Thursday, April 03, 2014

egypt, fields, buses and urinals

hi there

i am uncertain, really, if i am used to a Thursday being quite as busy as this one has been. there is a school of thought, one that i might have encouraged on an organizational level in my heyday, that everything of a week that was after Wednesday (morning) (early) was downhill, and thus should be taken steadily, slowly and as relaxed as possible. hello, friends at former verk.

anyway, off we go on a sort of semi-chronological review of the day today then. now, i would like to think i dress as well as i can, which accepts and respects my lack of style and sense in this respect. i am just not as good with clothes and colours as a number of my friends are; Spiros of course in particular.

today, however, using my own deft skill and knowledge - yep, i asked my (considerably) better half to help pick a matching set - i dressed as reasonably smart as i could. so good, in fact, that a selfie was in order.



not bad that, if i say so myself. a step up from my usual "that will do", at the least. and yes, oh yes indeed, clever and eagle eyed viewer, that is the legendary and celebrated Valentine ironing board over my shoulder that you can see. or you can notice now, if you like, look you see.

why was i dressed so fancy, as in to an almost human level? why, to take the bus of course. in their wisdom, you see, they have made bus travel here a luxury thing all of a sudden. they have limited the service and pushed the prices up. best one dress so smart for it then, since they seem to believe they are doing us a favour by letting us get on it.

no doubt soon they will make the service even more luxurious by limiting the service further. no doubt you are possibly asking why is it that i even take the bus when i have a perfectly good car at my disposal. well, i don't like driving. never have, really, and twenty or so years of driving in Johannesburg (give or take a couple of worse years in Cape Town) did nothing to foster a love for it.

besides, when one stands at a bus station, one has the time to admire things likely a lovely, classic English village field, shrouded in the mists of an overcast morning.



today was a day when it was not only i, simple me, that was getting dressed all fancy and nice. well, that goes without saying to a degree, for everyone in our house always dresses better than me anyway. i am, i suppose, the Andrew Ridgley of our house in the dressing sense.

James was sort of doing an Egypt thing at school today, so through the magic of the internet and a postal system which is of a mind to deliver things on time, he went off dressed in the way of an Egyptian.



yeah, that's one of them pharaoh things. in retrospect, yes, you are right - we probably should have just gotten him a class Fez and a sign or placard to hold that had "whatever government is in place i am going to stage violent protests against it" written on it. never mind, perhaps next time.

quite smart this outfit is, mind. i wonder if they do an adult version of it? i mean an adult version you can buy, for i do not fancy becoming king or emperor of Egypt just to get the outfit. and anyway, they always just made kids king, didn't they? not sure, will have to watch that one Indiana Jones film again.

it will be class if the next time they do dress up they can do Irish. a pair of sunglasses and you are Bono, a beanie and you are Edge, and anything else you fancy and you are one of the other two out of U2 that no one looks at anyway.

yes, indeed the boys did have a go at that Walk Like An Egyptian thing, as suggested by that band that did that song that that guy wrote for them. and Eternal Flame. no, they did a song called that, not the gas fire thing they have on the go at Kennedy's grave.



splendid, good work boys!

going back, for a bit, to the ways of the bus stop, and here's something i have been meaning to take a picture of for ages, and did indeed take a picture of today. someone has taken the time to beautify the back of a signpost with a smart stencil of Che Guevara. it's been there for a while, so i am guessing any qualified person sent to clean it has simply said it is too awesome to remove.



nope, no idea on the random car parked there. i did briefly hold some hope that it had something to do with this dogging business i have heard about but thus far have not experienced. however, i saw not one person walking a dog, and nothing that i imagine happens in the world of dogging happened to, on, in or near the car.

perhaps it was left there by someone who had gone for a walk or something. we shall just have to leave it as one of those mysteries of this world, alas.

i imagine that one or two of you are quite interested to see how this quitting/cutting down on smoking thing is going, so here's another one of them selfie things at the bus stop, look you see.



meanwhile, away from today, and away from the bus as point of fact, i was recently able to unpack and set up my proper computer, that is the one i am writing this on. so if this post is better than any other from the last three months or so, that is why.

when, of course, i can get my hands on it. my (considerably) better half and William appear to believe that i have set up my computer for them to play class games of Angry Birds on.



but back to the day today, and indeed back to Egypt. i thought it would be rather splendid to get a picture of James and i showing off our fancy clothes for the day today. sadly, or perhaps happily, you can't actually see what i am wearing, but i think i got a pretty good picture anyway!



a somewhat slightly less better picture would be the next one. it is with no pride and with some reluctance that i post it, really. sheer curiosity wins.

as i was out and about around town i stopped off to get a bite to eat. i was well impressed with the fact that the establishment in which i dined had gone to the trouble of bizarre purple lights in the restroom. sadly i do not believe that the blueberry phone camera thing captures the purple ways of the lighting, but for those interested here you go anyway.



oh yes of course Spiros was very, very interested. he has vowed, as point of fact, to from now on only eat in places that feature purple bathroom lights. i wish him, as i am sure you all do, the very best of luck with this.

from a personal preference perspective, i really don't mind what colour lights are in a bathroom, really, just so long as they work.

yeah, another image of a misty field, or misty meadow if you want, to remove the idea of the image above.



what else, or what exactly, did i do in town that required taking the bus on the day today? not really prepared to say, although it did involve me getting yet another film of The Muppets for William, since he now thinks (rightly) that they are the best thing ever.

i did other things, too. but more, maybe, later.

instead of wandering off for another cigarette i have just done a blast of that pump thing. blimey. really chokes. i think maybe it is supposed to punish you for thinking of smoking rather than it is something to act as a replacement. that or the inner workings of my mouth (as opposed to the outer?) are so knacked that it just does not work for me like it is supposed to. if we assume, for the moment, that it is supposed to work as a sort of pleasant alternative.

yes, go on then, a bookend sort of thing; a selfie of me later on in the day.



and that would be that, then, for the day today. well, except for me being of a mind to bundle up some entirely random items and post them to, let's think, yes, Ireland. or thereabouts.

hope you have all had a splendid, good day!

more as and when it happens in a way that is worth mentioning!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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