No, I'm not interested in
watching TV on my mobile phone -- or the same reason that I'm not
interested in having a pee in my tumble dryer!
Mock The Week
Good thing:
Have I mentioned my new
"unhealthy obsession" with Stephen Fry?! I really don't know where this is
coming from - it's not like I'm not busy with my existing unhealthy
obsessions! He's just so great, and there's so much stuff I still have to
catch up with! Thank God for youtube, LOL! I am currently reading
Paperweight - it makes me happy! :-)
Here's an excerpt from the book: a Trefusius broadcast on Esperanto. If
you know what I mean you'll know what I mean... LOL
[...] Languages are like towns: they must grow organically and for good reason. Esperanto is like a new town, Telford or Milton Keynes; it has, linguistically speaking, ample walkways, spacious parking, rational traffic flow and all the modern amenities: but there are no historic sites, no great towering landmarks: there is no feeling that mankind has grown and lived and worked here, shaping architecture according to necessity, power or worship.
The English language, however, is like York or Chester or Norwich or London -- absurd narrow twisting streets that strangers are so lost in, no parking, no velodrome: but there are churches, castles, cathedrals, customs houses, the remnants of old slums, and old palaces. Our past is there. But not just past, these cities are not museums, they contain the present too: estates, office blocks, contraflow cycle paths. They are living things, towns and languages. When we speak English, the old of the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Johnson, Tennyson and Dickens is uttered in the same breath as the new of advertising and Blankety Blank and Any Questions. In out language the Barbican Centre stands near St Paul's.
Not so for the French of course, who have fouled things up most awfully; the reason that all but the most banal people are agreed that Paris is an absurd and pointless city is that it has not really changed in over fifty years. No tall buildings are allowed within its centre. It is the same city that people rightly loved in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, when it was truly ancient and modern. Now it is just ancient. The ridiculous French language is controlled and regulated too: words are proscribed or approved by a board of academicians roughly equal in understanding to a not very bright pencil-sharpener.
Now of course the Esperantists don't argue that everyone should speak Esperanto, merely that it is a natural choice of second language, just as no one is suggesting that all towns should really be like Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes just happens to make an ideal conference centre and Esperanto makes an ideal conference language. And in this sad world there is a great deal of conferencing to be done. People who have never read a book in their lives have a dim idea in their heads that it is clever to argue that because there are no great works of literature written in Esperanto it is therefore a bad language to learn. Makes no sense. May as well argue that no one should live in Perth Australia because it has no palaces or abbeys; it's beside the point, snobbish and illogical -- but then that's what most people are, isn't it? [...]
Oh, dear! What a week! I think I'll have a heart attack, LOL! There so much going on at work - I have been working 10 hours every day. And for the next 5 weeks I will only be in the office 2-3 days per week!
My trips to Rome and Paris are planned, and I'm also seeing Granada - and finally Munich! They have been "forced" to take me, LOL Fair enough, they have been pissing me off big time lately! (DON'T get me started!!)
I even managed to book my professional trips "around" my personal pleasure trips - it's madness that I have managed to get this signed off! LOL
For October 17th I will go straight down to London to the Pigalle gig after work. The next morning I'll fly from London to Paris, and on Friday night straight from Paris to Vienna for the DJ gig! The company then pays for my "return" flight to London from Paris -- IF there's a gig at Ronnie Scott's on Sunday, I'll stay for that also, and probably drive up to Sheffield early on Monday morning... I will never sleep again! LOL
If anything else happens when
I'm somewhere else in the world, I'm afraid I'll have to pass - I can't
fit anything more in!
but it's looking good so far. The good thing about travelling for work is
that they pay taxis and nice hotels. Amanda even paid for the Rome hotel
on Saturday next week! I am staying the weekend because I've never been in
Rome before.
Last week I had my 6-month appraisal, and everything is supa-dupa - only good feedback, I am "defining" the role, bringing value to the accounts, they want me to start training a junior, blabla. I was waiting for the "...BUT", but there isn't any apparently. I should not swear so much, maybe.
The other day I went to the Chinese doctor - I had been wanting to do that for ages, and now I finally had a reason: since my last 2 colds my left ear has never been back to normal. I can't get the pressure in my tubes equalised. I had half forgotten about it until on Monday night when I was lying in bed I suddenly heard this loud banging outside. Somebody was banging on a steel door, which was quite annoying at 1AM in the morning. I was wondering who could be making such a racket in the middle of the night until I finally realised that the noise wasn't coming from the outside at all but from inside my ear!!! I panicked completely thinking I had developed tinnitus! And I don't want THAT!! I hysterically swallowed 3 Sudafed and sprayed half a bottle of Nasivin up my nose, and it quieted it down a bit. The next day I went to the pharmacy, but they said I would have to see a doctor. Trying to see a doctor in the UK is quite pointless most of the time, because they usually just send you home with Ibuprofen or Paracetamol, so I decided to give the Chinese "ear candles" a try. They lit a torch in my ears which draws out impurities. It felt dangerous, but seemed to be effective right away. I was also given some ear drops which I have been using for the past 3 days, and I must say it has gotten better!
