Saturday, April 12, 2008

Out Damned Spot

I approached the bathroom mirror with my customary greeting of "Hello you handsome dog,'' when I noticed I'd developed a spot. Was immediately plunged into gloom. It's so annoying. One compensation you might expect for growing older is not to get spots any more. But this has proved not to be the case, dammit.

So this seemed like a grave misfortune, coming as it did right after Arsenal's defeat on Tuesday - a quite scandalous affair of poor refereeing decisions. Bad refereeing decisions have really blighted Arsenal's season. I suspect a wide-ranging conspiracy against us.

So with the serious spot situation, and Arsenal falling victim to the illegal machinations of referees, there was nothing to do except make tea, and lie on the couch till things got better. After flicking through hundreds of channels without finding anything good I was reduced to watching the Kerrang rock channel, which was actually slightly better than I expected. If I was fifteen again, I'd probably love Evanescence.

Lying on the couch wasn't such a bad choice anyway, in view of the cold temperatures outside. There was a lot of snow last week, more than I can remember seeing in London for a long time. It doesn't often snow here. Unlike my childhood in Glasgow, where it wasn't uncommon to be struggling through snow on my way to school. I walked a long way to school every day in Glasgow, from a very young age, on my own, often through bad weather. I could be several hours drying out when I got there. Everyone walked to school in those days. No one does now, probably for very good reasons.

Quick investigation reveals 60,000 entries on Google for my Shakespearean title, Out Damned Spot. OK, I'm lacking in originality. But it wasn't just the facial woes that brought it to mind. I remember studying MacBeth at school, and I always liked Macbeth's castle. I liked the word Thane too, which is probably why the term appears in Lonely Werewolf Girl, and also a castle.

9 comments:

  1. Fabulouslorraine reports, in reply to my last blog, that the Midwest in the USA is currently blighted by snow, with Spring nowhere in sight. Am slightly re-assured to know that it's not just me that's suffering from the weather. And where is Spring? It's April now and I'm still cold.

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  2. Spring just popped in on the French Riviera this morning, where it had been remarkably absent. I thing its just jet setting right now, playing hard to get.

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  3. Anonymous5:01 pm

    I put toothpaste on my spots when they are at the stage of being red and annoying. They usually go away quite quickly though I have to warn you it sometimes has the effect of getting worse before getting better. Worth a try?

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  4. brrrrrr the French Riviera sounds attractive right now...

    Toothpaste? Really? That seems like a radical solution. Why does it work, I wonder?

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  5. "Out Damned Spot" also passes the other Google test. Pick any phrase, add the phrase "rock band", and Google will find one - in this case an indie rock band in San Francisco.

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  6. Anonymous5:57 am

    Normally I lurk, but the combination of insomnia and wondering if the rock band thing could possibly always work sent me to google my latest blog entry title and I tink I am relieved that "What?Pesach?When?Ack!" was not also some odd folk rock group in Des Moines.

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  7. The toothpaste thing only works some of the time. It has to do with one chemical that is *sometimes* in toothpaste but that is almost always in acne cream. If you have the right toothpaste it might work... if your toothpaste doesn't have that chemical (don't ask me what chemical it is... I can't remember super-poly-syllabic chemical names) then it won't work and may do damage to your skin. I read all this in some girly fashion-magazine article just one week ago while driven crazy by the boredom of sitting in the doc's waiting room. It seems there is a LOT of babble about this on the net but I couldn't find the chemical name... sorry.

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  8. l like the phrase + "rock band" idea in Google. I'd never have guessed there was actually a band called Out Damned Spot.

    Rubius... You've disillusioned me about toothpaste already. I was looking forward to trying it.

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  9. Sorry to disillusion you... but after all we have to protect the intellectual heritage of the world... meaning our authors and other thinkers.

    Even if it is only from spots.

    :-)

    Just think... what would Buffy do?

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