Why can't I swear?
It must be such a satisfying thing to do, especially when a heavy weight lands on my toe, or I catch my finger in the door jamb. Everyone else does it. You can’t turn the telly on nowadays without hearing shit bugger fuck bollocks. I blame my upbringing. My dad never swore, he had a real horror of ‘bad language’. I don’t know how he managed in the army. I remember I once said ‘bum’ in his hearing, and the telling off I got – I didn’t dare so much as think the dreadful word for years.
Of course, in those days even ‘bottom’ was a bit rude. You referred to your ‘behind’ or better still, your ‘derriere’. (These things always sounded more tasteful in French.) Crap or shit, if you absolutely had the mention it, was always ‘Number 2’s’, and you never ever went for a piss, or even a pee – ‘you ‘tinkled’ or ‘spent a penny’. This could lead to a certain amount of confusion, when I grew old enough to read the Sunday papers. I asked my mother once, what was this mysterious ‘intercourse’ which was always taking place? I thing she said it was when a man and woman went off by themselves to talk, though she did not explain why this was grounds for divorce.
The swearing ban spawned a host of pseudo-swearwords: What the Dickens! and Great Scott!; drat and blast and ruddy and flipping heck. For years I thought that flip was a terribly rude word – which lent a certain frisson to instructions like ‘Flip the pancake . . . ‘. The strange thing is that when I encountered the real word for the first time (scrawled on a lavatory wall), I knew immediately what it meant.
Now we find profanity and obscenity everywhere. The F word is hurled across the infant school playground with merry abandon. But I simply can’t take to it, and for a writer that is a grave handicap. One cannot be a serious exponent of modern literature while refusing to employ the language’s most common adjective. I try to correct my deficiencies: I watch as much late night TV as I can stomach, and I make a point of dropping the odd expression into my ordinary conversation, but I’m still not sure I’ve grasped the subtleties.. Only the other day I was crossing the road when there was this scream of brakes and a car stopped very suddenly just inches from me. The driver got very excited and started shouting, I couldn’t quite hear what.
‘Bollards!’ I shouted back.
Somehow it didn’t sound right.
How to ... procrastinate
Thursday
I really should try and produce something for the writers’ group … haven’t written anything for ages. One ought to make an effort. What’s next weeks theme? An article on ‘How to … something.’ Well that can’t so difficult. Just think of something I know how to do, then write about it. The question is - what? Has to be something I can be witty and amusing about. Unfortunately nothing comes immediately to mind. Plenty of time, though. I’ll just mull it over for a day or so.
How to, how to - what? Can’t think of anything I know how to do. Not that everyone else doesn’t, anyway. Cooking ? Boring. Cleaning? Done that. Weeding the garden? I’m hardly the expert. Avoiding weeding the garden? That sounds more promising, but can I get a couple of hundred words out of it? Must give it some more thought.
Friday
Oh dear, I really meant to get down to some writing today, but Brian found some nasty spy thingy on the PC, and he’s been on all day trying to get rid of it. By the time he’d finished it was time to get dinner, and its hopeless trying to do any work in the evening, the old brain just isn’t up to it. Never mind, there’s still tomorrow.
Saturday
Only of course by now it’s the weekend. Saturday morning’s for shopping in town. I know I do my main shop at the supermarket during the week, but you always need fresh veg and stuff, don’t you? Then Brian says, fancy going to the Fox for lunch, and naturally I did, so after lunch and a couple of pints, we got home about four and that was the afternoon gone. As for Sunday - well, you never get anything done on a Sunday, do you? I blame the Sunday papers. They shouldn’t make them so big.
