dimanche 25 avril 2004

Disjointed thanks from a retarded ado And there were parliamentary and local government elections in Equatorial Guinea too, forgotten in the last entry. So mine was a very busy day from mid-morning on. I swiftly lost count of how many thousand words I wrote or edited, but it scarcely matters since they all appear to have vanished into a black hole. Neither the two African polls of the day nor the makings of more trouble in Ivory Coast have made any of even the main specialist news sites, though there might be a "pick up" or two by the morning. Just let nobody tell me, as they frequently do, that Africa is "under-reported". Factories like AFP churn stuff out and even try to make it interesting, but it's not for us to decide whether the newspaper, broadcast and website editors between us and the "general public" use the stories... As to this place, I'll ask again, though I'm grateful for the e-mails: please don't hesitate to put your comments in the box provided, even though the free software used can be a little laggardly -- some of them are too witty and funny to go unshared and I even enjoy the hostile ones. I'm genuinely sorry if one or two people find the occasional pictures of naked or semi-nude women offensive -- that's not the intent, and I can even be as tediously PC as required when it's really necessary. Nor is the idea, as Tom F. suspected, to boost my Feedster "score": I've not been there for a very long time and am simply intrigued tonight to find that the site and the idea have come a long way since the last visit. There may be some truth in Jean-Pierre H.'s remark a week ago that they're a "regrettable intrusion of the adolescence you've finally recovered" and his reference to "ripening backwards and slipping through the weave in our nets" ("ta façon de mûrir à reculons et à travers les mailles de nos filets"). At work, I suspect that Sarah got part of the joke, while Emma just gave a bemused shrug. Then said, "I thought your site was a discussion forum." Which it is, partly. Julie almost hit the nail on the head with a clever e-mail about the Condition, the Wildcat's comment that it isn't exactly sexy, a condensed and bawdy bardic twist of her own -- 'A Midsummer Day's Cream,' which I'd like to publish if she'll let me -- and a splendid link: "I hate that moment on Sunday mornings when you wake up at some guy's house and realize you have to stumble home in the same miniskirt and makeup that looked so sexy the night before, but just looks scary in the cruel light of dawn. And everyone on the subway knows you've got a raging hangover and your underwear is stuffed in your purse. God, let me get married soon, because if I have another one of these mornings, I'm going to slit my wrists" - "posted by Tara @ 2:00 AM" on 'Supermodel Personals'. Where the Condition's concerned, thanks for your concern, everybody. Yes, the past four weeks have seen some rough days, it does worry me (slightly), it wasn't nice for Marianne to have me sick most of the week she was here ... and one recent development is an embarrassing nuisance and even less sexy. The Kid and Catherine, her mum, have just dropped by to find me in my pyjamas and collect the cat. As an unfortunate witness, Catherine had a helpful suggestion to get rid of what I'm not going to describe in detail: "They need to do to you what they do to sheep with the same problem." Anyway, blow all that ... I see the gut specialist, Dr de P., at midday on Tuesday, a long-awaited rendezvous to assess the outcome of all the latest tests. You may never have thought to read me say "Bless the Wildcat" again, but I certainly do tonight, after she ended a 'phone call with some constructive ideas on ways further perhaps rapidly to get rid of the Condition I hadn't imagined. The fact that tomorrow I stand a good chance of seeing once more one of the loveliest women I've recently met has nothing to do with it... I've mislaid the e-mail address of "the One and True Visible Governor General of Australia", who paid me the honour of a trackback when I was ranting about different kinds of Americans and giving the lie to the old line about "over-sexed, over-paid and over here". However, Lord Sedgwick of Strathmore does us all another good turn with a link to 'The Eejit', who has a most entertaining site (via 'There Ain't No Sanity Clause'. 11:58:40 PM  link   your views? [] Dreamy day Giles Turnbull says that though he's a compulsive singer, he's a "complete musical ignoramus". But he's among the latest to be brave enough to expose himself to public ridicule. "Using GarageBand (Apple's tips) will not make you a musician," Giles warned after playing with it. "The best a non-musician can expect is to be able to create pleasant little doodles that may or may not entertain friends." His own doodles are at the end of 'Garage Band for the Musical Newbie' (MacDev Center). In Towns of Roman Britain, he or the software seem to have taken a leaf out of the minimalist book. The article is an incitement to fun. Though I've written about GB several times, I've yet to play with it and my music, film and software budget for the month has been spent. But in June, might we get iTunes music in Europe at last? MacRumors thinks so. Like Ataegina in her poetic offering (Fr.; b'rolled), I've mainly had a couple of days of pleasant little nothings myself. I even managed to forget that the promise awaits of a surfeit of Factory copy about Africa Malaria Day (MSF) and the run-off round in yet another almost incomprehensible vote in the Comoro islands. One of the nastiest legacies of French colonialism is the wretched habit of spoiling Sundays with elections journalists have to report! Even if it's a mainly Muslim country, so little happens in the Comoros apart from coups, coup bids and elections that they could pick a kinder day of the week. Were it not for that, I'd be at the Entrepôt, where a good band was earlier rehearsing behind white sheets on the stage. The cinema and club round the corner has the round tables and comfortable red leather armchairs too. Everything, in short, but the girl... I saw her, though, as I enjoyed my coffee after lunch on a corner café terrace in the sun, the straw-blonde woman of my daydreams, making her leisurely way down Losserand Street, hand in hand with another, equally pretty one, and I can only rejoice that the short hair and slightly boyish looks I adore seem to be back in fashion again this year. Sigh! I'll have to settle again for wishful, rather than magical, thinking (via Hot Links). Perhaps, like Kathryn Petro, who declares herself cheered by the "small joys of life," I'd do better to meditate on the "substance of matter" (A Mindful Life) and write a haiku than be tantalised by lightly clad shapes, but tonight I really could do with some livelier company than my ex-spouse's singularly sleepy cat. Joe the anaesthetist, meanwhile, has been delving deeper than I'd care to into the "mystery of Alisha Klass". Far too much ... makeup for me, while I also think it's a pity that models tend to wear such absurd and almost uncertainly uncomfortable shoes. But as to his reflection on the vanishing act performed by many porn stars, I'd have thought he'd know, as a medical man, that the answer to that one is not always a happy end. "Your mascara is peeling", "My wife fell overboard about ten miles back," "That's got to be silicon" and "You're very pretty for a foreigner" are among the pearls to be found in 'The Zompist Phrasebook' (via MetaFilter). People who speak a little French, German or Spanish will particularly appreciate the appalling traps scattered among the accurate translations. One person actually confronted with linguistic ineptitude is the Belle de Jour, who had "forgotten how much I want to live somewhere sunny" before she hailed us "from a foreign location". I never forget that, but liked her April 15 assessment of 'Escape hatches'. She's wrong about Africa, but then a lot of people are... The onetime world leader who has what some saw as a map of the place on his forehead, Gorbi, hasn't disappeared. Now president of Green Cross International, Mikhail wants "global glasnost". I take an imaginary hat off to Heli for the political link of my day. More wishful thinking maybe, but heaven knows we need some. "The real sad part about it all is that with all the horrible things in the world and that are happening here and abroad, that all these rights groups and (face it) powerful media organizations who can wield massive influence would only rally together united for a cause for the right to say 'fuck'," comments one person on what 'morons.org' sees as a sign of intelligence. The 'Irish Bastard' is right, of course. But it's a small miracle to see journalists manage to unite about anything. 12:08:09 AM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.