"We're havin' a heat wave": Apologies for the lack of posts recently but, for the benefit of my foreign readers, we are enjoying - and I do mean 'enjoying' - something of a heat wave. It's almost as though nature in its fickle way has saved up our summers from the past five or so years and then given them back all in one go. To be frank, trudging up the stairs to my attic in this heat in order to bash out my 'thoughts for the day' has proved too much - not least because my thoughts along with everything else have dried up in the heat. However, today I intend to make a supreme effort and emit a series of minor rumbles.
Give those six ladies the Medal of Honour or something: For reasons beyond my ken the jury in the Zimmerman trial consisted only of six ladies, something to do with the eccentricities of Florida state law, I believe. Anyway, bless their cotton socks, they blew the froth off the coffee cups and straight back into the malignant faces of Obama, Al Sharpton, the editors of virtually all the American liberal media, the NAACP, the Florida State Attorney and, as an example of just one lying liar, Mr. Matt Gutman, who pretends to be a reporter but is actually a make-up artist!
"Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: I can hardly believe it - not one but two double Corker Awards inside a month! I told you a couple of weeks ago that William Landay's thriller Defending Jacob was worthy of a D&N Double Corker Award but now I have just finished Gillian Flynn's equally superb - I am tempted to describe it as diabolically superb - thriller Gone Girl which has been top of the best seller lists for ages. The twists and turns in the story start very slowly but gradually crash in like a landslide. I don't care if you have to pay extra on your airline baggage - just make sure you take those two books with you on your hols!
And lo, the great religious icon was struck down: I refer, of course, to the sudden death of the beloved - not! - National Health Service which has finally been revealed as a mass killer on an industrial scale. Why is any one surprised, I ask myself, it was obviously headed in that direction from its misconceived inception back in the 1940s by Attlee and his socialist dimwits. Perhaps they should replay that Olympic agit-prop from last year in which NHS nurses and hospital beds with 'likkle kiddie-winkies' in them wheeled round in celebration but this time with a few changes. Let them show the nurses and bureaucrats throwing the bodies of their patients into those 19th century furnaces they displayed with such scorn.
Even as they lose it shows how good the Aussies are - dammit! Well, that was a squeaker of a Test Match and England made it but only just. Why was I always suspicious about all those reports that the Aussie cricket team had been reduced to village level? Show them that little can of ashes and a Pommie team and suddenly they play out of their boots. Should be a cracking good competition.
And talking of 'hearties': I can hardly wait for the start of the next 'footie' season. Sir Alex 'Wasp-Eater' is no longer boss of the mighty Manchester United; the Portuguese braggadocio is back in control of Chelsea; some unknown Spaniard whom everyone calls a genius is the new boss at Manchester City; Monsieur Wenger now say that ''e zees it' and is determined to spend more than just the loose change in his pockets on new players; and the Scousers are trying to hang on to their maniacal centre forward who bites full backs. And my local team, about which I know even less than I do of quantum physics, has just managed to reach the second tier of English 'footie' - well done, 'the Glovers' - called that because Yeovil used to be famous for its gloves - well, it may be boring but it's better than nothing.
A trip down memory lane: Last night we has some very old and dear friends round for supper which we ate out on our patio so warm was the weather. It is an indication of exactly how old they are as friends because on a previous meet-up we had reminisced about drinking Mateus Rosé when we were youngsters and thinking at the time how sophisticated we were - yeeees, quite! Anyway, last night, for a giggle, they brought a bottle round with them. Perfectly pleasant but after a couple of my dry martinis I find that almost anything is pleasant!
Here endeth the rumbles for today
Like you, I keep my desktop machine in the attic. There are a lot of steps between me and the attic. However, I have solved the problem - I have an Apple iPad! Perhaps you should join the world of the naturally superior Apple users?
Posted by: backofanenvelope | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 13:30
My wife doesn't like thrillers, so please feel free to recommend as many whodunnits as you like.
Posted by: dearieme | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 14:02
Dammit, you 'Apple-oids' get everywhere! Normally, I quite like climbing up here to my eyrie - keeps me well away from household chores and the like - method in my madness.
