The 10 Day You Challenge. Day 1: Ten Secrets

So, over at Living Gently, she's doing this thing called The 10 Day You Challenge. So I'm doing it too, because REASONS. Here's how it works:

So Day 1 is 10 secrets, Day 2 is 9 loves, etc. I might not do it on 10 Consecutive Days, mind.  Or I might go nuts and do a couple in one day. SO SUE ME.

So, yes, 10 Secrets.

I don't know if I have 10 secrets (not about me, anyways - if I was allowed to tell you other people's secrets, we would be having a field day about now). And some secrets aren't really going to work as blog fodder, because let's face it, I don't know you all that well, Internet, and also, Boundaries. And I'm too honest and not interesting enough to have much that I won't stick on Facebook.  But we'll keep it light and see how we go.

1. One time in primary school, one of the girls stole money from the tuck shop, and I told on her.  Another time, the rest of the class looked up the answers to a maths exercise in the answer book when the teacher went out to take a phone call, and I told on them too.  I was also so outraged that anyone would look up the answers rather than trying to work it out that I went home in a fit of indignant rage, according to my mother.  Despite all this, I was surprisingly popular, although mainly when people needed some maths homework done.

2. I sometimes wonder whether I'm on The Truman Show, and when I'm alone I do weird things to freak out the audience. Sometimes I'm on my own and I do weird things anyway though, without the Truman Show thing.

3. Sometimes I worry that I'll never again be as happy as I was when I was a student.

4. As I child, I had a major problem with telling the truth, namely, I didn't like doing it.  Part of this was a defense mechanism because I also had trust issues.  And anxiety.  And I probably didn't help myself by dobbing in the other members of the class when they tried to get Up To Something.

5. When I was about 6, I came up with a version of the multiverse theory while sitting on the toilet. I honestly don't think I had read about it anywhere before that point. I dismissed it as needing too much space, and never mentioned it to anyone.

6. When I was about 12, I decided I wanted to be left-handed, so I started practicing every evening for 20 minutes. I had a special notebook for it and everything.  The notebook is probably still in my parents' house.

7. I still think that anything with eyes is real.  Also that anything that has things that look like eyes is real.  Like my car, for instance, who has eyes in her headlights (her wing mirrors are her ears).  I'm honestly not sure how I'll cope when I have to get rid of my car, but I've a feeling I may be finding out fairly soon.  I still talk to my teddies and feel bad if they fall out of bed during the night.  Sometimes I get them to gang up on Mr Smile in an argument, so we can out-vote him.  Sometimes he accepts this as a valid argument.  Or he's too tired to argue.  Hard to say.

8. I'd love to be a really good violinist.  Or, failing that, really good at some musical instrument.  Or just have some basic musical ability.  I'd also like to have the confidence to sing in public, but I don't because one time someone told me I couldn't sing.  So if I sing in front of you, you should take it as a major sign of trust, and not make fun of me, otherwise I will consider you to have betrayed me slightly.

9. One time when I was at university, someone bribed me 5p to vote for them in the student election.  I took the 5p and voted for someone else.

10. I worry that I'm too sensitive and weird and off-the-wall for people to really like me.  I try to be funny to cover it up, but I worry that no one is really fooled.  Then I worry that I really shouldn't be this obsessed with what people think of me.  On the sensitive thing, by the way, there are a surprising number of things which I consider to be betrayals of the highest order.  We have already mentioned laughing at my singing.  Also:

• Generally laughing at me at all
• Acting like you don't believe something I'm saying when I know it's true
• Saying I'm untidy or messy, when in fact I've just been feeling down and not tidying up is one of the first signs of that
• Racism.  Because not everything is about me.

Tomorrow: 9 loves.

In which we see that Mr Smile is fighting a losing battle

So Mr Smile just showed me this thing that one of his friends had shared on Facebook. Now, for a kick-off, it was from a page called "The Romantic Box", which should have given him adequate warning that this wasn't something I was going to fall for, but against his better judgement, he showed it to me anyway.

