Note: I’m taking that as a literal huge pig, and not a reference to my love of all foodstuffs fatty or sweet.
I was fairly sure it was Thursday today, all day my brain kept assuring me It’s Thursday, definitely not Monday, even though that would mean that three days had vanished. Could this be the time portal?
“I dwell in possibility…”
Emily Dickinson
Word of the day: Brobdingnagian – immense
When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That’s about all you can do. – Leonard Cohen
Word of the day: plankwise – in the manner or direction of a plank
Word of the day: Chirospasm – writer’s cramp
Her face was lined like a patchwork of meandering rivers strung together over a bed of waffles.
Don Stacom from It Was a Dark and Stormy Night – book of bad first lines.
“You’ve got to listen to me! Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.”
The Simpsons, Professor Frink
I’m not sure how long we’ve been in our new messroom now, a few weeks? I could look back, but I’m lazy. Anyway, after making a show of conforming to what the managers want (sitting inside, not messing around with the furniture etc) we have started to decorate and adapt, to bend our environment to suit what we want – after all, that’s what gardeners are good at.
I nicked a chair that was in one of the gardens, left there by a resident, and moved it inside so I don’t have to sit on one that slowly tips me off. We found two benches abandoned and put them outside in the shade. We emptied out the tin shed of bikes and unused cleaning products and turned it into a smoking room for when it’s raining. Mateo fixed a broken table and we put that between the benches. We even put a few paving slabs down, and added some plants, tinsel and an umbrella for decoration. It looks great.
The only downside is now the managers like to come and sit with us. Never more than one at a time, I don’t think they like sitting with each other.
Word of the day: labtebricole – living in holes
“Sticks and stones can break my bones and I have my Swiss Army Knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self defense and I won’t go to prison.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
More words of wisdom from the mind of an algorithm (they know us so well)
The little sleep I had last night was loaded with dreams, the kind that vanish from your memory as soon as you wake, but leave you with a feeling that something happened. And that sense keeps coming back, almost like a memory: Something important happened. But no idea what. Since it was a dream, I’m assuming it was about zombies.
Anyway, once I reached five am I couldn’t stand being in bed any longer and went to the window and saw this sky
So that was sublime. I hope you’re all having a beautiful day too.
‘The door is wide and open, don’t go back to sleep.’ Rumi
Word of the day: Hypaethral – roofless; open to the sky
HAL 9000: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do
Words of the day: Cogitabund – meditative; engaged in deep thought
Digitorium – silent piano for practising
Nothing happened today. Zero. So I thought I’d share some unusual inspiration. Usually inspirational quotes make me feel lonely. Like peering through the window of a party I’m not invited to because I don’t relate to the perky thinking. Not that I’m miserable, I think life can be beautiful and people can be great and possibilities are endless if we can figure them out. But all the gushing sentiment rings hollow to me. It’s twee.
Then I discovered online artificially intelligent inspirational quotes (ie a computer creates them using existing inspirational quotes as a template). They tend more towards the bizarre, the nonsensical and the cynical, which suits me to a t. And who can disagree with ‘Choose not to be horrible’?
And this is something we all need to remember, right?
Word of the day: Afflatus – divine breath, inspiration
Today Mike found a drone lying in one of the gardens at work, under an Acanthus. I’m not sure if it got out of control, flew into the garden and then the owner couldn’t get in to retrieve it (the garden is gated) or if our residents are so rich that the owner couldn’t be bothered trying to find it. And I’m not sure what they were using it for. Do people fly them for fun like they flew remote controlled planes? Or only to take photos where they shouldn’t?
The managers in the office are trying to spread the rumour that they’re using it to spy on us. I really hope Barry doesn’t find out about this, he’ll probably assume that it’s mine and I’m watching him. If he can believe helicopters are spying on him, then being paranoid about a drone is easy.
Word of the day: Bombilate – to hum, buzz or drone
Just to sum up what everyone has worked out about the advert since it seems that it did make some sense if you’re more knowledgeable about markets, children’s books and life than me.
Calmgrove – the bear is Paddington who was from darkest Peru and could talk. I suspect this is an invoke sweet things trick to mask their devilish intent.
Jasper Hoogendam – Winnie the Pooh was originally from Winniepeg, hence the name. Not in the ad, but still interesting.
Colin McQueen – in rugby the Lions have a coach from New Zealand (kiwi) and the cheeky chicken refers to ‘having a cheeky Nandos’. I have no idea what either has to do with banks.
Shaily Agrawal/ – pointed out that bear is a market term for someone who takes risks. I don’t really want my bank to take risks, because that’s what caused the economic crash last time. Maybe that’s the subliminal bit, they rename recklessness as ‘open mindedness’ and then throw in the bear.
I, after a foolishly long time, worked out that being shut on bank holidays is what banks do.
So to translate
Keep an open mind because being open minded has opened doors to Paddington Bear, who’s secretly a risk-taking banker; rugby coaches from New Zealand; and a cheeky Nandos. Now is not the time to batten down the hatches, it’s time to stay open, except when we’re shut. Because we are not an island, well we are, all the surrounding water makes that clear, but people can still visit, which is nice. And the world is big, and it has bears and lions, unlike the UK which only just got bears and has no lions to speak of.
inkbiotic 