Grim Weeper

URE, IT SOUNDS LIKE The Life: laying prone on the couch barely moving for a week, having the whole household running circles to satisfy every gnarled and gnashéd whimsy; steady cornucopious supplies of cleansed cherries and dark grape juice - how decadently Roman, how fittingly hedonist for this, the End of Civilization?

These are indeed End Times.

I'm not that old, dammit - really I'm not: I'm only forty feching two. Answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, all that? But I've surely crossed the threshold, been seduced by the down side. My lumpy corpus certainly seems to think so.

I've been flat on my back for more than a week, with a knee and an ankle bloated and swollen and burning and spreading. Arthritis from ancient sporting injuries, supposed to be - happened a hundred times before, random selection of the same four inarticulate albums - just never two of them at once. Part and parcel, Remains of the day, Things we just have to endure in this our veil of tears, blah-di-blah-di-blah. But No, not just. The beast has darkened, has evolved, is become [--*--] The great unmentionable. Blokes dahn the pub are nodding their heads and wagging their fingers now, grimly intoning: Rich man's disease. I much prefer to consider it a local instillation of malevolent humours.

Fat C**t, Bearded. What did you expect?

I could protest my innocence of the feloney charges - I'm not obese, I'm nooooot - but what would be the point? You'd never believe my excuses: not when you correctly point-out that I've enjoyed a six year hedonists binge since landing here in the Golden State. My heart, my life, my ample belly, my pockets too, have all been filled with brimming gold all spillin' over like some champagne cascade - one long unfettered Wheee-hee-heee! of over-indulgence - all too true.

As one grows older one comes to appreciate that for many of the Good Things in life there are windows of opportunity during which they may best be enjoyed. These windows do not open properly until one reaches a certain age: who, honestly, can claim to have enjoyed a glass of whisky before attaining thirty years? Plenty young men will try it, for sure, in an attempt to prove their manliness, and loudly proclaim both its delights and their toughness to gathered brethren at the bar, but that's all for show. None of them honestly can stand it - its smell, alone, is enough to make one's gorge rise. Until the age of thirty, thereabouts, upon which time even in its basest form, there is nothing to beat an unadulterated short of whisky. Add water or ice or, lord help us, mint, and all bets are off. I learned from my visit to New Orleans last year that Mint Juleps are an abomination, and I mean that in the Biblical sense.

"What have I done?", he said. "Can that be you?"
"Tee Hee!", quoth she, and clapp'd the window to.

Windows open, windows close: usually with a thump of embarassment. Or at least, one embarassment too many. And Bearded, so fortune framed the farce, put up his lips and...

Now, for almost the first time in his hoary life, Bearded is condemned to diet: to regulate the foods he eats. This is quite wrong, and totally contrary to his most closely-held beliefs. He must eliminate the purines, the ones festooning all his favored foods - red meats - wondrous rare steaks, kebabs of beef or lamb; white meats, roasted chickens and turkeys; shellfish - Nooooooooo! - lobsters, shrimp, scallops, mussels; most fish, delicate chilean sea bass prepared in tasty sauces are out, only steadfast tuna and salmon may remain; fatty cheeses GONE! and with them cheesie mashed tatties, though tatties themselves are alright; and get this all his favorite vegetables - asparagus, spinachk and peas peas peas. All out, all to be drastically reduced, almost to the point of elimination. Almost. I reckon if I can reduce my purines substantially during regular days, there's room for a once-a-month binge. Well, whether there is room for one or there isn't, an occasional binge there will be. And pork - trusty pork, not ham nor bacon - pork is clean. Chops and ribs, baby, chops and ribs.

The good news is that I can not become vegetarian or hated granola-chomping vegan either, because beans and lentils and their ilk are amongst the very worst offenders, but eggs - sainted eggs - eggs are allowed. And this being summertime in California, praise be, it is possible and even desirable to avail oneself of a very good Caveman Diet, comprising nuts and berries - cherries in particular - hunted and gathered from nearby pretentious Pavilions. If only we had a Gelson's closeby... but whatevs, we make do.

I do not expect to lose weight. I tried that many, many years ago under doctor's orders - you know, regulating calory intake, all that - but the doctor quickly determined that dieting for weight loss was useless. "Some people, Mr Bearded," he said, "Some people are just built big, and that's the way they are."

Good job too. In anticipation of the upcoming holiday - a slagfest here in the Xenoverse in which our manliness and heritage is challenged every year by the colonial contingent - in anticipation of said event my wife has just bought me a huge feching barbie for the back yard, to replace the other that has lately crumbled away. I still have to cook the good stuff for them. All because I bought her a new kitchen, a new floor, new furniture, and a new puppy. We are told that, rather like the war, it'll all be over by christmas.

All of which I'll be writing about soon... once I've found my feet again, and caught-up with a week's worth of work.

In any event: we are not yet at all sure what new window shall shortly present itself to us. We must remain vigilant. We remain convinced, however, that there is no such thing as a "Tofu" window, but we are keeping our eyes peeled for anything else...

Protect Homes, Not Flags

My apologies. It is probably a very bad idea to even consider posting to one's blog while still in the lingering throes of an unexpected and novel reaction to some newly-prescribed medication. No, not mental, you idiot. Anti-inflammatory, of all bloody things. I therefore apologise in advance. Regular blogging, if there ever was such a thing, shall resume... sometime. I am still alive, though I don't quite feel so.

Title taken from a commenter to this post, at Volokh, in response to the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London which holds, as I most likely misunderstand it, that "eminent domain" - which we thought allowed government to forcibly acquire private property only in order to achieve some higher public good (roads, railways, baseball stadia) - that eminent domain now permits local governments to strip you of your private property to allow some private developer to make more money out of it.

Everybody needs Health Spas, don't they?

This is a filthy decision, to my mind, following closely on the heels of Raich, which overruled medical marijuana laws passed by the State of California, another bad decision - again to my West Coast liberaltarian mind.