I can't find it to share it here, but basically it was a photo of a dress, on a bed, with a label attached saying something like "Dinner at 7. Put this on. Be ready at 6.30. I love you." So I stared at for a good 30 seconds, and then I was all like "I don't get it".

So Mr Smile explained that this guy had bought the dress for his wife, and was telling her to wear it when they went to dinner.

Apparently this is the most romantic thing ever, according to Mr Smile, and I was all like "Never ever do this". Apart from the fact that I don't eat out, there are several problems: what if the dress doesn't fit? What if the colour doesn't suit me? What if I don't have shoes or a bag to go with it? What if I already have plans for 6.30? What if I only get home at 6.25 and I haven't shaved my legs and stuff? What if I got peckish in work at 5 and scoffed 8 bars of Dairy Milk and now I'm not that hungry?

But Mr Smile won't believe me that this is the worst idea ever, although I have warned him that if he ever takes it into his head to buy me a dress and take me out for dinner, I'd really more appreciate it if he just gave me the cash.

So we're putting it out to a vote: is this the best or the worst idea in the world ever?

A Series Of Things

So I've had a lot of thoughts going on in my head this past while, and I haven't quite distilled them to the point where I'm ready to write about them, but I thought I'd list them so that you can all keep asking me for my deep and incisive thoughts on them.  Otherwise, my vast pool of wisdom could end up being lost to the internet for ever, and that would Not Do At All.

Topic 1: Marriage
So remember I said I was reading a book about marriage and it was making me feel a bit sarcastic?  Well, Mr Smile asked me for my reasons, and at the time I'm not sure I had them properly established.  However, since then I've had coffee with my friend Emma, and she recommended a book, and I looked it up on Amazon, and it's subtitle was "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" and I was all "YES!!!  THAT'S what I want to read about!".  So I think the problem with the current marriage book is that it's all a bit "making your marriage work" and I don't really want to read about that, not because it's not important, but because it's not very exciting, and I want exciting.

(In case you're wondering why I'm reading all these books about marriage, it's not that I'm having a marriage crisis; it's more that because we got married fairly quickly after getting engaged, we didn't have time to go to any marriage preparation classes, and in any case we probably would have been thrown out because we would only have sniggered at the sex bits, so I'm reading some books in case there's some vast wisdom out there that I've missed out on.  I still snigger at the sex bits, because I am Not Very Mature. It's also because some people bought us books on marriage for engagement/wedding presents, so it would be rude not to read them).

Topic 2: Loving People
I came across an article on 'tinternet the other day, all about how to love people who annoy you, and it was fine as far as it went, but then I got in a discussion on The Facebook, which lead me to think "Really the command is not to get along with people, it's to love them.  And really it's not about people who annoy you, it's about actual enemies and that". So I have some Thoughts On That, which I'm preparing to dispense.

Topic 3: Friendship and being nice
A third ongoing issue is that of how to be a good friend, especially to someone who has let you down or who is doing crazy stuff that hurts you a lot, or, you know, that kind of thing.  And it has seemed to me that it is not important to be nice, but it is important to be all manner of other things which are much more difficult and scary and possibly unpleasant and risky but which are also (as far as you can ascertain) loving and helpful and therefore you have to do them because the person is your friend and you care about them.  But also you don't want to completely just feck the person off by being an utter twat (incidentally, Mr Smile and I are currently involved in an ongoing argument as to whether 'twat' is a really bad swear word, or just a funnier version of 'twit'... please feel free to get involved), plus they're an adult, and frankly, when they want your opinion they can ask for it, and anyway you might not be as Right as you think, and anyway also you should probably sometimes just shut up and listen.

This reminded me of my second form chemistry teacher, who once said during a lesson (I've no idea why, but this may explain why I have only a very basic grasp of chemistry) that he would never want to be described as 'nice', and this shocked me because I was a 12-year-old girl and being thought of as 'nice' was the only ambition I had at that point.  But now I think I agree entirely with him, because, as they say, no one ever changed the world by being nice, and also because we're supposed to be like Jesus, and I don't know that He was really all that nice, when it came to it.

