On Manhole Covers - (iv)

The reason I started on bloody manhole covers is thus:

A couple of weeks ago I left the office and was on my way to the tube station, a short walk I must have made a thousand times.

My attention was caught by, yes, a manhole cover, or more accurately, an inspection cover. Quite a big one: embossed on it were the words "London County Council Tramways". I thought, knowing that the last tram ran in the early Fifties, that this curiosity will interest one or two of those London Transport geek people, so I'd take a photo and stick it on my moblog. So, I packed my camera and the next afternoon had it at the ready.

No cover.

Just

pavement.

Perhaps I'd mis-remembered: maybe I'd crossed the road and it had been on the other side.

So I crossed the road the next day. Ridiculous: this is all new development that wasn't even there in 1952.

The next day (Thursday) finds me walking up the road, head bent. All the usuals are there: BT, Fire Hydrant etc etc. Not mine. I repeated the exercise on the Friday. And all last week.

I am now reluctantly forced to believe one of 3 things:

1) It was there and someone moved it at night, repairing the pavement invisibly. This was probably done by Wandsworth Borough Council for the sole purpose of making me look like an idiot;

2) I am going mad: I hallucinated a London County Council Tramways inspection cover;

3) I am going mad: I dream about inspection and manhole covers and then believe my dreams to be real. In many ways this is the most disturbing scenario. I would not like to be thought of as the kind of person who dreams about manhole covers when I could be dreaming of more manly things, such as former Blue Peter presenters or important sporting institutions.

What do you think, readers?

Jonathan Swift tells us that "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he
was never reasoned into". Ca Va.

Jonathan Swift writes exclusively for you.

"I had that Celestine Babayaro in the back of the cab once."

(c) Jonathan Swift, 1715.

On Manhole Covers: (III)

There's one!

On Manhole Covers: (II)

Apologies for the interruption: Uma Thurman at the door, trying to sell me life cover. Anyway...

Was it not SWIFT who told us that a good manhole cover is like an honest maidservant? It appears not! It...

On Manhole Covers.

No of course dear I don't actually collect them - I fear that would be against the spirit of good citizenship, I...

For Vicus

FAO Mr Scurra: I have just switched to Haloscan commenting and have thereby lost, irritatingly enough, all my old comments. BE IT KNOWN however that prior to that own-goal I read & inwardly DIGESTED your recent admonishment. You should know that my forthcoming topic is set in the engrossing milieu of AIRTIGHT INSPECTION COVERS rather than simply manholes, and thus should be a real hit magnet, and one in the eye for JEREMIAHS.
As for Mr Swift, well, it's houyhnhms for courses, innit?

Nothing. A howling void of nothing since the 21st of January.

I do have an entertaining piece on manhole covers "in the pipeline". Tonight I'm going to see The Magic Roundabout which should suit my (and your) level of comprehension better than the other little piece I have in preparation, on the merits of Jonathan Swift's poetry.

How Raymond Baxter ruined my life.

This morning, after a nourishing breakfast containing all my nutritional requirements in one handy cracker, I travelled to work on Thameslink's fast new monorail service to the centre of London. In the bad old days of rail this would have taken 40 minutes or so on a good day but of course now it takes only 10.

What used to be a short windy walk to the office is now a leisurely glide on a moving walkway enclosed in a perspex tube.

My miracle-fibre silver self-cleaning suit has meant that Mrs Massup's washing machine will soon go the way of her electric iron - to The Science Museum !!

Leisure time is transformed - neither of us has to work for more than 4 hours a day thanks to computers! Last night was particularly rewarding, as I learnt some basic XML by means of a painless cerebral implant. Last year I finally managed to read A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu in the original French in all that lovely spare time!

Where shall we go on holiday this year? Frankly, when you've been to The Moon once you've done it to death - perhaps we'll do something retro like the south of France. After all, you can get there on Fireflash in about 20 minutes, and the kids do love the seaside, though after the first couple of weeks they're starting to get a bit restless.

When I was at school, Raymond Baxter, James Burke and Gerry Anderson all TOLD ME it would be like this. I worked out how old I'd be in 2000 and thought I'd be just the right age to enjoy it. How lucky we all are.