Tuesday
Today I must concentrate. Time is getting short, and I’ve still not decided what I’m going to write about. Yesterday was a dead loss as far as writing went, as we had to go and visit Brian’s mum. She was very perky, considering, though the conversation did tend to go round in circles. She always asks, ‘Are you still going to your writing class?’ Makes it sound like Adult Literacy. Mind you, she’s marvellous for her age
I’ll just finish the chores, and have a cup of coffee. And a quick look at the paper. There now, I’m sitting down at the computer. Better check my e-mails before I start. That’s nice, someone on UKAuthors has commented on my latest post. I must see what they said.. Oh, how kind, I’d better send them a message to say thanks. And take a look at their latest, I mean if someone takes the trouble to read and comment on your work, it’s only fair to do the same for them. And while I’m here, I may as well see if there are any interesting messages on the Forums … Good Lord, is it lunch time already? Where has the morning gone? And I’m supposed to be going out this afternoon. Oh well. I’ll have to do it tomorrow morning.
Wednesday
So here I am again, staring at a blank screen. And I still don’t know what to write about. Surely I must be good at something?
Maybe I could do it for next week.
I GOT MAIL!!!
The Wonderful World of Spam
It's a marvellous thing, e-mail. I hardly ever used to get letters, but since I got myself an e-mail address, I've become so popular you wouldn't believe. In the last fortnight alone I got over a hundred and seventy communications, all from complete strangers! And a large proportion of them want to lend me money. I am a bit short, as it happens, but how did they know?
If they aren't wanting to lend me money, they are trying to give it me. Or at least, show me how to induce other people to give it me. Apparently if you send off $5 for a report - or make a report (I didn't quite follow the details) - but anyway you send it off to five different addresses and after a week or so sackfuls of money will start arriving through your letter box. All in dollars, of course, but I suppose I could live with that. It's all perfectly legal, they said so, and eight people have sent me exactly the same e-mail about it, so it must be all right. There was another scheme, a bit similar, where you have to give them the names of three people, then those three give them the names of another three . . . and when they've got a hundred and twenty names they give you a car. But I don't know. They might want me to collect it, and America's a bit far. I think I'll give that one a miss.
Then there's the business opportunities. Marvellous products and services that you can market online, and make a fortune! They're a little coy about what these actually are (until you've signed up). In some cases I'm not sure if there is a product, but the money is guaranteed to come rolling in.
Really friendly, some of these e-mails are. Like the one I had the other day from a young lady called Krystal. She seemed to think she knew me, "Hi" she started off "how are you doing? Why don't you drop by my website, I've got some new photos." So I did, but I still couldn't place her. Looked a nice girl though, as far as I could see (and too be honest, I could see more that I thought strictly necessary).
One thing which fascinates me about these people who send me emails are their names. They have such weird names, I can't help wondering what they are like. I see Odessa Crowe as a tall, untidy female dressed always in black, while Pearlie Brantley must be small and round and should really be flogging tooth whitener. Ofelia Downs sounds, well, a bit wet, while Napoleon Doty undoubtedly has world conquering ambitions. As for Delmar Vogel - obviously a villain of the deepest dye. Now I think about it, he was one of the gentlemen offering to sort out my septic tank. Well. even if I possessed such an article, I wouldn't let him anywhere near it. With a name like that, there's no telling what might end up there.
Sometimes you open an interesting sounding e-mail, e.g. subject: secret of eternal life, only to find it starts nazzrimbo usg yd xadmuz . . . this is very frustrating. A surprisingly large proportion of spam emails consist of streams of gibberish, or turn out to be blank. One wonders why the senders bothered. One also suspects that they are the ones which actually do contain the secret of eternal life.
And of course, if that is what you require, the Internet can supply it - or at least eternal health, youth and potency. One gentleman even offered a miracle - though as he appeared to be functionally illiterate it was difficult to tell exactly what he was selling or how much he charged - but for a genuine miracle one must not quibble over price. Some of the senders seem to have got their lines crossed a little - why do they imagine I need Viagra or penis enlargement? - but weight loss without the trouble of dieting sounds too good to be true (and undoubtedly is). And I probably would prefer to have my colon irrigated in the privacy of my own home - but 'extreme cleansing'? Sounds a bit drastic. No, I don't think I'll bother.
But what have we here? ''Improve memory, eradicate wrinkles and grey hair, lose weight while you sleep, strengthen bones and have more energy - send for free sample'? Ah yes, I'll have a bucket of that!