Topic 4: The Inanity Of Following Your Heart
This was prompted entirely by this article, and I like it because I've never been comfortable with following my heart, but people seem to tell me to do it sometimes, and therefore they are Wrong and I am Right, and I like when that happens.

Also, it gave the opportunity for her over at Living Gently to share the following quote on Facebook, and is worth a lot for that reason alone:

 "Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."

Rob (John Cusack) in High Fidelity

So these are all grand, and I hope to come back to them, but I think we also need some light entertainment, and so I present some of it here:

1. This is the work of a genius.  An evil genius.

2. Daily Odd Compliments are hysterical.

3. Very British Problems will hit home.

4. Pins which amused me this week were this, this and this.

You're Welcome.

What to talk to me about

Now I've never been a big one for the conversation, but of late I've been feeling that the quality of the offerings has dipped a bit.  So I decided to make a graph, so you know what to talk to me about:

This shows the things people have been trying to talk to me about of late, and things I would like to talk about, and the varying levels of interest in each.

Ideally, all conversation would be on the middle line there, with both myself and everyone else being interested in the same things.  But alas, for most conversation seems to be in the top left, and these are things I'm not so fussed on discussing.

I have not at any stage had an interest in the horse meat thing, for instance.  I just don't really care that much. Maybe it's because I've always suspected that 90% of what's in processed food is pretty iffy.  Maybe it's the bad horse puns.  Nevertheless, I can't get myself excited.

Likewise, I'm not that interested in discussing my wedding; partly because it makes me stressed, and partly because I've never really found wedding details intrinsically interesting.  People always assured me that I'd feel differently about my own wedding; it has come as no surprise to me to find that I don't.  If I was interested in something when it happened to me, I would also be interested when it happened to my friends, because that's how friends work.

On the other hand, I am always pleased to have conversation about the Six Nations, or about what we're planning for church this half term and Easter, because those are Quite Interesting.

And, as of about an hour ago, I have become obsessed with the Pope resigning, so you'll probably find that you won't hear the end of THAT for Quite Some Time.

Some Things I Found And Liked

I'd love to apologise for the delay in transmission, but you know what?  I'm not even sorry.  I've just been busy.  And also, today I think my brain stopped working.  Like, it's doing all the basics like reminding me to breathe, but it's not doing actual thoughts.

So I thought I'd share with you some Things I Found Online And Liked.  We might come back to some of them later.

Firstly, this weekend is the 100th anniversary of the Ulster Covenant, which is, if you are a certain type of Ulster Protestant, a Big Deal.  There's to be a load of parades, all through the city centre, and there's to be a protest, but everybody has said how much they don't want to riot unless they absolutely have to, so I think it'll probably be fine.  In any case, Virtual Methodist wrote a thing about it, which I think you should all read.

Then there was a thing The Soapbox wrote about forgiveness, which was also a little bit about football, but not so much that you have to understand the offside rule or anything.  Mostly it is about forgiveness, and Very Good it is too.  This is one of the things we might come back to later.

Another thing we might come back to later, and which might even be connected, was a thing that someone said to The Chip Monk some time ago (I'm not providing a link, because you'll all go there and argue again):

People generally have little or no faith in God: their faith is in the church. Then, when the church fails (inevitable), they lose their faith. One of my many questions is why so few people in the church have any faith in God.

I believe this to be Fairly Profound, and possibly connected to us being Not Very Good at forgiving in churches.  When my brain starts working again (and I'm only assuming it will: I haven't sought medical advice or anything), I believe I shall have More To Say on this.

On plurals

Here's a question which I have been considering for at least 3 minutes: is the plural of 'roof' still 'rooves'?

I ask because it strikes me that I haven't heard it used in a while, and maybe it's one of those things that everyone else has moved on from. On the other hand, I'm sure I've seen 'roofs' several times. I don't want to go throwing 'rooves' into conversation and end up being derided as a terrible fool.

