REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

Some good stuff from today. First of all, I saw a small boy - I'd say he was about three - attack a fence post with a plastic dinosaur. He made the dinosaur ram the fence post and jump on top of it, saying 'grrr' 'rrrr'. (Very cute.)

Second thing, I witnessed a couple - mid 40s - feeding a banana to Canada Geese... Yes, those notorious, well-known banana eaters, Canada Geese.

Third, I had a haircut. Nothing special about this you might suppose, except that my hair actually looked nice at the end. The woman trimmed it just as I asked her to (which is a very welcome change).

LINKS, AND ERRORS IN ENGLISH

I learnt how to do links. It's easy! I hadn't realised that you can view all the coding to any webside by clicking 'view' - 'source' on the grey toolbar.

There is a cafe near where I live that has made a very cute English language mistake with a part of its signage. Consider the following:

'to open' / 'to close'
'she opens' / 'she closes'
'I have opened' / 'I have closed'
'it is opening' / 'it is closing'

The sign on the door, between 10am and 6pm, says 'OPEN'. The reverse of this sign says 'CLOSE'. When I walk past on my way home from work, the cafe is always 'Close'. English is downright awkward sometimes.

Similarly, a London Undgerground worker on a platform in the City was bellowing repeatedly through a loudhailer: "Please use the both doors" , "Please use the both doors". While you would say "use the sliding doors", "mind the closing doors", "use the side doors", "both" is not quite the same here. I understand this instinctively but cannot say why. "Both" is a quantitive premodifier of some kind. Thus, the London Underground worker could have said "Please use both the doors".

SOMEONE ELSE'S PROFILE

I know it's a bit snidey of me to reproduce this here but I was just scrolling through a few "next blogs" and chanced upon this. I thought it was priceless so am recording it.

Name: Lindsay
Location: Middle of America, United States

I love life, the Lord, baseball, and the color pink. My downfalls are icecream, jeans, flip flops, and blankets. If I wasn't called to work with the poor overseas I would be one of President Bush's speech writers living in a sweet looking studio apartment in D.C. or a big time photographer with National Geographic or Time Magazine... I WAS BORN TO STAND OUT!

particularly enjoyed "middle of"...

'BENDY BUS'

Steering a 'bendy London bus' around the Elephant and Castle roundabout is akin to a partially sighted man moving a king size mattress around a narrow staircase.

Other than that I can't think of much to say right now. The pope died. So what? Terri someone-or-other in America died. Shame, but why'd it take so long, really. A general election has been called. I shan't be voting - I can't, for one thing. Frequent moves mean I am dispossessed and not on the electoral roll. Oh, and Charles and Camilla got married. I'm a quiet fan of Charles, so good for them.

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"

This song - made famous by Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, George Benson(!) amongst others - was written by a drop out living rough in the Hollywood Hills, incidentally.

SUSPENSION BRIDGE

The Szechenyi bridge (along with one of several thermal baths) takes its name from a distinguished lineage of Hungarian counts and statesmen. During a particularly harsh winter, Istvan Szechenyi received a message at his home in Pest informing that his father, Ferencz Szechenyi, was gravely ill in Vienna. Since the Danube was frozen he could not cross the river for several days. By the time Isvan reached his father, his father was dead. Istvan went to London in 1832, in "sorrow and determination", and commissioned William Clark to draft plans for the bridge. Adam Clark was asked to direct the construction. In 1849 the first permanent bridge was completed, spanning 375 metres. The bridge is a suspension bridge or, as the Hungarians prefer, a chain bridge. The retreating German troops blew up the Chain Bridge in January 1945. However, the bridge was restored on the 100th anniversary of its inauguration.

That's the background...

The bridge is pretty at night because it is illuminated particularly well. The declining lengths of suspended cable form a long smooth curve lit by simple bright bulbs. It is a gentle swoop of a line illuminated one bulb at a time, like a string of pearls. Good lighting can make an ordinary building look interesting, though. As make-up can transform a person's appearance, the unadorned bridge should be the true measure of its attractiveness and the bridge still looked great by day, without lights. There are other beautiful bridges but the general consensus seems to be that the Szechenyi Bridge is the most lovely.

When I walked across it I looked down as well as up. The Danube, through Budapest, is much wider that the Thames and fast flowing – often carrying driftwood and other detritus. So, when I saw some oval-shaped spots a long way down, on the surface I thought at first that they might be leaves. They were birds – some kind of gulls. As they hurtled towards the stretch of water blackened by the shadow of the bridge, they took flight to a distance 75 meters back and hurtled once again towards the bridge, only to repeat the whole process. I watched them for some time and not a single bird was happy to float into the stretch of water occupied by the bridge’s shadow. At the point where the shadow loomed on the water, the birds took flight further upstream. I crossed the road to look at the water emerging from under the bridge but there were no birds on this side of the river.

I wonder why birds behave indulge in this kind of ‘sledging’. Does shadow recall the larger wings of predators, overhead?

POPE

I hope the next Pope thinks there should be a better reason for having a child than not being able to prevent one.

PLANE

Got on an aeroplane - the majority of people had already boarded. It was a standard plane with three seats either side of a central aisle. I took a seat in an aisle seat - two people were already in the window and middle seats. Captivity and proximity in transport situations create irresistable 'people watching' opportunities. This is especially true of the tube. The couple next to me were properly overweight and really filling out their economy single seats. They linked arms and rested their hands - more like big paws, really - on each other's denim-clad thighs. It seemed a bit over the top, to be honest, even for the most devoted couple. I thought 'maybe they are reassuring each other with touch/their presence because they are scared of the take-off', but they carried on doing this all through the flight. I looked at them for a couple of minutes while they dozed and they reminded me of a bear family.... Later, when the hostess came around, they just happened to wake up in time to order tea, diet coke and two kit-kats.