私はとても年を取ったと感じますよ

先週私は四十九っさいでした。
今日は私の五十代始めます。
私はとても年を取ったと感じますよ。

… which at least got me some sympathy hugs from the girls last night … that is after Mayuko had finished laughing.

Every week, after our initial teacher-pupil introduction thang (very Japanese and also quite funny when your teacher is only half your age), Mayuko always asks us:

先週何をしましたか。

… which is a polite way of asking what we've been up to all week.

I put on my most pathetic, hangdog expression and opined:
"先週私は四十九っさいでした。
今日は私の五十代始めます。
私はとても年を取ったと感じますよ。"

Which means:
"Last week I was forty-nine years old.
Today I enter my fifties.
I feel totally old." (though in Japanese there is considerably more comic emphasis in that line).

Actually, if you feed that into BabelFish (something always worth doing if you have no intention of finding out what something means) it comes up with:
"Last week I was 49 [tsu] occasion.
My five teen it begins today.
I feel that you grew older very."

You'll have guessed I've got nothing to say today.
The weather today is cold, grey and miserable, pretty much like me.
Hey ho.

Addendum:

Aww crap!
Here I was feeling miserable and then I checked out Engrish.com and laughed my lunch out through my nose.

Tempting, eh?

Let's Make A Racket - XXXIII

Shit …

Time to cringe from another year.
I don't have any songs called "It's my fiftieth birthday; someone please shoot me in the head"; the nearest I have is The Blind Willies doing '44 Blues.

So that's what you're getting.



While you endure that, here's a photo of the birthday cake mum made for me.

Yup … sushi and noodles fruit cake …
And you wonder why I'm like I am …

Fucking Fuckity Fuck

Fuck me.
I'm fifty tomorrow. How the smeg did that happen?

Time to wallow in self pity …

I wonder what seventeen year old Dive (lithe and toned and enjoying copious sex with the hottest girl in school - hi, Judith) would have done had I known that at fifty I would be a saggy, balding sack of shit, living a loser's life alone in the middle of nowhere, without a girlfriend for so many millennia that if a naked woman were to drop into my lap I wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do with her.
Add to that a seven hour a day commute through the lower regions of Hell, bed at nine o'clock every night, alarms shrieking at four-forty in the fucking morning, a social life somewhat less romantically eventful than that of Lonesome George (look him up) and nothing to look forward to until the merciful oblivion of death.

It's gonna be a fun birthday.

I very much doubt seventeen year old Dive would have said "Yay! Good one, dude. That's just the way I planned it!"

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Roll on death
(it's like roll-on deodorant only much, much heavier).

At least I'm another year closer to it.
I am so fucking glad there's no afterlife.
Joy might say "Look forward to your next incarnation."
Shan might hand me a fire extinguisher and wave me off with "Good luck down there, you miserable sinner. Send me a postcard."
But thankfully, here in the real world dead means dead.
Finito.
Nada.
Oblivion.
A total cessation of the existence of self.
Forever.
Woohoo!
It can't come soon enough.
All that will be left of Old Dive will be the constituent atoms of my flabby old corpse which will be free at last to go off and do something more interesting, exploring the wonderful world of rotting and decomposition; whooping it up with all those fun chemical processes.

At least my atoms will have more fun than I'm having.

While I'm waiting for that I might as well use my fiftieth birthday as an excuse to be really fucking grumpy and to snap at people.
Not that there'll be any people to snap at; I'm working from home tomorrow.
With the curtains shut.
I might celebrate by slamming some doors.

In the evening I'll go to Japanese class and smirk at my shiny little teenage classmates so full of innocent hope for the future - HA! - smug in the knowledge that they've got all this crap to come - a lifetime of misery, despair, heartbreak and rejection, lost hope and failed dreams - and wondering if they'll fuck up their own lives as totally as I've fucked up mine.

At least that's an achievement of some kind.
I'm a first rate fuck-up.
In the game of life I've played to lose and have been spectacularly successful.
So where's my framed certificate of loserdom?
Eh?
Bastards!

What's it like, having a life, bloggy-people? I honestly can't remember.

And what the fuck DO I do with a naked woman should one drop into my lap?
Do they come with a Haynes Manual?
Or a tool kit?
Which hole do I blow in to get a tune out of one?
How do I change the plug?
Not that I'll ever get a girlfriend so you don't need to hurry with your answers.

Fuck fifty.
Fifty is the new bleah!

Can you tell I'm not at the peak of my perkiness today?

Cenotaph. Armistice Day, 2008

The Cenotaph yesterday morning, bearing the wreaths from veterans the world over remembering their fallen comrades.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row …"

The words of John Mc.Crae, one of many fine poets fighting in the trenches of the Great War, shortly before he died at the front and was himself laid under one of those crosses.

Cold. Windy. Raining. A fitting November day to remember Our Glorious Dead.

Here are dad's pals.

One tiny corner of the Garden of Remembrance in the grounds of Westminster Abbey.

If you've lost a loved one in any war since the Great War, you will find them remembered here. At the entrance to the garden is a guide giving the location of every regiment.

Every person has a cross. Every person is remembered.

