The Point of 0.6 (2)

The Cow Is Over The Moon

'Hey diddle diddle,' she murmured to herself as she savoured her humus and harissa pitta, sitting at her desk in front of her computer. 

Well, so far so good. The horse still wasn't running and the barking was all but done.  Just some samples to moderate and some late submissions; the latter could wait, after all they were ... late. They'd be later still by the time she got round to looking at them. 

Her first 0.6 payslip had momentarily fazed her; but she was used to frugality and that was the answer. She would spend all her free time outside; pecuniary matters mattered little in the countryside.

'The cat and the fiddle,' she sang out loud.

'I've heard of that place,' he said.

'What place?' she enquired. She'd forgotten he was there.  On reflection she decided he looked decidedly tired. 'You should get out more,' she suggested.  'Nothing like a good walk to ensure you feel relaxed and rested.'

'The Cat and the Fiddle,' he repeated.  'It's a pub. People walk from there.'

'Walk where?'

'That I don't know.  It's miles from anywhere. You like to walk. You should try it.  Though I've never seen the point.  Especially the circular walk. I really don't buy it.'

'Well, inadvertently (of that, of course, I'm convinced) you've just hit the nail on the head. Today's society is all about consuming, about purchasing, about buying. The great thing about walking is that it actually costs nothing. Better still, I see it as a form of subversion. The primary drive behind late-capitalist culture is productivity. The great thing about walking is that you expend lots of energy and produce nothing of measurable value at all. Except, of course, muscular power and increased lung capacity. Something some of us could benefit from, non?'

'Why are you looking at me like that?' he asked accusingly.

'Moi?' she responded, hopefully, amusingly.

'Has it ever occurred to you that you're a cow?'

'Funny you should say that. Ha. The next line of my ditty is perfectly bovary, pertinently bovine: 'the cow jumps over the moon'.  But I, too, prefer Bob Dylan's line. To the point as ever, some may even say blunt: 'you're a cow'. (Ballad of a Thin Man, in case you were trying to locate the lyric.)'

'And your point is?' he responded, pointedly. 'Are you saying I'm fat?'

'Au contraire . . .'

'Speak English, you bitch.'

'You are so prescient in your anticipation of the next stanza of my rhyme: 'The little dog laughed to see such fun.'

'Great. And the relevance of the dish and the spoon? Got you there, I'll bet, even if you are over the moon.'

'Well, no actually. I have found the most adorable dish, and I believe he's found his spoon.'

Family Tree

David with his sister c. 1970

Family Tree

David with his mother, sometime between 1964 and 1967.

Sign Language (1)

Don't Let Your Dog Reflect Your Personality

(Photo: Mike Berry)

The Point of 0.6

Basking Sharks

'There's something fishy going on here,' she hissed through clenched teeth to the colleague beside her who kept tapping his feet.  

She assumed from a distance that her snarl looked like a smile.  Last week she'd seen her dentist; it was for the first time in a while. She had feared periodontitis (or a filling at least), as her jaw and ears had been aching and her teeth felt sensitive.  Instead, he told her not to grind and clench so hard. He suggested yoga, hot baths or, if they failed, a tooth-guard.  Then, he'd flossed her and polished her, and, despite her molars wearing down, her incisors remained incisive; she had the sharpest incisors in town.

Her colleague turned towards her.  He shook his head to show he hadn't heard.  'Fishy', she enunciated rather loudly; as a consequence of uttering the word, two professors from Humanities who sat in front of her suddenly turned.  As the newly-graduated strode and tottered, swaggered and swayed across the stage, the academics sat blank-faced, straight-laced.  In their gowns and their mortar boards, and a few post-graduate caps, they slumped and slouched their shoulders, giving intermittent claps.

'I say, there's something fishy here, something fishy going on.  I failed her.  Yes, her just gone, the portly, long-haired, mousey one.  Yes that one there, in the red stiletto shoes.  I failed her, I am certain, yet they've just awarded her 2:2.'

The Dean had reached the end of his list; he was no longer reading names.  Her colleague turned to her and said, 'yes, I observed the one with the shoes that are red.  But if you failed her, then how come she passed?'  As an aside: 'So, the Dean has finally finished.  Thank God: at last.'

'Well, I'm damned if I know, but I guess it's a lark.  You know the slang for a brilliant student?  The word is 'shark'.'

'Of course I know that definition, I am Head of Linguistics. Please forgive me for being pedantic or somewhat soliloquistic.  But, I quote from the OED (I'll omit the etymology): 'shark n. Long-bodied, lateral-gilled, inferior-mouthed elasmobranch sea-fish, esp. if large and voracious; rapacious person, swindler'.'

'Well, that told me,' she whispered loudly, unintentionally baring her canines. Then she gave a sudden bark. 'Just remind me, will you, did God deign to let sharks onto Noah's ark?'

'Well, it wouldn't have been necessary. The shark, or course, can swim. Given the vessel's limited capacity, why let oceanic creatures in?'

'Silly me.  So, from that one could deduce, that when God rained down his vengeance and his favourite verb was 'sluice', that he still quite liked the fish stock and with them he had a truce? And, again, from that it's possible, inevitable, to tentatively infer (excuse the split infinitive), that out of all of his creations he preferred those that were inferior.'

The Finest Protection Possible To The Shattering Effects of Modern Travelling.

A Bellyful of Laughter - continued

A Bellyful Of Laughter

'I intend to make Art.' she said with conviction. 'It's a conceptual piece, about my affliction.'

'Well, now you're 0.6 you've got time on your hands.  I can see the temptation; to turn to creating. To do something for You after years in Education.  Yes, do something for you. It's a must, a necessity.  Our time on this earth is defined by its brevity. It's definitely the right thing to do.' 

'Exactly,' she concurred, and slightly non-plussed.  'You've hit the nail on the head.  Indeed, your lyricism surprises me, it has to be said.'

He flinched, but said nothing, so she told him some more.

'It's a personal piece, but it certainly won't bore.  For the personal's political, and its appeal will be broad.'

'Is it text-based or visual?'

'Well, what do you think?  I've said it's conceptual.  The whole project would sink, without something in writing to explain what it means. Where would we be without paper and ink?'

'Do you mean that a photograph can't stand alone?'

'Good God,' she said, 'it's like trying to get blood from a stone.  The images are a visualisations of what I am saying.'

'You mean they're reduced to mere illustrations?'

To Be Continued...

The Muscles Must Not Be Allowed to Become Flabby Nor The Body To Spread

From: 'The Famous Book of Herbs' (War-Time Edition)