Why the Scots need more things to amuse themselves

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/5105946.stm

I wonder how much it would cost to take out a policy incase the Loch Ness Monster shows up as a stray on my doorstep...

Sounds like home to me...

Last night at rehearsal we had our soloists come along and rehearse a new piece with us. They have a duet to the words of DH Lawrence's Piano. The music and the words are stunning and by the end I was fighting back a flood of tears (note: it's the movement preceding Arise My Love - see Sunday, February 5, 2006's post for my thoughts about that one). Anyways, something about it made me feel rather homesick (not quite sure what though, because although we have a large black piano, winter and my mother does have rather little feet, our family sing-songs usually involved my dad and the guitar instead of my mom and the piano...). At any rate...just wanted to share the words with you (and if this gives you the incentive to come to the concert - I think we may be sold out - sorry!)


Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato.
The glamour of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

Mug Shot

I glanced at my mugs on my desk the other day and thought "mug shot" and it made me giggle (oh, we of easy amusement)

It was to be the first in my "photo of the day" series on flickr, but then my camera batteries died, so I am going to restart the series tomorrow...

Ride 'em ....whoever...

In one of those conversations that I have since forgotten how it got started, Lisa and I started inventing different types of "rodeos" for different segments of the general population (I do remember me saying something about rodeos, and she said "do they still have those?" and I said "Yes" and after a moment's reflection she said "if the person smells, does it then become a BO-deo?" and ti went from there...here's our list (thus far...it seems to be ever expanding)

A rodeo for drug users - ODeo
A rodeo for amphibians - Toadeo
...for prostitutes (or mall Santas, or amusingly, both...) - Hodeo
...for hobbits - frodeo
...for fashion victims - vogue-eo
...for farmers - rod-e-i-e-i-o
...for Romans - tog-eo
...for Inuit - snowdeo
...for people who feel sorry for themselves - woedeo
...for teletubbies - podeo
...for deceased authors - wrote-eo
...for Pillsbury dough boys - poke-eo

I think the list could go on...but it's addictive and I'd better stop...

Spam!

An example of a spam email I had got at work that clearly went through one too many online translations...

"tried ! gurgle but solvate but presuming try defendant on emery but acquit be psychometry ! convalesce the denominate try diffeomorphic try diaphragm not dilogarithm or hawthorn the khartoum not minibike the rooftree see central but stucco be savage on alan a chinese ! civet not drink in cult it create and emissary on emasculate but cern see ashen be circumference and pyrolysis see nostradamus , concise notKeine email hier , monetarist not backstop andit's coherent and sequoia seemay gentile it excretory ,or stud on ludwig on"

I'm convinced!

(PS Don't worry - I didn't actually open it - I copied it from my viewing pane)

Donald, Where's Your Troosers?

Well, it's been two weeks since we left, but the wild roadtrip to Scotland, England and Wales in a weekend was FANTASTIC! Bumping along Britain's highways often listening to what somehow became our official theme song "Donald Where's Your Troosers" we explored 1129 miles of some of the best scenes and highways that Britain has to offer! The highlights included Drew declaring that "Cheshire smells like poo" (because as we passed the "welcome to Chesire sigh, we were accosted by the smell of manure, that really didn't leave us until we left Chesire), happening upon Hadrian's Wall (although we never quite figured out how a three foot high wall was going to keep the Scots out of England - ha ha), watching the sunrise on Loch Lomond (after getting over the disapointment of discovering that Loch is actually just a fancy-dancy word for Lake), the beautiful town of Luss (where everything is perfectly in place and the man who impatiently poured we whisky amatueurs our whisky in the pub was also the man who cooked our breakfast at the village store the next day. He was probably also the postman, school teacher, police officer and doctor), the amusement of perfecting our Scottish accents all the way to Scotland (only to realise that we always ended in a hybrid of Hungarian and Indian. Eventually we decided that adding "Auch" before everything we said worked well enough to keep us happy, and thus we carried on with our bad accents with a bit of "auch" for authenticity's sake), the shoddily shorn Scottish Sheep (picture to follow), discovering the secret sect of the Ninja Methodists (and listening as Dave and Drew worked out the finer points of their theology, including how one should fight back when fighting a Ninja Methodist), driving through random one-car lanes in Wales looking for a road...any road..., the unforgettable moment of popping over the crest of Snowdon just before the final push to the summit, and the hilarious frustration Drew and I felt of being stuck for an hour in a North Welsh traffic jam on a random country road (who knew they had enough cars).

Aaaaand blogger's being stupid and won't let me post them, so I'll have to put some of them on Flickr...