Friday, March 13, 2015

gay miners, traffic cones and one direction

hi there

well, the title really does pretty much cover this post comprehensively, except for the parts that are not mentioned in it. if you decide to persist and pursue reading this regardless, why many thanks, much obliged to you, to be sure, look you see.

first off, here in England dearest it is Mother's Day this Sunday. in and around the rest of the world, however, it gets celebrated in May or something. why a different day in England? why, i don't rightly know. i think it has something to do with either Easter, the coming of Spring, or a classy, smart combination of the two.

or maybe it was just a misprint on a calendar many years ago and, in a very English way, everyone just nodded and said best just leave it like that rather than waste the splendid printing job.

so, anyway, how does HMV believe one should treat the mother of the HMV shopper this Mother's Day? why, with this splendid, interesting and somewhat cosmopolitan range of gifts.



no, not the headphone bit, but the poster what has got "Mum" in big letters. just above all them Game Of Thrones box sets. whilst it is quite nice for them to select some films for Mum, some of them are rather peculiar choices.

to the best of my knowledge, for instance, that first one, Imitation Game, with him off of that tele show and one of the new Star Trek films, is about breaking codes - or codebreakers, if you insist, during World War II. hmn. if i was going to go World War II for Mother's Day, i would like totes go Where Eagles Dare with Eastwood and Burton.

on the same row is Pride, which i am led to believe is all about gay miners during the miner's strike of the 1980s. other than the fact that it no doubt has a boss banging soundtrack, i am not convinced this is what Mums around the country would want?

what did i get and send my Mum? mostly a card, but kind of also that Call The Midwife you can see on the poster, next to that one where that woman off that film with the umbrella and the chimneys does some singing and stuff.

did i buy myself a little treat to celebrate Mother's Day? why yes, i did. have a look at my smart new pencil case, and indeed boss stationery set.



yes indeed, they are all branded with my toppermost of the poppermost bands, One Direction, or if you like 1D. i am still very much enthusiastic about the band, in particular since in addition to Harry i have discovered that one of them goes by the name of Liam. i know this because his name is on the pencil.

my favourite part of the stationery set is probably the notepad with the class picture of them on the front. the paper inside it is all white, but it is all 1D endorsed paper. the rubber, or if you like eraser, is quite smart too. the ruler is OK, i suppose, but it is only a 15cm one, and six inches just simply isn't enough to measure my love for this band.
 
many of you with an interest or connection to South Africa will, no doubt, have seen this picture here, or the ones that go with it. what is it, you ask, for those with no such interest or connection? it is claimed to be the sorry state of that disgrace of service, the South African Post Office.

the story goes that someone went to Witspos, theoretically Johannesburg's sorting depot, to find out where the devil their mail was. disinterested staff simply pointed to the warehouse where the mail is and told him that if he wanted his post then he could go and look for it himself. he went in, unaccompanied and not stopped by anyone. there is where this and other pictures was taken.

is the above true? i cannot confirm it, but i see no reason to doubt it. those blue bags are certainly what the SAPO use to gather and collect mail in, at the least.

the SA Post Office had spent most of 2014 on strike. Yes, that's right, most of a calendar year. So far they have only been on strike 3 or 4 times in 2015. i think it is about a 50:50 ratio in respect of time not on strike and time on strike. although as many will tell you, it is hard to know when they are on strike and when they are simply being incompetent, as the people tend to get an equally non-existent amount of mail anyway. i have taken to posting mail to SA some 2 - 3 months before the date of things like birthdays and anniversaries, just on the off chance or hope i get lucky and they get through not too late.

not that, in the interests of fairness, England is some sort of safe haven these days. oh no, far from it. look, we had some sort of smart, classy and serious kind of crime scene in town today. here is where the area was marked off, so that the public would not trespass and destroy evidence.



what is it that happened in the vicinity of an entrance to a shopping centre that was so horrid and criminal that they used a whole, only partially damaged traffic cone to mark it off with? i actually have no idea at all, for there was no sign of any problem or issue.

actually, now that i think, today is a Friday. which would mean last night, barring another massive calendar printing error that everyone pretended not to notice, was Thursday. Thursday was a big drinking night for students, from what i remember. almost as big as a Tuesday or Friday or Wednesday.

if i recall my student days further, an important rite of passage was, when slammed on some sort of drink or substance, procuring a traffic cone or two. so maybe that is what this is all about; a student put it there. it would, after all, be rather foolish of the constabulary to use one damaged traffic cone to demarcate a non-crime scene.

hopefully some book reviews will get posted here in the next day or so, but other than that, let me wish you a wonderful weekend, hopefully blessed and marked with a lack of calendar errors and confusing traffic cone incidents.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No comments: