Queen Scenes (Number Seven)

Queen: “I say Philip, this is simply too ghastly for words.“

Philip: “I’ll say it is! I distinctly remember asking for poached salmon today and so far I’ve been eating asparagus. And the Hollandaise sauce appears to be Béarnaise!”

Queen: “One’s not referring to luncheon, Philip. Harry says he’s been defriended on Facebook.”

Philip: “Absolute poppycock! Are you sure it isn’t someone who wanted to poke him instead and pressed the wrong button?”

Queen: “Apparently one of his followers defriended him without so much as a selective tweet. Appalling behavior!”

Philip: “Well what do you expect me to say, OMG?”

Queen: “OMG has now been incorporated into the new OED, from what one reads.”

Philip: “Hardly distinguishable from it in fact, what with being 3 letters and starting with an O. And I suppose you’re tracking William’s relationship status and are worried that it’s complicated?”

Queen: “Don’t be ridiculous Philip. William doesn’t maintain his relationship status on Facebook. But while one is on the subject, it might not be a bad idea if you maintained yours!”

A Simpler Life

Tomorrow morning our garbage is collected, so everyone puts their garbage bins out on the street the evening before. When I came home from work today I put mine out, and everyone else's was already lined up. The street was so full today that there was almost no room for my bin. Goodness knows where they all came from this week!

This is the collection for the recycling waste. Our garbage is split up into recycling waste and what's called residual waste, which gets collected next week.

Dear Sirs And Dumb-Belles

When I was a kid, my Dad had a little book that must have been published in the US either during World War II or shortly afterwards. It was called "Dear Sirs and Dumb-Belles Lettres" (with that spelling) and it was a very small paperback with a bright yellow cover. Possibly it was printed in this small, softbacked format so that soldiers could carry it around with them.

The book was a collection of letters and excerpts of letters from and to US soldiers during World War II, usually from or to the draft office, the Army or their wives and girlfriends, and it also contained some cartoons. It was very funny. They had chosen all the humorous parts of letters to print.

CaucAsian

One of my Japanese friends once asked me if I could tell the nationality of a European person just by looking at them.
I thought it was an odd question and replied that that would be very difficult. In some cases, of course, you might have a typically-looking Italian person, maybe with dark hair and a slightly more tanned skin, and a typically Nordic person with blond hair and blue eyes. But that would by no means be the rule and it would be very difficult in a line of ten people to get all the nationalities correct.
My Japanese friend told me that in Asia, it was quite easy to tell the nationality of people, and I realized of course that he was right. It seems almost kind of odd to me now that in Europe, this is not really possible.
It is an interesting issue. Is it because the European peoples have interbred more than the Asian peoples, so that now it is really hard to tell them apart?

Tala Svenska

My friend and I decided to do a Swedish evening class.

I know! Like we haven't got enough to do.

Anyway, we missed the first class, which seems to have put us at a major disadvantage. But we have been to the last three classes and I think that now I can safely say I can speak three sentences in Swedish (and they are all quite short and would be useless in an emergency situation).

I must be one DVD short of a box set! I spend all day translating from German to English, and occasionally from English to German, and one day the other week I even translated from French to German. And now I am spending one precious evening a week learning another foreign language!

The teacher has the approach of, the more she speaks just in Swedish, the more knowledge we will kind of just acquire through osmosis, or similar. This has the effect that I, at least, stare blankly at her for a lot of the time, probably with my mouth open. And sometimes I actually laugh because some of the words sound like English with the Swedish chef speaking them.

Honestly, how ignorant is that of me! If I were teaching someone English and they were laughing I might just get up and walk out!

Last night my friend had to formulate a question from some of the pictures in the exercise book and she thought that the picture of a bed (which stood for a hotel) was a picture of an elk. It did look like an elk and other people in the class also thought it was an elk. It came out as a very strange sentence. I laughed so much that I actually cried.

I think, though, it is because the class is so late (from 7:45 p.m. to 9:15 p.m.) that I find it so exhausting. It is a bit of a shame, as it has long been my ambition to learn Swedish.

Boulevard Bear

My son has just arrived with the Sunday issue of the "Bildzeitung", which is the most famous and successful of what we call the "boulevard press" papers (popular press).

He has told me that the paper devotes 2 pages to the issue of Libya, half a page to Japan, and 4 whole pages to the death of Knut the Cute, the polar bear star of Berlin Zoo, who was yesterday found floating in a pool.

Deficit omne quod nasciture.

Queen Scenes (Number Six)

Queen: I say Philip, this is too ghastly. Have you seen my pen?

Philip: Can’t help you old girl. Anyway, I thought you’d given up all that diary nonsense and were writing a blog on the Internet.

Queen: Neither of those assumptions is correct, Philip. Despite that, one is not talking about one’s Conway Stewart, but the plastic blue Bic that one keeps to do The Times crossword.

Philip: Well I’m blowed if I’ve seen a Bic floating about here. Perhaps Harry’s gorn orf with it. Using it to add a couple of his pals to William’s wedding list I shouldn’t wonder! That crossword will just have to wait. At least you won’t have to worry that someone else around here is going to finish it for you!

Queen: While that may well be true Philip, any disturbance in the general rhythm of one’s day causes a nuisance. You might recall, for example, the publican in North Dublin who has exhibited an anti-monarchy sign banning one from his premises. While one was not planning to visit his pub anyway on one’s State visit in May, such controversial action simply leads to unnecessary disruption.

Philip: And it's all absolute poppycock! As if you had intended to go to the §%&$ pub!

Queen: At least not before finishing The Times crossword! Are you sure you haven't seen my pen?

Too Much News

Honestly – seems like you never need to get offline these days. There’s so much going on online that life off it is positively boring. Most evenings I go to the gym for an hour, and even that seems so much more relaxing than pressing the News button on Google, which can keep you glued to the screen for hours!

This is why I’ve spent a lifetime trying to avoid the news. It’s way too much excitement and worry for a Cupcake, and it keeps me awake at night. Last night I was still top fit and tossing and turning at 2 a.m., so I decided to get up and read the news, which I can tell you did nothing to help me at all!

Dignity In Japan

I have so much that I would like to write about the current situation in Japan but I cannot at the moment because I am too emotional. I went to Japan many times, I fell in love with Tokyo and I have many friends there.
But I would like to say that we should all learn a lesson from the Japanese, who are going about their daily business with dignity, calm and order. At the moment it is all I can do not to break down, and I keep myself very busy all day with work, but I can hardly sleep at nights and I constantly cry.
Let us praise the heros who are battling to try and cool the reactors, without thought for themselves. Let us praise all those people who are going about their every day lives with the cool and composure they are known for.
My heart goes out to you Japan and I pray for you.