Category Archives: A Digression

These are mostly little pleasant rambles. Something to amuse, to think about, to enjoy. Often not about anything you can put a finger on, but there’s something there nonetheless.

A Digression, Film, Music, Shopping

Two Lovers Please

I like movies. I like non-formulaic movies with at least a little thought in them.

I’ve heard good things about the movie Two Lovers -at least enough to make me think I might like to see it. I’m sure it is a good movie, but I won’t be going to see it.

I generally go to the cinema alone. I prefer it that way, but anyway my wife has little interest in movies even if we did get time off together.
So the thought of walking up to the ticket office alone and saying “Two Lovers please” is just too much. I could buy online and collect at the door, but I despise the idea of extra charges for such things -THEY’RE SAVING MONEY BY HAVING NOBODY THERE why should we pay more??

Another film I felt awkward buying a ticket for was “Michael Clayton”. Thankfully I hadn’t realised how awkward it was to say it until I was standing there with cash in hand saying it. It just felt wrong somehow. Not entirely sure why with that one.

Are movies with people’s names harder to say at the ticket desk?

I recall having a similar dilemma paying for Amelie. I think that might have a longer name in some countries (?) but around here it’s just called Amelie. The problem for me there though was the young couple who paid before me asked for two tickets to “Ay-muh-lee-uh”.

Even though I knew it to be wrong I had a sudden burst of …FEAR, is the only word I can think of, that I was about to say it wrong.
It induced a kind of mental stutter that heard me purchasing “One for the same please”.

Have you ever felt awkward saying something or someone’s name?

[By the way, this post was first made (by me)  in a reply to a Jett Loe post in The Film Talk]

A Digression, Gardening, Rat, THING, TV

DEAD RAT

A little while ago my next door neighbour called to the door and asked if he could take some snips from flowers in our garden. I said of course, work away.

Long story, shortened: The previous owners of our house planted hundreds of flowers and plants all over the place. During the past 9 years of our tenure the garden has been forced to stand on its own two feet and fend for itself for the main part. If I’ve done nothing else, I like to think I’ve taught it some independence. Deirdre next door does some flower arranging every now & again. Her husband Con helps her gather what’s needed.

So Con went off and allowed me return to Series 1 of Damages (which incidentally is both awfully compelling and often just awful -a trend I’ve noticed in other TV shows such as The Tudors -it’s like they know they could be great, but are afraid to commit to being really great in case they lose the mass appeal. So every now & again they liberally apply Dumbdown (TM) and sprinkle it with an over-supply of Obviousness and pop it back in for a few minutes of crispy Crassness -a little something to please everyone, which results in nobody being happy with the end product.)

Glenn Close was being nasty and was about to make a nasty phonecall to another nasty lawyer when Con tapped on the window once again. It turned out he had made a discovery which can be summed up in two words: Dead Rat.

Yuck.

Continue reading DEAD RAT →

A Digression, Happiness, THING

Victim o’ the wood

There is something sinister about a lone man in a wood don’t you think? No companion, no dog, no jogging outfit -just a man alone, walking perhaps. In a wood.

I mean, a woman would obviously be nuts to go walking alone in a dark wooded area, but only for her lack of fear. Who knows what danger lurks around the nearest tree? I’m not justifying the fear, simply pointing out that it is logical (or at least human) even if irrational, to think it. And it’s likewise irrational not to.

But a man alone in a wood is most certainly a psycho killer. He is on his way back from dumping the body and now you are a witness and now he is going to kill you. Nobody else is within sight or earshot. The path is bringing you closer to him. There is no way you can escape without highlighting your fear. You know your fear is irrational. You know it is nuts to run away. You are forced to pass him on the narrow path, placing yourself within easy reach of his murderous hands. Will you be the fool or the victim?

A short while ago I was that man -the psycho killer in the wood I mean. I confess I didn’t murder anyone, but I might as well have had.

Continue reading Victim o’ the wood →

A Digression, fish, Food, Happiness, Shopping, THING

The Entire Life of A Happiness

I think Happiness is mis-sold, overvalued and under-appreciated. I mean the emotion/ state-of-mind rather than the (excellent, though difficult-at-first) film by Todd Solodnz.