But it should not be surprising. Here, even on the fringe of Los Angeles, stories still sound about Chavez Ravine - when in the 1950's the City of Los Angeles displaced thousands of poor mexican-american families in order to build Dodger Stadium, and Police Academy I. Yes - that one.

How funny that the 'Ravine pushed itself into my consciousness just the other day. Strange too that I'd heard the legend of Chavez Ravine long, long before I ever made it to Dodger Stadium itself. There have been stories running lately, down in the bowels of local LA government, that rules should be changed in revenge: that so-called "rich" communities should be targeted first by the eminent domain of the future. Hell, they can do anything they want, it seems. What a gift, what a weapon to hand the outraged social engineers. Thank Whoever that I live in Ventura County.

What a world, indeed. I blame Bush, of course, and those who voted for him. But then I would. Karl Rove was on TV this morning, on the local news, pontificating differences between "conservatives" and "libruhls": conservatives saw 9/11 as an attack, and went to war; liberals - caring libruhls - saw it as a cry for help, and wanted to sit down with the bad mens and see what they could do to make them happy and be nice, and lead fulfilling lives. Some crap like that. Conservatives may indeed have gone to war against Terror, but that ain't you, bub. You and your Bushie crew saw 9/11 as an opportunity, a gift with which to deflect our attentions from what you were doing at home, from your utter incompetence. Rather more concerned you are with plundering Social Security surpluses and getting the fuck away with it. With establishing an aristocracy of spoiled rich boys who can run through life wasting everyone's money but their tax-exempted own. Building Health Spas and Country Clubs.

Pass an ammendment to the hallowed Constitution, to make burning Old Glory a capital Offense. How many times have they tried this? Is it like the perennial "bring back hanging" debates in UK parliaments, which always mean "bring back conservative votes"? A mote in the eye if ever there was.

Please ignore. It was either that, or I should bore you again with tedious and vulgar medical litanies. Nobody needs that.

Watch You Don't Fall In

Anyone who ever played fitba' as a kid will instantly recognize the scene below. Some things are timeless, and universal.

Clicky the photie! [HatTip to Norm]

I find myself this Monday morning still unable to walk or stand, but able to sit, or lie, in reasonable comfort. Let us not speak of the weekend past.

While answering comments to the post below I suddenly saw myself turning into a Pub Bore. Is that my fate - or would it be were I to return to the pubs of earlier times? I'd have to wear a button-down sweater - a Cardigan, and I'd have to learn "The Knowledge" - the standard bore repertoire of comparative engine capacities, suspension systems, and tyre pressures - which I could recount with harrumphs and raised eyebrows and occasional standing on tippie-toes, gin and tonic clutched tightly to my chest. And I'd have to be called...

Aah.

You see, I've always been afraid that was my fate. My given name, my real name, which I shall not utter, is the definitive pub bore name. People in america just do not appreciate this: they'll say it's a lovely name, and exotic name, a charmed name even, and they'll happily give it to their sons. There are two in my youngest daughter's class, alone. But I hate it; I detest it; and I cannot bear to say it even in truncated form. My wife just laughs - she does not understand.

I was required on Friday to put my signature, many times, to some legal documents. And before you ask, it required a special effort to go there, to do that, after which I was allowed to collapse. Anyway: here in the Xenoverse we like to fixate on those tiny cultural variances that are impossible to reconcile. We always mention "dates" as an example - because we cannot adjust ourselves mentally to placing the month before the day: that's just wrong. But I could just as easily have chosen signatures as an example.

Here in america, where the Individual is king, here in america everyone signs their name in the style Fatuous C. Bearded. Which is to say, fornames are always written out, followed by a middle initial, followed by surname.

Boy, do I hate that. You can see all around my own preference: we britons like to keep our fornames to ourselves. We are a united kindgom of GK Chestertons.

A signature is never written, always drawn. It is a stylized character developed and ingrained over many years. They are not, ever, "ordinary" writing and cannot just be changed on a whim. The documents presented to me insisted that my signature match exactly the written name above it: Fatuous C. Bearded

Being left-handed I print when I write - I cannot, do not write cursive. But even here in america, you can't print your signature! It has to be drawn. And I have no idea how to draw "Fatuous" in a manner consistent with "Bearded". I don't know how to sign my name that way. Seven different signatures. At one point I even asked the lady if I could place my true signature here, having earlier explained my difficulties to her, and she said Yes she said Yes Yes you can but when I No did she said No she said Write it again, correctly.

I much prefer the anonymity, the privacy of initials. Nobody needs to know my real name, and I ought not be compelled to spell it out. All I'm saying.

Did you know there's places in Choina where they carve theyah signatures into a toiny piece of ivory, smawlah than a fingahnail, and they stamp it onto pieces of paper? Very very fine paypah made out of roice? Not that you'd foind much ivory around nowadays, not since the blahdy conservationists you wont!
Harrumph! Wotchyoo 'avin there, Arfur?
<tip>

Jinx

"Get your own wheelchair, crutch-boy!"
- Funny aside in an otherwise dreadful movie.

Won't be able to sit here very long today. One of my arthritic ankles - busted knees, ankles, and spine being all I have left from my rugby-playing days - one of my ankles ballooned last night to the extent that I have no arch in my foot. It is impossible to stand, let alone walk, today without the assistance of crutches, and even sitting nicely at a terminal can not be accomplished painlessly. In short, I'm miserable, and I'm most likely going to disappear to bed and lie bored all day. There is no way I could carry my laptop upstairs, anyway.

To cheer you up, though, recall my previous post: she really did say that to me. Shift to last night, the dark depths of the night, about an hour after I finally managed to get to sleep. Woke up bursting - I mean, the "no way this can hold another ten seconds" type of visitation. I arose with extreme tentivity, if there is such a word, and in silence and utter darkness. While trying to navigate the turn at the bottom of our bed, I did: I fell off my f'ing crutches and fell through my wardrobe door. Wifie woke up in a panic, of course.

Much easier to laugh about it now. One of the f'ing things is all twisted and buckled, now.

So please, enjoy your day and your weekend. Bearded is going to lie down.

