Living Wittily

Lost in Next!

Went into the Next Department Store in Aberdeen.

It is an amazing maze of clothes rails.

Many of them deeper in the shop are above my head height - my eye level is around 5 foot.

Yes it is, you doubters. My height is 5'3"max

What we wanted to buy was at the back of the store by a meandering path, through Narnia type rails of clothes.

I got separated from Sheila and decided to make my way to the door and wait for her to emerge.

Manda Quick, next time you're looking for a Prayer Labyrinth try the Next shop in the Bon Accord Centre.

I wandered lonely as a cloud and found myself amongst kettles, lingerie and stands of what Nanci Griffiths in her song about Woolworths would call 'unnecessary plastic objects.

No phone signal so no point trying to phone Sheila to tell her I might be gone for some time,

No need to panic Jim. You came in, you'll get out.

A small elderly woman examining house coats and slippers, and clearly gifted in the empathy department, noticing my confused bemused unamused search for an exit said, "Aye, you need a periscope in here."

Sure do!

Racks of clothes, piped music, ceilings glaring from wall to wall with shadowless lights, crowds of self-absorbed strangers on their mission to consume:

The opening lines of Dante's Purgatory suddenly find a context in my life!

Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost.

Tomorrow I preach on hope, using the text "The people who walk in darkness, have seen a great light."

Not a bad piece of sermon preparation, lost in a shop! Unable to see which direction to go!! No, not dark woods, over-illumined shops. So many lights that look the same so that instead of clarifying they confuse with their featureless anonymity, their brilliant sameness, their shadowless display.

Yes. Don't be daft. Of course I got home. Close thing though...................    

A Stream of Consciousness Walk for Haddock

Went walking to the fish van along at Elrick; it comes from up the coast every Thursday.

Passed the old cottages which rejoice in the name Earlick Cottages - how did they ever come to be called that - an address that says Earlick Cottages, Elrick?

Elderly gentleman in a bunnet wobbles on to the pavement on an ancient bike, I step aside with exaggerated courtesy to let him pass - just as well, he didn't see me!

Bought three seriously fine haddock, and discussed the weather and a certain last minute Motherwell goal with the fish wifey.

Then I'm stalked by an angry blackbird who clearly thinks I've no right to be on his turf - quite right too. I guess there's a nest with the weans somewhere.

Then coming towards me a woman walking her dog. It's on one of those extension leads, you know, the kind that just as you get near, the dog decides to run across your path so you either have to jump or, the dog's preferred option, you fall on your face.

I did neither. It was a daft young spaniel which decided it liked me. Not surprised, I'm a cat owning dog lover.

Lying on the road a small spanner, drop forged, size 600 mill and 700 mill. Handy wee thing if I ever need it!

The photo is taken a mile further along the road from where I walked this morning - not bad for the back door.

 

 

What do you do with 9,500 wheelie bins?

I love this news item from the BBC website:

Councillors in Orkney are demanding an investigation after being left with thousands of extra wheelie bins worth more than £180,000 for a new waste disposal scheme.

The bins have been issued to more than 9,000 households over the past two years.

Orkney Islands Council has been left with 9,500 spares, worth £188,000.

The authority is looking at possible uses for the bins but admitted it was not an ideal situation.

A spokesman said that "in hindsight some of the planning assumptions that had underpinned the project had resulted in some unforeseen outcomes".

...........

Why didn't the spokesman say "Sorry, we made a mistake".

Imagine a child who spilt the Ribena on the carpet saying, " in hindsight some of the planning assumptions that had underpinned the project resulted in some unforeseen outcomes",

Or

a speeding motorist saying to the police, "in hindsight some of the planning assumptions that had underpinned the project resulted in some unforeseen outcomes."

However the Orkney Council is considering alternative uses for the 9,500 wheelie bins. Suggestions please?

A Theology of Creation, and Recreation - God's Sense of Humour.

God's aesthetic sense, maternal love, and the Creator's sense of humour in one picture - I love this:))

Come on in, the water's lovely: A four-week -old Malayan tapir calf takes a swim with mum Gertie at London Zoo.

