Holiday Over, Musings For A Friday.
Jul 9th
We were really spoilt by those long holidays at school. My second week off of the year and again I don’t appear to have done much except sit here and type – and sleep a lot. Procrastination at its best.
It’s partly the fault of my good friends online. You see, about 5 years ago, the only Dukie websites were those belonging to Mike Shaw and Glenn Bridges and one belonging to Mr Jabberwocky (can’t think of his name). Then along came Chad Stather with the excellent DYRMS.NET and then me, shortly followed by Stan. Mike Stevens was around for a while and although I haven’t checked recently, I suspect most of the sites to briefly surface have stayed stagnant for a while.
I suspect the reasons for this are several-fold. Have I invented a new word? (again).
1. As I found out myself and endlessly retold to others, a website is a lot of work.
2. My forum. Yes its immodest but true. There are 57 official members but I suspect the figure climbs to over a 100 if you take all the unregistered guest readers into account. In any case, its more interactive and immediate.
3. Blogs. I seem to be the last person on earth to have one. I have wasted a few hours this week reading Hx’s, Stan’s and The Tanners’ NZ edition. I am glad to see that they have all been sucked into the fantastic world of telling the world about yourself.
So, once I have sorted the website out and mended the broken links it will probably live out its life as a favourite book we all take off the shelf now and again. I will still put the odd new article online and I will happily accept new photos and memories from anyone who cares to send them my way, of course. But the pressure is off. I am on the forum now and in here – mostly.
Cool.
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Where Does The Time Go…
Jul 6th
Note to self. Stop ending half-sentences with…
I can’t help it. Its the written equivalent of a thoughtful pause. I do that a lot.
So, where were we? Damn. Its been more than a week since my last confession. Blogs are all well and good but they do make you overly concious of the passage of time. I hardly need anything else to remind me of that.
The bigger of my two cats is very sad. Pining in fact.
When we moved in almost a year ago, he quickly made friends with a little white lady cat called Poppy. They used to sit about together, chase each other and so on. About a month ago she died suddenly and he now spends most of his day sat outside her house. It breaks your very heart.
Well, as you brush away a manly tear think of poor me today. I set aside 30 mins from my busy day to put up some rollerblinds. 2 hours and 1 broken drill bit later I am sweaty, angry and very much wish to meet the cretin who thinks curtains are not good enough. Back-to-front twice and then not straight. Fortunately, the hapless DIY victim can rely on the thoughtful designers who saw fit to include an instruction sheet , albeit one barely large enough with which to wipe one’s arse. Three small pictures. One – sketch of proud, unsuspecting purchaser staring lovingly at new rollerblind in its packaging. Two – sketch of entire assembly process, complete with several arrows and numbers. Three – One finished rollerlblind.
Thank you so bloody much.
And so to the footy.
Yes, I am one of those annoying people who only watches England internationals. Once every two years I become entranced by the beautiful game and start to gather with others of my ilk next to the coffee machine at work and speak in loud, confident tones of how “Becks” is off his form and so forth.
The England v Portugal once more reduced me to tears and is quite easily the most intense 15 minutes I had ever witnessed.
Finally Greece were victorious and I watched it. Bottle of Tizer and a Kebab close by. I have no idea of the players’ names except that most of them end is “os” but the boys done good and I am happy for them. At least we all know what the Portuguese word for “Oh Shit!” is.
Well, at least how to shape our mouths for it anyway.
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