Tipping Point

Beloved wife, who works one ramp down the 101 freeway away from me, just called to check that I hadn't tipped over or fallen off my walking stick or anything during the earthquake?

There was a quake? Apparently so. (We're located roughly at Northridge, by this map)

Never felt a thing.


[p.s. Yuk Yuk!]

Too Long Gone...

Judging by my miserable score in answering this British immigrant's test, it would appear that the Auld Country would no longer take me back, even if I wanted to return.

I scored a pawky eight out of twenty-four, barely qualifying for a seat in a town council. Now I am truly an exile - a stateless transient denied by one, not yet accepted by the other. Sniff!

Working from work today, and not from home. I should also complain that Blogger has been eating posts all week - the "Save as Draft" button doesn't: it's "Publish Post" or be damned. For those of you without Blogger accounts of your own, I should explain that Blogger The Tool lets you write and edit your posts, then either save them, in which case only you the author can read them, or publish them, in which case everyone else can. Gotta run - meeting.


[Thanks to Harry's Place for tip]

Petards, the Hoisting of

There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.

My great-grandfather on my mother's side was in fact that very engineer during WWI. Highly decorated, he was both a miner and a miner: dug coal in real life, dug tunnels under German tunnels and mined them in War life. Went to war a good catholic boy, came home a comitted communist and never breathed a word of it.

In other news, my wife has called to say that somewhere A Verdict has been reached. No doubt the television world has now stopped.

Aah: it's like the Royal Wedding or Diana's Funeral all over again. The route from Neverland is strewn with cameras and reporters, there to track every millimeter of the Ride to Court, should he decide to go there. He has a sore back, apparently. We know now, for certain, that it takes at least thirty-five minutes to reach the courtroom from there if you break the speed limit... and the verdict is due to be read in thirty! Oh, the suspense.

Does that count as some kind of confession, I wonder?

A plague on all their plooks.


Update: I guess it was a Wedding, then, after all?

Administrative Notes

Trying something new, which I may or may not keep. I never complain about Blogger, which is after all a totally free service, and you get what you pay for. I have never had any trouble with it. But sometimes I wish I could split my longer posts into two parts - an introduction and a "Read more..." follow-up.

Blogger provides a trick to do this, but it is not very discriminating. The "Read more..." link will now appear at the bottom of every page regardless of whether there is, in fact, More to read?

I'm giving it a shot, starting today. Please accept my apologies should you clicky but find no more Bearded hidden thereunder.

- The Mgt.

Here's the deal. When there really is more to read, I'll bracket invisible portions like so:
<snip>...
Yes, even this post.
</snip>
That okay?

Bugger. Now I'm compelled to waste hours finagling with line-breaks and formatting, and I'm really busy too. Damn.

Celebrate This Day The Silvery Tay

Praise to The Scotsman, paper of note,
For reminding me while eating my oats
That this twelfth day of June, a Sabbath to boot,
A full month before the fair grouse we may shoot,
That this twelfth day of June we must set us a toast,
To remember McGonagall, oor finest of poets.

Today we celebrate the man who is officially recognized as the worst poet in the english language: the wonderful, magnificent William Topaz McGonagall.

Here in celebration, then, I recant my favorite poem of his, written in honor of a brand-new bridge across his belovèd Silvery Tay, which contains within it an unwitting prophecy: <snip>...

BEAUTIFUL Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky.
The greatest wonder of the day,
And a great beautification to the River Tay,
Most beautiful to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
That has caused the Emperor of Brazil to leave
His home far away, incognito in his dress,
And view thee ere he passed along en route to Inverness.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
The longest of the present day
That has ever crossed o'er a tidal river stream,
Most gigantic to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
Which will cause great rejoicing on the opening day
And hundreds of people will come from far away,
Also the Queen, most gorgeous to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
And prosperity to Provost Cox, who has given
Thirty thousand pounds and upwards away
In helping to erect the Bridge of the Tay,
Most handsome to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
I hope that God will protect all passengers
By night and by day,
And that no accident will befall them while crossing
The Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
For that would be most awful to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay !
And prosperity to Messrs Bouche and Grothe,
The famous engineers of the present day,
Who have succeeded in erecting the Railway
Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
Which stands unequalled to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Not long after he wrote this, the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879 in which that very bridge over the River Tay at Dundee was swept away in a terrible storm, and with it a trainload of people. It was because of this event that the cantilevered Forth Railway Bridge, Home! landmark of my youth, otherwise known as "the Forth Road Rail Bridge" by one scurvy knave of my acquaintance, why that mighty bridge was so magnificently over-designed.

McGonagall, distraught, began his lament:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time...

Go on - treat yourself - read the rest, and rejoice in the man who wrote it..
</snip>

The Luck of the Lerchenaus

According to Sir Denis Forman - why is that name so familiar to me? - according to Sir Denis Forman in A Night at the Opera:

Rosenkavalier
(Der Rosenkavalier)

Richard Strauss

The one where a field Marshall's wife sends her lover to assist in the wedding of her cousin with the unforseen result that he falls in love with the cousin's bride and she loses him.

Even if you do not like opera but still need to hold your own at bourgeoise "dinner pahty's" where some fat braggarty-mouth is sure to domineer all conversation with squeals about the coloratura this or attentivo that, and where anyone else who ventures an opinion is met with Harrumphs! and P'tahs! and riduculed by so clearly superior an intelligence; even if you can't stand the thought of opera, you ought to arm yourself with a copy of this book. True, it won't fit into your back pocket, but with a little coercion and finagling it ought to fit just unto your man-purse? When conversation turns inexorably, make your excuses and off to powder your nose.

I'm not very good at the counting, but my estimate is of one-to-two hundred entries in this marvellous encyclopaedia. Each entry is devoted to a single opera, formed into the following parts:

1. Instant Summary: perhaps its most valuable contribution, a short paragraph beginning "The one where...";
   
   
2. Dramatis Personae: who is in it
   
   
3. Detailed plot, an act-by-act resumé that describes the machinations in great detail;
   
   
4. Look Out For: an excellent list of the good bits, complete with minutes into the act or scene and stars;
   
   55:Hab'mir's gelobt The glorious soprano trio.*** This is a great operatic event on a par with the quartet in Fidelio or the Meistersinger quintet...
   