In fact, I note autocorrect is fine with 'roofs', but has underlined 'rooves'. Is it possible that the plural was always 'roofs', and I've picked it up wrong and been living in error for 30 years?

Your help us appreciated.

On Why I Am Not Married

In a worrying move, Claire-who-is-married-to-Creideamh has declared me to be a wise woman, and has asked (via Facebook) for an opinion on a thing.  So here goes.

The article in question is http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/27/kate-bolick-women-marriage-relationships.  It's quite long, so I'll summarise it for you.  The basic point (i.e. the title) is that "marriage is a declining option for women"; it is a little hard to establish from the article exactly why the author believes this to be the case, but her reasons seem to boil down to the following:

• Us 'post-boomers' "value emotional fulfilment above all else", rather than needing to get married so we'd have help with the lambing
• Men today are useless fecks who either don't earn enough to impress us, aren't smart enough to impress us, or are to geeky to tolerate; in any case, they don't like to commit and we no longer need them to pro-create, so why would anyone bother?
• Couples nowadays are way too couple-y (I'm not quite sure how this supports the actual argument, but it made for an interesting tangent)

Now, my opinions were invited, and my opinions shall be provided.

First of all, let me say that I do not view marriage as a non-option; indeed, it is very much an option, and if only it were as simple as ticking a box on a survey, then married I would be.  I speak, of course, as someone who is apparently chronically incapable of attracting anyone of the opposite sex, and from time to time I have given some thought as to why this might be.

The main reason (and one which is, I suspect, 99% of the problem) is that I am chronically incapable of flirting.  I just cannot do it.  Perhaps this stems from my utter lack of self-esteem which leads to me believing, at heart, that there is no conceivable reason why the other side would be flirting with me; whatever the reason, anyone who wishes to be considered as a marriage prospect would do considerably better to state the fact clearly and outright (perhaps in a letter, because face to face I might throw up) and to directly request my own opinion on the matter.  If I am interested (and provided the letter is grammatically reasonable and the spelling is good), then off we shall go; if not, I shall politely decline and it will never be spoken of again.  This seems to me a much better course of action than me pretending to be all 'damsel in distress' or him making corny comments about how my dad must be a thief because he stole all the stars from the sky and put them in my eyes.  Seriously.

But there may be some truth in what Kate Bolick says (let's be nice to her; she has an unfortunate surname).  I have, I suppose, no particular need to get married, in terms of my survival.  I earn enough money to get by, I'm quite handy with a hammer, and frankly, I see no need to enhance my house by having someone playing an XBox in it.

On the other hand, I would very much like to have children; I like them, I think I might be an ok parent, and it would a change from spending most evenings watching re-runs of the X Factor.  For this, I would need a man.

Fundamentally, however, I think she may be closest to the mark with the point about couples being too couple-y.  I don't want a lot of what is often held up as the ideal of marriage - the nuclear family, mum, dad, 2 kids and a spaniel, living in a nice home in an area with good schools, hosting pleasant dinner parties and always having the latest TV.

I don't aspire to much of that - if it happens, it happens, but it doesn't represent the things I value.  If I marry, I want it to make a difference not just to me, but to the people around me as well.  I want to marry someone who makes me be a better person; who enhances who I am and who is a better person for having married me.  I want him to value me, but I also want him to value the things that matter to me - my friends, my community, my interests - and I want to do the same for him.  I want us to love each other for who we are, and to push each other to be the best we can be.  It might sound ridiculous, but I want the part of the world I spend my time in to be a better place because I've married the man that I have.  I don't want to be in a marriage which only looks inward, to how we can get more stuff or impress our friends; I want to be in a marriage which also looks outward to bless other people, and which ultimately looks upward to God.

But I like to think that that's something that I get, in some measure, from all my close relationships - my friends inspire me to see things differently, to be creative, to hang in there when things are tough, and to do lots of other day to day things that make my life better - and I hope I sometimes inspire them in similar ways.  If I marry, I want my husband to become a part of my community, and I want to become a part of his - I don't want being in a couple to pull me away from people who matter to me.

