Discrimination

In my mind, "Discrimination" doesn't mean what it does to most people.

To me, its meaning very much depends on what follows...

Take this example. Go have a look - it's laughable. No, really, it is.

The summery of the article is simple - here's a few choice quotes.

..women are still being treated like second-class citizens.

men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?

What is this discrimination? Is it the subjugation of women in the kitchen? Unequal wages? Sexual slavery? Complaints about pensions being more expensive because women live longer?

Well, no. They're complaining that because they have long nails they can't use the Apple iPhone as ably the rest of humanity.

To me, this is another case of Discrimination that is so self obsessed that it's beyond belief. The people who are really discriminated against are amputees, those with neurological conditions unable to control their fingers well enough to touch tiny parts of the screen. The elderly.

To complain about discrimination because you can't use an object you chose to buy due to you also wishing to appear a certain away is, to me, insanity.

But that's just me.

Am I insane, or is it the rest of the world?

It's been a while - so I return with drugs

After my last post, I didn't quite feel like posting again for a while. It seemed to touch a nerve - or heart perhaps, mine and others.

Still, even I can't hide forever. So I return, with one of the many Opiates of the Masses - for there are, after all, so many.

This one is everywhere.

It surrounds you daily, circling your mind as it flirts with your memory. It teases from you recollections and people you've not seen for years. Today, I had another fix.

But I didn't have the week, commercial grade stuff you get on a day by day basis. This wasn't musak in a lift, rock belted out on a radio or even rap driving the sanity from your mind and driving you to kill.

This was worse. For music that you merely hear is like a touch that only ever reaches your skin. Music that you sing, that you are as it expresses hopes and dreams - that, my friends, is the thing that touches your heart and leaves you weeping.

Today, I was once again singing with the choir.

Yes, I know it was wrong. Still, I went back into that den of evil and iniquity knowing the hold it has over me.

Singing with the top tenors (not my usual second tenors....I know, unclean, unclean!) I once again fell in love. Once again, the Phantom of the Opera.

And like a drug, you can't stop there. Youtube is there, with all the songs you know and have ever heard. The Musical Addicts heroin. First, the "Music of the Night". I couldn't help myself. Then "All I Ask of You". "Point of no return"...stopping was impossible.

Till I return to the last post, with a song to pierce the heart - it always has, and always will.



Everyone has their own drug - this one is mine.

Painful words

Think of the most painful word you can.

It's not love, nor hate. Pity, guilt and joy...none of these hold the heartache.

There is one word we avoid more then any other. So much we have dozens of ways to not say it. Cya, so long, farewell...'till later...have a good time...

All ways to avoid that sentence that holds paragraphs of things unsaid and undone. Misery held in a single word, alone.

Goodbye.

Always spoken with fear - fear that we may never see someone again.

Goodbye.

Said with a strained voice. The hope that you've said enough. Voices crying to you that there is no "enough", only more things to say.

Goodbye.

You say goodbye to everyone, or them to you. Mother, lover, sister and friend. No one is there forever. Always you say-

Goodbye.

Again and again, you hope to never say it again. To see them one more time, before saying-

Goodbye.

And once again.

Goodbye.

There are those out there...

There are those out there who would say that I'm "tight fisted". That the inside of my wallet is covered with the fossils of long dead wasps.

I don't know, because I try never to open it - but that's besides the point.

I just wanted to sat that the last time I refueled my car I had achieved all of 50 miles per gallon (or 17.7 km a litre, for those from the colonies) over 150 or so miles.

And believe me when I tell you that it was the hardest driving I've ever done.

Constantly sticking to 55-58 miles an hour. Ducking, dodging and overtaking only to maintain that steady rolling speed. Delaying traffic in a light year long queue behind me, ignoring the screams and pain caused to my fellow commuters...

It takes real discipline to be that evil.

Why, why minnie mouse?

During the last couple of weekends, I've spent a lot of time at various St John Ambulance duties.

While out there, fundraising and providing treatment I spent a not inconsiderable amount of time people watching.

And sewing and reading, but I'm talking about people today.

The one person I want to talk about was a girl. Perhaps 13, maybe...maybe 14. But I'm getting ahead of myself now.

Picture me at the Stilton Cheese Rolling, fundraising away. Alison waving a fluffy bunny at people.

But at that moment no one was biting, so I was drifting along with Plan B - watch people. People watching can take many forms - letting them drift by you, trying to identify families, determine relationships between groups....there's so many ways to pass the time.

I was playing guess the age. Look a person over, from head to toe (or toe to head, depending where you start) and try to guess how old they are based purely on what they're wearing and how they look.

This particular girl, I started on ankles and worked my way up. I can even remember what I thought as I ran my eyes over her.

Black two inch heels - a little impractical for the event...but not madly so. Might be after attention.

Black fishnet stockings/tights - probably very unsuitable for the event - it was 20+ degrees! Probably after attention.

Black thigh length mini skirt - Definitely after attention. Might be a goth...

Black slashed t-shirt, but a little tight - Ok, we have a goth! But not an adult one.

Usual goth make up on a cute face - hard to tell age, but less then 16...?

Pink Minnie Mouse hair band?

Huh?!?

Minnie MOUSE?

Why, if you've gone out of your way to look like an adult goth, with all the associated props, why wear ANYTHING that's by Disney??

Cooking and Cleaning

There are some of you out there who believe I can't clean a cup without threat of physical violence. That or a serious lack of tea.

Despite this there are others who believe that I'm a cleaning fanatic. Who have left me house sitting and come back to find the place vastly cleaner then when they left.

The truth is that I'm really like a pendulum. I'll let things slide until it might be a health risk - I do not enjoy food poisoning - and I'll blitz. So I've just spent an hour cleaning the kitchen - well, that bit I use - just so that I can start making it dirty again.

This is important - because of the way and what I'm cooking.

When the parents left I inherited a number of cold cuts - and today I'm eating the last. The problem is I don't know how old it is. Cooked chicken breast, that's been in the fridge for well...days. But it smells alright.

But to be on the safe side, it's in the oven right now. Diced and covered with a chicken stock - oxo based - with mushrooms, it's just boiling away now. Give it a minute or two, not long enough to over cook - and it'll be perfectly safe, if it wasn't already.

What's this got to do with cleaning? Because I'm playing with food that's got the slightest risk of being...well...old. So even if it was ok today, I won't do the clearing up till tuesday. So there's plenty of time for things to go wrong.

But hot, cooked chicken with ceaser salad sounds good - but I have a slightly barbaric twist. You remember that chicken stock I cooked the chicken and mushroom in?

I'm going to save that. Put it in a mug, let it cool over dinner...and it becomes a drink. Slightly fatty. A touch salty.

But all the favour of chicken in a meaty broth.

I'd better not tell mother....

This weekend

This weekend I've been enjoying that special form bliss associated with the visiting of relatives.

These are the relatives you've not seen in two or three years - and that's not just because you were out of the country.

No...thoughts of hunting them through the woods to the crack of rifle fire....of slowly dangling them over the abyss of doom and slowly sawing through the rope with a nail file while describing the horrors awaiting them at the bottom.

Yes, those relatives.

The kind of relatives which make you think that spending 8 hours on a fund raising duty in the full heat of summer isn't such a bad idea, ten miles away from them.

And maybe you should spend a few more hours there, just incase someone's feeling generous...