A Tube Journey of the Most Interesting

I was on the tube on Friday. Yep, I really was.

I like travelling - there is something very peaceful about it :) Well, yes, before I get side-tracked I'll tell you what I was going to tell you about the tube.

Everyone knows that sometimes druggies (what? What would you prefer me to call them? Medical addicts?) or students come onto the tubes and do something to try to get money.

Well, so there I was sitting on the tube (unusual in and of itself, me sitting) and two Irish guys who reminded me very much of someone I met recently, got on and began to address us.

One got out a violin, the other one got out something like a tamborine/guitar - do I mean a ukele? and they began to play Irish waltzes (or it might have been)

It was most interesting. No-one took the slightest bit of notice. No-one lowered their newspapers, not a single soul raised an eyebrow. It's an unspoken English rule - pretend people like this do not exist.

But I felt really bad. Had I been anywhere else, I would have clapped at the end, and said thank-you and really enjoyed it - it took an edge off the montony of the tube ride, but no.

Nothing. No-one noticed, everyone was selectively deaf.

At the end of the song some American voice shouted "Thank you guys!" and began a round of clapping.

Now, I'm English I'm not astonished by people who see right through you and pretend you're not there, so when the round of clapping turned really loud and even the old guy across from me who had displayed the tiniest bit of emotion (annoyance) was clapping his heart out, I was really quite shocked.

Hmmm, very unusual. I suppose it was Friday, so there might have been some extraordinary circumstances.

The next song comes up. Silence again. Blank faces. Everyone looking everywhere but at these two Irish guys....

Of course, I had to pretend I wasn't noticing them too, or everyone would have thought I was a mad American (lol), so began to look at the phone that the woman sitting next to me had.

It was a nice phone. A T-Mobile G1 that these adverts are all about. (The ones where everyone says they have been singing and dancing with half of London. That would be miraculous. Anyway...)

Then I noticed the guy on the display picture.

Everyone familiar with that Muslim fellow who has a hook? He makes mad speeches in England about how we should all be dead or Muslim or posssibly both.

Yes? Well, I could have sworn that was him. On the front of a mobile phone.

I began to edge away from the woman next to me very slowly. . inspecting her luggage at the same time, and came to the conclusion that if she was about to blow us up, there was a bomb in her handbag, which as everyone knows, are made big enough nowadays to carry a 2 yr old baby, forget a bomb.

I was happy the next stop was my stop :)

Maybe her husband just had the unfortunatatily (new word!) to be like the man with the hook, because I haven't heard of any circle line trains blowing up, but I'd rather not have stuck around to find out!

So yes, a tube journey out of the ordinary. Not one I'd actually like to repeat, but interesting :)

Till next time,

Cxx

Swine Flu, My Kids, you know - the usuals!

Everyone is in the most delightful panic; I can't wait to go into London tomorrow and see if people are wearing masks everywhere.

The French have a much better word for the virus. On Le Monde (which is my homepage - how sad) there are constant reminders that 'de grippe porcine' is imininent.

De Grippe Porcine, I have to absolutely love, = The Pig Illness.

Much, much better than swine flu. I mean, honestly, when does anyone use the word swine now-a-days anyway?

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't mind getting Swine Flu myself.

A few days in bed having everyone worried over whether I would die, weeks to 'recover' in which everyone will wait on me hand and foot, and I'll get to eat everything I want, have laptop in my room.

Yes... *cough* *sniff* - wait! I think I'm coming down with something....

Please do not go out and buy a sympathy card for my family at this present moment in time. I do not believe I have 'The Pig Illness', and I'm not quite dead yet.

Today I was in a shop paying for something with my two youngest brothers, and being a generous sort of person, gave them some change from my handbag to put in the collection box.

Julius did this then came rushing up to me and said "Can I have some more money?"

The lady at the till laughed, and to me it seemed an overloud evil laugh, but it was probably her version of pleasant"It gets worse from here" she assured me "It's always 'Mum can I have some money?'"