This and other pictures over here

Predictive Texts and Embarrasing Consequences

The predictive text on my ancient Nokia (the one on the left above) which was produced shortly after cuneiform became obsolete. I once discovered only after sending that when I type 'meal' its first choice is 'neck'. If you don't check before sending that can be embarrassing.This Christmas I had to send a number of texts which informed, invited, described or intimated a meal.

I am taking the staff out for a well earned meal.

We had a long lesiurely meal at Cardosi's.

Last night was the annual fellowship meal.

For once we had a meal together without arguing.

Are you free to come over for a pot luck meal with the rest of the house group.

We had a hot meal, which was just what we needed.

Need I go on. Just substitute neck for meal in any of the above.

Always check the predictive spelling then. Does your phone do stuff like that?

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Captions Please in the Comments - and I'll add them to either the ducks or the Smudge photos. By the way, we don't like the curtains so once Smudge progresses through adolescence we'll replace them!

 

 

 

Amazon Book Searches - A Quick Way to Become a Polymath :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went looking on Amazon for a recent monograph on Paul’s great charter of freedom and equality before God in Galatians 3.28. I found it, and it costs £66 – looks like inter-library loan time.

No Longer Male and Female: Interpreting Galatians 3:28 in Early Christianity (Library of New Testament Studies) Pauline Hogan (2008)

However the first page of hits for the simple search phrase “male and female in Paul” brought up some titles grippingly irrelevant for my purposes. Here’s three of them.....

A growth study of young lambs: comparing male and female Southdown, Suffolk and Cotswold cross lambs intensively reared on a barley diet fed at two different levels by Paul William Knapman (1976)

Pay Differences Among the Highly Paid: the Male-Female Earnings Gap in Lawyers' Salaries (Discussion paper / Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan) by Robert G. Wood, Mary E. Corcoran and Paul N. Courant (Paperback - 1991)

"Other People's Money": An Empirical Examination of the Motivational Differences Between Male and Female White Collar Offenders. by Paul Michael Klenowski (2 Sep 2011)

I took the photo in Glen Dye - it's a Scottish blackface sheep reared on a grass and bracken diet fed quite high up the hill!

The Happy and Glorious Victoria Sponge!

I want one of these :))

Called a Jubilee Cake.

Has one of my five daily portions per slice.

So five slices would be healthy.

What's wrong with that logic.

Not much.

Once every 60 years!

Recipe on link below.

 

 

 

http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2012/05/14/jubilee-cake-recipe-easy/?ncid=wsc-uk-parentdish-headline

Scunnered and other Scottish Philosophical Concepts

Des Dillon's wee book, Scunnered. Slices of Scottish Life in seventeen gallus syllables, (Luath Press), is a tonic. Sometimes funny, sometimes angry, somtimes amusingly angry; considering in haiku such philosophical concepts as midges and neds, the Gulf War, wind turbines, psychology, consumerism and much else, trivial yet serious, wistful but laser sharp.

ATTENTION SEEKERS.

Self assertion is

the very heart and core of

all conversation.

 

THE NECESSARY BLINKERS

Life - a series of

disappointments glued brightly

together by hope.

 

HA HA LLELUJAH

Cosmic but comic

angels fly because they take

being holy lightly.

......................

More of this tomorrow!

The life enhancing secret in the photograph!

Well finally someone asked. I wondered how long it would take, and it has taken three months. But finally someone needed to know. The photo of me on the home page.

Why am I looking so delighted and pointing enthusiastically at a plate of lentil soup?

Sure health food is good for you - there are those who do indeed get enthusiastic about lentil soup, though I doubt they feel the need to take a picture of it!

The dress code is a clue - and the tie is seriously making a statement ( I love ties!) - so this is me in Vienna as a guest having a meal out in one of its best Italian restaurants.

The fork is also a clue - lentil soup can be thick, but doesn't usually need a fork to eat it.

The reason for the beatific grin and the pointing finger and the need to have a photographic record is - I am about to enjoy the biggest creme brulee I've ever seen in my life. That large oval dish with its acres of brown caramelised sugar is a dream come true. After the photo shoot, I remember slowly making my way across the plate oblivious of all dietary consequences and aware only of finally knowing how loosely I'd previously used the adjective delicious. This creme brulee recalibrated the word for me. Once I thought I knew what it meant - now it is defined and its colour is yellow beneath caramelised sugar - and is not small :))