   
5. Notes: general bric-à-brac (now who among you, honestly, would ever drop bric-à-brac into their daily conversation?);
   
   
6. News and Gossip: your indispensable dinner party savior - all the gossip surrounding the original production;
   
   Strauss wanted to write a comedy after Salome but got stuck into Elektra instead which has no laughs in it whatsoever.
   
   
7. Comments: Forman's utterly partisan comments on the piece. He likes it, he loathes it, you'll know - but always well-written regardless.
   
   ...But taken altogether, Rosenkavalier is something of a phenomenon, and also probably the most popular opera written in the twentieth century. Alpha.

I was not in any way, shape, or form disappointed by Saturday night's Rosenkavalier in Los Angeles. And neither was my Goddess, praise be, whose crest had fallen way low earlier in the day when I broke the news to her it would be four hours long.

Pop quiz, just for fun.

1. The one where a call-girl is a social embarassment to her lover's family so she gives him up, her golden heart is broken and she succumbs to terminal TB.
   
   
2. The one where the Count and the page hide behind the same chair, where the Countess' maid makes a surprise exit from a closet and where XXX discovers the woman who wants to marry him is his mother.
   
   
3. The one where XXXX makes new friends who stab him in the back, where YÜYY is very brave and VVVV goes up in flames.
   
   
4. The one with the prisoner's chorus and where a woman disguised as a prison worker liberates her husband and strikes a blow for freedom, feminism and prison reform;
   
   
5. The one with a disagreeable town clerk, a noble cobbler, a street brawl and a prize song.
   

Death To Everyone

New Word of the day: Mockney - the speaking in a Cockney accent that does not belong to you. Orwoight my sahn?

Rant of the day:

...Then there are stealth evangelists, ones who invite you to watch sport or go out for dinner and before you know it they are fucking praying away in public in a loud and praising way. They are terrible, terrible people. Then there are the "you are wrong" people who will not leave it, and a lot of those are atheists. You would think being an atheist was just that, being a godless person, but a lot of them are as pushily cunty about being an atheist as the God Squad or the loonie-toonies are about their respective cults. Some atheists will go on and on about fossils around religious ones that believe in the ark, or they will harp on about fucking Nietsche until you really could just shit. If there is no God, then fine, but going on and on and having a real go at the poor unfortunates who have some kind of a way of coping with the cruel old world, just makes these religious people think the atheists are threatened by their fuckwitted religious beliefs . Then they are on the rollercoaster of "I am right", the religious people...

Both from Emerald Bile, who LaVacheQuiLit reminded me of today. Not for the delicate of sensibility.

Fear of Failure

ONIGHT - Saturday night - I'm going with my ever-considerate wife to watch LA Opera perform Der Rosenkavalier at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown. It's a very different kind of opera, musically speaking, from my other favorites. It is written almost as one long waltz peppered with crashy bits and some breathtaking trios - kind of beauty that could almost make you believe in Heaven, if that kind of singing moves you at all? I've waited years for the chance to see this opera performed live - it's been almost twenty years since I was first ensnared by Rheingold and Don Giovanni, and began buying tickets at theaters. All the Verdi's and Puccini's I sat through in Edinburgh to encourage Scottish Opera proved fruitless - the bastards waited until I had left the country before they produced the acclaimed Ring Cycle that may have destroyed them - but six years of patronizing LA Opera are about to pay off. I hope.

You never know until the curtain rises - and sometimes not even then. The very best and the very worst of all the opera productions that I've seen have been right here in L.A. under the stewardship of Plaçido Domingo, hero of my CD collection second only to Solti. The worst, I'm ashamed to say, was last year's Idomeneo in which I saw the man perform for the first time. We left at half-time. I have a reasonable excuse - chronic nerve damage rooted in my spine makes it difficult for me to sit cramped for long periods, almost impossible to sit still, and painkillers that only go so far - but that wasn't it. I might have endured the second half if the first had not been so awful? Wasn't the singing, anything like that. I am not an opera queen, just an enthusiast. If you have ever read Diva you'll get what I mean. Bit like that. But there are few things I find so dispiriting as a minimalist set and dramatic flouncing around the stage, and I felt it keenly that my wife, who is not an opera lover but who accompanies me regardless, that she should have to sit through two more hours of it. The very best, on the other hand, was year before last and a visually stunning Don Giovanni that looked an awful lot like the dreamy parts of The Cell and in which all the participants moved in highly-stylized ways. Never seen anything like it on stage before or since.

So I'm excited, but fearful. I've built it up so highly, what will I do if it's crap? What if we leave, she gives me that look that says "see what I do for you?" Her attendance tonight is not without sacrifice: she has forgone two fully-comped limousined seats at Jerry Seinfeld's one-night stand in Vegas, offered her - too late - by the casino we patronize. Jerry Seinfeld is very much her Rosenkavalier; but we'd bought the tickets for its final performance long before the offer arrived.

You will know if tonight's production turns-out to be awful. I will never speak of it again.

[ADDENDUM: followed some links - now I'm not worried much at all.]

Book Idea?

Any budding cartoonists out there? Here's an idea for a book, along the lines of the Book of Bunny Suicides, that I'm sure the Pentagon would pay you good money to write? Sheesh - that could even make it a Defense contract - you could ream them for gazillions.

Your book would be called 1001 Ways To Pee On Sacred Texts By Accident.

Just sayin'.

Say what?

HE ONLY ASPECT of my pre-american self I am contractually bound to retain is my accent. Anything else - everything else - I am free to discard if I choose. But, I lose my accent, I lose my wife: simple as that.

