The wife and me are going to see one of our favourite groups tonight. They are the very under-rated Magic Numbers.
Stockholm. July 2009
15 years ago
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
I Would Like To Buy...
One of the themes running through this blog has been about my inability to make myself understood in Dutch. Recently I had to buy some health supplements from the local Apoteek. The tablets contained Cranberries. I repeat, the tablets contained CRANBERRIES. I knew that the Apoteek sold them because I had seen them a few weeks before. They were packaged in shiny bright boxes with a red pill on the front that could indeed have been a Cranberry in pill form. The boxes were part of a promotional display that sat proudly on the counter enticing customers to buy them.
I entered the establishment and to my joy I noticed that the display had been removed. My mission was about to get complicated and quite possibly embarrassing.
The man who works behind the counter looks a lot like the old shop keeper in Little Britain. You know the one, he always shouts to his wife Margaret.
The man in the apoteek doesn't call out to his wife like the bloke in the clip, although strangely enough there is always an unseen presence moving about behind a partition.
I looked around the shop very carefully before approaching him, but I couldn't see what I wanted and so approach him I did.
The following conversation took place in Dutch.
Me: Hello.
Him:...........(worried silence)
Me: Do excuse me old chap but I am an Englishman and I speak very bad Dutch.
Him:..........(continued worried silence but this time with an opened mouth, similar, I should imagine to one you or I would have if we had just been approached by...oh, I don't know...a talking dog?)
Me:Last week...boxes...there...Cranberries!
I pointed to the place where they had been in the hope that he would remember such an impressive display of boxes but he seemed to be looking at my finger and not at the place I was pointing.
Me:Cranberries!
Him: (an embarrassed shake of the head)
Me:Cranberries!
Him:Do you speak French?
Me: Of course I don't speak French, I'm bloody English! I'm speaking your language! Listen to me! CRANBERRIES.
The shop started to fill up with people and by this time I'm getting a bit embarrassed myself.
Me:Cranberries! (I mimed the shape of the box)
He shrugged his shoulders.
Him: I'm very sorry but I don't understand you.
Me: But I can understand you!
I left the shop like a salted slug and trudged home in the rain.
I found a leaflet that had accompanied the display and trudged back to the shop with it. There were two people waiting to be served and I could see the man behind the counter looking over nervously at me. When it was finally my turn to be served I thrust the leaflet at him and stabbed a finger at the product.
Me:Cranberries.
Him:Oh...cranberries! why didn't you say that in the first place?
He turned and picked a box from the shelf imediately behind him. He had been standing in front of them, obviously the only place I couldn't see.
Him: I'm very sorry but they get moved from place to place by the presence behind the partition.
He pointed to three spots in the shop with me a little bit amazed that I could still understand him.
Him:That will be €17.50 please.
Me:How much??? You can stuff your bloody tablets!
Ok, I didn't say that, just thought it.
Yeah, I still have problems. A couple of saturdays ago the doorbell rang and I opened the door to find two girls on the doorstep.
Them: Hello, would you like to buy something you don't need or have any use for...it's for a good cause!
Me: How much?
Them:€6
Me: What...? (I wanted to ask what they were selling again but couldn't find the words so I just held my finger up as if I was telling them to wait there, shut the door and looked at them through the window until they went away.)
Below is an amusing clip of Steve Martin trying to get his pronounciation right...I share his pain!
I entered the establishment and to my joy I noticed that the display had been removed. My mission was about to get complicated and quite possibly embarrassing.
The man who works behind the counter looks a lot like the old shop keeper in Little Britain. You know the one, he always shouts to his wife Margaret.
The man in the apoteek doesn't call out to his wife like the bloke in the clip, although strangely enough there is always an unseen presence moving about behind a partition.
I looked around the shop very carefully before approaching him, but I couldn't see what I wanted and so approach him I did.
The following conversation took place in Dutch.
Me: Hello.
Him:...........(worried silence)
Me: Do excuse me old chap but I am an Englishman and I speak very bad Dutch.
Him:..........(continued worried silence but this time with an opened mouth, similar, I should imagine to one you or I would have if we had just been approached by...oh, I don't know...a talking dog?)
Me:Last week...boxes...there...Cranberries!
I pointed to the place where they had been in the hope that he would remember such an impressive display of boxes but he seemed to be looking at my finger and not at the place I was pointing.
Me:Cranberries!
Him: (an embarrassed shake of the head)
Me:Cranberries!
Him:Do you speak French?
Me: Of course I don't speak French, I'm bloody English! I'm speaking your language! Listen to me! CRANBERRIES.
