%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
|
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.     |
| Insurance Geico tells me that I could save 15% or moron car insurance. What they don't explain is why I should have moron car insurance in the first place - are they insulting my intelligence? Or maybe they don't approve of my choice of transport... |
| Superhero Dream Lollipop Man - everyone takes him for a sucker but he can really stick it to them. |
| The Writing’s on the Wall There are some videos that do their songs no good at all. This one by OK Go is a case in point. It is filled with optical illusions and becomes so fascinating that all attention to the song is drained. Having watched and listened just once, I am only conscious of a mildly pleasant pop ditty in the background. To write something about the song, I am going to have to listen a second time. Maybe that was the intent. But not everyone is going to be listening with the idea of writing something for the Media Prompt Challenge afterwards. For the vast majority of people, the video will merely be a distraction and not a riveting marketing ploy. So I listened again. And read the lyrics. It is, as my brief experience had suggested, a fairly standard, bright, cheerful and bouncy little song with nothing to make it stand out from its competitors. The lyrics are as close to meaningless as possible without being complete nonsense. Yes, it’s about the beginnings of love (big surprise there) and I suppose a case could be made for the disjointed lack of a logical thrust reflecting the disorientation of a mind in the first throes of young love. But that may be too optimistic. The same could easily be said about any number of pop songs. In the end, the only thing that is memorable about the song is the video. I find myself wondering how many of the illusions were created in reality (a terrible amount of work involved in that) and how much was thanks to computer graphics. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. The net result is a succession of cleverly constructed scenes that dissolve into something entirely different. The mind is kept busy, trying to keep track of the way in which the scene has been built up. The final scene, in which we get an impression of the vastness of the warehouse used for creation of the video, and so many people start emerging from various parts of the scenery, it becomes apparent that a fair amount of money has been spent in promoting this song. Especially if all those people were involved in the design and building of the sets. They all have to be paid, after all. I can only presume that someone, somewhere, has done their homework and is confident that this little ditty is going to wow its chosen market and sell in the millions. And who am I to criticise, who loves Status Quo in spite of the fact they only know one tune and just change the words each time? Word count: 442 For 49-Hour Challenge: Media Prompt, 04.06.22 The Writing's On the Wall by OK Go. |
| Satie Erik Satie is so cool. Even if you detest classical music, Satie is cool! Presuming you like haunted, otherworldly and, well, just cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNYb1rt-Zc0 |
| Notice All computers fail eventually. And mine did yesterday, refusing to boot and not responding to several attempts to resuscitate it. No doubt no one on the net noticed my sudden silence but interim arrangements have been made and you're not going to get rid of me so easily. You'll have a brief respite in the slackening off of my constant presence but, in a few days, I should be back on song again. In the meantime, if I seem tardy in fulfilling obligations and the like, bear with me. I'll get around to everything in time, I assure you. Right, I must see what I can accomplish this bright and cheerful morning. Later, folks! |
| Siamese Cats Don't tell me I don't know about Siamese cats. I have friends in Thai places... |
| Marching On A musical post just to keep things ticking over. Ever heard of this bunch? |
| A Doughnut Post This is weird. America being the spiritual home of the donut, it is natural that a dazzling variety of this rotund snack should be on offer. You can have a plain one (usually with sugar coating the outside), a chocolate-coated version, one with frosting and/or sprinkles (even the chocolate type of sprinkles known as "jimmies" in this neck of the woods). If you're really sugar-hungry, there's the Boston Creme, a wonderful loop filled with a custardy, creamy concoction and topped with a layer of chocolate. American donuts are truly amazing but usually avoided by myself since the sugar destroys my day. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when Andrea brings home something she calls a "basic" donut. I thought I'd seen them all but this one is different. For a start it looks as though it has been cooked in batter. It's when I pick one up that I realize just how different this beast is. It feels exactly like a British doughnut. You must know the slightly greasy touch of those doughy monsters. This one feels the same. I taste it. Land o' Goshen, this is a Brit donut or an exact copy. That heavy, lumpen taste and texture, the dryness that sucks the moisture from your mouth, the lead weight that sits in your stomach for hours afterwards - this is a Brit donut for sure. Who would have thought that this brash America with its brain-numbing array of donuts would yet save a little space for the original, cloddish variety, a DOUGHnut indeed? Yet the most surprising fact of all is that Andrea announces that this is her favorite type. Sometimes she is more British than the Brits... Word Count: 279 |
| History And All That A few thoughts occurred when I read the prompts for Express It In Eight this morning. I find it impossible to write an 8-line poem since I have too much to say on the subject. In the hope that, if I get these things out into the world, I might be able to write a few verses, this follows: Historians hate it when someone at the back of the class stands up and says, “ Hold on a moment. I was there and that is not how it happened at all.” That is why history starts when living memory has just about died out. When I was at school, back in the fifties and sixties, history stopped at the First World War (known then as the Great War, mainly because it wasn’t). As I have grown older, I have learned that the Second World War is now on the curriculum and, for all I know, the Korean War has joined it. This is quite natural and how things are meant to be. History is all about the past and should not be something that I remember. I find it disturbing when people talk about something as history when its memory is still as clear as yesterday in my head. Buddy Holly and the Crickets recording That’ll Be the Day is not history. Neither is Muhammad Ali winning his first heavyweight title nor is Lawrence Welk’s last television show. These are memories and I can still stand up in the back row and shout, for instance, “No, he didn’t. His name at the time was Cassius Clay and I watched the fight on TV. There was no Muhammad Ali back then.” History is different. No one can ever argue me out of my memories but, with the right references and documentary evidence, I can be persuaded to change my view on history. That is important to me since my main period of interest in English history is from 450AD to 1066AD. There are new finds every day in that area that have forced us to re-evaluate our thoughts completely. If we take it that I was not hugely interested in world events before the age of about ten, anything that happened after 1958 cannot possibly be history. It’s mine and you mess with it at your peril. Word count: 385 |
| Facebook Reflections Facebook is a terrible thing if you're happy with your life as it is. The moment you open an account with FB, you're putting yourself right out there where you can be spotted by old friends, acquaintances and ex-colleagues from former workplaces. For those of us who can only take a certain amount of social interaction, the avalanche of "blasts from the past" is likely to be more than we didn't ask for. it's not that we have changed our minds or feelings about people from long ago. In fact, it's more about wanting to keep things as they were. A lot can happen in ten years or more and we will have moved on. The likelihood is that they will have changed too. How much better it is to retain the memory of them as they were, to preserve them as young, hale and hearty. What possible good can come of two cranky old fogies pretending that nothing has changed and they're still the utter fools they were back then? My early years on FB were spent largely in ducking friend requests from people I once knew. It took only a few experiences of that first rush of enthusiasm followed by the realisation that I had nothing to talk about with the long-lost one for me to become expert in hiding in plain view. The clear but terrible truth is that those new and virtual friends you've made because you play the same FB game or have commented on one of their posts are your real friends now. You have more in common with them and they change with you as you change with them. Those in the past stay in the past where they can be ageless, invincible and steadfast to whatever they believed in then. I am immensely proud, however, that I have one friend from long ago that I correspond with fairly regularly. Thanks to this, I can claim to be reasonably human and not totally antisocial. But I've learned my lesson about trying to contact old friends. Don't do it, buddy - let them live forever in your memory. Word count: 355 |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