Oddly enough, dropping all my former nationalist insecurities - the Scotland T-shirts, the Scotland bumper stickers, the Scottish flags tacked around my cubicle, tattoos of "Bonny Scotland" thistled on my forearms, insisting that scots were the first men in space, my kilt, tartaned to my family name and too small by several inches, visceral hatred of anything english - getting rid of all that has been remarkably easy. In this place that is saturated with immigrants from every corner, nobody gives a flying toss where you come from, and nobody - but nobody - needs to hear how much better the sausages were in the auld country. You get over it pretty quick; and ten minutes sat out back in the sunshine with a marguerita, it's like you were never, ever there. Occasionally something slips through the net, sure, but it's usually caught and slapped.

Except for the stupid accent. That must stay.

<snip>...
I am permitted to temper it, to speak more slowly and more clearly, and to omit much of the verbal corruption that goes with it, but to be brutally honest, I need to do that if anyone here is to understand a single syllable I speak? Youse jis couldnae honduhl the trooth ae it, an ah couldnae funcshun ony place here if ah didnae. Couldnae even buy eez a pockit ae fags, innat, eh no?

Want to know exactly what it sounds like? Watch Trainspotting. Leith, the port city in Edinburgh where it takes place, is where I used to work. Or you could read the book, which is written phonetically, for a flavor of the vocabulary. But when I did that it took me ages to find the rhythm and make any sense of it.

I am scots: but absolutely nobody (naeb'dy) here who hears me speak gets that. I have been thought, variously, to be french, german, to be scandinavian, often to be irish - but never scots? One time, even, the Sikh gentleman who owns our local convenience store asked me - and please, fill your ears with a sumptuously musical indian lilt as you read this - You have an accent! Are you from New York?

This inability to recognize an actual scots accent isn't your fault. I blame Hollywood and the English: both have in their time thrust upon an unsuspecting world a swarm of hideously bad scottish accents. From Scrooge McDuck to Groundskeeper Willie, via the paragon Scotty himself. Thousands of them - over-exagerrated and wrongly corrupted. Careless and lazy, more than anything, and often deliberately so. These are offensive to our ears for many reasons, but an important one, I think, is that they're mongrel: they capture certain gross qualities that are I suppose unmistakable, but none of the subtlety. We can't tell where these speakers are supposed to be from, and we should be able to*.

This variation in speech patterns - in tone, cadence, vocabulary, corruption - is endlessly amusing to my wife: she can't get over the fact that I can listen to a briton speak and tell you where - which county or city at least - they come from. Or are supposed to come from, if they're acting. British accents - certainly scots accents - vary from village to village, town to town, county to county. It is a simple fact that, just by listening, I could place anyone from around my home town to the precise village or community they come from, or at the very worst to within two or three villages promixate to one another. Valleyfield or Oakley I might have slight trouble distinguishing, but in Valleyfield or Oakley I could surely place you. Not Ballingry, not Cowdenbeath, and certainly not Kelty. I could not say for certain, but I have a strong sense that this granularity extends across the british isles?

Mel Gibson, incidentally, is clearly a weegie: his Braveheart accent (not too shabby, either) was pure Glasgow - pyoor Glesca. Except he did not close his sentences with By the way, by the way, nor even But, but.

Freeeeeduhm, but!

To my wife this, this talent call it, it spices-up her games of "Spot the Brit" that we play together in Vegas. She determines - by dress and look alone - who the brits are in the crowded gamblehalls of the casinos; we both wander innocently and surreptitiously into hearing range; then I tell her where they come from. Occasionally, for proof, she'll talk to them on some stitched-up pretext and cajole them to confessing I was right. She can do that - she can talk cold to strange people. Not me. No sir.

You can blame Matt Damon for today's dribble. Goodwill Hunting was playing on TeeVee at bed time last night and I was struck by the fact that most of the characters spoke with distinct accents. That is unusual. It stands out.

Here in the Golden State that beaches the Pacific Ocean, it's always me that has the accent - not them. In a funny way that's true: because all across this continent-spanning country there are only really a handful or so of accents. Would you agree? Most of the people, I'd be willing to bet, and so has my wife who knows everything, most of the people speak with a generic american accent that does not betray their roots to any greater degree. I've found this in many different places, places like Boston and New England where there is a perfectly decent local accent? I heard some New Englanders talk like they pahk the cah, but I heard and worked with many more who did not. It seemed to me that the accented were in the minority. Of course that could be utter bollocks: but I met the same phenomenon in New York and, dammit, even in Dallas? Maybe it's just the places I've visited? I might be persuaded I've been hearing Engineer, but in malls and restaurants they aren't engineers. New Orleans - N'awlins - that was an exception: pretty-much everyone there spoke with a charming drawl, but then New Orleans is an exceptional city. What d'you expect? [UPDATE: by curious conflaton and intersection of the spheres, we are pointed to Dis he' Possd by MadameL at La Vache Qui Lit I was wrong in my assumption.]

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe each state does have a distinguishable accent, but I just don't recognize it? Can you, for example, tell a Californian apart from an Oregonian or a New Mexican or a Nevadan? I think I can tell Arkansas from Alabama, but probably not Alabama from Georgia or Mississippi - is there a difference?

One day I'll find out.

Meantime make do with other indicators. On a visit to Manhattan my wife thumped the back-end of a taxicab with her hand as it cut her off on a crossing and missed her by inches. "Get the f**k back to California, asshole!" he shouted back, hairily. How did he know?, said me.


* Most scots, incidentally, sound like a haemorroided John Wayne when they try to speak in an american accent. You can tell that we all come from Texas. Just saying.
</snip>

Dept. of Mimetic Engineering

We interrupt our regular unscheduled posting events to submit ourselves fully to the Book Meme, which virus is spreading like plague across the blogobubble and which we, here, have caught from DarkoV of Verging on Pertinence - who clearly does not hold his hand across his mouth when he sneezes - and he in turn from Cowtown Pattie who writes beautifully at Texas Trifles.

Before we begin let me disappoint you all up front by declaring, unapologetically, that I am a Fiction man, and really can't be doing with all that factual stuff, which often isn't? Which is to say it often seems more to reflect the author than the subject, and to admit of such takes me rather too far into the fascist hegemony of deconstruction than I ever wish to tread. I do read non-fiction now and then, but not by habit.