Forgive me if I tend to favour the RAF because of dad and Uncle Tony.
If I could post every cross I would do.

Somehow a bright, sunny day would have seemed inappropriate.

My Uncle Tony's in here somewhere among the fallen leaves.
His plane was shot down in the last stages of WWII; he was just nineteen.



"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

In The Meantime

In the meantime, here's one I made earlier:
http://smallglassplanet.blogspot.com/2007/11/remembrance_10.html

All Crapped Out

Sorry.
I really don't feel like blogging right now.

A Day To Remember

So …
Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
Not for the usual reasons: happily burning Catholics alive and celebrating an attempt by religious extremists to blow up Parliament by … er … burning people in effigy and blowing shit up … (non Brits won't have the foggiest idea what I'm on about but that's never stopped me before).
Well okay, we DO celebrate that but this year there were a couple of other things worth partying for.

First up, in a land far, far away across the ocean seas, sixty-two million wonderful and intelligent people did battle with fifty-six million gun-totin' religious fundamentalists and their chums and achieved something rather splendid.

A great day for humanity and a huge step forward for civil rights.

Excellent.
Well done, you lovely Colonials.

Meanwhile, back in the mother country one of our Blogville neighbours celebrated becoming a British citizen, adding to our impoverished country her marvellous skills, her degree and doctorate and her successful career doing amazing things for our local community.
Not to mention her wonderful, warm and generous personality, her charm, wit and intelligence … yup: she's great fun and a smartypants to boot.

I give you our latest British citizen: Her Majesty, the lovely Dr. Joy Barredo!
Yaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!

This is Norfolk County Hall's Council Chamber.
On Wednesday evening, the fifth of November, after lots of introductions and refreshments we were seated around the chamber with the new citizens in the centre and presented with wonderfully tempting little consoles with microphones and voting buttons.
Regrettably, they were switched off.

The citizenship ceremony kicked off with some Handel and then the registration officer introduced the Chair of Norfolk County Council who gave the new citizens a welcome speech extolling the beauties and opportunities of Norfolk, all of which they already knew having been living and working here for many years but it was nice to be reminded that we live in one of the world's most beautiful places.

That's the NCC Chair on the left, wearing the bling.
Lovely chap.
Before the ceremony, both him and the guy on the right had been round and chatted to us all in a very friendly and welcoming manner.

The man on the right is Richard Gurney, the Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk.
The Gurney family (other than their lapse in good taste by founding Barclay's Bank) have been excellent mayors, aldermen and dignitaries in Norwich and Norfolk since 1066 and three of the paintings in my living room, by John Sell Cotman are inscribed to this guy's great, great, great grandfather.
He is a tremendously charming and witty man and later he concluded the ceremony with a splendid address.

After Mister Bling's welcoming speech each of the new citizens (there were almost forty of them) swore an oath (or affirmed it if they didn't want to include the "God" part) of allegiance to the Parasites.
This is why I could never become a British citizen these days.
We had a good chuckle about what Joy called "swearing allegiance to the freaking Queen", but she managed to do it with a straight face.

Here's the oath:

"I swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law."

and the subsequent pledge of commitment:

"I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British citizen."

After this part, each new British citizen in turn was invited down to the front to be presented with their certificates of citizenship.
Joy (a proud Trekkie) liked this bit as the music they played was "Star Trek VIII, First Contact". Cheesy, but actually quite a fitting piece of music.
As each person received their presentation they were applauded by the whole chamber.
It was a surprisingly moving and dignified ceremony and I felt proud and honoured to be there.

As I pointed out to Rich yesterday, we have a different situation here with regard to immigrants than he has in the States: we have a dwindling pool of young British workers and what will very soon become an unsustainably large elderly population and we desperately need more immigrants to fill our jobs and pay the taxes that will fund our pensions.
It is our turn to say: "“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Anybody in the UK resisting immigration should be made to realise that without it they will be in for a pretty impoverished old age, plus of course a stagnant culture, starved of the vibrancy of our wonderful cosmopolitan community.

Joy, of course embodies exactly the sort of new citizen we are most desperate for: highly skilled, hard working and eager both to embrace our culture (and the lovely Thom) and to introduce us to her own, something she has been very successful at.

Here is Joy's BBF from the office, the lovely Kim, forced under torture to wear a skirt just for this ceremony.

And here they are joined by Amalia, another wonderful friend from South Africa who is doing marvellous work both there and here in the UK.
She is formidably intelligent as well as being tremendous fun.

As we left County Hall, walking down the vast steps, we were greeted by fireworks as all of the Guy Fawkes Night bonfire parties around the city got into full swing.
It was a lovely touch and very apt to our celebratory mood.

After the ceremony, we all piled round to Joy and Thom's house for a celebration soirée.
Here is Joy carrying out her first task as a British citizen: making a nice cup of tea.
Hee hee. We kind of forced her into it but she does make a delicious chai tea.
Yum!

We sat around chatting and munching on Joy's yummy home-made focaccia while Jong set up his chef's kitchen.
Here are Thom's parents with Thom and Joy.

