My weekend started, as most do, on a Friday evening. I was on Twitter to see if other twitterers – to wit Geeklawyer, Infobunny and Jaffne – were about, and discovered that Infobunny of the very useful Lo-fi blog was making raspberry jam. Twitter provides the opportunity to engage in conversation of a sort, but, perhaps, when Rioja is taken, of a surreal nature. Infobunny was not just making jam, she appeared to be obsessed by it and had even taken to taking pictures of the various versions of labels she had made up for her jam – including iJam.
The week past brought little of cheer in terms of Test cricket. South Africa plodded away to frustrate an England team high, for the first three days, on a significant lead. Today, I notice that South Africa have the lead and, no doubt, England will plod away trying not to be bowled out for two days to secure a draw. Such is cricket.
Geeklawyer has flown to Japan. I have no reason to suppose that this was a flight from justice, angry husbands or members of his growing group of women readers – ‘The Harem’ and “reserve harem’. But be that as it may, we know that Geeklawyer is in Japan for he has been taking photographs of himself out there – face blanked out, naturally.
I was moved by his account of a visit to the Hiroshima bomb site. He wrote:
“If you are in Hiroshima the Bomb Museum is well worth a visit with some pathetic and very poignant exhibits; regrettably Geeklawyer was rather appalled at the pacifist bias and the, frankly, rather over-priced t-shirts. Mass slaughter is never an excuse for losing objectivity or price gouging. A blot on an otherwise rather good visit.”
And so we return from the Land of The Rising Sun back to our shores; credit-crunched Britain, where The Treasury is about to re-write Gordon Brown’s ‘golden rule’ on government borrowing because the country is…. well, being frank, a bit f****d in terms of money in the piggy bank.
I have absolutely no interest in football. Overpaid footballers, paid in excess of £130,000 a week, complaining that they are being treated like slaves because the unexpired portion of their very lucrative contract prevents them from working for another club cuts little ice I’m afraid at any time, let alone a time when thousands of people are losing their jobs. Fortunately, I was saved the bother of having to think up a suitable rant by Simon Jordan, Chairman of Crystal Palace, who “fired both barrels at Cristiano Ronaldo, Frank Lampard, Coleen Rooney, Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini, greedy agents and even long-suffering football fans.” The News of The World has the story. The only interesting thing I have ever read about football. I’ll give you a taste:
BRANDED Ronaldo a ‘silly little boy’ who should be made to do as he’s told. | INSISTED Chelsea star Lampard is not worth £150,000 a week. | ACCUSED FIFA president Sepp Blatter of being a ‘bloody idiot’. UEFA chief Michel Platini’s incredible arrogance. | BLASTED | SLAUGHTERED Wayne Rooney’s showbiz WAG Coleen McLoughlin’s image as a role model, claiming she is just a plain little girl from Liverpool. | VILIFIED soccer agents as being ‘nasty, evil, pointless scum’.
“The reality is that football is a bulls*** world – an insidious, insipid, egotistical, greedy, self-motivated game,” stormed Jordan.
I could not have put it better myself – even after a long session on the juice.
HNT… or the internet phenomenon ‘Half Nekkid Thursday’ has many practitioners and, indeed, recent non-law visitors to my blawg- Knitting with only one needle, May contain nuts and Barbed Wire Boudoir – are all experts now at this new artform. The idea is, on Thursday, to take a photograph of oneself ‘half nekkid’ and publish it on the blog. I have been thinking about taking this up myself – but after the ICC indicted the president of Sudan for war crimes, I do not want to tempt them into further indictments for infringing the human rights of blog readers in this and other countries. So I shall simply sit about half nekkid in Staterooms of a Thursday evening writing blog posts and support them in spirit. I am advised that the trick is to click on the pictures in the HNT posts.
Curiously, it was while doing a Google search for HNT that I came across ‘edible anus’ chocolates, the brainchild of a Belgian chocmaker. It may, of course, be a spoof. I have no need to spend my time eating anus shaped chocolates so it is unlikely that I shall ever find out – unless… of course, a reader cares to take this research on?
They say….. “These chocolates are created with one thing on our mind: to produce a combination of taste and touch that takes you to chocolate anus heaven.” The Incredible Edible Anus
And so I move on to a very quick survey of the UK blawgers and what they are up to.
