A very old and dear friend sent me an e-mail yesterday. She signed it off LoL. I think she meant 'lots of love', but maybe she was laughing out loud at her own note, or maybe me. I don't know. I just don't know.
My blood boiled when I read Alastair Campbell's 'evidence' at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards. Here we have the arch manipulator. A man that 'sexed up' a report to clear the way for Britain to go to war in Iraq leading to the deaths of hundreds of young British men and tens of thousands of Iraqis. This man does not speak with forked tongue. He is the devil incarnate, and no amount of charity work will make up for that. Ever.
Of course, one of the things that has come out already is that not even The Grauniad is immune to making up stories if it helps them sell a few more copies. That in itself is shocking and disappointing. Perhaps, if ever there was one needed, that is the strongest argument for an organisation such as the BBC which doesn't have to concern itself with the commercial imperative. I still trust it implicitly and I'm sure many others do too. It does create its own problems - and tales of extravagance are too common. But on balance I think that's not a bad trade off.
It was fortunate that after writing that paragraph I have become quite curmudgeonly, so tried much harder for the rest of the day to put a smile on my face. And that was fortunate as it enabled me to laugh when I might otherwise have grumbled. Last night I had to go to an annual industry event. It must have been important because I blew out Muffin Dad who had a spare ticket for a gig. Sorry. It's always a good evening, giving me the chance to 'network' and indeed just catch up with people I haven't seen for a while. Anyway, if you want to know how the marketing services sector is performing financially, I'm your man. Well at least I can relay second hand news. Pisspoor is the answer. But no more pisspoor than the rest of business. And not as pisspoor as it could be. As well as learning about the financial health of some of our most creative businesses, there were also speakers from various people linked to the Olympics. Including, government-owned Olympic sponsor and bank Lloyds. As you know my pretties, that's not a business I have much time for, although I cannot tell a lie, the presentation was interesting. The best bit was when the man said that they worked with various agencies, but their procurement department had not wanted to work with one that had had a very bad debt the year before. Now I'm sure I wasn't the only one who nearly fell off their seat, because the statement was made without a hint of irony. Not one ounce. Anyway, it made me laugh when I could have come over all grumpy.
I've come across a couple of terms recently that I absolutely love. One is the word popinjay (from SP's blog. It's not that I hadn't heard the word before, but I hadn't heard it for decades. It means various things including a person given to vain, pretentious displays and empty chatter, or a dandy or foppish person. But I shall henceforth use it to refer to the woodpecker that we can occasionally hear beating its brains out at the bottom of the garden.
The other is 'sea dust' which was referred to in Nursemyra's fascinating blog (I think...but I can't now find it, so apologies if I read it elsewhere - please just correct me). What is sea dust? It's plain old salt. But sea dust gives it a whimsical, even magical feel...in future I shall be asking The Cat's Mother to pass the sea dust and pepper - unless someone has another name for pepper?
Tonight I'm off to the school play. In the 'modern way' the audience will participate and have to move around the auditorium. I'm looking forward to it - The Cat has a part, although The Boy has sadly given up his acting career because he doesn't get on with the drama master. Sad. The Cat's Mother will not be there. She's off with the girls to The Stylistics who are playing at the O2. In case you've forgotten who this group are:
I used to love them but that was a long time ago.
