CAPTCHA

This is the unpronounceable and unspellable name for the unreadable device composed of weird letters and numbers that pops up when you want to subscribe to something on the Internet. All squidgy and interlaced these images are intended to prevent machines from imitating people and receiving emails. They appear in a little box and you have to copy them accurately. It seems only humans can do this. The problem is that I can't. I try and fail repeatedly as they give me ever easier versions (or, sometimes, more difficult ones) until a backward monkey on a bad day could do it. Clearly this is very worrying in two ways: I cannot always access my Facebook page and get an apologetic message which shows they DO know who I am in fact. But more disquieting still is what it says about me. Am I somewhere suspended in a cyberspace chain of evolution, neither human nor machine? Am I a kind of missing link between homo sapiens and a robot?

Weather

This is NOT a gripe about what the sky is throwing at us right now - climate is what you expect and weather is what you get! (Mark Twain? Misquoted?) I like weather and missed it when I lived in California for six months and experienced climate - so boring that I longed for a British "showers with sunny intervals" or "sunny intervals with showers" scenario.

Our postman

Five ticks for our postie! He is tall, blond and Norman - not his name but his ancestry. He knows how to leave my (daily!) Amazon parcels in a specially appointed dustbin at the back door. He then turns the pointed stone on top so that it faces outwards not inwards as a secret sign he has left something. Ooops - not so secret now, I suppose!

Water

Water is clearly A Good Thing and deserves its maximum five ticks - but why oh why is it always in the wrong place? Far too much of it is down my neck when I am out hiking and not enough in parts of Britain where people are suffering hose-pipe bans. They can have some of mine for their cabbages if they like!

My Kindle

I love it and have bought it a lovely red leather case (not the one with a light) which opens like a book. I gather that most people buy light reading matter for their Kindles and show their hefty classics on the bookshelf. But I am the reverse: my Kindle is full of free Jane Austen and Balzac and my shelves weighted down with Bill Bryson and Jilly Cooper!

Digital TV

To protest about digital TV seems rather like objecting to the invention of the wheel! I am sure it is fine for city dwellers but in this small town in Wales we have loss of signal and pixillations all too frequently. There am I in dressing gown and cocoa (if you see what I mean) ready for the ten o'clock news and what I get is a screen of dancing squares like a crazy art installation and a background of strangled sounds. Why did they have to turn off the analogue signal? I do not need channels called Rabbit - or worse - I just want Dad's Army!

The Sea

I love being by the sea in a small cove in North Pembrokeshire where the water is clear and cold. But sometimes, in other places, I get:
Mal de Mer
It's calm tonight, like some old smelly dog
tongueing my ankles: rotten seaweed fronds
curl round my big toes; ice-cream papers clog
the space under my foot arches; beyond
float lumps of scum, dead ducks on a millpond.
And now a gale blows up: foul brown spume flies
into my ears; salt grit invades my eyes;
two rubber things, unspeakable, attack
my knees and bloodless, blue, goose-pimply thighs;
I'm felled by an oiled clump of bladderwrack.

Paper Clips

Five crosses for these. They are the work of a malign spirit! I avoid them whenever possible but am forced to use them when printing off some poems - of the 1239 I have written! - and sending them by snail mail. The clips hook in their multitudes onto my jumper and refuse to let go so that I look like a medieval knight part way through being equipped for battle. That is one reason why I now publish more on the Internet. I wonder how Keats managed his paper clips?

The Archers

I am a fan of this long running series and listen every evening. I am aware of its faults and shortcomings: the tendency to soap opera, the lack of any realistic nastiness in village life and the concentration on a few characters who do tend to be bland - Brian excepted. But is addictive and its quiet tone is welcome. At the moment it is raising contemporary issues about the future of farming and the fact that farmers must diversify to survive. I quite miss it on Saturdays!

The Travellers Return

The Rover's Arms
I'm pestered, goaded, tortured, racked.
It's August and the pub is packed
With journey-making, tedious bores
Who must traipse off to foreign shores
To bring back tans and lurid snaps,
With anecdotes. One day perhaps
When I have had enough to drink
I'll tell them what I really think.
I abominate your tales,
I cannot stomach the details
Of what you ate and where you went
And whom you met and what you spent.
I loathe, reject, detest and spurn
That way you show off your sunburn
And yap with smug complacency.
You are anathema to me.
Why should I empathise or care?
It seems to me that once you're there
You like to feel yourself at home.
Why take the trouble, time to roam
To seek some little bar or dive
That replicates the one that I've
Lurked in all summer? Don't you find
That travelling narrows the mind?

French GCSE

I love French and have spent three years brushing up my ancient "A" level. This has come in handy to help my granddaughter with her GCSE. But that syllabus! So boring - assuming all teenagers want to learn how to say they play at basketball. No literature, no encouragement to write or speak about interesting topics. All in the name of relevance, I assume.

Ticks and Crosses

This blog is entirely about my personal likes and dislikes, things I find irritating and those I find appealing.  No attempt to be fair or impartial - just a subjective medley.