Tuesday 18 September 2007

Throwing a paddy.



Not an ethnographic version of dwarf tossing. I think it's an East Midlands expression. That's where the English language, at least the important elements seperating Old English from Middle English, sprang up, so get used to it. I remember "chavvy" being used long before that Dent woman popularised the term chav, too.

Bad day. Bad twenty-four hours. Freshest in my mind, there is a new volunteer to replace the fragrant young woman who was previously there. He's ugly. I prefer the appearance of men to be unremarkable, but this man is repulsively ugly. I assume it's a medical condition as he has two hearing aids too, but that's no excuse. People don't carry their colosomty bags to work, after all, so why does he take that face around unveiled? These are all minor complaints, as is the arrogant swagger. Most offensive to a taciturn man like myself is that he never shuts up. Funnily enough it didn't make it any better that his words were mostly incomprehensible. If I wasn't a pacifist I'd have solved the problem. A man who can't control his tongue is really less than an animal anyway. An animal has no choice, a man who natters on like a woman is commiting one of the sins most often condemned in the Bible. New Testament, especially.

Computers, too. Problems. Ordering an inter-library loan book, three in fact. Hopsicker's "Barry and the Boys", "Puppetmasters" (Phillip Willan), "The Beast Awakens" (Martin Lee). The super competent library employee gave me a new library card. New number. Couldn't get onto the computer yesterday because it was booked in the old number. Took a bit of sorting out. Fine now. Moral: normal competence better than supercompetence.

Rumours that Sheffield Wednesday are appointing Neil Warnock, former manager of the hated local rivals, as their manager. The man who once said he would like to manage Wednesday, so that he could "buy some crap players, get them relegated, and then retire to Cornwall". Might be a bad decision.

Sport! A conspiracy of sport has recently happened. I'm convinced, although there's no evidence. The Formula One, I mean. Supposedly McLaren have benefited from information obtained illicitly from a disgruntled member of the Ferrari team. The McLaren team member was also allegedly disgruntled. One of the drivers, known to be unsettled, was egging him on. McLaren have been disqualified from this year's, and next year's, championship. They were leading Ferrari by a wide margin, now Ferrari have been handed the title by administrative fiat, as there are no other serious (or now even nominal) contenders.
This is what I think happened: Alonso was involved because he was disgruntled. The McLaren engineer was probably offered money or future employment. The one behind it all were the Ferrari team. They could easily afford to feed a bit of chickenfeed, to use the intelligence jargon, to McLaren then they arrange to have McLaren caught in the act of receiving. Afterall, there's no evidence McLaren benefited from having this information. A Ferrari engineer has been giving them information which they have discarded. The question is whether he acted alone.
I had things to say yesterday, but I was scuppered. Something about bank runs. The town smelling of flumps. And the following quotes.
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers...The
main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the
backer of the backer; or what is most important of all, the banker of the
backer. Enthroned above all, in a manner without parallel in all past, is the veiled prophet of finance, swaying all men living by a sort of magic, and delivering oracles in a language not understanded [sic] of the people."
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, Candour Magazine, 13 July 1956, p. 12

"Thought must be the harder, heart be the keener,mind must be the greater,
while our strength lessens"
-- Battle of Maldon
That is all.

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