Family Lore has stepped up the pace of coverage of family law matters in recent weeks covering a wide range of topics – including a review of a game called ‘family Lore’. Head of Legal has also been prolific in his coverage of serious mattters – human rights and constitutional issues.
But, lest I am charged with corrupting public morals by shoehorning too much law into my blawg, I shall do a survey of the serious UK law blogs over the course of the coming week in Insitelaw magazine.
So to be fairly sure of finding absolutely no law on a law blog, my first visit for this section must be to White Rabbit. There, I discover that Andrew Keogh has been amusing himself with the dog’s bollocks and has been sampling and musing on Beers. The consumption of life giving booze is to be encouraged among consenting adults. The hoodies, totally irresponsible ASBO louts, and under age middle class ‘hoorays’, who are engaging in unlawful acts of binge drinking have fucked it up for topers and other adults; allowing HM Drinkfinder General, Sir Liam Donaldson and his pet Gremlin, Dawn Primarolo, to legislate. Gas is going up, petrol is going up, electricity is going up, everything is going up… and now they want to stop our local supermarkets, which have been selflessly driving the price of lager and other alcohol down for the benefit of society, from doing so and plan to a have a minimum price per unit of alcohol. That is not “dog’s bollocks”. Maybe we should start a panic buying epidemic?
***
While quite a number of the law student bloggers are away at this time of the year, some are managing to continue posting. Law Girl reports that she is ‘Half Dead’, LawMinx, having completed her BVC, continues with her Ph.D and her search for pupillage. She had her blog hijacked, but is out and about commenting on blogs. Asp Bites reports that he doesn’t do political correctness, and BarMaid realises that it is not lon now until the BVC begins.
I shall spend a bit of time this coming week profiling serious and not so serious blog posts on Insitelaw magazine – but now I must return to my ‘Postcard from The Staterooms.’ I decided upon this ridiculous name, partly as a pastiche of the “Letter from America” genre (which I enjoyed) and partly because I decided in a ‘Damascus’ moment t’other evening as I consumed rioja that “Weekend Review” was just too dull a name. It also gave me an opportunity to waste yet another hour of what is left of my life designing a header, complete with postage stamp and bizarre postmark – inspired by a real one I saw on the net. The postmark may well vary each week.
I was sitting outside one of three cafes in Chiswick High Road I frequent – La Mirage – this morning. After I had eaten my usual breakfast, turning the plate around so the egg was on the right as usual, I buttered some toast, placed the egg on the toast, and began to eat. Breakfast consumed, I ordered another espresso, lit a cigarette and sat back to watch the world. A couple walked by; the man carrying a baby in a sling on his front, his wife paddling along beside him carrying a bag full of baby bottles, nappies, rattles and other baby parapernalia. They were off to sit on Turnham Green nearby; a small patch of grass where in days gone by they played cricket. I knew this because they were having a very earnest conversation about doing so; the man expressing concern that the wind may be too strong for the baby. The man was wearing those baggy trousers (with pockets) cut off half way up the calf. He was also wearing sandals… with black socks. It was then that thoughts of moving from West London (maturing in my mind for some time) hardened. It is time to move. I shall, of course, continue to write my West London Man soap opera. I do not need to be in West London to do that.
I heard the unmistakeable sound of hyperventilation. I turned my head and saw a man in his late forties to early fifties, defying the laws of science and common sense at the same time, running along the pavement towards me. He did not look well. Sweat poured from his forehead and from under his arms. He was fairly fat, thin white legs poking out from under implausibly tight running shorts, his belly assisting in forward locomotion through gravity. As he drew nearer, his head rolling alarmingly, I noted that his eyes had the look of a startled horse on Grand National day as Becher’s Brook looms. I felt like clapping as he went by, but it was not London Marathon Day and he may have misunderstood my intentions. Nothing in moderation, I thought to myself as he staggered along the pavement, and some things, not at all. I lit another cigarette and settled down to read The Observer. Apart from stories about knife crime, political incompetence, possible nuclear war, credit-crunch, falling house prices, and middle class angst about cooking recipes… I saw that all was good and it remained so as I wasted the morning.
