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 A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| Short Stories Squeezed out a short story of sorts today. I say that because it’s debatably a story and might really be called a joke. But any port in a storm, they say, and my storm of inability to write short stories has lasted long enough for me to use this port. My latest theory regarding the drought is that I’ve forgotten how to write the darn things. Looking back, I seem to have had no problem in previous years. But now I haven’t a clue of where to start. Maybe it’s old age catching up with me and I’ve used up my entire stock of tales to tell. I guess time will tell. Word count: 112 |
| Kubelwagen! This AI business is really getting on my nerves. I spend a lot of my time listening to YouTube videos on all sorts of interesting things and have noticed a general trend in the delivery of these ever since AI became the flavour of the moment. The allegedly human narrator seems suddenly incapable of pronouncing certain words in a sensible way. Being who I am, I find it impossible to continue without verbally interrupting the narrator with the correct pronunciation. I know he can’t hear me and that he will make the same mistake throughout the video, but I can’t help it - each offence must be met with my insistence that he’s getting it wrong. Just as an example, I watched a video about the Kubelwagen this morning. Everything was proceeding elegantly enough until the narrator decided that the way to pronounce the most relevant word was “kubel-varjen.” Now consider the idiocy of this. The blasted machine that had been chosen to read the script had obviously been told the basic information that the Germans pronounce the W as a V. Full marks for that then. But any applause for this is immediately dampened by that J instead of a hard G. Was it too much to tell the thing that the Germans would never commit such a crime? It’s pronounced “koobel-vargen” and I resent having the ignorance of AI rubbed in my face throughout the video by this stupidity. It’s worse than the video about ships that insisted on pronouncing the pointy end of a ship as the “bo,” as though the vessel were intended to be someone’s birthday present. And I’ll resist mentioning the abominations that pronounce the PS in corps. If the people who make these videos can’t be bothered to listen to them just once to weed out such annoying errors, I fail to see why I should continue to give them an ear. The trouble is, the videos don’t come with a surgeon general’s warning or anything like that. And that’s my rant for the day. For anyone that wonders, the Kubelwagen was the German equivalent of the jeep in World War II. Word count: 359 |
| Don’t Forget the Quills! Sometimes I read through stuff I haven’t looked at for a while. And, if I’m honest while seeming a bit braggartly (thought I invented that one but it seems it’s really a word), there are gems amongst the old discarded efforts of yesterday. Here’s one I would put forward for a self-recommended Quill, if only I could be bothered: "Relax"  |
| Froggy Went A-Courting I was watching a rerun of an episode of Everyone Loves Raymond when it all came back to me. This was the one where Robert’s prospective girlfriend eats a fly. I exploded with delight and recalled horror. It was as though something that I’d thought must have come from a dream had suddenly exploded into reality. How original and daring of the writers to have the idea in the first place and then go through with it. That’s the kind of thing I want and now they’ve used it and it’s gone forever. Imagine that. Imagine having an idea so far off the beaten track that you cannot be sure whether it’ll get you proclaimed in the town square or condemned as an insane maniac. Would you do it anyway? And think of the power this puts in our hands. With a few keystrokes of the ‘puter we can explode reality and defy the probable. Come to think of it, that’s the only reason I am subjecting myself to The Bradbury again - for the chance that, in obeying the order to produce, I’ll stumble across my fly waiting to be devoured. If New Year must have its resolution, that’s mine. Word count: 200 |
| Pookie Getting on for two months since I promised to finish my cat series with the story of Pookie. It turned out to be not that easy. The others were just a matter of enumerating those facets that stood out after years of reflection. But Pookie is an ongoing development, a continuing saga that surprises every day. More catlike than ever she was as a kitten, she yet conspires to educate us on the domestication of both felines and canine. The days of her teaching me to play Fetch (as if I needed such instruction but it was odd to see it in a cat) are long gone but then she’ll suddenly demand that I play the game once again for old time's sake. And then my suggestion that she’s slowing down in her old age is confounded as she hurtles down the passage just as she used to. She’s better at handling the lack of grip in the corners, too. But she does sleep much more than her younger self, that at least is true. And all with that feline instinct for the warmest spot in the house. Which is still me, apparently. So I am forced to the conclusion that it’s too early to write in summation of Pookie. There is so much still to be learned. Word count: 219 |
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