He Tires Somewhat

Over at Havering On, a former regular commenter on Thought Experiments, City Unslicker, remarks, 'I tire somewhat of his blog sometimes.' Unslicker, my heart goes out to you. I tire of it too. It goes nowhere, it achieves nothing. Many visitors land, stare around in bewilderment and get back on the Easyjet. 'What,' a Sunday Times writer asked me the other day, 'is your blog for?' 'What,' I snapped back, 'is a flower for?' Remember the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. But, to be honest, Thought Experiments will not settle down to being a flower. Nige, of course, strews flowers as he passes through, drawing in urgent new subjects like statues, birds, Croydon and his incontinently loved Carshalton. But I sit here in inspissated gloom, casting my increasingly paranoid gaze on increasingly strange corners of the world. Today, for example, probably I am the only blogger drawn to the news that low self-esteem promotes materialism. As we enter the grim world of Christmas advertising, it becomes clear that the best possible ad for Calvin Klein's Get Laid Now fragrance would be one that tells their viewers they are know nothing scum. They kind of do this already. Again I am probably the only person in the world worrying about the 2038 or Y2K38 problem. This was drawn to my attention by David in a comment on Ray Kurzweil. Apparently it means, as things so often do, that we are all going to die. Of course, I was going to assess, consider and finally dismiss this suggestion that we stop calling it the Theory of Evolution and call it The Law of Evolution in order to silence those doubters who keep sneering, 'It's only a theory.' But my heart's not really in it this morning. I was also thinking about Simon Jenkins's use of the word 'frit' and the way this fragment of Lincolnshire dialect has stuck in political discourse ever since Thatcher first used it in 1983. There's also the continuing Northern Rock horror which is now certain to cost the taxpayers four hospitals and may well cost us 60. I passed a branch in Norwich yesterday. There were, of course, no customers, just four staff members standing there grinning weakly. Sadly, I did not have my trusty D200. The last time I took it to Norwich I was nearly arrested. NR's chief executive and all round jerk - Applegarth - has a name like mine and its chairman, Matt Ridley, used to be a friend. We once had a very intense discussion in a castle. It was being filmed and 'moderated' by Evan Davies, but was never used because it was too complicated. They didn't tell us it was for John Craven's Newsround. It wasn't about building societies but evolutionary theory and it was a draw. The next thing I know Matt's running one of Britain's biggest companies. Amazing. I was also thinking of blogging on my great new post-Christmas diet book - Lettuce: The Silent Killer - and on the way TV advertising breaks are now all about smells. Last night I saw one for Hugo Boss's exciting new Have Lots of Sex sandwiched between two ads for stuff that suppresses the smell of shit in the bathroom. I'd be cross if I were Boss, though it may be part of his deliberate strategy to lower his customers' self-esteem by telling them they smell like shit. Nothing is what it seems. See what you've made me do, Unslicker? Ramble. Oh and the iPhone. Here's a thing - I'm getting one. Really. It doesn't get much more interesting than that does it? Well, I suppose there's cloned monkeys and Iran and stuff. And they're still torturing women in Spooks, killing them also. And I might also have some Shreddies. But where does this leave us, where I ask you?

PS We're almost out of milk so I'm having toast.