Friday 27 November 2009

Oh..... I Forget


Why do radio football commentators have to shout?

Got a new laptop at work yesterday. Getting to grips with the new keyboard. Bloody thing lights up like a Christmas tree. Got cyan, neon red and electric blue LED lights for everything. Hideous and most confusing!

Yesterday it was some quaint colonial holiday called Thanksgiving in the USA, which I found out to my annoyance while trying to get a subcontractor in Florida to do some urgent work on a megayacht in Ft Lauderdale. Bloody futile! Strangely enough there was a holiday of the same name in October in Canada. Did the Pilgrim Fathers actually get to Canada first? It seems strange to have what is in effect a harvest festival in November. Must be climate change.

Yesterday I collected a prescription from the chemist. On the way back to the car I unwrapped it and threw the rubbish in a litter bin I was passing. On reaching the car I suddenly realised I didn’t have the medication in my hand. I carefully retraced the 25 yards back to the litter bin, but nothing. I finally reached the conclusion that I’d absentmindedly thrown the meds away with the carton and paper bag. Unfortunately the bin was one of those with a cover that you can’t remove and so I had to stretch my arm to its limit while rummaging around the bottom. Several people passed me by during the 3 minutes or so it took me to empty the bin contents onto the street and recover the meds. They looked at me as if I were a dosser. Most embarrassing – not only for rummaging through a bin in the middle of a street, but having been so engrossed in my own thoughts as to not realise I’d thrown the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Hay is considering having me sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

I was trying to find the Alzheimer’s Channel on TV last night but couldn’t remember where it was.

Talking of disabilities, in my opinion the best possible invention would be a device that taps directly into the thoughts of disabled people who have difficulty communicating and allowing them to communicate normally, thus stopping people from looking at them as if they were idiots or mentally retarded. It must be intensely frustrating for them.

4 comments:

Alan Burnett said...

Re : Canadian Thanksgiving - perhaps they are giving thanks for the fact that the Pilgrim Fathers never reached there.
Re : Best Inventions for the Disabled - you are right it would. In my case it's called a cochlear implant.

The Girl With The Mousy Hair said...

I don't know why commentators shout but enthusiastic kids presenters do it as well.
Sorry to hear about your latest trip into the world of the litter bin. Have you ever put Sellotape in the bin and the milk in the stationary cupboard? I blame global warming. I wonder if they do global warming knickers?

The Spiv said...

Age is a wonderful thing - not! Has Hay thought about getting an enduring power of attourney for your affairs?

If by chance you get round to manufacturing your "invention", please put me down for one of the first batch. My wife's MS often affects her speech in different ways, and she finds it the most frustrating aspect of the disease.

Louise said...

I get that "you're mentally retarded" look every time I try to talk Italian. I have a riposte --- Signore, non sono stupida, sono Inglese - sir, I'm not stupid, I'm English. The "you're mentally retarded" look still doesn't go away though...!

PS I could do with one of your mind-readers for my 3-year-old. She's at that age when her plans are grandiose and complicated, but she can't relate them to anyone, and the frustration is terrifying to behold.