Avaunt

I blame Boris.

She promised to serve Her Peoples all her days, and never faltered. Say what you like about the system, the Sovereign herself was the Gold Standard* of Heads of State. Bless her little cotton** socks.

* Srry, Christian, not THAT gold standard.

** *tips hat to Mr Gandhi*

Trumps latest attack-defense is "We took SO MANY files, that what the FBI have done is a SMASH AND GRAB !".

Or something, idk, I am not a mental-case.

I second that. Hope you are going along good mate.

I used to talk to a guy at Space.com before they dropped having a forum. Quite a good dude, we had a lot in common, maybe we talked for a decade?. I knew he was a writer, and his wife was a writer, among other "facts". But these are just things from the interweb, there was no depth to what I knew.

I HAD known his real name too, because he was a coin collector, and I posted him a random selection of Kiwi coins once, for which he gave me his full name, so after that I would get a letter every few months from him, and we kept up a fairly regular personal correspondence. But I used to write a LOT of letters before the internet, a LOT.

So on a thread about books series that have been continued by a second writer, when I said "Oh, I have never thought that was a good idea, I would prefer the author wrote something original" this electric-friend of mine answered my post with just a

Someone else pointed out he was an author himself. And the name in my address book was John Gregory Betancourt. Wrote some Star Wars and a prequel series to The Chronicles of Amber.

I love the trailer for that. Might go watch it today.

I am back to the insomnia WELL HARD. Have not slept soundly for weeks. Feel like screaming.

Yeah, Finnish. I guess it was my mistake, because I had been reading about Finland's plans of defense in the up-coming third world war.

May I just encourage our British Friends to vote Labour this time , please?.

I am sick to the back teeth of right wing governments existing around the world, and everyone and everything that goes along with that.

The nonsense ongoing about the Iceland PM is making me angry. I am no doubt not alone.

Quite literally spurious, tantamount to libel, and the worst part is how FUCKING hypocritical it is. As if the vast majority of male members of Parliaments didn't spend half their time in closed doors hard drinking sessions, usually a prelude to going back into The House and Making Law.

I need not reiterate the list we are all well aware of, and haven't the time to as it is one of the longer lists. And as a matter of cold fact, it is almost obligatory in the circles of the Right for the "main men" to be able to handle their grog, and demonstrate it. Not that The Left is any different imho.

Actual injustice makes my fists clench, but couple it with the thing I hate the most about humans, vile hypocrisy, and I am a ticking time bomb. You can indulge yourselves around me with your faults, but really, don't ignore the beam in your own eye unless you want me to gouge them out with malice-aforethought.

Oh, I doubt I will ever watch TV again. It is the same, or from the same fault as my compulsion to read. I can't not think, if I watch something passively, walk without a book in my hand, sit still for five minutes, watch someone else doing something.

I literally start to fret if I am stuck waiting for someone/thing, without  a book to read or a thing to do. I start to think, and that leads to distress.

It makes me either a hideous * house guest, or the BEST house guest, because as I may have mentioned before I never sleep more than four hours, and even that relies on there being no sound at all out of the normal.

* Some people take it personal if a guest, unable to continue unconscious, and unwilling to lay still with the brain running, begins to detail clean your kitchen quietly. At 2 am.

SOME people are like "The dog. Also needs grooming. Its clippers are under the laundry sink. Tigger, quietly, good tigger, good night again".

It is sad, and also personally worrying. All these people who made up my youth, and they are doing that unwelcome thing which looms nearer, personally.

OwO ?

NO SIR ! OWA !

I would have thought Lucienne ought to know everything?.

Is it any good?. TV shows were never my thing to be honest, but literally I have not watched a TV screen for years, except for things running on someone else's TV when I have been visiting. Just got out of the habit. I didn't even watch any during lockdown, because the flat I was renting had a TV, but I would have had to ask the landlord for a code or something for his accounts. And when he offered it, knowing what a manipulative person he was, I said "I won't need the TV, thanks".

I was concerned that he would try to blame me for something, or charge me the TV at a profit.

This is what makes me smile, every time. How often do the supposed "big brains" of business prove to be actually dumber than a street-crook.

The right wing mouths always going on about how they are so smart, the natural leaders of the world because reasons, the whole false story about how all businessmen are naturally better "Oh, I work 75 hours a week", the whole thing about the "Moral Majority",  and all of it built on sand, sand someone has shit in.

Working on the luxury yachts as I have done now for quite a while, this is the crud those guys pump out all the time . . . and you ought to SEE the bone-headed simplistic mistakes they make and IN FACT then argue with the professionals about "I never had to do that before !". Not to mention the times they are wandering around talking shit to other yachts owners, clearly not actually working dawn to dusk 24/7.

