The other day I had occasion to tell someone that I felt I was underutilized. Picking up on a Briticism I'd heard, I said I was "going spare." When I first heard this expression, I took it to mean that the speaker felt he had spare capacity. In fact, it means to go crazy with worry. Another definition I've seen suggests that it is a term for a promiscuous woman. I am neither, really.
And recently, I told someone who'd changed her mind a number of times that she'd been "waffling and prevaricating." I thought prevaricating meant more or less the same thing as vacillating, and I guess I was trying to be impressive by not using such a common word as vacillating. 'Prevaricating' in fact means 'deliberately misleading', a sentiment which I did not intend at all. I really must remember not to use big words unless I'm actually sure of their meaning. (I must also remember to apologize to the person whom I called indecisive and dishonest, but we're no longer on speaking terms, so that may have to wait for another day.)
I admit that I am occasionally overconfident in my speech and writing, but I think it's endearing. I also think writing should be colourful. Words are wonderful, and our language is a veritable treasure trove of them. English has, by some estimates, over 250,000 words. Counting multiple meanings of the same spelling, George W. Bush's mispronunciations and Bill Clinton's fungible definitions of 'is' the total comes in at over three quarters of a million.
The variety and depth and subtlety of meaning that can be achieved with our language is astounding. We should embrace words, celebrate them, fling them joyously about like rice at a wedding (well, like organic free range bird feed anyway).
Just try not to say 'prevaricate' when you mean 'vacillate'.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Balancing Act
Some people believe that you can balance an egg on its end at the moment of the equinox. For us, that was about 3am on Thursday. I did not attempt any early morning egg balancing. This inconvenient celestial moment, unmarked by all but the most dedicated Druid, made Friday the first full day of autumn.
And autumnal it is. As if in response to the equatorial alignment of sun and earth, it's suddenly turned cold here in London.
The weather here can be deceptive, though. Today is Saturday, tennis day for Michael. When we left the house, it was bright and sunny, so I wore only a light sweater, my favorite grey one that I expect will just disintegrate one day. But here in the park, though the sun still shines merrily, it's chilly and blowy. We are entering the long, cold grey season, and I will miss the sunshine in an increasingly desperate way until that first glorious sunny, warm day that I know will come eventually. The cold makes you appreciate the warm.
Turns out that the egg balncing thing is just a lot of rubbish. If you know how, you can balance an egg on end at any time of the year. But you can only get sunshine on sunny days.
Enjoy them.
And autumnal it is. As if in response to the equatorial alignment of sun and earth, it's suddenly turned cold here in London.
The weather here can be deceptive, though. Today is Saturday, tennis day for Michael. When we left the house, it was bright and sunny, so I wore only a light sweater, my favorite grey one that I expect will just disintegrate one day. But here in the park, though the sun still shines merrily, it's chilly and blowy. We are entering the long, cold grey season, and I will miss the sunshine in an increasingly desperate way until that first glorious sunny, warm day that I know will come eventually. The cold makes you appreciate the warm.
Turns out that the egg balncing thing is just a lot of rubbish. If you know how, you can balance an egg on end at any time of the year. But you can only get sunshine on sunny days.
Enjoy them.
Friday, September 10, 2010
My First Album
Chill the Champers and break out the caviar, my band, Ritz Theatre, has finally put out its first album. It was several years in the making, but it's sure to be a hit. We called it 'Truth Has Beauty' because, well, truth does, and we thought that it sounded kind of cool.
Nah, that's a lot of crap. Anyone who knows me knows that I have almost no musical talent whatsoever. If you don't believe me, ask Maryann Miller, my first piano teacher. She pulled my hair so hard when I didn't practice that I've now gone bald in the back.
Actually, my friend Simon over at http://simbits.blogspot.com turned me on to this complete and utter waste of time (but isn't anything that's fun a waste of time by definition?)
1. Click here to go to a random Wikipedia article. The title of the article is your band's name.
2. Next, click here for a list of random quotations (and quite a few popups which will offer to sell you your credit score and deeply discounted Viagra. Also one which will apparently make a photo of you look like Barbie on Ecstasy after a 48-hour rave. Now THAT's a useful site.) The last quotation in the list is your album title. I took some liberties with mine, since it was overly long. Something about truth having beauty and frogs having warts or somesuch.
3. Finally, click here for a page of photos on Flickr that have been uploaded in the past 7 days. The third photo is your cover art.
4. (Optional) if you're a total geek who's sitting at home on a Friday night waiting for the Ocado guy to turn up because you can't be arsed getting yourself to the grocery store, break out your favourite image editor and whip up your cover. Even if you don't go to this pitiable extreme, I'd be interested to hear what your band and album title are. Why? I don't know. Maybe because I'm a geek who's sitting at home on a Friday night waiting for a grocery delivery.
'Ritz Theatre' is actually a kind of catchy name for a band, I think, though it seems unlikely to make it to the O2. It's certainly better than my second attempt, which would have had my band called 'Rikke Emma Niebuhr'. Take that, Björk. Rikke's album was titled 'What Children Take', and the photo was of, get this, a praying mantis - the female praying mantis cannibalizes her mate. How appropriate. It's on Wikipedia, so it must be true.
Cheers!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
20 Things I Learned While Travelling
We're home now. Reentry is my least favourite part of travelling. All the unpacking, and the laundry to be done. I've taken a break from moving things pointlessly between different parts of the house to capture some learnings from our trip to Switzerland and a little bit of France. Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/paulconroy/Switzerland.
