There’s a very old TV set in the staff room where I work, it’s one with a big sliding knob for volume control. It was made in a time when they allowed people to have direct influence over the volume, brightness and contrast of their TV feed. I don’t like these days of predetermined increments – I’m always yearning for the hidden volume between the clicks – I think they may be broadcasting secret messages at those frequencies. Anyway I’ve discovered that the afternoon is where TV schedulers hide all the films, so I keep catching little fragments of films on my lunch hour. Never seeing the start or the end of a story becomes quite disorienting after a while – all the fragments bleed into one undifferentiated narrative and this starts to corrupt my own memory, so I get to the point where I think I’ve actually experienced these things directly.
This week I have seen or done some or all of the following:
Worn a frock coat and tricorn hat whilst lowering a young boy down a well to find a jewel hidden behind a marked brick.
Worked as a hard-bitten newspaper reporter initially sceptical of a man’s innocence.
Had a nasty attack of claustrophobia after being miniaturised, put in a nuclear submarine and injected into somebody’s arterial system.
Found a man’s hat with his name sewn inside at a murder scene.
Driven along a freeway in the US with a live pigeon stuck to my head.
Am I alone in finding this story terrifying? Seems to me that this throws serious doubt on the alleged weight-loss properties of lettuce. But let me ask you this Newsround…whatever happened to Roberto?? The world of jumbo rabbits is clearly a fickle place – but some of us remember.
What is this insatiable desire to find bigger and bigger rabbits? I fear that behind it all is John Craven, with a napkin round his neck and traces of rabbit pie on his chin. Luckily the Italians have not forgotten, and have created this touching and lasting memorial to Roberto.
…yes, yes that’s his bloody name Conor McNicholas. He crops up on tv every now and again and before my brain has even had time to decode the information from my retinas, my mouth is shouting ‘Cock. Cock. Cock’ and similarly inspired variations on this. I take my hat off though to the far more charming, and somehow accuate description of him as a ‘bleeding glow stick’. Since I can find no reference to this excellent quote anywhere else, I can’t help feeling that the ‘waspish commentators’ are in fact the authors of that item.
Anyway… I suppose there’s nothing really to be gained by marvelling yet again how awful the nme is these days, though if you still think you might have a nerve ending that hasn’t been bludgeoned into numbness yet, this might do it for you. I can’t get too worked up about it, though I think this, which is old news is more depressing.
Conor McNicholas (back to front name), Alexis Petri Dish (stupid bunsen burner name), it’s good when people you don’t like very much have silly names. Jeremy Clarkson is far too normal a name for such an inordinate knob….whereas Bono obviously pretty much does the job….. I need to think of some more examples to work this up into a theory….
I’ve been thinking about squirrels a lot recently. Working in the middle of the park, my awareness of them is at an all-time high. Keenly aware you could say.
I see them everyday, doing that thing they do – fevered activity and then momentary motionlessness – like they’re playing musical statues but only they can hear the music.
At first I didn’t see it, but after a few days I started to get a strong sense that I was seeing the same squirrels in exactly the same locations as the previous day. The same key positions always occupied by the same little faces, avidly munching, if I’m not very much mistaken, the very same ‘nuts’ (perhaps not even nuts – I don’t claim to be an expert).
Just the occasional deviation, the odd change of stance might have thrown me off the scent – but I fear the squirrels have got a little sloppy.
I’ve just been out for a circuit now for my lunchbreak. I walked down the usual path and there they were insulting my intelligence with their pretence. As I walked on I spun around to try and see what they got up to once I passed. I’m not sure what I expected, maybe a couple of them lugging a big radio transmitter across the path, whilst the others did stretching and flexing exercises. Anyway – I’d underestimated them – they were there inscrutably nibbling.
Now I’m not sure….
