Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Music, words and parrots.

Have I told you how much I like my ipod? (That was a rhetorical question, you moron, I am going to tell you anyway). It is lovely.

One of the many advantages is that it cuts out external sound. Let me be specific. If there are good earphones, and you put the appropriate end in your ears, and attach the other end to an ipodic device, having taken care to switch it on and play some sounds on it, it means that the telephone conversation of the vile old ratbag 7 rows of seats away in the railway carriage will no longer be audible. You may consider that not knowing how long it will be before he/she reaches home, how well the presentations went and what Anthea said to her in the office might be detrimental to the completeness of your collected knowledge, and I would defend your right to this view, however misguided, but, so far, I have managed to get through the day furnished with ignorance.

I have two thousand nine hundred and eight tracks of music on my ipod. That will get me to my office and back about a thousand times before I need to start again. I use the shuffle feature, which means I never know what is coming next. It is always very exciting, because I have chosen all of the music and know that whatever comes next is something that I like. (User tip – don’t add any music that you don’t like.) So far I have avoided singing along. I wouldn’t mind singing along, but amongst the many traits stored in my genes is a mild form of tone deafness, which means I will never be a professional singer and, unlike Barry Manilow, choose not to inflict my vocal talents on the rest of humanity. (Most of my mother’s family possess/possessed this defect. My mother was profoundly tone deaf and dumb. She could not recognise any piece of music. I had an uncle who was a minister, and he had to hold his hand over the microphone while hymns were being sung in case the congregation took flight.) I also suppressed, today, the desire to get up and do an idiot dance on the 12:53 to West Byfleet when Hawkwind suddenly began to play one of their charming ballads.

However, I recognise a slowing down in my desire to collect the latest boy’s toys. This is a welcome relief. It would be awful to have as one’s last regret the lack of the latest entertainment device among one’s possessions. As it is, I look forward to spending many years at the “Sunny Catheter” retirement home with only my ipod, the complete “One Foot in the Grave” DVD series and a slow internet connection allowing me to keep abreast with the latest news of the health of the Rev. Dave.

Rol has been naughty of late, trying to provoke me by mentioning “Morse” among his top ten UK television series. Not only did I not join in, I even fought away the temptation of doing my own top ten. I have to confess this was not only due to my declining number of “bloke” cells, but also because I realised I would have to list at least 25, and would never have managed to put them in a satisfactory ranked order. Anyway, Rol has a little competition that requires only six words, so most of you will be able to join in with that. (Tom, the aim of this is to sum up your life in six words. I can lend you four if you are struggling.) Please go and join in.

Finally, this highly reliable news source has an amusing little tale. I urge caution in believing everything here, though, because they have got the caption wrong in the first picture. The parrot is on the left.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

RE: The final Daily Mail link.

Everybody knows that macaw is a f***ing w***er!

ADG

Dave said...

I have already summed-up my life, in three words (one of which is 'and' - not at the start of the sentence, obviously). It is the most recent title for my blog.

Vicus Scurra said...

Andy, are you related to Bill Oddie?
Dave. You could have said "Triumph and Disaster" rather than write an essay. I suspect that summing-up is not an art that comes easily to you.

I, Like The View said...

*stunned silence*

(but, you know me - not for long)

firstly, dear vicus, that you used the word "exciting" in a pice of writing; secondly, that you have an office!

I, Like The View said...

(piece, not pice)

Richard said...

I done a LOL. I read this in the Mail yesterday while visiting Sharon in hospital. For some unexplained reason we then started talking about you.

(for the benefit of the very new, my occasional beloved is a distant outpost of the Scurra bloodline)

KAZ said...

Ah Hawkwind - was it 'Quark, Strangeness And Charm' that started your well known affection for physicists?

Vicus Scurra said...

ILTV are you implying that any aspect of my life is less than exciting. I was going to tell you about the lady that I met yesterday. Now, SHA'N'T.
Richard. Poor Sharon. Not only in hospital, but obviously in the pauper's ward where the choice of reading material is, frankly, cruel.
Kaz. No.

zoe said...

Good God, Richard, don't you and Sharon have anything better to talk about?

Vicus Scurra said...

Thank you for that input of Belgian Bile. I can see that your medication is not improving your disposition. Perhaps if you were honest enough to admit that you dream of me constantly your mood would improve.

zoe said...

Vicus, I suffer from enough nightmares as it is at the moment, I really don't need you to make them any worse.

Richard said...

Vicus, I know. She did get The Indie one day but that paper's gone right up itself recently. It was either the Mail or TV Quick, a close call as she was in charge of the remote. She's out as of three hours ago and rapidly getting back on form.

This isn't Vicus doing idiot dancing to Silver Machine.

zoe said...

Richard - I'm glad to hear that Sharon is getting back on form x

Rol said...

Thank you for the (Morse) mention.

Romeo Morningwood said...

Mr Grewcock has a lot of explaining to do and I'n not just referring to his f*cking Parrots.
Why on earth didn't his Grandfather have enough sense to anglicise their surname to something like Boner or Chubby?