Alors, Sarkozy... Hmm. Only one thing neeed concern us about this famous victory: will it make France any less agreeable a place to visit? I suspect the anwer to that is Non. After all, it was the French who invented that useful Plus ca change maxim - and indeed the Gallic shrug. We may resume our slumbers.
Of more moment, of course, is the imminent demise of the cassette tape (Dixons or some such are dropping them). I recently rediscovered the pleasure and pains (both considerable) of the personal cassette player when I found myself without a personal CD player. Why? Because these too are fast becoming unobtainable, expect via the terminally grim Argos shopping experience. Even buying online proved a strangely long-drawn-out affair. Soon the iPod will have conquered all - a chilling thought - all the music you're ever going to want to hear, in a thing the size of a cigarette packet? Can't be right - but we've been here before...
A more depressing story is of the man diagnosed with terminal cancer, who spent his life savings on various lavish end-of-life gestures, then was told it was a misdiagnosis and he wasn't going to die after all. Did he rejoice and thank Providence or whatever? Did he heck. He's suing.
Finally, I keep hearing/seeing trails for BBC4's Edwardian Season - which actually contains some rather good programmes. 'The Edwardians,' these trails tell us again and again,'were not so very different from us.' Is this the only way top 'sell' history now? Wouldn't it be much more interesting if they actually were very different from us (as of course they were)? Isn't this, in fact, the nature of the past and the point of taking an interest in history?
Nige (it's official)
Monday, May 07, 2007
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Man sues for not dying? Sounds suspiciously like a Scrubs episode, Bryan. I mean, Nige.
ReplyDeleteTwelve, maybe thirteen years ago, but it seems like an eternity, there was dancing on the street, nay jubilation of unprecedented proportions. All the big Hi-Fi makers were bringing out CD juke boxes (“a wonderful piece of techno-convenience” said the ads) that could hold around 100 CD’s that played for over 100 hours, “almost 5 days without repeating a single tune”, went the sales blurb. In their wildest dreams they could not have imagined the ipod!
ReplyDeleteSorry to be a whingeing pom but where's the links, I would like to follow up on your observations read the real stories that you too have read. Come on Nige sort it out.
ReplyDeleteI'm working on it Grocer.
ReplyDeleteN
The Edwardians wouldn't have had links. Keep it real, Nige.
ReplyDeleteThe Edwardians didn't have links, they had kinks. check out history of Willie, Queen V.'s son. they were already beginning to rebel against Victorians -- gay '90s indeed and Willie's own grapplings with other kinds of 'V'.
ReplyDeleteNige, I still think you're Bryan. He's playing with the idea of 'other selves,' a la the great joke about the web: "No one knows you're a dog on the Internet" (picture of two dogs on Match.com).
I don't mean to imply that you're a dog -- or even a squirrel -- but I just bet you've got a deep crevasse in your chin bone....
Nige, I claim my prize. I was the first person to view your profile and there's nothing there. The very least you can do is to come clean on your star sign!
ReplyDeleteSagittarian Richard - unlike that notorious Virgo Bryan. Nice to know my profile's empty. And, Susan, tho my chin is cleft, it is not cleft on the Bryan (or Kirk Douglas) scale.
ReplyDeleteNige (already doubting his own reality, but bearing up)
Well, Nigel, what a joy it is to hear from the Big Man himself, moustachioe d or otherwise . Though pressed for time myself , I must remark on the iPod – being one of the few people in t he capital who doesn't actually own one, my theory is that it was designed by a non-music lover, for non-music lovers. It seems that music has been relegated to nothing but background noise, there purely to drown out the incessant 'tish tish tish' of other people's iPods. All music is now muzak. If you truly appreciate music and those who create it, stick with the serious at-home stereo speakers . That' swhat I say.
ReplyDeleteYours,
J Cheever Loophole
Ah Cheever - or may I call you J? Tis good to hear from you again, with words of characteristic good sense. You're right - nothing you stick in yr ears can possibly produce the true sound of music.
ReplyDeleteNige
I get it that speakers are better - but earphones apply to all personal players not just iPods! My gripe is tht the 'in-your-ear' pieces are not made for my protrusion - anyone else finds them painful?
ReplyDeleteAnd, Nige I understand your trouble with inserting links - best to crib code from places where it worked before. Don't be too proud.
Ah yes NIge, and a Loophole family saying has it that you should stick nothing in your ears apart from your elbows… xxx
ReplyDeleteIs that you, Cheever? I knew we shouldn't have got on to Christian name terms!
ReplyDeleteN
Ahem, yes well, I must apologise for that, Big Nige - I had just been emailing a lady f riend, one Margaret D'umont, and had a slight blind spot on signing off…
ReplyDeleteYours (with added testosterone and some manly thigh slapping)
J Cheever Loophole
Given that you blog about your absurd and wonderful anti-iPod stance, Nige and Cheever, you easily qualify for my soon-to-be-formed Society for E-Luddites.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, Brit, it's a miracle that either of us have managed to 'blog' at all. I think Nige should be heartily applauded for managing to provide such competent and inspiring blogsitting services in B's absence…
ReplyDeleteYours
J C Loophole
I'm sure Loophole and I wld be delighted to receive membership forms for that one - on paper, of course.
ReplyDeleteN
The man that lived to sue. It's a sorry tale and will all end in tears. I can only suspect that he had already said goodbye to his soul. Perhaps the NHS can buy him an iPod to keep him otherwise engaged.
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