iLiterature

There's been this niggling thought hanging about inside my head for a little while now.

It all started (one dark and stormy night) when my eleven year old told me the meaning of iliteration. Simply put, it's words coupled with each other because they share a common first letter, such as Simple Simon, Fast Food or New York, New York*.

That wasn't the thought.

I like to think about words. About their origins, their meanings and their evolutions. I like the way they sound. I like to look for connections that don't always exist. I like to explore.

This also wasn't the thought.

The thought goes something like this, but in no particular order;
Literate people can read, illiterate people can't read, the iPhone could have an app called "iLiterature", would this app contain books for people who can't read or merely contain examples of iliteration?
Also songs go "ooh ooh ah ha" etc. Try putting that in a book.


*Not really NY but you never know.

Crossroads

I haven't written or needed to write a CV for about fifteen years. Now, I do. I recently lost my job (I won't bore you with the details) and I am now in an unfamiliar situation. In the past, I've always found myself a new job before handing in my resignation but this time I have no new job waiting for me and instead find myself at a crossroads in my life.


The fact that I turn 40 next year doesn't exactly help, either!

Once bitten, twice stung

The night before last, something found it's way into my bedroom and bit me. Or maybe stung me, I'm not really sure. It wasn't my wife. It wasn't a werewolf or a vampire. It was probably some evil mutant insect with HUGE RAZOR SHARP TEETH... In Africa?! No.




Anyway, I'm on the hardcore prescription drugs and the swelling has already begun to come down. It still itches but I've been good and resisted the urge to have a bloody good scratch. If I find the bug that did this to me, I'll give it the bitch slapping it deserves.

If you're not proud to be British, it's because you're not British!

When I was younger, I used to watch my mother screaming at the TV, bouncing on the edge of her seat and going a funny shade of red. This was not usual behaviour for her. Lazy Sunday afternoons usually found my mum with a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. What can have brought about such a change? No, it wasn't that. It was...




I didn't understand how the Olympic games could affect people in this way. To a young boy, finding his way in the world, it simply didn't make sense that the outcome of a race could lift people up in ecstatic rapture or leave them utterly deflated. It was during the men's 3000m, on Saturday night, that I began to exhibit symptoms similar to that of my mother's. I began to feel tense and restless as the race went on, lap after lap.
And then it happened.
I found myself bouncing on the sofa, clenching my fists and snarling at the television. "Come on! Come on!" I Could feel tears in my eyes and my heart was punching it's way out of my chest as an historic gold medal was won for Great Britain. Now I know what my mum was getting so worked up about all those years ago.

Investigating instagram

So, you've just found instagram and you're looking for someone interesting to follow. Well, I'm not one to blow my own trumpet (I play a different instrument) but you could do a lot worse than to choose me.







True, there are far better photographers out there with high quality cameras and the like but there are also some really awful users who post blurry, uninspired photos (mostly of themselves, it had to be said).







Each and every photo I upload has been thought about carefully. If a photo needs editing for clarity or effect then I take the time to do it to the best of my ability (and equipment, budget permitting).







Anyway, enough trumpet blowing. I've added some examples of my work to give you a taste. Come and join me if you like what you see. You can find me as @myth337

On the buses

I've been traveling on the buses quite a bit recently. Not because I want to but because my wife has to visit her GP every other day in order to be treated. I'm not going to go into details here but this should have been done and dusted 3 years ago. Instead, she is in pain, cannot easily get around and this is all due to the negligence/incompetence of the NHS. We are not happy bunnies.

O2 4U

I've been having a little trouble with my O2 broadband wireless reuter for the last few months. Mostly it works but it likes to stop working for a couple of minutes every once in a while which can be really infuriating. To be fair (Why should I be fair, really?), the fault/blame may not lie with O2, it could be BT, for it is their lines that O2 and I are trying to use.
Either way, when I informed O2 of the problem they asked me to press the reset button. Job done. Except the problem returned. So they suggested changing the ADSL filter with the spare that comes in the box. That seemed to do the trick and they said they'd pop another filter in the post for me, just in case. When it happened again, I swapped the filter... Again.
So, are we happy now? Not yet. Guess what happened next. Yup. So I called O2 again and they said they'd send me a new reuter which I should recieve in 3 days, which they did, which I did. Anyway, I've just finished installing the software and everything so let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Clip clip ✂ snip snip

I had my hair cut today. By my wife! And I'll tell you something for nothing, she did a bloody good job, too.
Neither of us were entirely sure what we were doing but with my feel (do it harder, yeah, that's good, etc*) and her eyes (that doesn't look right**) we managed to get through it in one piece. Well, I didn't. I was scattered all over the floor in many pieces. Actually, If she had managed to clip an ear or snip a finger, I would have been astonished because I had total faith in my wife and the thought never entered my head until long after she had finished.




Will I be asking her indoors to step up the next time my Barnett needs seeing to? You betcha!

* innuendo.
** more innuendo

Ddoubless

I think it may be my age but I've started mixing up double letters in words.

What am I talking about? Well, a simple example would be: "goggle" instead of "google". At least the mistake is still a word. Most of the time it just looks like gibberish. Or gibeerish, which could mean anything.

I hope I don't start doing it with numbers...

Coming soon

I haven't forgotten my promise to post more blogs. There's a nice one on the boil at the moment but I'm having difficulty putting my thoughts into words. Hmm, words...