UK Watercooler 32: Fall Into The Meaning Gap

I'm really posh. Can I have my butler watch the telly instead?

ARgh, stupid banks, they're so rubbish, we'd all be better off taking our money out and storing it in gold bricks under our beds.

Which reminds me, I got a call from a "wealth manager" offering to look after my finances as a freelancer/contract worker and save me ££££ in tax. Which actually might not be a bad idea if I continue with this contracting lark, instead of going through the agencies and getting stung with bloody emergency tax every single time because I never get any P45s or anything. I'm sure they'll shaft me too. But I do like the idea of having a "wealth manager" - that's even better than a financial advisor.

Ed! I completely forgot! You turned up in my dream last night. You rang me from Liberty, saying they were having a sale - I turned up and you were swanning around in a dressing gown, getting your hair cut. You ended up with this ridiculous curly blond bonce, it was quite funny.

I am trying to teach myself to fancy older men by fancying Nigel Havers.

Ha ha. I often find myself trying to think of "older" women to fancy but, let's face it, young people are so much more physically attractive, them's the breaks.

Today is a good day, the sun is shining and I have been tackling the huge funk comp, there is a a lot of good stuff on it. I think need to go and buy some Chambers Brothers albums.

I would like to be fancying people mine own age. But there just don't seem to be any of them.

Some people improve with age, though. I think Carruthers is much better looking now than foetal DDB in the photos in the book. It's hard to believe that it's the same person.

Wealth management. Will they provide me with some wealth to manage? I just like the idea of having a wealth manager. Not as good as a butler, but hey. I will have a butler again before I die.

The rhythm section of my band are getting t-shirts that say

TEAM DISCO: CHERISH THE FUNK!

(preferably in French)

Équipe discothèque: chérissons le funk

I need to start making music again. Spring is in the air and I feel like is should be 'NO SLEEP TILL AUTUMN'

We should go bass shopping soon.

(Or maybe work on that spangly folk side project where I get to play the autoharp.)

Speaking of which, are you or Lisa *ever* going to make me a copy of the remixed Shimura Curves album?

Sounds good. I think I need a strum stick or something so I can play when I travel.

Yes, tonight. (I had forgotten)

A strum stick?

A strum stick! Awesome! They do good drone. Just 3 strings, tuned octaves and a fifth. We can do spangly folk drone with a high body count. Tom, do you want to bring your balalaika in for a drone session?

Autorotation appear to be turning into a prog band (my fault, I think).

I don't have my balalaika anymore!

Get another one! Come instrument shopping with us.

I STILL need to get a tuning key for my autoharp, as they're out whenever I've been to Hobgoblin, and it's become unplayably out of tune now.

By the way, my brother's got an album out, this is the band:

http://www.abelganz.com

4 tracks! Shortest 13 minutes! Longest 23 and a half minutes! Can you guess what kind of music they play?!?!? I've never heard them but I'm badgering him to send me a copy...

Goodness! I like their website design, even if I can't listen to the music.

Free Shanties?

He designed their website as well, talented boy (xp)

Sea-Funk?

If there isn't a genre called Free Shanties, I'm claiming it. It is the new style of polyrythmic freestyle sea shanties.

OK, my work is providing a tiny glimmer of amusement today. I really shouldn't laugh at this, but you kind of have to, it's so grim.

This agency has been promoting the whole "now wash your hands" thing in an effort to reduce the spread of MRSA and other beasties. They're responsible for the introduction of those bottle of alcohol gel outside wards (you'll know what I mean if you've been near a hospital recently).

But apparently there's been a spate of people washing their hands in the stuff, then going outside for a smoke before it's dry, and their hands burst into flames.

I shouldn't laugh. It's really awful. But I cannot help myself, at the idea that this is someone in this department's job, to track incidents of people's hands bursting into flame from smoking after hand-gelling.

Oh, black humour, you get me through the day.

I mean, this is urban myth in the making, right here.

Are you sure it's not another anti-smoking initiative by the this "Nanny State New Labour government"

Um, no. It's a genuine concern due to things I can't get into (I've probably violated some kind of confidentiality law just by mentioning that I'm LOLing at it.)

"Flaming Hand Cessation"

"I Set Myself On Fire" - XTC. Quick, before this turns into an ILM list thread!

Playing With Fire, yet again.

I asked my other half what Nigel Havers was like last night, cos I was sure she had worked with him. Perplexed denials revealed that I was thinking of Nigel Hawthorne instead. I am an idiot. I do know someone who played Cricket against him though. At one point my friend was being bowled to by NH while David Essex kept wicket!

And what "maiden" wouldn't like to be "bowled over" by that pair?!?!?

::insert smutty joke about being bowled to by NH::

ha-HEM.

Maybe I should start playing the Oud.

x-post ha!

Cricket is full of potential double entendres

Electronic Oud Tutor!

http://www.pro.com.eg/oudtutor/images/agam-Bb.jpg

Though there's a story in this book about Sonic Boom playing Saz on Perfect Prescription, maybe I should get one of those.

(I am pathetic, yes.)

Dr. C, can yr friend provide pics of NH in cricket gear? I will not die happy until I have such a thing.

"Sun" burned hand of the Smoker!

OK, I got there, will stop now.

Danny and I are still trying to figure out what, exactly, a Disco Bowl (as in the Lionheart Bros song) is.

Sorry, that was rather random, I was just thinking about NH bowling, and that lead to disco bowling. And what it could possibly be.

Lots of bouncers, of course.... thangyewverymuchladeezandgennulmen

50 souls, 50 souls and a disco bowl...

You don't need 50 souls for a cricket team. Unless he's actually saying 50 soles, which would be 25 people. How many people on a cricket team anyway? I've no idea.

11 + The 12th Man

Even with two teams for a match, that's still too many Norwegians.

Anyway, Norwegians don't play cricket, do they? They probably play some strange game involving whale bones and brown cheese.

Nope, cross country skiing is the country's national sport. I could be down with that.

I'm sure I remember hearing something on *TMS about cricket being played on ice.

(*TMS = Test Match Special, I'd be amazed if NH has never appeard on this as one of **Aggers' guest on "View From the Boundary")

(**Jonathan Agnew)

Seek and ye shall find

This is the problem with sport (especially cricket) - there is simply just too much to learn about it. I will never understand. It's like trying to convert to Catholicism after a lifetime of Atheism. I just don't get it. Even if I master the basics, there's just too much obfuscating... stuff that goes along with it.

Dr. C, can yr friend provide pics of NH in cricket gear?

Very unlikely, but I could ask.

No, no, not if it's any trouble. I'm just being prurient again.

Just reading one website about the basic rules of cricket is already making my head spin. I need an annotated one.

Basic rule of watching Cricket:

If someone in white does something drink a pimm's (down south) or a pint of bitter (up north).

Not rules, LAWS!

What I really need is a site that has all the terminology in the rules hyperlinked into little explanatory popups.

I'm useless at watching sport. An ex boyfriend once tried to make me watch a f**tb*ll match. I observed closely, and figured out that every time one of the little men got the little spotted ball in a net, you were supposed to jump up, spill beer everywhere and shout "HOORAY!"

So I did this, the next time the little spotted ball went in the net and found everyone glaring at me. Then-BF shouted at me that I had just cheered on the Germans. Um, whatever.

Oh no, I just talked about f**tb*ll. I'll have to ban myself!