11 February 2017
There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m no longer the invincible fourteen year old my sense of self has identified with for the past few decades. I had the first inkling over 11 years ago, simply waking then walking downstairs. This latest indication that I must re-evaluate ‘me’ though, it simply shouldn’t have happened.
Crushing plastic bottles to fit more into the recycling bin is something I have an unnatural pride in. Start from the neck, flatten going down the sides, fold over the base, throw into the IKEA ‘Sortera’ box. Yesterday evening though, I felt a twinge in my left thumb, but carried on regardless. Perhaps being fortified by a glass of ‘Buffalo Trace’ Kentucky whiskey emboldened me to simply work through the mild discomfort?
This morning though, in the cold light of day (well dark, it’s not even dawn here yet) I find myself needing a painkiller or two.
Getting old(er) Baz.
09 February 2017
Aw crap, the cat’s looking at me in that way again. Not sure where my uncontrollable giggling came from there, but he’s right to look askance.
Or am I not sure‽
Ok, ok. Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with a single ice cube in a thistle-shaped glass bought for me by my wife-to-be on March 26th 2005, accompanied very loudly indeed by The Pump Panel remix of New Order’s ‘Confusion’ and then Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense album, they might be something to do with it. The latter songs take me back, what…
Forty.
Years.
To the time I first heard ‘em.
1977 seems a bit early though, being honest. 35 years ago is maybe getting there, around the time of the best music documentary film ever. That seems a bit short though, I’m sure I heard ‘em first before they became popular in the UK. Maybe. Dunno.
Shut up Barrie.
#beendrinking
05 February 2017
My oldest daughter has just been watching a YouTube video of children falling over or off things, and some are obviously hurting themselves. The thing I find most disturbing is the parents continuing to film and laughing. It mirrors the response of a mother to her son falling up the steps at the cinema earlier today: uproarious laughter.
I’m a fan of some variants/practitioners of slapstick, and all in favour of my two finding out the hard way, but don’t like the notion there’s comedy to be gleaned from a child’s misfortune.
Maybe I’m living in the wrong age, doing parenting wrong.
Or…
05 February 2017
Ordinary visits to the cinema of course provoke my tears, but not today’s. The frankly inconsiderate, moronic behaviour of the phone users around me provoked me into doing something I’m not proud of, something terrible.
The woman in the row in front of us, when she wasn’t talking with her children, surreptitiously turning on her phone, nearly-but-not hiding it with her hair and…
A teenager down the aisle was, I’m certain, recording large sections of the film, but the three selfies with flash were the last straw. So I got up, walked down the few a steps separating us, and told her to stop doing it and to turn the phone off.
The woman in front of us obviously saw it as a challenge so upped her game. Got up, stood in front of me asking her daughter…
We’d been lucky so far in our visits; I relish the chance to take the girls out, but I can see how, antisocial as it is, why subscription movies services and channels have flourished. Heck, my girls don’t mind if I sit there in my underpants!
Well, ok, that last is a lie, sitting in my dressing gown is as bad as it gets.
Oh yes, the terrible thing.
I let my family down when, without retaining a sense of perspective, I swore at the teenager whilst ordering her about.
For what it’s worth, I saw the majority of the film, and give it an easy 10/10 for the first 90 minutes before the distractions peaked. The soundtrack is amazing! and almost certainly one to buy. Baz’s seal of approval.
Baz though? Baz does not, emphatically not, get the same courtesy.