Cough, well, yes, whatever - (you do know I would have been ten?)

And it's very nearly ten already, so I'd better get myself off this computer and up to bed. I've got another busy day tomorrow, and it's Max's birthday!

(Happy Birthday to him)

I'm only writing that so that if he ever reads this in later years I don't get into trouble :-) I don't think it would matter so much now if I write a happy birthday on a blog or not, just so long as I get him a few toy cars.

Goodnightxx

Scales?

I knew it was bad

(I've had a leg injury which required stitches so am out of sports for 4 weeks)

So I have not been doing any sport recently - hence why I knew it was bad. I jumped on the scales, talking to my mother (one likes to be multitasking) and was completely unprepared for the figures/words that faced me


SYSTEM OVERLOAD


WHAT????!?!?!??!


At first I thought it was a conspiracy, then I wondered if someone was on the scales with me. Then I wondered if I was wearing weights or something. Nothing. It was just me, and the scales.


I just about burst into tears on the spot.


I mean, okay I'm used to eating tons, but doing Choi twice a week (probably 300 sit-ups/pushups between the two sessions), swimming, teaching gymnastics, walking everywhere, and general things such as tennis some evenings, it all balances out, right?


But system overload? I mean really!


So, obviously I jumped off, reset the scales and jumped on again.

Thankfully it didn't exactly say overload, but it might as well have...


I forsee a LOT of exercise coming up.


Now I've got to go and find a calculator. It's impossible, but I seem to have lost about six calculators this school year. I know everyone borrows them, and no-one ever puts them back.


(That above sentence means I'm probably going to put off finding a calculator till tomorrow and go on facebook :)


Conzxxx

Yay, a month to the date.

It's great really, one day a woman turns up on Britain's got Talent, shocks the world because she has a good voice and bad eyebrows (they usually don't coincide), and of course, after everyone points this out, she gets a makeover.

Does she not realise I'll never be able to wear 'my' Burberry scarf again?

Everyone will think I'm a 'I Dreamed a Dream' wannabe. Which I might be, but that is beside the question.

Oh, another question - why have I not been blogging so much recently, uh well, yeah, that :) I've been very tired/busy/harrassed. You know, the usual.


Oh yeah, I forgot the extra - I'm the only one who reads my own blog, so to save myself perpetual embarrasment, it's easier not to write it more than once a month or so.


You know, embarrassing!


Mum's on the telephone at the moment, and it's half past ten at night (I wonder who it is. Probably her parents, who go to bed astonishingly late. I should have been born in that family)

In 11 and a half hours I'll be starting work, and I have the strangest feeling that by 3 in the afternoon I'll be so tired I'll be saying good morning to everyone, and drinking tea by the gallon.

Yes, that reminds me - I need to get teabags in - we're out of them. It's terrible really, I'm the only one who really takes the time to buy the teabags.Well, I might be the only one what uses them too, but still(!)

Anyway, it's late and I've got work tomorrow, and I'm sure I've got something else on, but I can't remember it.(It can't have been all that important)


ttfn

Constxx

Environmentally Friendly :-)

How's it going??


Anyone been up to anything much? I had a very busy weekend recently, and my schoolwork seems to be suffering for some reason I cannot figure.



Two words can sum up what the theme this month seems to have been. Evironmentally Friendly.
Seriously, though, who thinks up these things??

My chemistry, biology and geography have all dealt with the Carbon Cycle, and its effect on the human race in the last few weeks.


I honestly don't care if the way I'm living means that my great-great-great-nieces are going to have to have their laptops (or whatever they'll have) made of aluminium because plastic has run out and wood is rationed.


A few people seem to have drawn the conclusion that I'm anti-human, dangerous and thoughtless.


I admit, they do have something they sketch this conclusion off. I'm partial to using plastic carrier bags at the supermarket.