Also to be borne in mind - and I feel sure I've written this before - is Robertson Davies' admonition against those who would pester him at dinner parties with claims to being "Great Readers." No, he would say, You're not. I happily confess that I read much, but often comprehend little. I know this while I'm reading and it does not discourage me. Rather it encourages me to read a good book again in the hope I might know more of it.

1. Total Number of Books You Have Owned: Have owned? I like to think "thousands" but it is more likely an exagerrated hundreds? I left an awful lot of books behind, and brought with me across the oceans and continents, maybe one hundred or so that I could not do without? Since built upon by two Avid Readers where before was but one. Our kids each have their own collections, but there's simply no way you could ever reach them to find out what's in 'em. And you ask me - or you will - to pick just five books?
   
   
2. Last Book I Bought A brace, bought last week - Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap, both continuing the tale of Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, which I much enjoyed. I'm on a Sci-Fi binge this week, and I do love a good Trilogy.
   
   
3. Last Book I Read: All the way through? Blue Blood, by Edward Conlon. I lied - these are his memoirs from a life in the NYPD - that counts as non-fiction, doesn't it? Last book dropped with a soupçon of Meh, Holy Fools by Joanne Harris. Couldn't get into it, might try again.
   
   
4. Five Books That Mean a Lot To Me: I'll play by Plumley's classic Desert Island Disc rules, which guarantees me Shakespeare. These are some of the books I could not do without, that I always come back to, and likely always will:
   
   
   
   • The Deptford Trilogy, by Robertson Davies, purchased in the mistaken belief it was a "Thriller". The most wonderful triplet in my possession. One unintended consequence of reading this book has been to completely color my view of autobiographies: I don't want to read your earnest memoirs, I want you to lie through your teeth and write me the person you wanted to be.
     
     
   • I, Claudius, by Robert Graves, Poet. Intrigue and mischief in Imperial Rome, and perhaps the scariest granny in history. I just dropped Midnight's Children in favor of this, and am sorely tempted to replace it again with Goodbye To All That, the finest war memoir I've read? But I'll stick with Claudius in the end;
     
     
   • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John Le Carré; and with it all of his "Smiley" novels. But this one best.
     
     
   • The Complete Enderby, by Anthony Burgess. How could I live without Enderby the Poet? <swoon type="ArmOverBrow"> He carried me hopalong through very bleak times. I won't. Burgess as an author is sublime, though all of his novels circle the same fascinations - St. Augustine, Joyce, Free Will, Predestination, Poetry, Shakespeare and others numerous. His two-volume autobiography, which begins with Little Wilson, Big God is... is... great. I'm sorry, but I only know so many superlatives and you're making me use them all. Enderby, hapless toothless Enderby the Poet, is his finest creation;
     
     
   • White Jazz, by James Ellroy. The darkest of noir, the seediest, dirtiest, bleakest writer in America. I used to think he exagerrated, that the LAPD and Hollywood were never so corrupt; and then came Rampart to make me think again.
     
     
   • Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. Sprawling and chaotic and wonderfully encrypted in a way that I just can't escape.
     
     
   • London Fields, by Martin Amis. That's Six -- Sex?!? -- so sue.
     
   
   
5. Four (or Five) Folks I’m Laying this on: I think, pretty much, that everyone I read who might answer already has? Hmmm. I want to send it to Stephenesque but I know he hates these memes and has prudently innoculated himself against them. So I won't. Then again, why not, if only to provoke him? I might send it further to -jkg at Gray Matters because he's laid-up with a bad back and he's bored, and I might send it also to Madamel. at La vache qui lit - but I'm sure both of them would p'tah like Stephen? Still: it's nice to be asked, my Nan always says, and, well, face it folks - you talk to me in comments, you're fair game! I have no other friends! Then there's Shuggy over there in Glasgow who's a history teacher, so he's probably read some books; and there's Vit n' Madge, the Webb sisters, who will hopefully draw the answers for us at Vitriolica.
   
   But when it comes down to it, I don't feel comfortable asking anyone to answer. Rather, if you happen to read this and fancy joining-in or otherwise screeding against the meme, then consider yourselves invited, folks? Is that okay?
   
   They made me do it.
   

SO FAR...

• Shuggy's e-mail bounced... but he wrote back anyway and points us Here!, where I believe he was infected earlier;
  
• -jkg doesn't list one... but he wrote, too, and is preparing his response - he shoots, he scoooooores;
  
• Vit 'n Madge answered this ages ago!;
  
• Stephenesque, who really does not like these things, has nevertheless written an answer for us.
  

That turned-out so much better than I anticipated. Thank you all for your response.

Blech! - Updated

12pm Wednesday - LATER...

Home again, at last. Not bad, all told?

To be clear, recall that we had to drive fifty freeway miles this morning to arrive at the Federal Building in Downtown L.A. by 8.15am, just to ask a question of the Immigration Service - or USCIS, as they are now known. I thought the "C" stood for "Customs", but it doesn't - "Citizenship".

To be clear too, three of us interviewed for green cards last November - my son, my daughter, my self - but only two of us received them. My daughter would have, should have, but for a change in the rules that meant she did now require an FBI background check whereas until that day she had not.

So: we're two for three, and waiting. And a tiny bit worried.

Leaving home at 7am was a complete miscalculation - should have left at six. I hate being late for appointments, and stress all the way there if it turns out there is the remotest prospect that I won't arrive fifteen minutes early - give myself time to hang around, sort out papers, and walk-in bang on-time looking like the Biz, like I know where I am and what I'm doing.

We were late, of course: twenty minutes late. Since neither of us work in L.A. itself, and we don't have to commute to L.A., we clearly bolluxed-up the time we'd need to leave. As it was I arrived twenty minutes late, terrified that they would cancel today's appointment and ask us to make another. They can do this; they warn you to be punctual, or your appointment will be cancelled. If they had cancelled our appointment my american born-bred-raised wife would have exploded. She, being an actual american, feels perfectly free to give her government, that she pays for, a giant piece of her mind. I on the other hand, being an immigrant alien who also pays for this government but who could be kicked-out the country for sneezing at inopportune moments, I am quaking in my boots. Pleeeeease don't say anything! Please don't say anything! To myself, naturally.

