w.atching the w.orld unw.ind

Today's lyric:
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"My sugar sweet is so attainable
This behaviour so unexplainable
The days just slip and slide, like they always did
The trouble is my head won't let me forget."

The Killers: "Why do I keep counting"
From the album: "Sam's Town"

So short, it's

Today's lyric:
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"Who needs information, this high off the ground?
Just give me confirmation - we could win a million pounds

Who needs information, when you're living in constant fear?
Just give me confirmation there's some way out of here
Some way out of here."

Roger Waters: "Who needs information?"
From the album: "Flickering Flame"

The replacement of the old central heating boiler involved damage to wallpaper, kitchen units, the ceiling, tiling, skirting boards and flooring. Hmmm.

All but the old* laminate floor has now been replaced and this weekend, joy of joys, I start the process of re-laying that. With new panels. Which need cutting. Into all sorts of odd shapes.

Even with a jigsaw, I know it's going to take me several days. And to limber me up for the task, the sky has just fallen in here at work and gawd knows whether that'll (once again) kybosh my attempts to use up last year's holidays?

Eh well, enjoy your weekends, y'all...

* it'd been down barely a year when it had to be ripped up, and they never re-lay properly.

Labels: D.I.Bloody Y.

Today's lyric:
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"One night I was dancin' with a lady in black
Wearin' black silk gloves and a black silk hat
She looked at me longin' with black velvet eyes
She gazed at me strange all cunning and wise
Then I saw the flesh just fall off her bones*
The eyes in her skull was burning like coals
Lord, have mercy, fire and brimstone
I was dancin' with Mrs. D."

The Rolling Stones: ""
From the album: "Goat's Head Soup"

* 26 days of her diet (and my abstinence) left...

Labels: Diet, Music

Today's lyric:
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"I see your hair is burnin'
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you, you know they are a liar
Drivin' down your freeways, midnight alleys roam
Cops in cars, the topless bars
Never saw a woman...
So alone, so alone
So alone, so alone."

The Doors: "L.A. Woman"
From the album: "L.A. Woman"

David Bowie: Diamond guide dogs

Labels: Re-make/Re-model

Today's lyric:
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"If he has no friends and everyone's against him
If he's failed at everything that he has tried
Try to lift his load, to help to bear his burden
Let him know that you are walking by his side
And if he feels that all is lost, and he is falling
Try to place that poor man's feet on solid ground
Just remember he's some mother's precious darling
Always lift him up and never knock him down."

Ry Cooder: "Always lift him up (Kanaka Wai Wai)"
From the album: "Chicken Skin Music"

Or own boxer dogs?

Today's lyric:
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"I bet your Mama was a tent-show queen
And all her boyfriends were sweet sixteen?
I'm no schoolboy but I know what I like -
You should'a heard 'em just around midnight."

Rolling Stones: "Brown Sugar"
From the album: "Sticky Fingers"

A BT-employed friend of ours was enjoying his conjugals of a Sunday morning, when the bedside phone (one of hundreds in the house - it was like being in a clock shop at midday) rang. And rang. And rang.

Eventually, he could stand it no longer.

"Hello son, you took a long time answering?"

"I was down the garden, Dad" he panted in reply.

"You sound out of breath. Did you have to run back in?"

"Look, Dad, I'm in the middle of something* right now. Can it wait?"

"Sure. I just wanted to tell you about..."

Click.

* He's divorced now. There was reference to her being called a 'something' in the grounds...

Not that Mrs.D's into boxing, but she's off to her weekly weigh-in tonight. At the last count, she was -30lbs/60 days. Half a pound of butter every day on average for two months.

Strangely, the weight seems to be being shed from all round, not just in the tummy region. She reckons she's lost 7" in the ladybumps area? Imagine the equivalent, lads, in the trouser-snake department? Blimey, I'd be almost minusly-endowed!

As a divertissement (et je ne sais pourquoi) I've been creating some new French words.

(Note to self: Must get out more!)

So far I've come up with 'Departyr' meaning to abandon a rave, and 'Devanner' meaning to leave a convoy of mobile homes.

Aidez-moi!