I don't know whether this is in any way part of the wider issue raised in the article, that marriage (particularly marriage for life) is declining; maybe it is that women everywhere have rid themselves of the need for a man, and are getting along just fine, thank you very much.

After all, it is not unheard of for me to not think in exactly the same way as other people. 

Things That Make Me Want To Eat My Own Head

Heck, it's been a while.  Sorry.  Busy summer and all that.

Anyway, I'm here about the Haribo advert.  Never in the field of my own history have I so much appreciated the licence fee, and freedom from advertising.  I'm not linking to it, because it makes me want to claw my own ears off, but you'll know the one I mean.

If you're thinking, "yeah, I hate that wee girl screaming 'sign the fession!'", then count yourself lucky, for that's not the one I mean.

This one has a family of 4 at a shop in the middle of nowhere, singing the most banal song you can imagine, out of tune, while grinning like banshees and leaping like the lords from a Christmas song.  It's what you'd get if you took a bad X-Factor audition, a sanitary towel advert, and one of those photos of happy families that you get in Christian magazines, blended them, and then added an overdose of hyperstimulant.  The whole, is, inexplicably, much worse than the sum of its hideous parts.

It marginally improves if, after the line that goes "Squidgy squidgy baby!" you yell "Bodyformed for yoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", but only a little bit, so I wouldn't do it in public or anything.

Like I say, Google it if you want to know what it's like to find yourself uncontrollably ripping your ears from your head.  Otherwise, don't.  But in any case, can we all stop buying Haribo until they get this abomination off our screens?  Thanks.

In happier news, I enjoyed this story, although it contains some impolite language, which I ask you to censor by mentally replacing it with the word 'puppy'.

15 Songs

Virtual Methodist has thrown down the gauntlet and requested us all to declare the first 15 songs that come up on our iPods when we play on shuffle.

Here are mine:
1. Don't Stop Believin' - Journey
2. How Great Is Our God - Worship Ireland
3. Love is Free - Sheryl Crow
4. When I Was Lost - New Irish Choir & Orchestra
5. Town Called malice - The Jam
6. Girls In Their Summer Clothes - Bruce Springsteen
7. My Troubled Soul - from some Christian CD
8. Oh For A Thousand Tongues - New Irish Choir & Orchestra
9. Love is Noise - The Verve
10. Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
11. Ireland's Call
12. Galway Girl - Steve Earle & Sharon Shannon
13. American Pie - Don McLean
14. It Is Well - New Irish Choir & Orchestra
15. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

So there we have it.  Feel free to add your own in the comments.

There is another gauntlet, which has been thrown down on The Facebook, and is something to do with authors.  I shall return to it presently.

Complicated Things Made Simple

Here's a thing which recently struck me as odd.  Why does no one ever seem to know when the clocks change?  It's the same every year - last Saturday/Sunday in October.  It is not complicated.

When I was young, I got the impression that it was something to like 37 days after the sighting of the first unicorn in a forest north of Narnia.  I was quite surprised to learn that it's really not that hard.

Another tremendous Tesco offer

You remember that thing a while back about the Bran Flakes in Tesco?  Where it was cheaper to buy more of them than less of them?

Today's offer:

I did spend some time trying to figure out whether the two prices refered to 2 different types of bread, or something, but I couldn't see that they did.

That being said, I didn't spend too long, as I'd already been hanging about trying to take the photo.

This Is Not Just A Parcel, This Is An M&S Parcel

Today I had to collect a couple of items I had ordered online from Marks & Spencer, to pick up in the shop. So I go there, and get the parcel. Here it is (Cat & Elephant shown for comparison):


It seemed quite big, I thought. So I opened it up. Here are the contents:


Essentially, a lot of brown paper, the invoice, a thing about birthday cards or something, and a smaller box. This is the smaller box:


And this is the contents of the smaller box, which is what I had actually ordered:



So, this is all the not-completely necessary stuff which accompanied my parcel:


So it is a good thing that they have reduced their packaging in an attempt to save the planet.