However, in my opinion, this one weakness should not warrant looks that would normally be directed toward a criminal whose face is on sheets around town with a WANTED sign above his head.

To be fair, though, the main perpetrator in this dreadful affair probably has a husband whose sole dependence of income is his job on an oil rig.


But does it matter if Ms. Smart from Bond Street, visiting her mother stops by at one of the stores for a bunch of flowers, and smartly asks for a carrier bag? No, no of course not.


(Maybe it was figured that if treated with deference, Ms. Smart might employ said husband who may, or may not, work on an oil rig.)


So, suddenly we are under tremendous pressure to sort out our rubbish, and stick our paper in a paper bin, think twice before we chop down rainforests, take the bus instead of a car. What next? Will the amount of trees we're allowed in our back garden be rationed?



Will we have to start growing a jungle in the house to create enough oxygen to compensate the amount we use?



Will we have to go back to burning peat fires, so the fossil fuels don't run out, and above husband doesn't lose his job??



Enviromentally friendly, you say? Whatever happen to humanly friendly? Maybe a lack of oxygen does this to people.

It's been a while...

The neglect, though terrible, is not intended.

I really should think about removing that subtitle.

I'm not even making myself laugh, and I've definitely stopped criticising Self-Defence (in public.)

Actually, I think, just to make this blog a whole lot more interesting, I should make it a fiction blog.
Such as:

What a day today! I shot out of bed and slid downstairs.

Hit the breakfast table (without literally hitting it) - and got on the go.

It's interesting, but one does not expect to see the Prime Minister sailing down the high street in an upended umbrella on the way to work, but the normality that each of the shoppers and shopkeepers were practicing forced me to keep my face straight.

(It also made me wonder if I could be hallucinating)
The start to the day seemed to dictate, however, that it would be no ordinary morning.
I reached the shop, and the picture before me made me sway on my high heels, and turn as pale as a sheet.
Gypsies had camped around the shop. That was not all. Adding insult to injury; they were audaciously refusing to let us in!!

Their grim faces assured us that they would outfit themselves from our shelves, eat our biscuits and sit on our chairs before they deigned to leave.
Some-one thought about calling the police
None of us noticed the over 60s campaign for "Free Botox" spilling along the high-street....

You see??? Far more interesting than:

It was a tiring day. I'm tired. I saw this gorgeous handbag. I couldn't afford it.

I think I need a camera!

xxx

"This is it!"

Does anyone here NOT have a cold?



I've got one.

Actually, I think I've got two at the same time, as my yearly cough has just set in (you'd think by now he'd get the hint - after all the cough medicine I've poured on him all these years, but no.)


I've got three weeks until I lose my singing voice - another week before I lose my speaking voice, and then I won't be able to sing for another three months.



Life can be somewhat unfair.


Now, while I've covered 'like', 'rhetorical questions', and 'y'alright', I've decided to look at 'This is it!'


If you're Scottish, it's "Is that right?" in a very Scottish accent, or American, it's quite surely "For Real??"


I stand in a charity shop, day in and day out and hear



"She wasn't even busy, she was standing there filing her nails and didn't even call me up to have me hair done for another twenty minutes"



And the sympathetic listener says:

"I mean, this is it!!"


Or

"British Heart Foundation prices are extortionate. No wonder every time I go past them they don't have anyone in there"



"This is it!"


This is what?


Is it some type of strange language that I don't understand?



Is it a code word that no-one has bothered to tell me about??

Or is it frightfully old-fashioned, and therefore way behind my time?


After much umming, awwing, checking my Dictionary.



Then my Thesaurus. Then my French Dictionary, German Dictionary, Dutch Dictionary, Spanish Dictionary - you catch my drift - I decided that 'this is it' is something that is said that translated means this:


"I haven't heard a word of what you are saying. I wasn't listening. But if it makes you feel better, I'll agree with you"


I think I've got a headache.

I'm off

xxx