Sunday, August 30, 2009

Rereading my previous blog I wonder how I could have started it with a sentence so long, so unwieldy and one that barely made sense without going back over it and doing a bit of a rewrite. Maybe I should go on a refresher course, one of those “creative writing” doodahs that are continually being advertised at various universities etc. Typing should come first. Why is it I always type “form” when I mean to type “from”? Am I ever so slightly dyslexic maybe? I seem to be in the habit also of typing arse for are. Anal retentive maybe? Did Luther always write arse for are and have to cross out the s?
A recent survey evidently has come up with the startling conclusion that Brits on holiday drink eight times more than they should. I don’t know why this should be so startling when you consider that Brits at home drink far more than they should and most certainly ex-pat Brits spend far too much time in kafenios knocking back the hard stuff. Maybe it’s because it isn’t as expensive as back home and maybe because they’ve nothing better to do with themselves and are bored out of their minds. Paradise has its drawbacks. It is quite disgusting though in holiday hotspots to have Brits puking their guts up all over the place. Young Britain on holiday really behaves very badly and it’s not just the drinking. Watching their antics on Greek TV news when the Greeks want to have a justifiable moan about it is like watching a bunch of unintelligent apes showing off for the camera – if apes could do that sort of thing of course. Mind you some of the Greek bar and cafĂ© owners have only themselves to blame. So long as they’re raking in the readies it seems anything goes.
My bridge partner has done it again. I have 8 spades to the king and call spades. The computer replies with 4 hearts (hearts again!) and of course we go down. Would still have gone down if I had called 4 spades. I have to get another bridge game sometime.
Saturday evening we watched Mr Attenborough’s film GHANDI again. Quite a long time since we originally viewed it; a remarkably broad canvas with virtually every known or fairly well known British actor in it. A very small quibble in so large an undertaking - why did Louis Mountbatten give an American salute, that is palm downwards, rather than a British one, that is palm out front? Was that genuine? Did he actually salute like that? Maybe Mr Attenborough can enlighten me. Seems strange to quibble over so small a detail but it did worry me. Also as the part hardly entailed much in the way of acting I could have wished a better lookalike had been found. After all even today Lord Louis’ face is still so familiar one can even visualise it with ones eyes shut.
The assassination of Ghandi is yet another proof as to how pernicious religion can be in the hands of fanatics of whatever persuasion.

1 comment:

Brighton John said...

The Royal Navy salutes with the palm downwards, unlike the other services. The film got it right.
But it does not mention what got Ghandi going, namely that he was insulted, as an Indian, by being treated similarly to the black population by the whites. He wanted only the blacks to be treated as inferiors.