Happiness is difficult to do right -and almost impossible to maintain for very long. All’s it takes to rain on a day-long flotation of upbeat positivity is often a dismissive sigh, a shake of the head or an eyes-a-sky selfish shrug from a “friend” for it all to come crashing down.

I’ll give you an example of the birth and death of Happiness…

Continue reading The Entire Life of A Happiness →

A Digression, Eurovision, THING

The Hole Tooth

Fluffy clouds and fuzzy bunnies joined me in song and merriment as I led the parade through thronged ticker-taped streets, when all at once I was violently awakened by little satnav shouting “Daddy wake up! Today is the day you’re getting your tooth out!”

I had forgotten about it. Young Lucy’s feminine senses in date-management have thankfully (or not as the case may be) kicked into full swing. Last Wednesday she told me “this time next week you’ll be having your tooth out.” I had forgotten then too.

Continue reading The Hole Tooth →

A Digression, Shopping, THING

Shoulda Coulda Woulda

I was shopping again. I know, I know. I won’t keep going on about supermarkets, but let me relay this quickie…

I buy most of the shopping in this house -for 2 adults and 2 children. As I was finishing up, I passed by the drinks area and noticed some Polish beer I had bought previously. Knowing I had one bottle of same already at home I thought I might as well buy another. As Noah himself used to say, “Pair the beers”.

(Yes, I’m not sad enough to buy beer one bottle at a time thankyouverymuch. I do already have other types of beer in the house -not a vast selection or anything, but probably enough for a person or two to last a night if need be, if they didn’t mind mixing & matching & possibly swigging a can or two out of date towards the end of the evening. But this was a kind of ‘specialty beer’ and I only wanted one more).

Continue reading Shoulda Coulda Woulda →

A Digression, Kids, THING

Daddy Daddy

My 3 year old son was calling me earlier. “Daddy! Daddy!” he shouted.
I walked into the room and asked him if my name was daddy. He said yes.
“So you’re saying Daddy is my name?”
“Yes” he nodded.
“But what’s my name?” I demanded.
“You’re my daddy, so you’re daddy,” he reasoned.
“But is daddy my name?”
“Yes” he said.
“So when I was a little boy like you my mother called me daddy?” I asked.
“No,” he admitted.
“So what did she call me?”
He thought about it for two seconds before saying… “Son!”

A Digression, Kids, THING

The Balloon Man

I was stopped in a late-morning traffic jam on a dreary midweek trek to college in my twelve-year-old 1979 Fiesta when I chanced upon a curious sight: A grown man, probably around the forty-mark, hanging balloons on the pillars outside his house. He had already taped or tied three onto one pillar and had begun work on another set of three balloons on the second. I was dismayed. When I witnessed him taping up an A4 sheet with the words “PARTY ON HERE” I was totally perplexed. “He must be the saddest man in the world,” I thought to myself as I shook my head with a sympathetic guffaw and edged another three feet toward my destination. “How could a grown man spend time hanging balloons for his child’s birthday (and be seen to be doing so, without shame, on a busy road)?” It was beyond me.

Continue reading The Balloon Man →

A Digression, THING

The God of Queues

It’s December 23rd 2008 and I’m back from a harrowing shop. I realise now I never knew before today what a harrowing shop was. Now I am older, wiser and beaten to a pulp. I’ve never seen so much harrow in one shop.

It was like pushing a milk-float through molasses in a high-street Patricks Day riot. Don’t stop or you’ll turn around to find the trolley bashed & overturned 3 aisles down under a mountain of knock-down, knocked-down tins of beans. Bend to pick up a sliced pan and chances are you have just avoided being slapped in the face by a flying duck as litle Johnny relieves the boredom of shopping by helping his mother in creative ways. Duck! If you insist on standing still for more than 10 seconds to source a decent sausage, take care to curl your toes and tighten your buttocks. It’s Christmas out there and the hordes (which, admittedly, I added to) mean to stock up for it. If that means cutting you off or cutting you up so be it. You’ll have deserved your just desserts if you get in the way of the business of festive good-kill.

Continue reading The God of Queues →