Oh. And HAPPY ST GEORGE'S DAY!

Labels: Anecdotes, Diet, Verbiage

Today's lyric:
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"Looks like nothin's gonna change
Everything, still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same."

Otis Redding: "Dock of the bay"
From the album: "The very best of Otis Redding"

I really, really want to go sea fishing.

Come on Buddy1, when we sailin' ?

Enjoy your weekends, y'all.

Labels: Angling, Boaty things

Today's lyric:
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"Just by the wave of my hand, I'd let you understand
I am not a lonely soldier
Just be the wave of my hand, I'd let you understand
I am not here for the love
No, no, no, no she knows me
No, no, no, no I love her.

You have the world at your fingertips
No one can make it better than you."

Spirit: "Soldier"
From the album: "The 12 Dreams of Dr Sardonicus"

and other nonsense...

Labels: Wryness

Today's lyric:
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"Cos I've been standing at the station
In need of education in the rain
You made no preparation for my reputation once again
The sink is full of fishes, she's got dirty dishes on the brain
It was overflowing gently but it's all elementary my friend."

Oasis: "Some might say"
From the album: "(What's the story) Morning Glory"

in the eyes of the Lord." (And this from an atheist) as, in the minutes between the alarm sounding off and my actual rising time, I conducted a full-on exorcism.

"You want to fall from this ledge, and end the malevolence and maliciousness that you perpetrate on this world."

Then the attending priest offered the pocket of his hi-vis jacket for donations (when I'd done all the hard work?).

If these sober dreams of mine get any more life-like, I'm gonna start pitching the scripts at Hollywood producers, make my fortune and go back on the bottle.*

44 days to go.

* After I've bought the boat.

Labels: Boaty things, Religion

Today's lyric:
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"You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow, would you still be mine?"

The Eagles: "Take it to the limit"
From the album: "The Eagles: Live"

Saw nothing of it, because of kitchen repair work. That is all.

Labels: Bereftness

Today's lyric:
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"Farewell all my family, don't you know I mean you so well
Please appreciate I must make a break just to see what I can do
The stage is set, so understand I can't hide in the wings no more
I've got to go now it's no use me staying home?"

Rod Stewart: "Farewell"
From the album: "Handbags and gladrags"

#1 Half day in S6 yesterday to seal the impending end of Phase I of the project that's dominated my work-schedule for the past eight months. I'll (almost) be sorry to see it go.
#2 No (recollectable) dreams from last night?
#3 The old boiler, a storm-busted chiminea, defunct hover mower and plastic fencing that've been clogging the side entrance of our home, awaiting the re-opening of the Amenity Tip, had all miraculously disappeared when we got back from work yesterday evening? There is an Old Boiler Fairy? Fecker must've weighed three hundredweight, minimum. The wall breathed a sigh of relief when it came off its hinges!
#4 I know it's been a 'short' week, but where's my Friday bacon sarnies, colleague?

Enjoy your weekends, y'all.

Labels: Ramblings

Today's lyric:
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"Stagger Lee met Billy and they go down to gambling
Stagger Lee throwed seven - Billy said that he throwed eight
So Billy said, "Hey Stagger! I'm gonna make my big attack
I'm gonna have to leave my knife in your back."

The Clash: "Wrong 'em, Boyo"
From the album: "London Calling"

My non alcohol-fuelled dreams seem to be getting ever more vivid and detailed.

Last night, I was visiting a software house (all part of the job, Ma'am) when I spotted a nitromethane-powered street-legal dragster motorbike for hire.

As. You. Do.

But the engine was mounted so far to the back that you couldn't hear it (surely part of the fun of motorbike-riding?) and the only way I could tell it was on was by looking at the wireless rev counter mounted in the special riding gloves I was wearing.

And it was sooo slow. One gear (automatic) controlling a gutless wonder..

Tonight had better be better.

Today's lyric:
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"On the other side of town a boy is waiting
With fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal
She drives on through the nice anticipating
'Cause he makes her feel the way she used to feel

She rushes to his arms, they fall together
She whispers that it's only for a while
She swears that soon she'll be comin' back forever
She pulls away and leaves him with a smile."