On Important Things, and Also Poodles

There are many things worth discussing at the moment: Nelson McCausland refusing to participate in Catholic services and Sinn Fein being outraged (an argument in which I can see neither's side, and yet still find myself getting quite worked up on everyone's behalf), that article by Jan Moir about Stephen Gately, a piece in the Belfast Telegraph about what age children should start school at (of particular interest, since Sister Smile is doing teacher training, and says (more or less) that they are currently operating a bizarre compromise whereby children start school at age 4 but don't actually do anything until they're aged 6 or 7). If you wish to know more on my thoughts on any of these, please indicate your interest in the comments section, and I'll see what I can do, but in the meantime, I direct your attention to 12 new dog breeds created by show groomers, which focusses on people who start with poodles and then turn them into better-looking things, like pandas, dinosaurs and chickens.

I have to confess that I really dislike poodles. I apologise to any poodle-lovers out there; I just can't stand them. I mean, I wouldn't be nasty to them, or cruel or anything, and if I found one in need of love and attention, I like to think I would take it in and treat it handsomely; it's just that if I was faced with a limited choice of dogs, I cannot forsee any line up in which the poodle would not be my final choice.

We used to have a dog called Glen, who agreed entirely with this. Glen was the best type of dog you could get: no stick or ball went unchased, no passer-by went unbarked at, and he was so terrified of vets that he used to sit on the table and shake, and then be scared of the rattling noise, and shake more, and so on and so forth in a never-ending vicious circle, until (a) the vet drugged him, (2) my dad lifted him off the table and spent the consultation holding him in his arms or (3) he wet himself and my dad resorted to a messier version of (2). He was also scared of Rice Krispies (honestly. We found this out one time my mum put them in his bowl to use up some leftover ones at the end of the packet. This was popular, but then she added milk (like the dog cared whether there was milk on them), and the ensuing snaps, crackles and pops transformed Glen into a cowering heap in the corner), most cats, and gunshots (despite being supposed to be a gundog - my uncle bought him for us, ostensibly as a present, with the proviso that he could borrow him for hunting. Hunting happened once, and ended with my uncle having to drag Glen home, quivering and shaking, to be forever scared of loud noises and fireworks. My uncle shortly afterward sold his shotgun and has never hunted since).

Anyway, Glen hated poodles, (particularly, incidentally, black ones (he wasn't that keen on black anythings)), but there was a lady we often used to meet when out for walks who had a little snow-white poodle called Snoopy, of which she was exceptionally proud. Snoopy had hair clips, was brushed to within an inch of its life, was dazzlingly clean, and wasn't allowed near anything dirty, particularly Glen. Frankly, I always thought it was asking for trouble to let Snoopy out onto the beach, but there you have it. I'm sure Snoopy was a perfectly nice dog, of course, but its owner was insufferable, and snobby.

So, on one particular day, I had taken Glen out for his customary walk on the beach, which had on this occasion involved a lot of being in the sea, rolling in seaweed, and generally enjoying all that the beach had to offer in the way of mess (on Glen's behalf I mean; I was just walking along watching him). Coming in the opposite direction, we spotted Snoopy and owner, and the dogs bounded over to each other. Snoopy's owner became apoplectic, shouting 'Snoopy, no! No, Snoopy! Don't go near that dog!! Snoopy!!! Come here!!!!' at increasing pitch and decibel levels. I vaguely called Glen, like I cared whether he got sand on Snoopy, and he ignored me, as always. Anyway, Glen had a little sniff around, and then realised that he was dealing with a poodle, and that no further interest was to be found. He also realised he needed to pee, lifted his leg, and did so, all over Snoopy's head. Which was unfortunate, but only slightly.

Things I Did Not Know About Friends

This is just a short post to record some Surprising Things I discovered recently. One of the many, many benefits* of having Sister Smile living with me is that she comes complete with the entire 10-season box set of Friends DVDs, and she goes out a lot. So I have been gradually working my way through them (currently on Season 8, Episode 13), and have realised that I did not know as much about Friends as I thought.

