Channel Tunnel

Post 550.

There's a great deal of significance to that.

It's a number.

Hey, what are the most important insects?

The Significk Ants.

You can have that one. Use it as you see fit.

Also, feel free to modify it. I'll give you a few options.

Which ants are the biggest sticklers for detail?

The Ped Ants.

Which ants are the most useful for firefighters?

The Fire Hydr Ants.

What do you call young ants?

Inf Ants.

See if you can come up with your own. It's quite difficult. You probably need to be trained, but give it a go anyway.

I can't claim to have invented jokes. Also, I can't claim to have come up with the idea of starting sentences with "I can't claim to...". But I might have done.

I'm really thirsty. I think it's holding me back from writing properly. Hang on a second. I'll get some extra liquid, put it in my mouth somehow, swallow it, then I'll be back with you.


...


OK. Now my faculties are properly lubricated, I'm able to string a sentence together with another sentence, so they function as a single idea-conduit; as graceful and precise as a bendy-bus.

I hope you're doing well and that a member of your family gets a nice surprise at some time today. Perhaps they'll find £30 in an old wallet. Perhaps they'll receive an encouraging medical diagnosis. Or maybe they just won't fall into a piranha hutch.

I hope all, some or none of those happen to your loved one. Because I love you. And so your loved one is loved by proxy.

(But Proxy loves everyone. She's a very loving person. Good old Proxanne. She'd give you the shirt off her back. And her front. And the shirt from anywhere she had a shirt - as long as it wasn't boxed up as a gift for someone else's loved one.)

We could sit here and talk about nothing all day. And I will do so, but not until I get past a few asterisks, links and the odd photo of a handsome druid.


***

An Idiot Flaps Odyssey - Part 16

I took a break, but am now back in business. The business of reading every book on a particular shelf. It has taken a long time, but the end is in sight.

Intro
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15


***

Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse

 

This is my least favourite book that I've read in this entire enterprise. I know it's supposed to be a modern classic, so maybe I'm missing something. Possibly I was just in a strange mood.

It's an unpleasant book full of unpleasant characters. Everyone is selfish or controlling or vindictive or all of these, and never in an interesting or charming way.

It's written from the perspective of a teenage girl, and so maybe it's an accurate depiction of the paranoia, shallow pseudo-depth and angst of adolescence. But all the characters seem to behave this way. It's not just ideas but events that are unconvincing and melodramatic.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to think about these characters. Both the hedonistic libertine family, and the stabilising maternal figure are ugly and unappealing. I'm just not rooting for the main character. I'm almost welcoming tragedy for all of them, so they're justly punished for being dicks.

Events seem disproportionate and it seems to be presenting a discussion of morality, but there's nothing tangible about it.

It's not that I need clarity in character, or a simple moral message, but this seemed unsatisfying at every turn.

It was just ugly pretty people doing pretty ugly things.

Of course, I'm always wary about reading translations (I assume the original was in French), so maybe something was lost in the transfer. But after reading tales of similar decadence and self-doubt done so much more impressively by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Evelyn Waugh, I was left very disappointed.

I don't like to be too negative, so I will say this: I love a good pain au chocolat.

***

Steve Roud - The English Year

This is one of Lucy's books. It's a look at English customs and traditions, going through a whole year and exploring them roughly chronologically.

Lucy is interested in this kind of stuff - folklore, archaic ceremonies, quirky curiosities. I can't say that it particularly interests me. I think it must be a kind of reverse-cultural bias. I'd probably be more interested in the folklore of other countries - I really like classical Greek and Roman mythology, for example - but I probably get put off English traditions as they seem quaint and lifeless.

I'm totally sure this opinion has no basis in fact - I probably just have weird hang-ups about my own country, probably because celebrations of traditions and customs are sometime tied up with nationalism, romanticism and superstition.

Of course, they don't have to be. And from reading the introduction to this, the author seems to have a good approach to the subject, walking the fine line between scepticism and respect.

But I confess I haven't read the whole thing.

To be honest, I think it works as a reference/anthology work anyway. So I can dip in and out throughout the year, and learn about things on a case by case basis.

Like for example, apparently there's this day where, in some parts of the country, people hide eggs, anthropomorphise rabbits and commemorate the resurrection of a Middle-Eastern spiritual figure. It's called "Eester". Pretty wild.

Anyway, it definitely seems readable, and is probably very good for people who are interested in that kind of thing. 

***

So, those are some books I've (sort-of) read.

Those were both fairly straight-forward reviews, so I should add some hilarious comedy down here.

Who wants some more ant jokes?

Hmm. There was a resounding "no". And I'm the only one in the room.

The street light outside our window has just come on.

I may have written about it before, because it's like a family friend (Proxy bakes it a Simnel cake every Eester).

When it first comes on, it's pink. But soft. Maybe peach. A really nice colour: gentle, floral, bashful, sneezy. Then it gets brighter and oranger, as though it's getting angry, ready to tackle the challenges of the night. It's gathering its strength so it can illuminate car thieves disapprovingly, confuse birds, and generally make the atmosphere a little bit more Dickensian.

But those early pink bits are the best. It's like an Inf Ant, learning to see, stretching its little photons, taking it first, tentative steps into our eyes.

That's how I want to remember Old Lampy - the neophyte, not the bitter nocturnal crusader.

I don't know whether Lampy is turned straight off in the morning, or if there's a similar, inverted process where he becomes soft again, like a pensioner happy at the prospect of impending death.

I'm not usually up that early.

I mean, I could wake up especially, but I don't really care that much.