while they deck me in tinsel and toast me.
who’d have thought, back on this day in ‘77, as punk was breaking and so were my mum’s waters, how many comments i’d be getting for my burpday 27 years later?
not me, that’s for sure.
The blue, with a white triangle edged in red that is based on the outer side and extends to the hoist side, represents - you guessed it - the Pacific Ocean, fringed by an erubescent sunset. But read on, for the winged creature offers us a philological and cultural history lesson. When the island of Tutuila was first sighted by American troops stationed there in WWII, they enquired of the canoe-bound natives as to what it was called in the local tongue. “It’s a moa”, cried the islanders, following the G.I.s’ fingers to the flock of birds inking the horizon. “No.” replied staff-sergeant Herrin-Gaid, “It’s American’s a moa.” Thus was the dependency misnamed after a sorry subspecies, fuck-all to become of it thereafter.The mace and staff stand for valiance and fortitude.
When the boats are still,
(and not just still),
at their moorings, i.e.,
when the Filippino crew
are dreaming of their Filippino girls
and all the ocean is a wishing well
and no-one can afford to throw a coin in,
I think of you
and I: how I was, back before I met you,
and how you were, way back in Battersea.
This morning, I noticed three men in blue uniforms - well, more like overalls, but uniform in the sense of their uniformity - standing around a car in a backstreet / car park, talking amongst themselves. One of them was smoking. They didn’t pay me any attention as I walked past, and nor would I have expected them to do so, since I was perfectly unremarkable in my gait, my appearance, my demeanor, and my direction of movement.
This morning was no exception, because the same three men, always in the blue overalls, are there almost every morning. Maybe there have been half a dozen mornings when they weren’t there, but since I can’t attest that the time, relative to the operation of my kinetic wristwatch, at which I pass the car park, or alley, is precisely the same each morning, it is quite possible, and indeed seems likely, that the men were there, but not contemporaneously with my being there, walking past the place.
Every morning, then. Talking. One smoking.
This morning, I saw the three men on two occasions; first, as described, and second, in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the office building where I work, six blocks from the back alley / car park. They were sat around a table, drinking coffee. Again, they ignored me, as I stood fretfully in the queue, perspiration forming on neck and back.
These, then, are the facts, set down.
A former friend brings a bag of kittens. As they scurry around our apartment, we pick the two we want - hers is pied, with exceptionally large eyes; mine is vanilla.
Not plain vanilla, but Vanilla, descriptive of a particular kitten colour scheme - a wavering eggshell blue with blurred patches of grey and tawny.
1. its etymology
2. why crap players don’t just cheat
3. the numbers on the clubs
4. fore
5. why it’s played on a field between motorways instead of in a gigantic velodrome
6. it’s actually ok
7. but only if you focus
8. and visualise
9. and crouch down and hold your club up so that it’s aligned with the Azimuth of Saturn prior to whacking the ball
10. what kind of person uses a ball with a butterfly pattern on it
11. why it’s more popular than blogging
12. funny hats