Now, admittedly, it hit our screens just as I went to university and I didn't have a TV; furthermore, it seemed like the sort of thing my sister enjoyed, which made me automatically Suspicious, but still, I thought I had seen at least 75% of the episodes. I mean, it's not like Channel 4 shows anything else, so when I go home at Christmas there's not a lot of options.

Anyway, here are the things I discovered:

1. There's a storyline which runs through each season, and from one season to the next. I never really knew this.

2. At one stage, Rachel moves in with Joey, because Chandler moves in with Monica. This happens quite early on, and lasts for several series, and yet I never knew that it had even happened.

3. Phoebe lives miles away, in a separate house, and not with Monica and Rachel.

4. Ross also has his own apartment, and does not live with Joey and Chandler (apart from a brief spell when he's between houses).

5. Rachel has a baby at the end of Series 8 (according to the box).

6. Ross and Rachel are not, in total, together for all that long, but at one point they accidentally get married.

7. Ross only owned a monkey for a short time, and not through most of the show as I previously believed. Joey and Chandler had the chick and the duck for much longer, and yet I thought they only appeared in one episode.

8. For a not entirely brief time, the guys and the girls swapped apartments.

I mention this simply because I seem to have seen countless episodes of Friends and had never known any of these things at all.

* Yeah, I sent her an email with the blog address at the bottom

Bhutan, And Why I Like It

I don't know how much you know about Bhutan, so I'll start from the beginning (so as to keep as many of you on board as possible), and then I will explain the awesome thing I found out about Bhutan.

Bhutan is a country in South East Asia, next to China, India, Nepal and so on. For today's purposes, that's already more than you really need to know.

Now for the awesome bit. A number of years ago, the King read something somewhere that people who live in democracies are happier than people who live in kingdoms. And then - get this - made the country a democracy by transferring most of his powers to the government*.

But this is not all. Most countries measure their success by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or some variation - so the country is doing well if it is making lots of stuff. Bhutan measures success by Gross National Happiness (GNH) - so it considers it a good year if people are happy, and it makes laws and policies with the aim of advancing the country's happiness levels as much as possible.

Is this not awesome?

* I don't fully grasp politics, so this may not be exactly true, but it's broadly in line with the general spirit of events

In Which Methods For Determining The Relative Profitability Of Various Films Are Discussed

Now here is a story I find quite surprising. 'They' were making a new list of the top 10 grossing films of all time, and decided to adjust it for inflation. Using this approach, Titanic is not, in fact, the biggest grossing film of all time (though it's still fairly crap but in a quite watchable sort of way, which is not a measure used on the chart), but comes in at Number 6; the top spot is occupied by Gone With The Wind.

Anyway, what puzzles me is this: why did no one ever think of this before? I mean, I had thought of it before, that newer films will always do better in these kinds of lists, simply because it's now exceptionally expensive to go to the cinema, whereas in 'the past' you could get in for a jam jar and some fluff, and it's not as if I'd ever really thought about it that much, or am any kind of Expert. So how come actual Experts have never thought of this?

And why don't they just count how many tickets are sold? Because this would also allow for the fact that some cinemas are more expensive than others. You could practically buy The Strand Cinema, for example, for the amount of money you've spent even before you get through the door at the Odyssey, what with car parking and so on. In fact, some friends of mine turned up at The Strand the other week and discovered that it was 'Mad Monday' or 'Wild Wednesday' or something and got in for the princely sum of about £1.50 for the pair of them. You could hardly get a handful of popcorn for that in most places.

So, in summary, I think they should change their system.

On Opportunities

Now here is something to ponder. Ever now and then I get offered a 'Once In A Lifetime Opportunity' to win a holiday to somewhere exotic, or buy my dream home in the sun or something. However, since I seem to be offered these things reasonably often, they are not really once in a lifetime opportunities.