MP

I finally got a reply: (see this). It's no great shakes as a reply, being pure government boilerplate rather than something into which she(Margaret Moran)'s put much work: but it proves she's alive at least.

Books

I'm under no illusion that this is of any interest to anyone but myself. I'm a bit of a bookworm, and hawkeyed readers (bear with me while I claim to have readers) may have seen my reading list down the right-hand side. The first thing it revealed was that in 2004 I read 47 books. By "books" I mean leisure reading, not manuals, leaflets, pamplets, printouts, web pages or newspapers. So, a little less than 1 a week. I may have to give up newspapers.

It breaks down like this:
47 Books

44 were fiction,
3 non-fiction, of which 2 biography
No. of unique author names 31,
of which 25 were men.
No of living authors (as of today's date) : 21, so 10 were authors now dead.
Authors named George: 3*

The big new thing for me was Alexander McCall Smith's lovely sequence of books beginning with "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency". Easy to read but beautifully written and with a real way of making you care for the people and the place. Thoroughly recommended, & if I were as good a man as Mr JLB Matekoni I'd have something to be proud of. Although if I was him, I wouldn't be so vain as to be proud of it. Er.

The best new book was probably the Louis de Bernieres. He is the genuine article & I don't think he's written his masterpiece yet.

Continuing pleasures: I always enjoy the Lindsey Davis detective stories set in Vespasian's Rome, and I never let a year go by without at least one Dickens: I thoroughly enjoyed Chuzzlewit again. It's not one of his best-known books and I do find the heavy-handed satire of the American section rather hard going but it's a fine book nonetheless, containing some of his most memorable characters, including a psychologically quite complex "baddy". Terry Pratchett continues to entertain mightiliy, though we were overdue some wizards until his latest came out.

The full list for 2004:

• The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
• Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett
• No1 Ladies' Detective Agency - A. McCall Smith
• Poachers - Jim Franklin
• Emotionally Weird - Kate Atkinson
• Tears Of The Giraffe - A. McCall Smith
• Scenes From Clerical Life - G. Eliot
• The Mulberry Empire - P. Hensher
• The Mauritius Command - P. O'Brian
• Three Hands In The Fountain - Lindsey Davis
• The Card - A. Bennett
• Morality For Beautiful Girls - A. McCall Smith
• The Hotel New Hampshire - J.Irving
• Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - M Vargas Llosa
• Two For The Lions - Lindsey Davis
• Tragically I was an Only Twin - The Complete Peter Cook, Ed. William Cook
• The Kalahari Typing School For Men - A. McCall Smith
• Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens
• The Full Cupboard Of Life - A. McCall Smith
• The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time - Mark Haddon
• The Course Of Honour - Lindsey Davis
• Flashman and The Tiger - George MacDonald Fraser
• The Emperor's Tomb - Joseph Roth
• The Accidental Tourist -Anne Tyler
• Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen
• The Children of Dynmouth - William Trevor
• August - Gerard Woodward (couldn't finish it)
• General Gordon's Khartoum Diary - ed. Lord Elton
• Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler
• Coming Up For Air - George Orwell
• The Good Soldier Svejk - Jaroslav Hasek
• In The Company Of Cheerful Ladies - A. McCall Smith
• The Grenadillo Box - Janet Gleeson
• Birds without Wings - Louis De Bernieres
• The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett
• One Virgin Too Many - Lindsey Davis

*Eliot, Orwell, MacDonald Fraser

A new Word

I learned a new word yesterday. The word was "Putto". If it is new to you too, click the title to go to dictionary.com.

If you already knew my new word then you are probably an art historian, or a nerdy know-it-all, or both.

Shall I call him "Algy the Putto"? (see below).

Algy

I got so cross with him this morning that I was maniacally scratching around for something to compare him with. "You're about as useful as...as.. algae!"

Well, he just lies there blocking out the light, he turns water a funny colour when he lies in it, and how strenuous can photosynthesis be, once you've got the knack?.

So I'll call him Algy from now on.

