Tag Archives: dull

Dull and Dullability

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I’ve had two or three goes at starting this post and they have all petered out. I decided to take a break and pay an invoice, and found that I had several messages on my phone. I haven’t picked it up since ringing work on Wednesday. In that time I have been sent three messages – hardly the most thriving social life, but more than usual. One is a get well soon message, one is a picture of an Edward VIII post box and one is delivery details for my injector pens.

It seems, despite it not triggering the spellchecker, that dullability isn’t a word. Ah! It didn’t trigger the spellchecker in the title, but it has done in the text. I see it as a late Victorian to 1930s word. It should mean the ability to be dull, implying a certain amount of choice and style, calling some one dullable would be similar to calling them clubbable. Of course, they wouldn’t be as sociable as a clubbable person. It would have taken a knock in the Great War, as shellfire is generally considered to be the antithesis of dullness, and WW2 would have polished it off completely as aerial bombing followed by TV would have made dullability all but impossible. It would be such a useful word . . .

Covid, for instance, would allow it to flourish, as people work from home and no longer socialise with workmates. Or merely sit at home struggling to find 250 reasonably interesting words. I could release myself from the shackles of cheeriness and moan to my heart’s content if only it were possible for people to refer to me as a dullable sort of chap.

A two part photo hit – we have been eating soup, but dreaming of cake.

I may use that in a poem.

There will be more dullness later today.

Sticky Toffee Cake

Day 86

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We had pizza delivered last night because they were doing a Mothers’ Day Special. We had leftover pizza tonight. Last night we had coleslaw, tonight we had leftover coleslaw with a few extra bits thrown in. At least I made that myself. I can’t help reflecting that my mother would probably be disappointed in my current culinary efforts.

That thought naturally moved on to others of parental disappointment and mortality, leading inevitably to a blog post that was unusable. This is happening too often these days. I need to get the tendency under control because it makes blogging a lot longer if you have to discard alternate posts.

I’ve now ground to a halt and still have 150 words to do. It’s a sign of how dull my life is that I have nothing to offer. The clocks went forward an hour last night, well most of them did. In the morning I will have to reset the car clock, which is always an effort as I don’t remember how to do it because it’ six months since the last time. It’s always the way. It’s the same with computers – I have been able to do some quite complicated stuff at times but once I stop doing it I forget after a few months and am never able to do it again.

I now have 29 words to do, and my 250 target will have been met. I imagine that I will have managed that by the end of this sentence and won’t have had to use a single ounce of effort or idea.

In fact I am way past 250 now and talking of nothing.

I should have been a politician . . .

 

 

 

 

 

A Very Average Day

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In the discussion of What’s a Blogger? there have been some good answers.

One of the things that has emerged is that people think their blogs are about boring everday life.

This isn’t true. To someone as nosey as me the details of other lives are very interesting. As I said in one of the comments, I’m the sort of person who enjoys rail journeys because it allows me to look in the gardens of trackside residents. I also like Google Maps, though I’d prefer to see them presented as real time satellite photos. If I ever win the Lottery I will price up a spy satellite. Oooops, I just did. £390 million plus launch costs.

You’d think they’d throw in a free launch for that price, wouldn’t you? They’ve obviously been learning from the computer industry. Computer – £299. Actual working computer with the stuff it needs to be useful – that will be extra.

I may rent one instead. There are a lot of back gardens that need looking into.

Back on the subject of boring lives, I had a double lot of laundry on Sunday morning. I’d felt lazy the week before so I hadn’t done any. This has an obvious knock-on effect, particularly as Julia packed the bags. She always has to sweep the house for anything that looks remotely washable, and believe me, she was successful in her quest. Number Two son contributed too, as he’s off on holiday. He’s only going for a few days, but he’s packing for a month.

The normal people were there, the Odd Couple (who slid in just in front of me and took two driers before sliding out on some mysterious errand), The Big Lad and Overalls. With the Odd Couple away, that left three of us, all looking like sad batchelors doing their own laundry.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

A Fat Man taking an Accidental Selfie – my normal “Selfie Shirt” can be seen in the Featured Image

I know this is untrue in my case, and I know that, like me, Overalls, drops his wife off at work at 6am. I’ve never actually spoken to The Big Lad (who is in truth no bigger than I am), because we are English and we are men. I always assumed that he was single as he was a large Goth with Heavy Metal tattoos. After looking at his washing I now know that he does have a partner of the female sort. Either that or he has a strange taste in underwear.

Strange what you see when you keep your eyes open.

There were two new people in – both women. This is unsettling as they don’t usually come in till later, and because they took up all the machines.

I had to overload two small machines, then stuff a third when it became available (hence my view of Big Lad’s washing). After that I had to wait for driers. Then their was no space to fold…

That’s the trouble when you let women into the launderette.

This was just the beginning of what proved to be a very average day.

Part 2 will follow

Book Review: She Wolves – The Notorious Queens of England

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She Wolves – The Notorious Queens of England

by Elizabeth Norton

The History Press (2009)

Paperback 288 pp  £12.99

ISBN-10:  0750947365

ISBN-13: 978-0750947367

I always feel it’s wrong to be too  critical in a book review as I have never had a book published. In this case, when the author has degrees from both Cambridge and Oxford and I don’t have one from anywhere, I feel even worse about it.

However, the back cover indicated that this was going to be a story of  “bad girls” and “witchcraft, murder, adultery and incest”. That indicated a tabloid approach to the subject and I was looking forward to an interesting read.

It wasn’t. The writing style was dry and the material was from being as interesting as advertised.  I was left with the distinct feeling that the writing improved as the book moved on to better known Queens, and was distinctly more interesting as it moved on to the Tudors. Not only that, but though the book made frequent references to the way women were seen and treated at various times in history, the theme was not developed.

When I read some of the comments in the reviews on Amazon, I find I’m not alone in this. I also found I had missed most of the poor editing and only spotted one of the factual errors (the “thousands” of Marian martyrs).

If I’d have paid £12.99 for this I’d have felt cheated. As it is, having paid just £4.99, I don’t feel so bad.

I do, though, feel like I’ve wasted my time reading it.  To make things worse, after missing the various faults outlined in other reviews, I’m feeling insufficient as a reviewer.

There’s another book called She Wolves. I may try that one later.

 

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