As usual, Jong provided a magnificent spread. Beautiful Filipino food; utterly delicious.
If you want to know what everything is, check out the individual shots on Joy's post.

While Jong was prepping the meal, the girls - Kim, Joy, Marina and Amalia showed me their lovely legs. Which is about as far as Old Dive ever gets. Hey ho.

Also this week, Joy interviewed Thom on her radio show.
At the point where she asked him what it was like: being in a relationship with a Filipino woman, I laughed so hard tears came to my eyes.
It's a great show.
Here's a link to the podcast so you can hear Joy's lovely voice and Thom's deep and sexy tones. He'd make a fortune from cinema ads. Hee hee.

November the fifth, 2008 was a splendid day and gave cause for celebration all over the world.
We will remember it for very personal and happy reasons, too.

Many congratulations, Joy!

Let's Make A Racket - XXXII

Fuck politics; let's dance!

For this Thursday's Racket I'd got a slow acoustic blues lined up: The Blind Willies attempt at Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen".

That's a lovely song, but I fancy something a little noisier, so I'll do another two for the price of one post and add one you've probably heard already, but which is pretty apt for the US voting public after eight years of rank insanity: "Done Got Wise".

Toodle pip!

The Poisoned Chalice

Well, in seventy-five days the hard work really starts.
Even to begin to repair the damage done will take an incredible amount of time, money and dedication.
And we still have the "forgotten but not gone" imbecile in power for every one of those seventy-five long days; the most unpopular and disastrous President in US history, currently engaged in yet another shameful and disgraceful exercise whilst his countryfolk are distracted by the election; that of cynically and spitefully murdering civilians in Pakistan and Syria in a deranged attempt to bring yet more countries into a state of war against the west and make his successor's task ever more difficult.

The whole world is celebrating today and we thank the voters of the USA for finally engaging their brains and crying for a halt to the eight most horrific years in world history since the two great wars of the last century.

The War OF Terror.
The insane greed of an unregulated free market economy.
Those at least may well be reined in, having been shown to be unmitigated disasters.
I do not - as you know - expect any great change in US foreign policy.
However well-meaning President-Elect Obama (doesn't that just bring a grin to your face?) may be, the juggernaut of US commercial interest and fear of "the left" will stymie any attempt to comply with international law as surely as they did under Jimmy Carter.

But this morning I - together with the rest of the world outside US borders - am filled to overflowing with two emotions:
Relief and hope.

-

I have spent this campaign studiously avoiding bad-mouthing Senator Mc.Cain as I both like and respect the man. But twenty-twenty hindsight reveals that he faced an almost impossible task from the beginning.
He was forced to fight a campaign on two fronts: one against a resurgent and angry centrist population of Democrats and the other against the appalling legacy of his erstwhile colleague George W. Bush and his neo-con clique.

Senator McCain is essentially a decent man and in my view his position at the more liberal and reasonable end of Republicanism, together with his sane and thoughtful policy on immigration made him the last great hope for a Republican victory.

Yet he was borne down by two disastrous burdens that saw moderate and intellectual Republicans fleeing from him:

- To ensure the support of the white-supremacist, neo-nazi bloc of extremists within his party (we have those in Europe but they are not allowed to hide behind a "neo-con" label and join the major parties and therefore are marginalised and wield less influence here), he was forced to renounce his deeply-held belief in fairness toward immigrants; a mistake that did not merely alienate fellow moderates but that labelled him as a man too weak to maintain the strength of his own convictions and one who buckles under pressure; and,

- What at first sight seemed a tactical masterstroke of choosing a woman as a running mate when it became clear that Senator Clinton would not be chosen as the Democratic running mate.
This produced a wave of panic amongst Democratic supporters around the world until the woman who shall be forever known as Caribou Barbie opened her mouth and sent whatever moderate voters who remained faithful to Senator McCain running for the hills.
The choice of a more moderate woman as running mate may well have rescued him but pandering to extremists to gain their support would always risk losing moderate voters and this is clearly what happened yesterday.

In the midst of my whooping it up I felt a pang of sorrow and sympathy for Senator McCain, especially whilst listening to his final speech.
The man is truly gracious in defeat and what he said last night will assure him at least a place in history above the mire and disgrace of the fall of Bush and the world's disgust at the neo-con legacy.

As for President-Elect Barack Obama …
I can only have sympathy for him as he accepts the poisoned chalice.
His will be one of the toughest tasks ever faced by a US President.
But his victory does indeed bring relief and hope.
With the possible exception of the fall of the Berlin Wall, not since the end of World War 2 has the whole world been given such a gift and such a reason to celebrate.

Thank you, the people of the United States of America.

Meanwhile, Here Is Some Light Music

Hokay, Yanquis.
In a few hours the sun will be coming up on the US of A.
Get your asses out there and vote.
Remember: any person who does not exercise their right to vote does not deserve to live in a democracy.
Do the right thing as you see fit.

Whatever happens, at least the USA will once again have a President capable of correctly pronouncing his own middle initial.

There's bugger all I can do to influence things from over on this side of the pond, so while you Colonials decide how you're going to fuck up the world for the next four years I'll just dance to old jazz records …