The shop started to fill up with people and by this time I'm getting a bit embarrassed myself.
Me:Cranberries! (I mimed the shape of the box)
He shrugged his shoulders.
Him: I'm very sorry but I don't understand you.
Me: But I can understand you!
I left the shop like a salted slug and trudged home in the rain.
I found a leaflet that had accompanied the display and trudged back to the shop with it. There were two people waiting to be served and I could see the man behind the counter looking over nervously at me. When it was finally my turn to be served I thrust the leaflet at him and stabbed a finger at the product.
Me:Cranberries.
Him:Oh...cranberries! why didn't you say that in the first place?
He turned and picked a box from the shelf imediately behind him. He had been standing in front of them, obviously the only place I couldn't see.
Him: I'm very sorry but they get moved from place to place by the presence behind the partition.
He pointed to three spots in the shop with me a little bit amazed that I could still understand him.
Him:That will be €17.50 please.
Me:How much??? You can stuff your bloody tablets!
Ok, I didn't say that, just thought it.
Yeah, I still have problems. A couple of saturdays ago the doorbell rang and I opened the door to find two girls on the doorstep.
Them: Hello, would you like to buy something you don't need or have any use for...it's for a good cause!
Me: How much?
Them:€6
Me: What...? (I wanted to ask what they were selling again but couldn't find the words so I just held my finger up as if I was telling them to wait there, shut the door and looked at them through the window until they went away.)
Below is an amusing clip of Steve Martin trying to get his pronounciation right...I share his pain!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Coming Soon
I'm a big fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. This is the teaser trailer for their new movie.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Bad
Sometimes life can be good and sometimes it can be ass wipingly bad! Not my words, Rowan Atkinson said that and who am I to disagree?
The past weekend was a series of mini-disasters, one of which was a totally freak accident with an almost empty plastic bottle of drink falling onto the open door of the microwave oven and shattering the glass. Other mini-disasters included the shutters in the guest bedroom breaking and my wife's oldest son having to reload the opperating system onto his pc after it refused to work- I say operating system but it could have been the Microsoft Rotary Wangle Engine for all I know about computers. I bought some hooks to hang towels up in the bathroom and they worked well...for ten minutes. I ran out of Duvel. We had a plumber in on friday and he fixed one problem and left us with another 3.
I decided this morning that I should really back up my itunes, a job I have been putting off even though I've lost all of my music files not once, but twice in the past year. Along with my music files I lost all of the photos of our honeymoon and every single photo I have taken since meeting my wife. It's not like the old days when you took a roll of film and had them developed. You tend to leave the pictures on your hard drive and that's it. So, this morning I dusted off the external hard drive and connected it up to my pc and what did I find sitting in a folder? Every single one of our honeymoon photos! Not only that...every single photo I've taken since meeting my wife!
Yeah, life can be ass wipingly bad...but sometimes it's really quite nice:-)
P.S The music files were not on the hard drive so....
Friday, October 15, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Green Fingers
I may have mentioned before my 'break' that I had big plans for the garden. I may also have mentioned that I've never actually done any gardening before. It all seemed so simple, a lovely English meadow of wild flowers in Belgium. What could be simpler? After all, how difficult can it be to grow wild flowers? I think you can see by the photo that we were not being too ambitious.
Two patches for flowers and a narrow pathway between them.
The patch of ground that is in shadow is like that from the break of dawn to the setting of the sun. It is a dead zone. Not even toadstools will grow there. It is in perpetual shadow. People go missing if they venture inside it. Now, the rest of the garden is a different story. It is bathed in sunlight, butterflies flutter around it, pixies frolic amongst the dandelions and long grass. Dandelions and long grass are the only things that will grow there. We sowed the seeds and scattered, just like the hymn says, and waited...and waited...and waited.
To be fair, a hundred or so dandelions do look quite pretty. But we didn't want dandelions and they don't stay pretty for long. After waiting all summer for a flower that wasn't a weed:
"Who are you calling a weed?"
"You!"
"I thought I was a plant like matey there with the yellow hat"
"Well, you've got thistles"
"And that makes me a weed?"
It does as far as I'm concerned, although it's true to say that it is a wild flower. Just not the wild flower I had in mind.
"I'll have you know that I can trace my family back to the Jurrasic period!"
So can crocodiles, doesn't mean to say I want one in my garden!
Ok, I'm having an imaginary conversation with an imaginary plant...and they say Prince Charles is a bit nutty....