Things I expect to happen once in my lifetime are, on the whole, rather more mundane, such as buying a bag of 1000 paperclips, installing cavity wall insulation, or reading 'Catch-22' (please never again).

Just a thought.

Spelling, and the importance of the meaning of words

Today I had a most unusual experience. I wrote a cheque in a shop. This I have not done in a long time, and for reasons which came flooding back: I have no idea how to spell '14'. Like, in letters, I mean.

So today I had to send some packages (on behalf of Alex, of whom more presently), and they came to £19.14. Since I was paying out of my business account, I tried to use my business account card, but had forgotten (or, more likely, never knew) my PIN, which left the options: pay out of own money and do complicated bookkeeping manouvers manoveurs (hmm, another word I cannot spell) things, or write a cheque. So I chose the cheque option, and realised that it is a looong time since I wrote a cheque in a shop, and that I did not know how to spell '14'.

But back to Alex, who has asked me to tell you about getting her house painted, as a warning to you all. This happened some time ago, when Alex (who lives in Omeath) decided the house could do with brightening up (the outside of the house), and toyed with Doing Something About It. Other Half Peter had got some ludicrous quotes of millions of Euro and so on, and Alex suspected that she could get a better deal.

So one day when out for a walk, she bumped into a chap whose name I cannot recall (for the purposes of this lesson, we shall call him Derek). Anyway, they got talking, and Alex mentioned she wanted her house to be painted, and Derek said that he had a friend who could do it. He gave directions and told her to ask for Redbeard. Yes, Readbeard.

So Alex goes and finds the house and finds Redbeard and asks if he can paint her house and how much will it cost and so on. And he says €300 (0r some such amount; I can't remember the exact details). So Alex thinks 'my my, this is good', and asks whether paint is included and he says it is. She asks whether he needs to know dimensions of the house etc and he says 'no'. She also asks him to do it much the same colour as it is, and he agrees, and they decide that Redbeard will come some day when the weather is nice, and get started.

So Alex has signed up a chap called Redbeard to paint her house for about a quarter of the price that everyone else was charging, and he claims he does not need to see the house, the current colour or the dimensions in advance, and that the price of paint is included in his quote.

Which did not make a lot of sense until he turned up at the house one day... wearing a smock and carrying an assortment of little paint tubes and an easel.

Waaaa-choo

WhyNotSmile has a Bad Cold®, with symptoms including (but not limited to) blocked nose, sore throat, runny nose, tiredness, sore muscles, temperature and sneezing.

I really hate having the cold: you feel awful, but you are expected to get on with things and not complain. Colds do not do well in the 'Amount of discomfort' vs. 'Level of sympathy' stakes.

For instance. You would expect that the more ill you feel, the more sympathy you could expect, like this:



Of course, WhyNotSmile would like sympathy to be distributed like this:



which may be why her life will be one continuous disappointment.

However, after a survey of WhyNotSmile's levels of illness vs amount of sympathy received over the years, I am led to conclude that this is not how it works at all. I decided to exclude sympathy from parents, which is always generous, and from my doctor, who is lovely and very sympathetic no matter what I throw at her*, and to base this on amount of sympathy from others. Furthermore, I divided it into childhood illnesses (green dots) and adult illnesses (red dots). This is what I discovered:



* I mean this in a metaphorical sense. WhyNotSmile does not condone throwing things at doctors.

A Survey of Attitudes of Readers of This Blog

Ship of Fools has published the findings of a couple of surveys which show that Christians love porn and atheists love Jesus. My favourite statistic is that of the 21% of American atheists who claim to believe in God.

Anyway, in light of this, I decided to conduct a survey of my own:

When you take part in a survey, how do you answer?

With the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. My opinion is too important to not be shared.

With comedy answers, for my own entertainment.

With whatever will get rid of the surveyor as quickly as possible. My time is precious.

With the exact opposite of what I think they expect; I like to mess with their results.

With whatever I think makes me sound good. Especially if I fancy the surveyor.

I do not do surveys. I am above such intrusions on my time.

Ugg Boots