I have since learned from my colleagues that had I left a mere ten minutes later this morning I would not have made it there at all. There was an accident where I had been, and the cars were stopped from the 5/118 all the way back to Magic Mountain. My colleagues turned back, to work from home.

Twenty minutes late. I hobbled in with my daughter, while my wonderful wife stayed outside to confuse and confound some war protestors who were thrusting signs in her face while all she was trying to do was enjoy a smoke. ..Make up your mind. Is it Bush you're protesting - which I quite understand - or is it the war you're protesting? Hmm? Which one is it? Because, you know, a thousand times more people die every day in this country through stupidity.If you were truly concerned about saving lives you might do something useful, like teach drivers ed. or child safety or any one of a hundred other things... Other smokers and bus-waiters clapped, she told me afterwards. My God, how I love that woman.

But twenty minutes late, and sweating. Hobbled into the Federal Building, dropped my walking stick trying to get my ID out my wallet and my phone out my pocket to show it had no camera in it, both at the same confused time. Sweating.

Turned out not to be too bad today - quickest visit ever, in fact. Into the first lounge, wait to be given a ticket, then sit waiting for ticket to be called. Up to the booth, tell my story to the perfectly-mannered asian gentleman behind the window. I mention this only because he was later interrupted on the other side by an asian co-worker, and they began to converse with one another in what I presume to be mandarin? I found this very funny, and indeed slightly disorienting, to the extent that I could not suppress a smile. Consider: sweating at the Immigration Service of the United States of America, while two agents behind the glass are chatting away in chinese. Perfect situation comedy material, and one of the things I love most about living in Southern California. This random mix of peoples, this conglomerate, is so exotic to me, who comes from the coalfields of Scotland and never met a black man until he was thirty? Wonderful...

Anyway: blabber my story to the man behind the glass, and eventually he disappears with a Be right back. Returns with a form, which I complete on behalf of my daughter, who all this time has been shuffling her feet at my side. Name. Address. Alien ID. When and where last fingerprinted? When and where last interviewed? A whole bunch of very official questions, a signature, and a little box at the bottom in which to write my question. This sheet, once completed and checked and corrected, is then stamped and handed back to me. Take this to Room XXXX. It's on the Xth floor. So out we troop, or hobble, whatevs, take the elevator all the way up to the Xth floor, walk through acouple of corridors to arrive at another window, this one outside Room XXXX. Tell my story again, hand the lady my filled-in form, she scans it, then tells me, instantly: Your reply will arrive in the mail.

End of interview.

The Immigration rules are always changing - always. It is no longer possible to call them on the phone and ask them a question about your Immigration status. It is no longer possible for your Lawyer to phone them up or otherwise inquire about your status. You must make an appointment and drive fifty miles to Downtown L.A. by 8.15am (it happens) and wait in two separate lines and offices just to be told Your reply will arrive in the mail.

I'm not complaining - as my youngest daughter often says - I'm just saying is all. I know never to complain about Immigration - it ain't my place to do so. Not yet. Not until I'm a citizen myself. Two-and-a-half years more I have to wait, and the clock is ticking...

Welcome to the Xenoverse. This is what we're about.

Blech!

Have to be Downtown Los Angeles by 8.15 tomorrow morning, just so I can ask what has happened to the FBI's background investigation into my teenage daughter. When we interviewed for green cards last November we learned on that day that the rules had changed - again - and that, Yes, she did now require an FBI background check before she'd receive her card. That would be the same type of check my son and I had earlier been subjects of, but my daughter had been exempted from because of her age. Haven't heard word one since, and her work permit is due to expire end of next month just as she, finally, has become old enough for part-time work.

Mustn't grumble. Still: to be there by 8.15 we'll need to leave here before 7am, which means we'll arrive there around 7.30. Leave any later and we'll get caught in the morning "rush" - was ever a word so wrong? - and won't arrive until after 9.

All of which is rather a whiney way to tell you I won't be posting until later tomorrow, if then. Still chasing that same feching bug for work too, which has leapt out of its regular orbit into the surreal.

Six Glasses Raised

I don't think it should be difficult to solve once you realise that, Yes, it is a picture puzzle?

Must see?

I'm so lucky that today is Sunday, so I know that only one of you has read the original version of this post. That means I can re-write it and only that one person will know, but it was he that made me do it. It is indeed one thing to be a whiner who complains that "nobody will play with me" almost to the point of threatening to take his ball home with him, but it is quite another to be the kind of idiot that can't read the rules of a blogpoll properly. I refer you to my portrait, top left. What did you expect me to do?

In any event, back to business: the mighty Norm, whose blog I enjoy every day - even on sundays while you lot are still in bed - and to which I link like a stalker, Norm is requesting participation in his Favorite Movie Star poll. Here, then, is my revised list of TEN and TEN ONLY, mixed of male and female movie stars whose very presence in a movie is guaranteed to make me want to see it, while no guarantee that I will:

1. Johnny Depp
   
2. Uma Thurman
   
3. Paul Giamatti
   
4. Joan Allen
   
5. Bill Murray
   
6. Steve Buscemi
   
7. Holly Hunter
   
8. Famke Janssen
   
9. Peter Stormare
   
10. Jennifer Connelly
    

Now. My original post produced two lists, slightly different it transpires, based on a misreading of the rules., which I include below for completeness and discussion, and also in the hope that you clicky this Charles Durning link, and maybe learn something remarkable about Pappy O'Daniels that I certainly hadn't known until today:

Johnny Depp Paul Giamatti Bill Murray Willian H. Macy Charles Durning Steve Buscemi Peter Stormare William Forsythe (Palookaville, heh!) Timothy Olyphant Michael Caine

Uma Thurman Holly Hunter Jennifer Connelly Famke Janssen Cate Blanchett Frances McDormand Hope Davis Kate Winslet Kate Beckinsale Michelle Pfeiffer

LATER: Damn! I totally forgot Samuel L. Jackson, who ought to be at Number 5. See? That's what happens with these dagnabbed polls - your real answers turn up late. Expect further updates.