1. Switzerland is cheap to get to, the train from the airport to the city is free for visitors, as is the public transport in the city. This is because ordinary people cannot actually afford to do anything once they arrive.
2. Geneva is a lovely city. The lake, the mountains and the city's architecture cooperate to produce a feeling of calm and well-being. Unless you want breakfast. Then it's just another ugly place to drag your children through.
3. A Citroen C3 is a reliable, economical vehicle. It gets good mileage and has adequate storage space. It has a top speed of 72, but much, much less on an uphill grade of any sort. I had to downshift to get up the near side of several of the country's more aggressive speed bumps.
4. Swiss bus drivers do not appreciate American tourists who make them late, even ones who have cute kids, smile a lot and say polite things in German.
5. Lake Geneva produces a surprising amount of sea glass, though Swiss children do not seem to have cottoned on the the hobby of collecting it. My children have taken advantage of their naivete and smuggled a large amount of it back to England.
6. Successfully skipping a rock on a lake is as much a function of strategic stone selection as it is of throwing technique. It's all in the wrist.
7. From a child's perspective, a day spent chucking rocks into a lake is as good as or better than one spent at more expensive pastimes such as sightseeing, or eating.
8. When parking the car in a gated lot, it is a good idea to read the payment instructions before attempting to exit. Payment is not always accepted at the exit gate, and the Swiss locals do not appreciate American tourists blocking the exit while trying to explain to the remote attendant's disembodied voice, in half-remembered high school French clouded by 25 years of disuse, why they haven't paid at the machine in the lobby.
9. Ice cream solves most problems. The ones it doesn't can always be addressed later with wine.
10. Pack half of what you think you need and leave half of that at home. Except when travelling with children, who manage to get filthy just sitting in the car.
11. Pack twice the amount of money you think you'll need, and then double that. Except when travelling in Switzerland, where you will really need to bring along a trailer full of Swiss francs.
12. The border crossings between Switzerland and France are disappointingly porous. We expected some sort of interrogation by men wearing mirrored sunglasses and peaked caps, or at least a 'Welcome to France' sign with a funny cartoon character made of cheese. Instead, we got a set of abandoned-looking sheds in the middle of the road and not even an Arretez-Vous! sign.
13. Evian is actually a place, and they do actually bottle water there.
14. "Hey Soul Sister" is my children's favourite song. Although Michael's changed the words to "Hey soul mister, I can't stand my sister".
15. Hannah Montana is televised just about everywhere.
16. Cartoons are much funnier when dubbed into other languages.
17. My children are more impressed by butterflies and snakes than by mountain vistas and fresh air.
18. Moss does NOT only grow on the north side of trees. That's just a load of bollocks.
19. I should really use sunblock.
20. 20 Questions is a great way to keep the kids occupied at a meal. They tend to lose track of the number of questions asked, so you can usually beat them.
1. Switzerland is cheap to get to, the train from the airport to the city is free for visitors, as is the public transport in the city. This is because ordinary people cannot actually afford to do anything once they arrive.
2. Geneva is a lovely city. The lake, the mountains and the city's architecture cooperate to produce a feeling of calm and well-being. Unless you want breakfast. Then it's just another ugly place to drag your children through.
3. A Citroen C3 is a reliable, economical vehicle. It gets good mileage and has adequate storage space. It has a top speed of 72, but much, much less on an uphill grade of any sort. I had to downshift to get up the near side of several of the country's more aggressive speed bumps.
4. Swiss bus drivers do not appreciate American tourists who make them late, even ones who have cute kids, smile a lot and say polite things in German.
5. Lake Geneva produces a surprising amount of sea glass, though Swiss children do not seem to have cottoned on the the hobby of collecting it. My children have taken advantage of their naivete and smuggled a large amount of it back to England.
6. Successfully skipping a rock on a lake is as much a function of strategic stone selection as it is of throwing technique. It's all in the wrist.
7. From a child's perspective, a day spent chucking rocks into a lake is as good as or better than one spent at more expensive pastimes such as sightseeing, or eating.
8. When parking the car in a gated lot, it is a good idea to read the payment instructions before attempting to exit. Payment is not always accepted at the exit gate, and the Swiss locals do not appreciate American tourists blocking the exit while trying to explain to the remote attendant's disembodied voice, in half-remembered high school French clouded by 25 years of disuse, why they haven't paid at the machine in the lobby.
9. Ice cream solves most problems. The ones it doesn't can always be addressed later with wine.
10. Pack half of what you think you need and leave half of that at home. Except when travelling with children, who manage to get filthy just sitting in the car.
11. Pack twice the amount of money you think you'll need, and then double that. Except when travelling in Switzerland, where you will really need to bring along a trailer full of Swiss francs.
12. The border crossings between Switzerland and France are disappointingly porous. We expected some sort of interrogation by men wearing mirrored sunglasses and peaked caps, or at least a 'Welcome to France' sign with a funny cartoon character made of cheese. Instead, we got a set of abandoned-looking sheds in the middle of the road and not even an Arretez-Vous! sign.
13. Evian is actually a place, and they do actually bottle water there.
14. "Hey Soul Sister" is my children's favourite song. Although Michael's changed the words to "Hey soul mister, I can't stand my sister".
15. Hannah Montana is televised just about everywhere.
16. Cartoons are much funnier when dubbed into other languages.
17. My children are more impressed by butterflies and snakes than by mountain vistas and fresh air.
18. Moss does NOT only grow on the north side of trees. That's just a load of bollocks.
19. I should really use sunblock.
20. 20 Questions is a great way to keep the kids occupied at a meal. They tend to lose track of the number of questions asked, so you can usually beat them.
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