Efforts and results

My car is now being seen to and the scratches on the door consigned to a distant memory by the ministrations of a painter, no, what do they call them body sprayers or something who has given me what one could call euphemistically a ‘courtesy’ car.

Never have I driven such a revolting thing.  It is dirty and smelly, the steering wheel grinds when you turn it, the gears are less than convincing and the power steering needs a firm hand – which if you think about it is a little contradictory– its suspension is, how can I put it, a little firm and you have to use a key to turn the engine on!  Such barbarism.  And people may have seen us as we used that so-called vehicle!  And another day of public horror tomorrow before my car, which I now think of a bloody Bentley compared with the jalopy that I am driving now!  And I do believe that use of ‘jalopy’ is the first time that I have ever written the word in anger!

My new watch has been returned to the shop!  Foiled again!  The design of the thing is fatally flawed.  The buttons which change the day, date and month are all far too prominent and any hand and wrist movement can change them easily – and did.  It was like living in a time capsule, you go to bed on one day in a particular month and you wake up half a dozen days later in another month and the wrong day.  

This clearly was unsettling.  

The date even changed while I was swimming, so the watch couldn’t possibly be the One for me.  Pity, I like the design, but at least the money is now safely back in my bank account.  For another watch to replace it, possibly?  But no, I am in a sulking mood and I will revert to one of my other watches as a sort of protest.

Which I have now done – but I fear that my sulk will go unnoticed.  Except by me.

Only one swim today because we had to get up at the crack of dawn to take the car to be done then we had coffee and I had a stupidly expensive cup of tea then it was suddenly the afternoon and the watch had to be returned and things and stuff had to be done and then it was dark and a bit too late and then it was too late and the day was done.  Of such is a retired person’s day made up!

My first piece of OU work for the new course has been returned and I am not entirely happy with my mark.  The tutor’s comments seem fair as, rather gratifyingly, she said that, ‘I have been a bit more pithy in feedback than I would usually be at this stage because I feel this is what you are looking for’ which, to be fair is exactly right.  

What I need to do is go through the feedback and highlight any comments that point towards future expectations.  One has to play the OU game as well as pursue education for its own sake and after all, I am looking for an improvement of just 3%+ in my mark to make me happy!  Oh yes, and improve my writing.

My repaired tooth is not behaving properly and I will have to make a return visit to the dentist.  I have, because I can, sent off for a water flosser from Amazon.  In theory this will improve my dental hygiene in those hard to reach back teeth and in any case it is a completely new type for gadget for me to experiment with.  This should arrive on Monday or Tuesday and I should have had my further check up by then so the future of my troublesome tooth should be well on the way to being settled then.  At least I hope so, because I would like to go back to the good old days when I was able to chew on both sides of my mouth!

Today I received by new book giving examples of five decades of cartoons form the pages of Private Eye.  I recognized some of them from my own reading of the rag and also from other books that I have on Private Eye.  To be truthful I laughed out loud on very few occasions, but there is the sort of quiet humour which is deeply satisfying.  The quality of cartoons in Private Eye is astonishing and in many cases the sheer artistry is not only of the highest quality but is audacious in its innovation.

Having said all of that, I have to admit that my favourite cartoonist is probably Glashan.  His style is distinctive, but one could not pretend that his artistic style is the most accomplished, though, like Thurber one would not like it to be more ‘artistic’.  I love the dark humour of which he is capable – though come to think about it, I don’t really know any lightly amusing Glashan cartoons.  I have the Penguin John Glashan and it is disturbingly funny.  His official website is at http://www.johnglashan.com/index.html and is worth looking at.

Now, some tidying with a purpose.  I have mislaid something which I am not yet prepared to admit publically.  At least not in this part of the world.  I shall think and work backwards and take Mad Lewce’s advice and look at things at least three times in my attempts to find it. 

I live in hope!