rARsh!

You’ve got to come and see what I’ve found!

Gardener Ali seemed most excited as she poked her head in through the door.

“It’s not another concrete monstrosity, is it?”

“No, no. Come on.”

I was led out to the area of undergrowth which is the current area of tidying up to find a clutch of eggs. Eleven of them, in fact, which had been hidden away from view under a tangle of goodness knows what.

By the size, they’re far too large to have come from the moorhen which took temporary residence back in 2006 (and Maurice was male, to boot) so I can only assume that they were a gift from the female mallard who spent a week or so in the garden last summer, having been bullied away from the nearby duckpond - or so I’d thought at the time.

There’s still of lot of clearing left to be done, so who knows what hidden treasure remains to be unearthed …

Measure for measure

In the last week or so I’ve become aware of an EC directive which I’d clearly missed when it was accounced. It seems that the period of time between the present at Christmas morning is officially measured in “sleeps” rather that in days.

This must have been given fairly high coverage, given the number of times I’ve overheard it in use, but I have to wonder what idiot thought that measuring by sleeps was a good idea, especially to children who - I’d imagine - are still being encouraged to take an afternoon nap.

If they’re not bright enough to count the number of days, how do people expect them to appreciate the difference - and possibly the exchange rate - between snoozes, naps and sleeps? How many tantrumic three-year olds will wake from their nap this afternoon, having been told at breakfast that there’s “one sleep until Santa”, only to be cruelly disappointed? How many of my fellow insomniacs will miss out on the big day for the opposite reason? Most importantly of all, who exactly gives a fuck?

On that festive note, I wish you the Christmas you’ve been hoping for for all these sleeps. Exciting, isn’t it?

Interesting times

Well it’s been an interesting 24 hours.

At this time last night I was in a feverish sleep - with some well-weird dreams, too, although I’ve forgotten most of them by now.

I finally surfaced properly around noon, having excused myself during an earlier interlude of consciousness from photographic detail chez Tall Andy, to find a PM from one of the moderators on a forum I host. One of the (quieter) members had posted disturbing posts leading us to assume that he was about to do something very, very stupid. What to do?

So I ended up calling the local rozzers with as much information as I had - which wasn’t much (an email address, first name and approximate geographical location).

Half an hour later I was called back and told they couldn’t get the chap’s details from his ISP and the suggestion that I ring his local force.

Somewhat mystified as to why they couldn’t do this themselves I did so and went through the story again.

It took them an hour to call back to say they couldn’t get anything out of his ISP - apparently they have no out-of-hours staff to answer any enquiries from the police (seems odd to me). They assured me they’d follow it up on Monday but that - and wait for this … it’s a cracker - in the meantime they’ve sent the chap an email.

Oh well. That’s alright then.

On the one hand I can see that given that the most worrying posts were about 12 hours earlier, if anything stupid was to have been done then any element of urgency was long gone, but really!

The good news is that I’ve since worked out that the chap visited the website again yesterday morning at 9:24. The bad news is that he’s not been back since (according to the user table in the database, at least, and I’ve just checked again).

I have a bad feeling.

<insert deity of choice> bless teh internets

Without it (and, specifically, The Daily WTF) I’d not have learned about Muphry’s Law nor chortled geekily at “Little Bobby Tables” cartoon.

Ha ha ha bonk

I was out last night at the Playhouse in Norwhag to see Otis Lee Crenshaw in concert. Rich Hall was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the support act so we had about 45 minutes of stand-up, a 15 minute interval and then Otis Lee Crenshaw and his backing band for just over an hour.

All good stuff, although I regretted having seen Rich Hall on “Live at the Apollo” last week and also having purchased Otis Lee Crenshaw’s 2001 CD “Live - London, Not Tennessee“. I don’t regret it because the material bad, but rather because it would appear that in the past seven years, Mr Crenshaw has only added one or possibly two songs to his repertoire. Oh, and he didn’t sing the stalking song. Or the Scrabble song for that matter.

I must say that Mr Hall Mr Crenshaw is certainly gifted at adapting his songs for the audience, even when the audience member he picked on for one of them turned out to be an archaeologist - that seemed to throw him briefly although he recovered well.

It struck me that it’s curious how expectations differ when going out to be a band compared to a comedian. With a band, you’re generally hoping that most of the set will comprise songs you know and, presumably, like (why else would you be there?) with a smatter ditties from the latest album. With a comedian, you’d prefer not to hear a large amount of stuff you’ve already heard - Lyle posted on this point recently.

This means I’m currently purging all memory of anything I’ve ever seen or heard Mark Steel do before his gig next Thursday, also at the Playhouse. I’ve also booked tickets for three shows next year - Marks Watson, Thomas, the lovely Miss Definitely-not-a-Mark Lucy Porter (all in March at the Playhouse) and Richard Herring in April at the Arts Centre.

Helpful (not)

In other news, I picked a loyalty card at Waterstones the other day and got an email today from them, offering special deals and the like if I registered online. Fair enough, I thought, and did so.

I was then amused to recieve the following message in response to my registration (red bits aren’t exactly what the email said):

Dear LIONEL D’LION,

Welcome to Waterstone’s. You are receiving this email as you have
recently registered your details with Waterstones.com.

Before we tell you about some of the benefits and services you’ll enjoy
as a registered customer, we would first like to confirm the following
personal details:

Your email address: lionel@rarsh.com

Your password: ********

Your customer ID: 99999999

You will need your email address and password each time you sign in
and/or purchase from the site and recommend you keep these details safe
for future reference, by saving this email in a separate email folder,
or by printing it out. Please note all passwords are case sensitive.

I was amused because I’m fairly sure that I didn’t choose my password to be eight asterisks. If you’re not going to give out the password, what’s the point of adding “Password: ********” to the email? For that matter, what on earth is the point of including the email address? You’ve just sent me an email, so we both know you’ve got the right email address for me!

People, eh? Sheesh.

Shaping the nation

From now until Sunday I’m recording my radio listening as part of the National Radio Listening Survey. So what show must I not miss?

On second thoughts, maybe you should meet your heroes

Stupidly I put off heading into Jarrold’s book department until after 11:30. I didn’t want to be hanging around waiting for the great Mr Fry. Oh, how foolish that was. By the time arrived the queue stretched out of the book department and was winding up the stairs past the first floor (women’s wear) and heading up towards the second floor (furniture). I estimated that my position in the queue was well into three figures and Mr Fry was only scheduled to be in the department for an hour. I honestly expected not to get to meet him.

“Bloody hell!” exclaimed a passing old biddy. “I thought there were a lot of people here when Michael Palin was here.”

But ‘pon my soul, Mr Fry can sign! By the time I reached the desk (some sixty five minutes later, and forty five minutes after he arrived) he was still going strong and was even taking the time to have a few words with each and every buyer - with the person two in front he discussed the (mis)fortunes of his beloved Norwhag City, with the young lady in front of me he recognised an unusual surname, established that he taught her uncle at one point and asked her to give him his regards and in my chase asked what a Welshman was going in the dark depths of Norfolk.

I, of course, giggled like a schoolgirl and muttered something unintelligible, completely forgetting what I’d intended to say to him.

Leaving the store I noticed that the queue of eager Fryophiles was still snaking up the stairs towards the furniture department.

Next time I’ll aim to arrive an hour before the signing’s due to start.