On Books

Baudolino is a fairly enjoyable read, not as good as Name of the Rose, but it has a wholly different premise, so that can't be helped. A pity the historical context is so obscure, I would probably have enjoyed it a lot more if I had a better grasp of the characters and setting.

From a historiographical point of view though, it is very interesting, and enlivens the examination of history greatly.

On Posts

The worst thing about it is that I know I had a post waiting for me in my cranial cavity somewhere, except now I seem to have mislaid it.

If anyone would be so kind as to rummage around inside my head for it, I'd be most grateful.

On Chickens

Dear Sheila has written about sounding like a chicken in labour.

Dear Sheila, I am a chicken in labour.

On Separation

They loved each other very much, my grandparents did. It was very sweet, how they wrote oaths to each other, swearing that they'd stay together forever. They always did everything together, from gardening, to reading, to singing...even if one of them didn't like it, they'd compromise so they wouldn't have to be apart. My grandfather even grudgingly took up sewing to make my grandmother happy. On her part, my grandmother took a course in accupuncture with him. It was in little arrangements like these that their love for each other matured and luxuriated.

Eventually, when my grandfather died, my grandmother was heart-broken. She even seriously contemplated suicide, to keep her promise to him. Thankfully though, she was too weak of heart to actually do it.

So she compromised, because it reminded her of him. She sewed his remains into her skin, using the skills they both learnt together, as a tribute, in life and death, in presence and memory, to their love. Safe and secure, she was, in the knowledge that he was always with her, gardening, reading, and singing.

Why, they still brush their teeth together.

On Dolls

He was having a relationship with a manic-depressive mannequin. One day she'd be lying in bed, completely listless, still as death, lacking the vitality to even speak. The next she'd slip into the hyper-active phase, hurling on changes of clothing every minute or two, contorting herself into pose after pose, till got quite dizzy just by watching her.

Keeping up with a bipolar mannequin is no easy task, and he was beginning to tire of the relationship. One day, during one of her manic cycles, she became possessed of an incredible vigour, flinging herself into a new pose with such inhuman force that her head flew off.

Her round eyes, framed by mascara-ed eyelashes, stared up at him piteously, as he bent, to discard her.

A crow alights on an arm, half-submerged in a landfill. It squawks in surprise as the fingers close, feebly.

On Paterfamilias

My father can be a very strange man. Once, while grocery shopping in the supermarket, he was accosted by a salesperson who was pushing this new brand of fortified milk. She asked if he would like to sample a small cup of it.

He said, "why not?", and proceeded to wolf the cup down.

Immediately he began choking and spluttering, coughing and making some awful faces. It looked like he was having an allergic reaction to whatever the mik was fortified with and about to go into anaphylactic shock.

Whereupon he straightened up and said, "I'll take two, please," very cheerfully. Apparently the salesperson was not amused, which was something he could not understand.

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Another time we were on the Underground in London. We were on our way to Westminster, to meet the MP my sister was interning with, so we were all decked out very formally. It was somewhat early in the morning, and my father's nose was being predictably troublesome, so he kept having to sniff from time to time.

After about five minutes, a British woman seated adjacent to him (he was standing), looked up and asked, "would you like a tissue?"

That's very nice of her, thought my father, but tissues are no use in nose irritations so he declined politely.

"Then blow your nose or see a doctor or something," she snapped, "it's bloody irritating."

My father was, unsurprisingly, rather taken aback, but he's not the sort to take things lying down, so he replied, rather stiffly, "Madam, I am a doctor. I have an allergy, blowing my nose has nothing to do with it."

"I don't care what you are," she scowled, "just do something about it!"

At that point, a woman sitting two seats away spoke up, "that's very rude!"

"Isn't it?" agreed the first woman.

"No," replied the second coolly, "I meant you're being very rude."

Outraged, the first said angrily, "I don't care what you think!"

"Neither does he about what you think," replied the second, rather serenely.

The next few minutes went by with the entire carriage watching my father excoriate the woman about her treatment of tourists in her own country, until my mother, fearing a snowballing scene, stopped my father from saying any more.