Nonsense

One fine day in the middle of the night
The sea caught on fire;
The blind man saw it, and the deaf man heard it,
And the man with no legs, ran for the engine,
Which came along drawn by two dead horses
Ran over a dead cat and half-killed it.
My next song shall be a dance, told to you by a female gentleman,
Sitting at the corner of a big round table, bare-footed
With his father’s boots on, eating soup with a fork.

Perfection?

Today at a party, the parent of the birthday child observed that another, visiting child, was in tears because the bubble tail on the miniature bubble balloon I had made for her had burst.



When I make balloon toys for children I always say that if they break they should sing ~ ‘Da da-da da daaa daaa’ and resist the impulse to cry.

The mother explained that this crying child was:
a) robust, as she was the youngest child in her family
b) a perfectionist which is why the burst part of the balloon dog was so upsetting.

I responded that if she were a perfectionist then she would suffer constantly as she went through life as things were seldom perfect.

The mother was having none of that defeatist talk; ‘there is nothing wrong with wanting perfection’. I agreed but added that the little girl would need to find a way to respond and to deal with things when they were less than perfect.

Days later an elderly and most experienced magician friend declared that he would never perform again. Teach and coach others, yes; but not perform himself. The reason was that when he performed he never reached the level of perfection that he sought.

I find this sad as there is joy and fun to be had on the part of the spectators if the performance is good. Yes. yet more fun if the performance is outstanding.

This magician is denying himself and his spectators that chance. That chance will not pass his way again.

Dog-shot

A cycle of rant

Last week I wittnessed three near accidents involving cyclists, who were breaking the law and the highway code ~ all within 15 minutes, and a mile of each other.

Image


Today, I saw an elderly pedestrian complain to a cyclist who was weaving around on the pavement. The cyclist responded by telling the man that it was legal for him to cycle on the pavement so, as he pedalled past me, I added that he was breaking the law.

This cyclist, by now feeling that there was conspiracy against him, screamed, "F*ck Off".

So much for reasoned discussion.

The pedestrian shared with me the regret that we had no means of identifying these anti-social hooligans.

I get tired of hearing that it is only a tiny minority of cyclists who give the rest a bad name.

Give them ID plates and then we might get somewhere.

Weather

It is true to say that if you predict that the weather in the UK will be much like the weather yesterday, then you will be correct more times than you are wrong.