Alder's Tone

And the next milestone along the journey of all things vocabulary passes us by this week. Yesterday it started, and it wasn't the usual case of try it once, leave it a while, then come back to it. It was mastered instantly, in context, repeatable, you name it.

So, in the immortal words of one Mr Freddie Mercury, we'll let you in on the secret of the last word.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide No escape from reality Open your eyes Look up to the skies and see I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy Because I'm easy come, easy go A little high, little low Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me

Mama, just killed a man
Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead
Mama, life had just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mama, ooo
Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters

Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body's aching all the time
Goodbye everybody - I've got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooo - (anyway the wind blows)
I don't want to die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning - very very frightening me
Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo Figaro - magnifico

But I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me
He's just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Easy come easy go - will you let me go
Bismillah! No - we will not let you go - let him go
Bismillah! We will not let you go - let him go
Bismillah! We will not let you go - let me go
Will not let you go - let me go (never)
Never let you go - let me go
Never let me go - ooo

The next line just sums it up. If you don't know your Queen, then shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!. And if you don't know how that relates to Al Murray either, Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!

Posted by Lee at 29 July 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6)

He's not even 2 years old, but he's been sucked in by commercialism already! Am I talking about Thomas the f***ing Tank Engine? No!! Well, I suppsoe I could be...

In a local hotel yesterday after next door's little girl's christening, and the boy makes a bolt for the door. At reception he finds, at a height, the tourist information leaflets.

And this is where he does show he has somehting of his mother in him - his desire to lift every leaflet.

Anyway, from ground level he points up and shouts "Toot-toot!". Now that's his name for Thomas, and anything trains really. I had a look, I found no train.

"Toot-toot!" again. And again.

But I can't find a train, son.

So I lifted him up and asked him to show Daddy where Toot-toot is. And he pulled out a leaflet. That leaflet was a local park which happens to have a narrow guage railway. All he could see of the leaflet was the park's logo.

"Toot-toot!", he shouted as he pulled the leaflet out. Sure enough, there was a picture of the train just under the logo. He couldn't see the train as it was obscured by the leaflets in the rown in fornt, so he must have recognised the park's logo.

Today the local park, tomorrow Ralph Lauren?

Posted by Lee at 14 July 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It had to happen, I don't recall having discussed religion before but here we have it. It had to happen some time, the boy has been to a Christening. In a church, no less.

But, not his own. Why? Well, we're about as religious as Richard Dawkins, though slightly less infuriated by those who do believe in something theologically beyond our own world.

So we see no point in the hypocrisy in having the wee guy christened. If he finds religion later on, then it'll be of his own mind, not that of ours. I hate to see media reports including lines like "muslim children were hurt" - why are they muslim? Because their parents are? Exactly, before they can speak children are given such tags because of their parents. Let them make their own mind up. Ours will.

What the day did bring was a sense of mortality and sadness to me. The wee guy was due his nap, and got really tired, so I nipped out mid-service and grabbed his puschair. We had a walk around the graveyard for the remainder of the service, reading a few of the gravestones. There were so many stories in there. One man was buried with both his wives, a quantity of people there buried their children first, with themselves following sometimes very close behind. Wives departing shortly after husbands, clearly unable to live without them - nobody left to nag, perhaps? There was money too, the big family plots in prominent spaces, edged with carved stones, huge marble stones, occupying multple adjacent plots. The private area walled off at one side, now overgrown as there is nobody left to tend to it.

It becomes very evident reading the memorials that there is no such thing as a "standard life", the only standard life there is in existence is the big financial company based in Edinburgh.

Wonder what will be on their epitaph?

Posted by Lee at 14 July 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)