[happiness] an owl for shirl

[glances] when you least expect it

It's never expected.

Perhaps she mistakenly got the idea that you'd glanced more than once and perhaps you had but you couldn't let on to yourself that you had. So she drops the head and retreats behind her eyes to sneak a peek and you become aware she's actually staring in a non-staring way.

You try to drain your cheeks of any blood which might have inadvertently found its way over there and start the checklist - tummy, muscles, hope the face is all right - oh it's too ridiculous for words and then you stub the toe on the chair as you go to sit down.

She's convulsed with silent mirth and you sigh to yourself. Time comes to part and she goes her way but doesn't go far, organizing her jacket, hair and so on. You walk out there, matter-of-factly and ask if anyone in the general area can change a fifty.

She can't so you make a dry remark and it comes across as a witticism but you only realize this once it's all over.

Nonchalant spring in the step

Now there're absolutely no more constructed situations either can devise so it's a matter-of-fact farewell and you curse as she walks away and you skip across the road through three lanes of traffic and give a quick glance back over there, just as she also does.

With a newly found spring in the step, you'd whistle if you could but you can't so you don't.

So you go home and inflict it on your readership.

[monday quiz] get ten - be over the moon

Nice little quiz for those with a few minutes lunch break today:

1. Which weather phenomenon translates from the Spanish for 'little boy'.

2. Ambassador to the Court of Saint James is the official title for Ambassadors of which country?

3. Which castle is on the island of Anglesey?

4. Which N. African seaport's name is Spanish for white house?

5. Which is the only vowel on a standard keyboard that is not on the top line of letters?

6. Globe and Jerusalem are types of what kind of vegetable?

7. How many people take part in the dance of a quadrille?

8. Rather than a hatter, what is the proper name for a maker of hats?

9. Which leader said during World War I, "Drink is doing us more damage than all the German submarines put together?"

10. If a dish is a la Florentine, which ingredient is it assumed to have?

Answers are here.

[monday, monday] can't trust that day

It's Weather Market Monday

As you know, Monday comes from Mani (Old English Mona), the Germanic Moon god. Similarly, the names in Latin-based languages such as the Italian name (Lunedi), the French name (lundi), the Spanish name (Lunes), and the Romanian name (Luni) come from the Latin name for Moon, luna.

The Russian word, eschewing pagan names, is понедельник (poniediélnik), meaning "after Sunday." The Hindi word for Monday is Somvar, with Som being the Sanskrit name for the moon. The Japanese word for Monday is getsuyōbi (月曜日) which means day of the moon.

Part of the Monday Club's agenda stresses support for what it claims are "traditional Conservative values", including "resistance to 'political correctness'". Most traditionalists who left or lapsed after 1992 have been refused re-entry to the Club and even to its occasional meetings. The current club chairman is Lord Sudeley.

Black Monday is the name given to Monday, October 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped dramatically, and on which similar enormous drops occurred across the world.

Every other day, every other day, every other day of the week is fine, yeah; but whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes you'll find me cryin' all of the time. [Mamas and the Papas]

Personally, I'd like to see the negative aspects of the day reversed and that's why my nicest clients and nicest girls are in the second half of Monday, leaving the first half for all those jobs we promise ourselves we'll do but never do. That's why I call it "Do Day". It's a day I do, at my own pace.

Have a lovely Monday.

[hate the music] different strokes

There came a time in the late 60s or early 70s when popular music [not in the sense of "pop" but of music people listened to and enjoyed] fragmented.

I don't know when you'd date it from but the situation which had existed where a new song was released in either America or Swinging Britain and every teenager in the world discussed it seemed to … well … fragment.

Woody

Now some people listened to Uriah Heep or Ten Years After and some didn't. Everyone still listened to Zep, Floyd and Deep Purple and even had time for JJ Cale and the Eagles. But coming in from the edges were John Cale, Lou Reed, Nazareth and of course - punk.

Now some wouldn't give Wings airtime and others loved it. Deutsch Kosmik Musik and Hawkwind left many cold. We probably didn't realize how bad it had got until the late 70s when, if you went to a party, someone would put some track on and expect everyone would dance to it but some other guy would go over, take it off and put on another genre and so on.

Woody

My first inkling was around 1980 in London when I'd play Selecter and the Specials, the Beat and Bad Manners, Splodginessabounds and other garage groups hawked about by musicians on the street plus, strangely, Fairport Convention - a vibrant time but not everyone's cup of tea.

And there was music I wouldn't sully my player with. So when I read this article yesterday, though I didn't agree with his targets necessarily, I had to chuckle at his sentiments:

I consider myself a fairly pluralistic cosmopolitan fellow when it comes to music … but there are some musics and sounds that I find unendurable and I actually resent the fact that they even exist. So here's Part One of an ongoing series of Crimes Against Music.

Dixieland/Trad Jazz image: Code words for white guys with moustaches, straw boaters, bowties and striped shirts pretending to be playing a rudimentary form of New Orleans jaunty jazz. Banjo, trombone, tuba and clarinet all in one band and all playing at once! Hand me a blindfold and earplugs please.

Woody

The Piano Accordion: [I]t's a contraption from hell that sounds like an emphysemic portable home organ and when played looks like a fat man having a difficult bowel movement and playing with his own nipples. Oh yes, and smiling at us while he does it!

White People Playing Faux Reggae: Eric started it all [and] performed it as if he was anaesthetized from the neck down … It's not simple, it's subtle, it's not in the beat it's in the spaces in between, it's not rhythm it's riddem.

Wordless Choruses: The last resort for lazy uninspired songwriters who insult people's intelligence by singing baby talk instead of using coherent language. Sting's De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da. I rest my case.

Woody

Prog Rock: [I]n the early 70s, a bunch of otherwise useless Art College and University bearded white boy wannabes abandoned song, melody, meaning and purpose for pretension, pomp and meander, often over a whole side of an album! With frequent, frightfully clever, time changes and Year 10 poetic doggerel castratoed above it all, they often consorted with symphony orchestras to legitimize their own plunkings.

Jazz Fusion: [O]ften with too-clever-by-half "complex" time signatures, rhythmic patterns, and extended track lengths … draining all character and integrity out of both. Don't you hate virtuosos? They never shut up and play the music but instead are full of "Gee Wiz Hey Mum Look At Me!" tricks and technique. Once they got hold of synthesizers there was no hope, it was like giving whisky to the Indians!

Woody

And so on.

A good article but it makes me wonder what your own pet hates are. For the record, mine include saccharine sweet 60s, three piece, thin combo songs, bland super-serious Yes or ELR, bland Billy Joel whom we're told is the last word in cool, Gary Glitter and that whole 70s yuk, Sweet and that ilk, Supertramp and Supergroups, ageing rockstars, Wings, boring, thumping clubbing music [except for some trance] and my pet hate - those 90s and 00s stars who think they have to throw the voice about and hack up good songs to impress. These last you always see "singing" at superbowls in some sort of "how long can you yodel the one word" contest.

Tinny

I s'pose my pet hates come down to any singers with giant egos or chips on their shoulders for no genuine reason and my pet loves are those who are genuine, humble and consistently high quality.

[world cup] one last time, promise