Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Roused into Action

The football season has started. It's time to rouse myself from my stupor, sit upright on the couch, and watch TV. The calendar on my computer, for which I have never previously found any use, is now bulging with fixtures for Arsenal, Arsenal Reserves, and Arsenal youth team. I downloaded these directly into the calendar from the Arsenal website, and felt pleased with myself for managing this successfully.

All these matches are now shown on the Arsenal channel which means I hardly ever have to do anything again except watch football on TV. So this is a big success for the modern world.

The Olympics are on. I'm pleased the British team is doing well, but I can't muster any enthusiasm for watching it.

Feeling adventurous , I bought an apple crumble from Sainsbury, instead of rhubarb, but it was a disappointment. The apples didn't seem to be cooked properly, and lay there in lumpy slices. I knew it was a mistake to change in my diet. Felt gloomy and unsatisfied afterwards. And slightly annoyed at the apples, for not cooking properly.

Fruit generally seems to be a problem. I've already mentioned the treachery of pears, being hard one minute and then rotten the next. I did experiment with a melon recently, but it didn't seem to be ripe enough. I don't know how to tell if a melon is ripe. I think you might be meant to squeeze it, but that's a risky business. I have seen, many times in films and TV, that if you're in a shop and you reach out to check how ripe a melon is, you're practically certain to grab hold of a woman's breast by mistake. It just seems to happen every time. So perhaps it's too dangerous for me to attempt. I wouldn't like to get thrown out the supermarket in disgrace.

Hmmm. I see my blog has not yet started to influence world affairs. Neither the London Times nor the Washington Post quote me on a regular basis. Surely it's only a matter of time.

10 comments:

  1. I don't know how the newspapers could miss out on this post. I know that I smiled at your wondrous phrase "treachery of pears" and snorted with glee at your uncertainty about melon ripeness.

    :-)

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  2. Anonymous12:29 am

    Maybe, Martin, the grabbing of a boob by mistake might take you down a path to a lady friend who would willingly cook you your own crumbles...maybe not.
    I always thought that you could tell if fruit was ripe by the inviting smell. I could be wrong about that as I can't remember the last time I actually bought a piece of fruit. With melons you knock on them. (It's possible then that some small person opens a door in the melon and informs you of it's ripeness)

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  3. Thanks Cynthia, but these newspapers have never appreciated me :-)

    Anita, the idea of a small door opening in the melon really made me laugh!

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  4. I was going to mention the thumping, but Anita beat me to it. (And made me laugh as well!) You will hear a Ripe Sound, almost like a drum

    If you reach out and Thump and it turns out to be a women's breast, you will get an entirely different reaction, which might result in an entirely different range of sounds.

    And you might make the papers....

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  5. Anonymous3:41 am

    Ugh! I just bought Thraxas Under Siege as an ebook (didn't have the patience to wait for a physical book to arrive) and wound up with an HTML version. G-d hates me. If I have to read a book on a pooter, I prefer Adobe Digital Editions. If anyone has a .pdf version, I would gladly trade. That way, my level of grief subsides and MM doesn't get taken to the cleaners cashwise. (Sorry Martin - if you've got a non-Italian forum, I can't find it.)

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  6. May be your blog has not yet started to influence world affairs, but i can say that it has started to influence a small part of the world, mine for sure and the part of all my italian friends that i "stress" out everyday with this link and with your book since i was fall here from the Neil Gaiman blog, i didn't know anything about your work before, but now i had read 4 of you books in 2 weeks, grat job, too funny, thank you a lot for the good time from Italy and sorry for my bad english.

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  7. I'll be careful with the thumping, Lorraine :-)

    Hello Alyster, thanks for the comment from Italy, I'm glad you've enjoyed the books.

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  8. Depending on the type of melon, you might want to use smell: If it is a French type of melon (Cavaillon), it should smell deeply sweet if smelled near one of the poles. As for other kinds...
    Thumping is more for large melons like watermelons.

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  9. Anonymous4:34 am

    It is odd that today I read of your melon/breast hypothesis. Just today I was at the market and feeling reckless hoisting around two melons in my arms. I will admit to having a burlesque feeling the entire time. And when I lay them on the counter the youthful man-clerk had to reach out towards both the breasts and the melons creating a very tense moment. I barely resisted commenting on the interesting juxtaposition.

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  10. Anonymous9:43 pm

    Martin,

    I came back here as a refugee of the Haiku wars over at the fabulous Lorraine's blog, and re-reading your post on the treachery of pears inspired me....

    Treachery of pears
    While bad; is as nothing to
    Apples evil wiles

    rhubarb you may trust
    or can you? Crumbles hide a
    multitude of sins

    melons dark secrets
    mere man may not hope to know
    squeeze at your peril.

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