There is one truly toxic guy who OFTEN and often has literally gone on, in a loud obnoxious voice, about how he works dawn to dusk . . . and he is actually notorious for being down at the marina walking around bored, and disturbing the tradies by talking to us for an hour at a time about just gossip. Even the other boat owners call out to him and say "Aren't you supposed to be working, Bob ?".

Why don't we have a revolution and hang the lot of them? I have heard tell that they will ACTUALLY sell us the ropes we use !

I gave the book to my workmate to read, so I couldn't check to see.

The funny thing is, that workmates dad is a multi-billionaire, billion with a b. And he is a really diverse, strange father to the guy, goes from ringing him up in the middle of the night to ask if he would come do Dad a favour one day, to asking "Why are you here?" when the boy visits another day.

And the very day I gave this really nice ( and to me, expensive ) book to my workmate because he asked politely, the boy put it on his shelf, and out of the blue his dad turned up to visit, which never happens. Drank a beer out of the boys fridge, picked up my book and said "That looks interesting" and walked out with it.

OI ! Murry ! Buy yer own fuckin' books, cobber !.

I told my mate to go around to his dads house, and take a book off the shelf and say "My workmate wants this as hostage" but he actually looked ill when thinking about what his old man would say.

Also. https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/appendix-n-9781907222740

This was good, but one story in it was FIRE ! FIRE I SAY !  C. L. Moore, Black God's Kiss

Oh. My. WORD !.

How did H.P. Lovecraft be considered anything, in a world that held that story ?. It made everything of his I ever read, trite, verbose, affected, worthless.

Had  joke and a very human moment with Karl Urban today.

He was PAINFULLY sweet to ( I am pretty sure it was ) his dad, in a matey-but-protective way, and virtually kid-gloved him into a "working-mans sized" fishing boat, and took him out for a fish on a beautiful Auckland winters day. WOW what a decent man, literally he ticked all the boxes for Prime Kiwi Male as we fantasise ourselves.

I "knew" I knew him from somewhere, assumed it was just from being down around the marinas, and did my usual joke when I see people going out between 9 to 5. I smile and say "Oh, hello" to people as they pull up to their boat with their fishing gear ( me polishing another boat on the finger or something ) then I act perplexed and ask "You know it is a working day, right?"

He got the joke instantly, pointed back to shore and said "Yeah man, I know, we are avoiding that shit. We are going fishing instead. *smile* Are YOU working? . . . *laughs* too bad, we're fishing".

After they pulled out, my workmate said "Do you know him? have you met him before?".

they had the NICEST Winters day weather for it, almost Spring warmth , no wind, bright sun.

Gwendoline Christie . . . well, OK. But we ought then to have an obviously ( and canonically )  FEMALE supernatural character played by a male, please.

You know. If the desire for equality in the world is anything other than talk.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62330141

I am IN LOVE with this  lady who flew 74 types of plane about in WW2 G.B.

I am amazed at her life. So many people thought that war was a chance to do stuff exciting, and to rise to the occasion.

One of my Uncles used to tell people he loved every minute of it, including being shot at, and quite a few other things that other people dreaded or found worrying.

He can't be an Anti-hero if they are all heroes, sort of thing?.

Never read any of the tales.

I don't know what to say.

I blame tRump, personally.

Chemically advanced? Did someone sign him up to Netflicks ?.

He never tells anyone anything unless it suits his purposes. If they were using some sort of enhancement, he would be the last guy to admit to it.

turtles all the way down with him.

It is such an old trope, Plato would pull a face.

He has suggested a number of books for further reading, and I am going to get at least one of them. I like his sense of humour and he says somethng like "Mr XZY has written a deeply interesting, well studied and very Humourous book about such and so a topic".

What amuses him I suspect will amuse me. Plus, Science  !.

I know how everything is connected to them, and how you felt in the car. He would have been so happy for his grandson, and you can hold that close.

Still think about my mum every day, something will happen and my mind flicks to her. Guess it always will.

Drunk : How we sipped, danced and stumbled our way to civilisation. Edward Slingerland.

Very interesting and well written popular-scientific work about the authors take on Alcohol. Copious notes and bibliography . . . so maybe it is more scholarly than I portray it ?. I learned a great deal, and it was very interesting reading and surprisingly witty too.

( Spoilers, his take is "Make mine a Large, please, and one for everyone !" )

Oh mate. My heart goes out to you, that was too soon. Very sorry for your loss guys.