Saturday, December 03, 2005

Keep Calm

Barter Books - Gift Shop
Kat has posted recently about mottoes. This seems a good one to me. A snippet in the Guardian sent me there. Seems like a very apt motto for these troubled times. It's a great bookshop too...

Monday, November 28, 2005

Spoof signs

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Spoof signs
This is a neat idea - and just ready for the Christmas (sorry, Winterval) market. There's a pleasing air of the surreal about them, which makes them more entertaining than the real signs you see around you. My recent "real" favourite is one that says "Danger - possible wet and slippery surface". This is posted at the entrance to the showers in the gym...

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Floral Tributes again

I note that the beatification of George Best lasted all of 24 hours. One of today's tabloid "newspapers" alleges that he had at least two "secret" children. Given his lifestyle, are we surprised? Does it matter? No, and no.
Meanwhile, the floral tributes pour in, and a Diana-like mountain of flowers, pictures, scarves etc grows outside Old Trafford. Toddlers whose parents were too young ever to have seen Best play are being pushed forward to add their teddy bear or posy. It's nauseating.
Best was a great footballer - one of the all time greats. His death is sad, though hardly unexpected, and hardly otherwise remarkable. I wonder how many other fifty something alcoholics died the other day? Best's memory was ill served at the end by the ghoulish bulletins from outside the hospital - Best not dead yet, Best still not dead - reminiscent of the rolling news coverage of the Pope's death - and by the tacky souvenir pull-outs when he finally did succumb.
Who's next for the maudlin flower show? We seem locked into a cycle of excessive public grief when a famous person dies, though unable as a society to sort out the misery and pain that surrounds us everywhere, and that we conveniently ignore.