‘searly this morning – or it was early when I sat down to write the first draft of this post. What? You think I just sit down at the computer and write the first thing that comes into my head? You have no idea. These posts are honed, man – honed. Anyway, perhaps my mind is in a weird state, because as I awoke I saw a shadow on the wall which looked just like an Easter Island statue – and, mysteriously, the voice of Eddie Izzard came into my mind. It took me a moment to work out why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svHao1SMdRc
In case you didn’t realise, Eddie Izzard voices the statues. We used to love that wobbly bobbly dribbly squiggly dog. Perhaps my strange state of mind was brought on by seeing Mark’s Facebook account. Seeing the Facebook account of someone close to you is like getting a slightly skewed look at the world, like coming out of your next-door neighbour’s front door – everything has taken several paces to the left.
Or right.
Yesterday I was mostly immersed in poetry: I wrote a rant about the phrase ‘my bad’, which I dislike intensely (rather like Miss Kettlewell and the dead flowers *); the poem is called ‘For Your Good’. I also tinkered with the short story collection, which is nearly ready to go off, except that I fell it could do with some zing: the title, ‘The Karma of Brief Lives’, is expressive but not terribly zingy. But do they want zing? It’s very hard to know what exactly they are looking for in competitions: they give you all the logistical info – no. of words, format, closing date, cost: even a theme sometimes – but you still don’t know exactly what is likely to float their particular boat.
Ho hum.
Last night I went to Regent college for a parents’ orientation evening (or somesuch). There was a bit of a sales pitch from the Principal, but the kind of pitch I can get on board with – a sort of ‘this-is-what-we-aim-to-do-here’ talk, rather than the usual self-promoting crap. Here I ran into Richard (Jonathan’s friend) whose daughter has just started at the college: he was rather scathing about their admin but as they’d filed his daughter’s application forever in a pile of papers I guess he had a right to be. For ourselves, we are very pleased with the place: the teachers know the students and go the extra mile for them – yesterday, Daniel phoned us to say that his Graphics teacher had highly commended his work (he brought it home and it was good) and he’s also being bumped up a level in Maths. Good stuff.
Apparently according to the news, complaints about doctors are at a record high. What’s a doctor? Oh, yes – I remember vaguely… I know one exists at Merridale Health Centre – we even used to see him from time to time – but in recent years all I’ve ever seen are nurse practitioners. To be fair they’re probably just as competent, so that’s not the problem – the reason I switched GP’s was that I usually only wanted a repeat prescription and because they never answer the phone (AND have a premium-rate number!!!) so I had to take a 20-minute walk to order said prescription and another 20-minute walk home again; followed by two more 20-minute walks when the bloody thing was ready ‘after 3-4 working days’. And THEN I’d have to go down the road to the chemist. Whereas now I just pop across the road where they smile nicely and say ‘tomorrow – or maybe the next day’ – and then I go through the swing doors into the chemist which is in the same building! Why should it take 3-4 working days to print out a prescription and have a doctor sign it? Bloody ridiculous.
Long-ish post today, though probably not as long as most blog posts. I don’t read that many other blogs, but when I do I am usually grabbed by the title or by the subject under discussion: I read a couple of paragraphs and find them interesting, so I continue. My interest generally becomes milder by the second page, and so I start to wonder how much more there is. I scroll down and keep scrolling – and after 3-4 working days…
Most blog posts are too long, I think. But maybe they don’t have time to make them shorter…
Kirk out
* you will only get this reference if you’ve been following this blog extremely closely. And possibly not even then…
Sarada Gray 