From Amsterdam to Betelgeuse

I somehow ended up with a dutch audiobook version of Douglas Adams' classic sci fi story, The Hitch-hiker's guide to the Galaxy. I go through periods where I will have my ipod connected to the car's hifi, and it popped up on shuffle the other day.

Familiarity with the story, and the distinctive names of the characters made it possible to actually follow what was going on, at least some of the time. I seem to remember that linguists consider the Dutch and English languages to be close cousins, which also helps.

But it was an interesting experience, and one that allowed me to interact with the story in an unusual way. It made me think.

Still, like the cartoon at the top of this post, much of it was "blah blah blah blah blah blah Arthur blah blah blah blah Zaphod blah blah blah", mixed with semi garbled familiar words and phrases, like "teleporten" for example.

driving lessons in Wallasey? learn to drive in Wirral? driving instructor in Birkenhead?

A word that means everything

Let's hear it folks please, for the most versatile word in the English Language.



driving lessons in Wallasey?

The Mat sat on the Cat.

Saddo that I am, I woke up this morning thinking about noun order.

In the case of the title, the order matters.  The thing doing the sitting comes before the thing being sat on. It could be otherwise, but "sat" would have to change to "was sat on by" to maintain it's original sense.

Other nouns are placed in a certain order because of cultural reasons.

These include both common nouns, and proper nouns.

So it's always John, Paul, George and Ringo (John - Alpha smart arse male, Paul - a bit like john but a bit wishy-washier, George - Played Guitar and didn't sing as much, and hardly wrote any of the tunes, Ringo - Ugly fucker with a lousy voice hiding behind a drumkit)

It's always Adam and Eve. Never Eve and Adam. Also Mr and Mrs. Not Mrs and Mr. This is a man's world.

Try asking for any of these:

• Vinegar and Salt flavoured crisps.
• Chips and fish.
• Squeak and Bubble
• An Onion and Cheese pasty

It never rains dogs and cats(although if there was a massive explosion in a Japanese car factory, it might rain Datsun cogs).

(Sorry.).

You never get Lizst and Brahms (that one's the way it is because it's rhyming slang - it wouldn't work the other way around of course - see also "Apples and Pears" and "Dog and Bone") If I fell out with you, we'd never be at sevens and sixes. The Union Flag is always Red, White and Blue. Never White Blue and Red. It's always Cheap and Cheerful. We fall for things Hook, Line and Sinker.

I'm sure there are many many others, so this post may grow if I can be arsed.

driving lessons in Wallasey?

Malletocracy

There's no such thing, but there should be. Power goes to the person with the biggest hammer.

Oh.. Hang on...

A google search for malletocracy will now yield one result.

driving lessons in Wallasey?

*except it doesn't. It yields 54. Every post contains the word in it's sidebar archive bit.

Truly cornered the market on Malletocracy .SEO.

Foota/Crickers

Almost a jargon. The press/the public tend to shorten the names of sports personalities to two syllables, but the way they do it varies according to class.

So working class sports, such as Football and Darts tend to use the first syllable of the surname, and post a single vowel on to it. Hence the following imaginary commentary...

Gazza (Paul Gascoigne)... Takes it down the left. Beats one man, then another. Passes it to Aldo (John Aldridge) who lays it off quickly to Tezza (John Terry) who shoots at goal. But it's a fine save by Nico (Eric Nixon)

Middle class sports also use two syllables, and also tend to use the first syllable of the surname, but instead of using a single vowel, they tend to use "ers"

So: Thank you Aggers (Jonathan Agnew) Now we welcome to the Test Match Special commentary box, Michael Atherton. What do you make of it so far, Athers? "Well, Tuffers/Blowers, I think that...

etc.

Buzzwords

Two doity boids
Sitting on a koib
eating doity woims
singing doity woids

Adding the suffix, "gate" to any kind of scandal has been the vogue now for a while. I was too young to pay any attention to Watergate, but I can certainly remember Col. Oliver North, and ContraGate. See also Irangate, Climategate, Hackgate, and Margate.

Lately, the word that gets attached to anything bad is "Toxic".

Obviously the word has been around for hundreds of years but ever since the world economy started to implode in 2008, everyone was suddenly talking about "Toxic Debt".

So I propose, as the ultimate buzzword, to be used only in relation to the most fucked up situation,

TOXICGATE.

There are some things money just can't buy...

First things first. This morning one of my pupils had her driving test. She failed because of two serious faults. One was the subject of a previous post. The other was because she tried to emerge to the right from a T junction at the same time as a vehicle from her left turned right into the side road she was emerging from. She ended up stopping in the middle of the road. The examiner reckoned she should have waited. She reckoned they didn't signal right until the last moment.

After that, I had a lesson with a lady who has her test in a couple of days. I wanted her to reverse around a corner, and we went here...



See? Lot's of options. This is the kind of road examiners use, because if there's a parked car at one corner, they can use the next one, or the next...

Because I wanted her to do it for herself, I amused myself with making anagrams of the road names. Durban Road is an anagram of "A dour Brand". Glencoe Road is an anagram of "Eagle Condor"

Just thought I'd give you a little insight into the care and attention I put into my job :o)

This afternoon, I did a complete pass plus course. I used my usual complete pass plus course, going to Glossop and the Snake Pass.

The pub I usually schedule a meal break for was shut. Not a problem. I already knew it would be, and I had a plan B ready and waiting.

The Grouse Inn between Glossop and Hayfield.

That was shut up tight too.

OK. We'd passed any number of hostelries offering home cooked food on our way. So we tried another in New Mills. It may well serve food on Mondays, but it didn't open until 5pm. We weren't going to sit twiddling our thumbs for an hour, so we got on with driving.

I took a diversion from our normal route and went through a place called Charlesworth.

This was a fantastic part of the drive. The road was the sort of thing they use for car adverts. The scenery was breathtaking. I intend to go back there with my significant other and take a nice walk. Soon.

We ended up in Marple Bridge, which had a pub, which advertised food, and it's doors were open.

We ended up just having coke, because they don't serve food on Mondays. Cant' blame them really. The place was empty. The only other people apart from staff were an elderly couple who walked in as we were leaving. I had a fag in the car park and they came back out again. I heard them say "Well we'll just have to have fish and chips then".

I gave up. You can't buy pub food in rural Derbyshire on a monday afternoon. End of.

We drove around the north of Manchester in a spectacular hailstorm. (bad weather pass plus module nirvana) before heading back on the East Lancs.

But then things got really dangerous. We were heading west into the setting sun on wet roads, and it was almost impossible to see what was happening ahead. I got us off the road at a budget food pub near Haydock on the outskirts of Liverpool, and we spent half an hour killing two birds (getting the promised meal sorted, and giving the sun time to fuck off out of the sky)

Seriously. If you can't see where you're going, don't go.