You see? They're different. Time has passed - a couple of hours - and already my lists have changed, which illustrates my primary difficulty with "Top Ten" lists: I'm an absent-minded forgetful old Hector whose mind and memory are in constant flux. I have no doubt that if I came to this question freshly tomorrow morning, my resultant list would be radically different? Except for Uma: she'll still be there. And Famke.

Plucked from Obscurity

Ow.

Chastisement

Some men are born for fatherhood; some strive to achieve it; others have fatherhood thrust upon them.

... who would tell us stories, when we were kids, about his Boy Scout trips. With the flash flood. And there was a story involving swallowing a goldfish too. We would request to hear these stories over and over ...

... who loves to body-surf. When we all were little, we used to run after his body, as he careened by us in the middle of some wave, and try to catch a ride on his back.

[Hat tip to Norm]

Write No More

FIND MYSELF SADLY unable to comply most days with Mr. Pierce's commandment to Post Every Day. I suppose I ought to implement my own version of "Twenty Minutes With Tony", an attractive idea with a sound to it that rings of little children sat about his knee, listening to Tony's Jackanory of the day? Are you ready? Then I'll begin...

But blogging does not pay the bills, does not put food upon the table, does not buy my pretty girls a nice new frock nor my Goddess, bless her, a new pair of Manolos. Nor should it. I have work to do: paying work. I've been chasing the same bug down a rat hole since last Thursday, but - My - it's a cunning little bugger who hides itself well, reveals itself only in shadow when the moon is just so. All of my powers of concentration are consumed by it. I cannot write my blog, because there is no room for anything else in my head. Any post I tried to write would be poisoned by the hunt, contaminated by its delicately-scented spoor. It is a feminine bug, my nose is telling me. It is a she.

I like to write: by which I mean I enjoy the act of writing - the drawing of a pen across a page of crisp paper - but everyday opportunities for doing so are diminishing in these times of ubiquitous keyboards. Besides... I can't seem to find any ink? Not at Vons. Not at Pavillions - same store, with pretensions. Not at Target. Maybe Staples but not last time I looked. Where does America horde its cartridges of ink?

I know where it is. I think I know where it is.

I am, of course, ridiculously fussy about writing implements - all part and parcel of being obsessively compulsive in a small twitch kind of way. Little things, trivial things, bother me deeply. The width and texture of the barrel, the feel of the pen must be just right; the point or nib, finest, that the line be sharp; and ink - it must be ink, or at the very least must look like ink and run like ink, not wax. Black is always to be preferred over blue, tolerable only at midnight.

But see? She hides, she diverts like a grand magician securing and palming two silver coins.

There is a rightness, a harmony, to the heft of a good pen; a sense that All is well. Contrast this with the stress - very real to me - induced by the wrongness of a bic or biro. I can't write with that? I just can't.

What the hell would she be doing in there? Where are the strings, leading in and leading out, where are the racks, the pinions, the levers, the pulleys? How can she do that from there?

For everyday scribbling and doodling - my prime occupation at meetings - for these I use uni-balls, which I keep to myself in a small tin dollar-bill pencil box, one that I pinched from my kids. They, bastards, are forever stealing its contents. My pens: Beardie's Pens. These are precise, and neat, very neat, perfect for southpaw printing - precision and neatness being two things that every left-handed child can only dream about in the smudge of school. We lefties, we quantum particles who cannot write joined-up and neatly, not at the same time. Throw cursèd cursive to the seven seas and copperplated script be damned: We'll print! We cannot read your joined-up writing either. How many times I've called her from the store: What does that say next to "Pepsi"?

Clever clever clever. Could that be you right there? To think that some idiot, who cannot join two lines of code together, too lazy too to ever drop a comment, to think that such a bozon as that contrived a beauty such as you? I don't believe it. You need a license to own a dog, you know, but they'll let any dozy fwit with two fingers write a bug. There oughta be a law...

Other times, for pleasures long denied, I write with an ink pen, a Parker, with a fine italicised nib. How can that be, you ask, when everyone knows left-handers can not write italics? Turn the paper turn the pen, and draw the letters; straight and tall and monkish. Used to keep a journal, of work in progress, grand designs, victories and defeats and wastes of time. Wrote it all down because I smoke. Back in the day, long long ago, when the Fascists hadn't quite hit their stride, banished to a single room with a fan and an open window. How can I work without smoke? Hard hard times - we who smoked, we who worked harder than all the others combined - exiled from our dusky keyboards to a single solitary dusty room. How to smoke without working? Almost as difficult. Write.

Smocrum Scriptorium.

How do I fix you? I think I'l try this. TweakBuildLoadRun Test. Again, Test. Once more, Test. Aah dammit, did that work? Is it working now? Did I fix it?

Probably not.

Sitting alone but for a cup of tea and a pack of smokes, Write, by God: Write, Design, Architect, Contrive, Confuse. Write in your monkish journal medieval script your Leonardo heliocopters, your mapa mundi. Write until the useless gormless whiney prats force the smokers OUTSIDE, Not there! Not at those tables! We might want to eat there one day! So out beyond tables, out away from rain-bouncing awnings, out into the rear car park where the wind bites and blows-out your matches. Out and away from us, we moaning-minnie option counters. No place to write out there in the cold; nor here in the bright. One can trace the decline of western civilization to the rise of the No-Smoking führers. What have their health-conscious gym-posing speed-walking bran-fed sandal-socked nanny-livered loud-mouthed fannypacks ever given us? An internet bubble.

Dammit I don't understand it. I don't understand how that worked but it did. I don't understand how it ever worked before?

I write no more for lack of a sunshaded table and ink. I'd buy me a digital pen if I could, but I'd have to 'splain it to Lucy and they're not exactly cheap? But look you, see what Vit can do with one? One day, one dull-bored day when I've nothing to do and nowhere to go and a dab of the green coddling my pocket? Yeah, maybe then. I'd like that. Then I could illuminate I could?

No. No that wasn't it. Thought not. I hatebugs like this.