A snip

The recent dearth of entries on here is due to lack of what B3TA people would call "hummus". This and the fact that I've been almost entirely sober for the last fortnight. And then last Friday I became a jaffa.
Go for it chaps.
I turn up early, which may be a mistake, because it allows time to think, and to imagine the torments of the man before me.
I lie on the table with the bits out. I incongruously recall singing, long ago, as part of a deluded crowd, "we'll be running round Wembley with our willies hanging out". Nurse slips a needle in the arm, and after that it's a Walk in the Park, a veritable Vicarage Tea Party. I'm aware of a certain amount of fiddling about down there: I may have felt a nick once. Nurse and doctor keep up a continuous banter about bloody Emma Bunton (Bunton Banter?).
Is that it? They seem to have finished. "Keep it dry for 2 days, have your stitches out in a week or so, take these pills until they've all gone".
Finished. Bloody hell. A bit woozy from the local. Home. Watch Kill Bill 1 AND 2. Next day, TV, books; sore but not painful. Sunday ditto. Monday, walk dog, back to work.
Wednesday - mad itching as the hair you shaved off starts to come back. You know that feeling, ladies.

Merry Thing

Merry Christmas Mrs Trellis. And to anyone else who stumbles in here...
I'll be among luddites for a few days so no new posts until next week. Who's gonna know?

Just to say Hallo

Everybody who assumed I was dead can breathe again, but the Evil Ghastliness that is C*******s has sucked away what little time, energy and imagination I had for posting here.

I'm not the only one am I?

Maybe I'll be able to regale you with my so-called thoughts on Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime have a wonderful weekend in the lovely snow with the reindeer and the mulled Fosters 'n' stuff.

Margaret Moran MP

This communication with my MP has produced no response, no acknowledgement whatsoever.

I also included some constructive criticism of her woeful website, with an implication that I might even be prepared to help improve it.

I know she's busy: it may be that my letter is only one of many on the topic and by no means the best she's had.

But...nothing? Silence? All she had to do was post a boilerplate reply to my email address - no stamp required.

She presumably wants my vote next year. As I'm a knee-jerk namby-pamby wet liberal Guardian-reading do-gooder Labour voter she can probably have it if she can prove she's alive. Hallo out there!

Greetings From Happisburgh*, or, Wilful Misspelling.

The Irish are probably the worst. Give them an alphabet of 26 letters and they run mad. This article names one "Fionn MacCumhail" for example. It took a moment or two to realise that yer man here was talking about someone I thought of as "Finn McCool" or similar. It was actually years before I twigged that "Dun Laoghaire" was the same place I'd heard spoken of as "Dunleary".
The Welsh do it like mad: for God's sake.
And how many times have I been asked by American tourists, for Lye-sester Square? (Leicester Square, pronounced "Lester").

But am I really asking for standardised phonetic spelling? No, far too dull.

More examples from around the world, please.

*pronounced "Heysburra". It's in Norfolk you know, but just barely.

Whee!

Massup & I, off to NICE with sleazyjet for the weekend. Byee!

Displacement Activity

Nothing to say? Then fanny about with your template.

Diary of Samuel Pepys: Friday 22nd November 1661.

"Within all the morning, and at noon with my wife, by appointment to dinner at the Dolphin, where Sir W. Batten, and his lady and daughter Matt, and Captain Cocke and his lady, a German lady, but a very great beauty, and we dined together. Spent all evening fannying about with my Blogger template until my eyes went runny, and so to bed."

Swift's Journal To Stella - September 2nd, 1710.

"We made our Voyage in 15 hours just; last night I came to this Town, and shall leave it I believe on Monday. Spent all night arseing about with my Blogger template and thus have written or done nothing of note since."

Quick. Get Help.

"Exit my Life, you Uninteresting and Spurious man: I want to run with the Stag and sing with the Bee."

Pausing only to give the gladsome eye to the only man on Earth less interesting and more fully egregious, she accepted a job as a croupier in an egg-box factory, and passes from our tale.

I turned away sighing, and briefly shared, with a dangerous spider from Costa Rica and a novelty Donald Duck towel hook, a penthouse barrel reachable only by ladder. On venturing out one lunar eclipse and several redolent tavernas later, I met and beloved the fabled Massup and a new beginning was begun. Forged in the thrill of an A-Frame dress and an A-team T-shirt, all was 'la' and 'hap' thereafter, as we spooned to the Goombay Dance Band and danced by the light of the moon, the moon.

That's what I tell people anyway.