I returned to my Staterooms, put my japanese kimono on, went up to my small eerie where I do my podcasts, logged in to Skype, opened a bottle of Rioja and called a very good friend in Australia. It was just after midday. We talked for two and a half hours of many things and I found myself mildly inebriated at 3.00. It was alright for her, for she too had been drinking, because it was after midnight for her and she could go to bed. I thought of having a coffee in Chiswick High Road, but staggering about outside cafes, overrefreshed, at 3.00 in the afternoon is not always appropriate.
I shall write again
Bon voyage..
OK, I’m a jammaddict. At least I was. Since the incident with the underage Russian jam shop assistant I have cleaned up my act. If you need to contact me, please do so via my nurse.
Good evening, Infobunny….. I hear you have had a jam packed weekend in more ways than one!
I have, as usual, wasted time on a Sunday and I am about to waste some more on twitter. Been experiminnting with live netradio transmission. Have done live TV on the web – but that is not cheap. Netradio…. excellent…. live and edgy…. just the thing for those late nights…
I would like to add that the quantity produced meant I had to bestow the gift of jam upon friends and family members. iJam was intended as a jammy gift to an Apple fanboy relative. For the record I am not (as it would appear) a jam-loser. Oh, OK I probably am.
~pouts that Charon won’t be tempted to play HNT with her, Luka and Ro~
Now, Charon, Sir… I’m not sure how to ask you how you happened upon the edible anus choccies!?!
Helga
Anything is possible…. Yes… the edible chocs was from another HNT site I came across looking for the origins of HNT through google on the net! Amazing.
I chdecked again… here is the link:
http://www.nakedcity.com/2008/05/eat_this_chocolate_starfish.php
I have not ruled out HNT….. but… I am a cartoon, after all…
Had a busy day… off to hit the futon.
[…] and discovered that Infobunny of the very useful Lo-fi blog was making raspberry jam.? Twitter phttps://charonqc.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/20-july-postcard-from-the-staterooms/The Observer&39s food critic Jay Rayner finds himself going to war … – guardian.co.ukI have had […]
A cartoon HNT? Oh my – the possibilities are endless!
I am a little concerned, however, that you seem to be finding a final motivation to change your area of residence because men in West London now feel it is okay to wander around wearing sandals and black socks. I can’t help wondering where in England you think you’ll be able to escape this particular faux pas. No use going to America either, I’m afraid: it’s not so long since we had photos over here of Americans who should know better wearing Crocs with socks – which, while making a neat neo-Seuss rhyme, should definitely be banned.
Could Spain be calling? Keep away from the English tourists and ex-pats and you’ll avoid the sock-n-sandal brigade and you’ll have a never-ending supply of Rioja close to hand too.
Finally, I do have an interest in football (we all have our little idiosyncracies) but the comment I’d like to make on that story was not about the football per se but, rather, that the News of the World seems to have published a half-sensible story. I can only hope that this isn’t the start of a trend. The NotW becoming sensible? It would be too much for this old brain to handle.
Ro, perhaps Charon is a bit, well, SHY, with respect to HNT particularly after all the comments on Geeklawyers Blog regarding Moobs…..!!!
Charon, “I’ll Sleep When Im Dead” is the motto I fully intend to place on my coat of arms when I become a Law Lady/Learned Member of the Supreme (ick) Court – (perhaps by then I will have finished my PH.d)
Well, its either that, or ” Beware of This and That”…..
I am distressed that I could not join you on Twitter on Friday, as 2 for 1 cocktails and bravado had combined in my head to decide that going clubbing was a good plan….and after the experiences we had in that club, methinks Twitter would have been a far, far safer option…
minx – there’s only one word for that: road house…
noli nisi mortua dormire (minxa legium)
also ‘i’m only the second-best bouncer in the world’ or some paraphrase.
as i’m unwilling to use poor old charon as a dating site and even more unwilling to discuss my pupillage fortunes in public, would you consider leaving a comment at my blog (there’s a place for us) so i could get a suitable email address for you? it would be nice to have someone to go ‘there there’ to me and wave her pupillage in my face…
Hiya Zen,
Done and Done.