The Eagles: "Lyin' eyes"
From the album: "One of these nights"

So Restless Leg Syndrome is the new (faddy?) illness, eh?

They didn't specify whether, in the male of the genus, the middle leg is also subject to it?

But you should try kippin' with four Burmese cats of variable weight, between the months of September to July (when it's coldest, y'see) to find out if it's possible to move a leg (or any other limb, come to that) when the fancy takes...

Labels: cats, Faddy illnesses, Kipping

Today's lyric:
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"Good Friday arrived, the sky darkened on time, 'til he almost began to negotiate
She held his head like a baby and said "It's okay if you cry."

Elvis Costello: "All this useless beauty"
From the album: "All this useless beauty"

If only

Enjoy your BH's, y'all...

Today's lyric:
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"Now I've made up my mind - I've made my mistake
And I know that she cries for you, when she's barely awake
Well she's going to bend your mind - well I hope it don't break
Now it's my turn to talk and your turn to think
Your turn to buy and my turn to drink
Your turn to cry and my turn to sink down in the Blue Chair
Down in the Blue Chair."

Elvis Costello: "Blue Chair"
From the album: "Blood and Chocolate"

Spotted on a fellow commuter's freebie paper - an ad for "The Dyke Golf Club".

And I thought, No! - they surely couldn't restrict...

Then I saw it was based at The Devil's Dyke, Brighton.

Phew.

I realised this morning that I never did explain the secrecy behind an earlier post.

Mrs.D. is on a GP-approved diet which involves no solid food (or alcohol) for 100 days and only 500 calories per day, via liquid, vitamin-supplemented drinks. And by the end of her sixth week, she'd lost 24lbs. She just wanted to get used to the regime, before 'going public'.

But like a fool, I volunteered to not drink while there was just the two of us at home, a proposition only to be broken if we had guests or were going out. All too rare an event, as it turns out. Hmmm.

The 13.76 in the post title refers to my weight at the start of this vigil, and six weeks on, I'm now 13.44. So 42 days virtually without any wine or beer and not significantly lighter than normal weight fluctuation would generally give rise to?

Only 58 days to go...

Labels: Diet

Today's lyric:
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"Summertime withers as the sun descends
He wants to kiss you. Will you condescend?
Before you wake and find a chill within your bones
Under a fine canopy of lover's dust and humorous bones."

Elvis Costello: "The birds will still be singing"

From the album: "The Juliet Letters"

Watched an interesting programme on C5 last night, which posited the impact on the UK's eastern coast of a nightmare North Sea storm, coinciding on its arrival with the peak of a Spring high tide.

Goodbye (again) Canvey Island.

But also goodbye Thames Barrier (been on that), the Underground and Canary Wharf, so the capitol's main transport system, financial centre - and global confidence in London as a trading centre - washed away in hours.

Selfishly, I hope never to live through such an event occurring, but professionally, I was staggered at the easy destruction of millions of lives and homes and businesses.

In some ways it brought home the devastation of the Indonesian tsunami even more graphically, because you could actually relate to such an event, rather than reacting to the two-dimensional images of catastrophe depicted on tv which, though obviously shocking and distressing in their own right, were sometimes too 'remote' to have the full impact which such a disaster merited.

Labels: Climatology, Observation

Today's lyric:
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"Holidays are dirt-cheap in the Costa del Malvinas
In the Hotel Argentina they can hardly tell between us
For Teresa is a waitress - though she's now known as Juanita
In a tango bar in Stanley or in Puerto Margarita
She's the sweetest and the sauciest, the loveliest - the naughtiest.
She's Miss Buenos Aires in a world of lacy lingerie."

Elvis ostello: "Tokyo Storm warning"
From the album: "Blood and Chocolate"

Twenty five years ago, we were sat with our friends D and L, with NOD barely two months old and gurgling in her crib, while we watched events in the Falklands unwind on the tv and I realised that there was a distinct possibility that if things escalated, I was in a position to be conscripted.

Twenty five years ago. A quarter of a century.

Beggars belief.

* As it's a short week, thought I might make it an Elvis Costello one, lyric-wise?

Labels: Observation