Well, DM, I would say that 'Defending Jacob' is more of a novel than an old-fashioned thriller. Slowly revealed character is paramount and, at the end, truly shocking - neither I nor the Memsahib can quite forget it.
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 14:12
I work with an Englishman who still insists, even after the recent revelations, that NHS is one of the things he misses about England. He has the same insurance I have, but he says that NHS is more "civilized" than what we have. I agree that the American system is ... Medieval ... But all the same. Civilized?
Posted by: Dom | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 14:40
Pssst David?
You've been nattering on about for some years now as how you'd like to get on with FOX sos you'd be able to improve your chances to meet up with some of America's "neat wimmen"?
Well - tho' you'd likely need to tighten your standards - only 'cause it was 'standards' wot's given you this opportunity but:
http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-few-more-amateurs-please_13.html
Posted by: JK | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 20:42
"I work with an Englishman who still insists, even after the recent revelations, that NHS is one of the things he misses about England."
It is truly astonishing the delusion that pervades a great number of Brits about the NHS. No amount of factual evidence will dissuade this genre of person of the failure in practice of the NHS. And if the principle of state owned monopolies being an intrinsically broken by design system for operating the means of production and distribution is raised as a criticism, the riposte is an accusation of dogmatism and ideological fundamentalism; even though to cling to a failed by design, and failed in practice, ideology is dogmatic and fundamentalist in the extreme itself!
I worked at the Basildon and Thurrock University Hospital on contract for a time and what I witnessed was beyond belief: filthy cob webs hanging out of the ventilation system above the main thoroughfare in reception; someone's snot and bogey collection plastered on the walls of the staff toilet directly above the wards; failure of the cleaner to remove the faux shit flakes from the toilet walls placed by me using Mars bar chocolate (this was during Gordie Brown's "deep cleaning" of NHS hospitals - remember that?) 6 inches above the floor, let alone the ancient snot and bogey collection; and finally the hint of a whiff of corruption, proper brown paper envelopes handed over in car parks, something I have never seen or heard of in 30 years of working in the IT sector. All this, only in one place, the NHS.
A truly vile organisation, and its supporters as brainwashed as Winston sat in the cafe after a session in room 101, quaffing his Victory gin and toasting the regime.
SoD
Posted by: Lawrence Duff | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 20:45
I think, Dom, that 'SoD' has replied better than I ever could!
Thanks, JK, big bollock dropped obviously.
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 20:52
Thanks for the book recommendations. I will reserve them from my library.
I have, just minutes ago, finished reading "The Rosie Project" by Aussie Graeme Simsion. Supposed to be the funniest thing published in years.
Amusing, and different I would say and that's about it.
And so I'll look forward to your offerings.
The Chinaman has been watching the cricket night after night and I think is probably OK with the result. There would appear to be some up and coming talent in the Aussie team. Just you wait!
Posted by: Andra | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 21:55
When I posted the above there'd been "no comment" from our NTSB - it appears now that the agency has "fessed up" we've something of the There's something wrong with our bloody ships today with our companies depending on unpaid (untrained) temporary interns.
Still. Those in command should've caught a whiff I think.
http://news.yahoo.com/asiana-says-tv-station-damaged-reputation-083102599.html
Posted by: JK | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 22:18
Oi, Duffers, your "Spaniard" is a Chilean. The gifted Spaniard who ran Chelsea last season has mooched off elsewhere. Pity. I'm glad to see the back of Sir Odious; I suspect that Mourinho may have gone a little potty. But they'll have to produce some season if it is to get close to the excitement of Lions vs Wallabies or the first Ashes test.
Posted by: dearieme | Sunday, 14 July 2013 at 22:41
Spanish, Chilean . . . details, DM, mere details!
JK, more like 'there's something wrong with your bloody media today', I think.
Andra, you tell the Chinaman to take it easy - watching the Ashes this year could be, er, stressful. But why aren't you watching?
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 15 July 2013 at 08:37