Back to Basics

Six weeks in Australia, with several days in Singapore there and back, keep me buoyed up as I tread the domestic boards with a deck scrub.

Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam comes to mind at this time, as is only to be expected. All that guff about spiritual values, culminating in the cry "As for living, our servants will do that for us".

I should, by now, have uploaded a wilderness of photos for friends to enjoy. But on our return we were greeted by the accumulated dust that only Spring sunshine makes one attack.

The trip to Tasmania several years ago never got documented either. Thankfully, I suffer from the indolence that ensures I will never burn the midnight oil or develop unnecessary wrinkles from trying to communicate all my insights with a wider world.

Living is quite enough.

This Blog Needs a Sub Editor

Thanks to mis-spelling "no" as "now" a comment post on another blog makes absolutely no sense and an intended irony clangs, un-heeded, to the ground.

I know that "Katherine" is not "Kathering", but energy needed for scrubbing yet another floor must be saved and more editing left for another day.

Worst of all, having got muddled between English and French grammar rules, a post about Jospeph Conrad, where "hubris" should rule the sentence, is now a mare's nest that would drive even Henry James to drink.
Better luck next time...

Beating "Le Flab"

I have just come across Duflab, a wordy site that references Noam Chomsky quite a bit.
It's big among Francophone pundits in Canada and I'll probably get round to deciphering what all the fuss is about in time.
There must be something about the French language that turns every writer into would-be linguistic Napoleons. One of the experts there has (without any reference to a possible hidden joke) banished the word "documentaire".

Suddenly I am back remembering a Summer spent in a Colonie de Vacances where uniformity ruled.
"Qu'est-ce qui se passe ici?" was yelled daily for weeks. Blessed if I know, but, given time and energy, will be happy to try to find out...

Location? Location?

I have the same reaction to IPs sweeping through my Firewall as I would have to a herd of wildebeest charging through my kitchen.

They look too numerous... and messy.

Today's pick for scrutiny is 98.137.80.31
Suddenly Sunnyvale in California seems interesting. Up to now I had never heard of the place and shall search for photos on Flickr so that I can imagine what it is like.
In fact, studying IPs can help extend one's knowledge of geography...

"Writing only leads to more writing"

My favourite (among many) writer, Colette, seems to have put her finger on the problem. You send an email... an answer comes back... the blasted things breed like rabbits... more writing, explanations, congratulations, counter-congratulations, mob hugs, Twitter campaigns. There's no end to the blabbering.

A friend recently told me of a web site that had over a million hits. I was horrified. That would crash the system, I felt. My idea of success to have nothing in my in-box and a gentle jog-trot of comments back and forth among an increasing number of friendly bloggers.

So far, this has been achieved.