attached to my head. My hearing, on the other hand, is something inside my head that no one can fix, get to, or apparently it seems, even really explain very well.
When Eldest-London-Cousin was very little she had an extremely quiet voice and if I was looking after her and couldn’t hear her very well, I used to tell her that my ears were poorly. She would then spend the next 10 minutes examining them, staring at them and trying to work out what on earth I meant.
Deafness is not a visible disability. In most cases the ears give very little away about the hearing prowess of their owner… people will jug-shaped ears are not likely to hear better than people with little ones tucked in so neatly they barely show.
Should I be thankful for this? Absolutely! Although, this morning when I was sat on the bus, engrossed in a Freya North book it would have been beneficial for the person who, by the look of disbelief and desperation on their face, had been asking for me to move and let them out of their seat for quite some time, to know that I was not rude but aurally challenged. And, in the meantime, I am going to make my ears as decorative as possible… therefore all diamond earrings will be gratefully received…
Monday, 7 July 2008
Things I know now…
I learnt two things at the weekend: I can lipread birds – well a certain African bird anyway, and I like pub quizzes… and if that’s not a fulfilling learning curve for the weekend, what is?
So let’s start with the pub quiz. I’m not usually a fan as I find them hard to follow and by the time someone has relayed the question to me, someone else has usually got the answer. But last night, while sipping water – I had already had a caipirinha that day with some chocolate raisins, and one drink is my limit on a Sunday after Saturday drinking – I finally got what it’s all about.
You see, Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words’ housemate was there and she very kindly offered to scribble down the question at breakneck speed for me to read and wow, she is one fast writer. This meant I could participate the same way as everyone else – and between us we did quite well… in rounds 1 and 2 at least.
I was thankful for my strange interest in bizarre, little-known communities which led me to recognise the flag of The Pitcairn Islands. My current interest is the independent state of Frestonia but alas, there were no questions on this. We were all a little stumped on the tube stations question and none of us realised that a ‘Spicy Wag’ was in fact Victoria station and we also did not realise that triangulated is an anagram of adulterating… clever huh!
Such a fan I became of this certain pub quiz that I spoke to the guy afterwards to see if there was an easier way for me to follow it without causing RSI in FWKBW’s housemate’s hand. He was lovely and said yes of course, he would simply reserve the best table in the house for us so I could see him and lipread him, which won him considerable brownie points.
Now for the bird – I met him at London Zoo and he was rather cute – but then apart from some vultures, I thought absolutely everything I saw, and met, that day was cute or gorgeous. You should go and check this bird out, he had a bedhead kind of style going on with his feathers and a very endearing face. I watched him for a while and all of sudden he opened his beak and apparently made a noise… which to me looked like it should be low and throaty. And what do you know, it was!
Then there were the gibbons – how I loved those. Until now, I had never felt much affection for gibbons on account of my first hearing specialist having that name and me having strong feelings of dislike towards him. But these guys were amazing – they flew through the air with the greatest of ease and I was actually a little bit jealous – I mean imagine if I could do that at the climbing wall.
Did you know that Gibbons sing? I didn’t either and was dying to see if I could lipread them, too – but apparently they mostly do it in the morning – so if anyone fancies a pre-work trip to London Zoo to hear the gibbons sing, let me know…
So let’s start with the pub quiz. I’m not usually a fan as I find them hard to follow and by the time someone has relayed the question to me, someone else has usually got the answer. But last night, while sipping water – I had already had a caipirinha that day with some chocolate raisins, and one drink is my limit on a Sunday after Saturday drinking – I finally got what it’s all about.
You see, Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words’ housemate was there and she very kindly offered to scribble down the question at breakneck speed for me to read and wow, she is one fast writer. This meant I could participate the same way as everyone else – and between us we did quite well… in rounds 1 and 2 at least.
I was thankful for my strange interest in bizarre, little-known communities which led me to recognise the flag of The Pitcairn Islands. My current interest is the independent state of Frestonia but alas, there were no questions on this. We were all a little stumped on the tube stations question and none of us realised that a ‘Spicy Wag’ was in fact Victoria station and we also did not realise that triangulated is an anagram of adulterating… clever huh!
Such a fan I became of this certain pub quiz that I spoke to the guy afterwards to see if there was an easier way for me to follow it without causing RSI in FWKBW’s housemate’s hand. He was lovely and said yes of course, he would simply reserve the best table in the house for us so I could see him and lipread him, which won him considerable brownie points.
Now for the bird – I met him at London Zoo and he was rather cute – but then apart from some vultures, I thought absolutely everything I saw, and met, that day was cute or gorgeous. You should go and check this bird out, he had a bedhead kind of style going on with his feathers and a very endearing face. I watched him for a while and all of sudden he opened his beak and apparently made a noise… which to me looked like it should be low and throaty. And what do you know, it was!
Then there were the gibbons – how I loved those. Until now, I had never felt much affection for gibbons on account of my first hearing specialist having that name and me having strong feelings of dislike towards him. But these guys were amazing – they flew through the air with the greatest of ease and I was actually a little bit jealous – I mean imagine if I could do that at the climbing wall.
Did you know that Gibbons sing? I didn’t either and was dying to see if I could lipread them, too – but apparently they mostly do it in the morning – so if anyone fancies a pre-work trip to London Zoo to hear the gibbons sing, let me know…
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