A few weeks ago I mowed the grass that had grown where flowers should have. The garden looked exactly the same as when I took the above photo in April. The summer might have not happened!
On a happier note I did manage to grow a variety of herbs, Corriander, Basil, Lovage, Thyme, Parsley and of course Mint. It was nice to be able to use them in meals over the summer. Next year I shall have another go at growing stuff, more herbs and maybe some vegetables.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Listening Post
An oldie for your enjoyment today. This track can be found on one of my many cassettes I was telling you about.
Caution
Doris is a lovely lady but very unreliable. Doris is our Sat Nav. I should say right now that the box that contained her brain does say that she knows Belgium like the back of her hand, or would do if she had any hands but with the rest of Europe she only thinks she knows the way.
"Im' not sure, but I'll give it a go!"
We first tested her powers of navigation when we visited the South West of England this past July. I wasn't too bothered because like her, I thought I knew the way as well and so with both of us only fifty percent sure that would ensue that we arrived safely in Wells, which was our final destination.
Doris took us the long way round. It involved circumnavigating the city of Bristol and driving down the coast towards Weston Super Mare. I looked at the kilometres counting down to zero with a mixture of interest and horror because suddenly we were driving around a roundabout and Doris announced somewhat smugly:
"You have arrived in the general area of your destination"
"What!?...no we haven't!"
Doris was silent.
"Doris?"
The car was silent execpt for the clicking of the indicator as we drove around and around the roundabout.
"Doris!"
The tiny screen was a blank with a little red arrow in the centre of the screen. The little arrow was us and the blank bit was terra incognito.
Luckily, I knew the general direction we had to take. We happened to be around 20 miles from our destination.
General area of your destination was a tad optimistic in my opinion.
But, Doris can be funny. We spent this weekend in dear old England. Most of the time she keeps quiet, happy to throw in a:
"Caution, traffic disruption"
However, leaving the ferry at Dover on friday evening she suddenly announced:
"Caution, ferry!"
Which had both my wife and myself laughing. We were leaving the ferry, surely Doris meant:
"Caution, England!"
While we were in England I loaded the car up with part of my music collection, hundreds of cassettes which I bought over the period of 25 years. Anyone of a similar age to me will have music in many forms, vinyl, cassette, cd and digital. I found free software called Audacity, which allows you to transfer your old tapes to itunes. I set up a tape deck to my pc this morning, took a cassette, placed it in the deck and pressed play.
Ah, the memories came flooding back...wibbly wobbly sound and then nothing. I pressed the eject button and gently coaxed the cassette out, found a pen and twisted it until the tape which had billowed out of the cassette returned to its proper place. You can't beat the good old days!
"Im' not sure, but I'll give it a go!"
We first tested her powers of navigation when we visited the South West of England this past July. I wasn't too bothered because like her, I thought I knew the way as well and so with both of us only fifty percent sure that would ensue that we arrived safely in Wells, which was our final destination.
Doris took us the long way round. It involved circumnavigating the city of Bristol and driving down the coast towards Weston Super Mare. I looked at the kilometres counting down to zero with a mixture of interest and horror because suddenly we were driving around a roundabout and Doris announced somewhat smugly:
"You have arrived in the general area of your destination"
"What!?...no we haven't!"
Doris was silent.
"Doris?"
The car was silent execpt for the clicking of the indicator as we drove around and around the roundabout.
"Doris!"
The tiny screen was a blank with a little red arrow in the centre of the screen. The little arrow was us and the blank bit was terra incognito.
Luckily, I knew the general direction we had to take. We happened to be around 20 miles from our destination.
General area of your destination was a tad optimistic in my opinion.
But, Doris can be funny. We spent this weekend in dear old England. Most of the time she keeps quiet, happy to throw in a:
"Caution, traffic disruption"
However, leaving the ferry at Dover on friday evening she suddenly announced:
"Caution, ferry!"
Which had both my wife and myself laughing. We were leaving the ferry, surely Doris meant:
"Caution, England!"
While we were in England I loaded the car up with part of my music collection, hundreds of cassettes which I bought over the period of 25 years. Anyone of a similar age to me will have music in many forms, vinyl, cassette, cd and digital. I found free software called Audacity, which allows you to transfer your old tapes to itunes. I set up a tape deck to my pc this morning, took a cassette, placed it in the deck and pressed play.
Ah, the memories came flooding back...wibbly wobbly sound and then nothing. I pressed the eject button and gently coaxed the cassette out, found a pen and twisted it until the tape which had billowed out of the cassette returned to its proper place. You can't beat the good old days!
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