... a leather waistcoat.

There is nothing worse than a leather waistcoat.

Waistcoat belongs to a group of words like ankle sock, headscarf, ear muffler and eye glass that are strangely appealing - in a vocab sense. However, there can be nothing appealing about a man wearing a leather waistcoat.  British Prime Ministers that came before Harold Wilson often wore a waistcoat, normally under a tweedy kind of jacket, but these usually were also tweedy and matched the jacket. Unless I am mistaken, waiters at the Angus Steak House in London wore a natty tartan design waistcoat some years ago, but definitely not in leather. Imagine my surprise when I saw a man waiting on Union metro platform, on quite a warm day, wearing a black leather waistcoat and no jacket. Why? With those little pockets it's okay for the train ticket, but where did he keep his wallet and mobile phone? What possible benefit could be gained from wearing it? I tried not to let it worry me too much whilst waiting to board the next Green Line train. When the train came in I stood politely to one side to let the passengers off, when suddenly I was pushed aside by the very man in question, who then sat on the only free seat in the carriage. I could have got somewhat annoyed, but then what can you expect from a man wearing a black leather waistcoat.

...having a BBQ on the beach

My wife and I live in a very pleasant location within Sharjah. Sharjah is not the destination of choice for many people, even those that live here, but it does have some nicer areas, one of them being where we rent our apartment. We live on Khalid Lagoon, with Al Khan lagoon on the other side, and, compared to the rest of Sharjah, not so much traffic and human kind. In fact, there is a lot of sand and a large grassy area. However, this relative peace and quiet means that people with only one discernible aim in mind, to burn fresh meat to a cinder, come to the beaches in big numbers in the evening and the weekend. Obviously there are many signs on the beach saying that barbecuing is prohibited, but this is one of those local regulations that is never enforced. We like to walk there, but it is impossible to do so without a full face gas mask and night vision goggles due to the waves of impenetrable choking blue-black smoke and the acrid smell that clings to the atmosphere. I am amazed that barbecuers can even sit amongst it, let alone eat. When we do venture in that direction we are inevitably driven back into our apartment, which thankfully is 35 floors up. The smoke doesn't reach that height, yet.

... making the wrong choice when using singular or plural

Whether or not to make a noun singular or plural is definitely problematic in the English language.  In my previous post, in deference to the Four Tops and for the sake of historical accuracy, the plural of shadow has been used. However, love, as an idea, cannot be counted, so how is it possible for love to have more than one shadow? Similarly, with death. Some people think that we spend our life walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Note that this is only one shadow and we don't know if it is big or small.  Are the roads ahead difficult, or is the road ahead difficult? I am thinking again about love, which can, and frequently does, cast a shadow over everyday existence. One shadow might be bearable, but when it casts many shadows then you are indeed in a very dark place.

... standing in the shadows of love

You will be preparing yourself for the heartaches to come. They might come today or tomorrow. You will want to run away but you know the heartaches will follow you. You need love because without love it is the beginning of the end. You have no reasons for living. All the love you have given has been thrown away. You were there when you were needed, you treated the other person well, but now you find yourself rejected and alone. You are, in fact, destined to be all alone for the rest of your life, with misery your only company. What caused all of this? You really don't know why you have been treated in this way. You are trying not to cry out loud because crying isn't going to help any more. The one thing you are sure about is that from today, or perhaps tomorrow, you've got nothing but loneliness and misery for the rest of your life.

.. a fading memory

There's nothing worse than a fading memory.

I kept hearing a snippet of music on the radio in an advert. I knew I had listened to the complete track in my youth many times. I just couldn't remember where the snippet came from.  Google is great, but one thing it doesn't do is allow you to submit a few notes of music and find the track that it came from, I don't think. Suddenly, as if I had been through one of those back-to-your-childhood hypnotherapy sessions, I remembered it. Well actually I remembered Jeff Love, the band leader. It wasn't him, but then Google somehow got me to Jeff Wayne, via Jeff Beck and then Jeff Lynne. The issue now for me is to decide whether this is a an old memory rediscovered and soon to be discarded or a new memory just put into my brain cells.  If it is old, which is possible, then I need to record it somewhere so that it doesn't become a cob-webbed relic in some unused area of my brain.  The complete track is The Eve of the War, from War of the Worlds, by Jeff Wayne, including the wonderful narration by Richard Burton.

Jeff Wayne - The Eve of the War .mp3 Found at bee mp3 search engine

It seems, in the past few months, that War of the Worlds has become a media and entertainment industry talking point again, perhaps due to the anticipated catastrophe in December that didn't happen.  Living in Sharjah, these things often pass by unnoticed, which might have benefits - there's no danger of remembering and forgetting it. 

Technology note:  The link to War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne doesn't work on Ipad or Iphone.  I thought I could fix it, but it has to use a flash player, so no go.

... being in the wrong idiom.

The other day I was more than a little disoriented. I could have been in the soup or perhaps I was in hot water. My wife suggested that I might be up the creek without a paddle, whereas my friend was sure I was in a spot of bother, although I didn't agree with him. When I checked on Bing maps it suggested I was up ship (polite p=t) street. I was pretty sure that I wasn't riding a horse with no name or had my head in the clouds. I don't think, either, that I was on my last legs and was definitely nowhere near the last knockings and was not out for the count. Perhaps I was just under the weather. Was I close to something - perhaps the edge, the bone, the wire or even the call? No definitely not. I was in something. If this feeling comes back I might find myself jumping ship and heading towards the murky depths.

..finding a thrupenny bit in your Christmas pudding

There's nothing worse than finding a thrupenny bit in your Christmas pudding.

Pronunciation note. Thr- oo - penny. Say the u like the oo in book or look.

Some people might say there's nothing worse than Christmas pudding, other that there's nothing worse than the complete Christmas dinner. Finding a thrupenny bit in your mouth in the middle of eating that great British delicacy on Christmas day, having already consumed enough calories for the next five days, can never be regarded as a good thing. So this is what has happened. Mum has put a thrupenny bit in the pudding during the mixing stage and cooked the pudding with it inside. Where did she get it from? It hasn't been legal tender in the UK since 1971. Did she have a collection of old coins she had kept from childhood? Probably. Did she properly sterilise the thrupenny bit before putting it in the pudding mix? Probably not. After being the chosen one who found the coin, it must, of course, be given back to Mum for use again next year. The thrupenny bit in question, I'm sure, had an interesting tale to tell, up to that point in time. All the pockets and purses it had been in doesn't bear thinking about. The places where it had changed hands are even more intriguing. Perhaps the young soon-to-be Queen Elizabeth used it to buy a bag of boiled sweets from her local corner shop. Maybe Bobby Moore used it to buy three penny-worth of chips after coming out of Upton Park on a cold Saturday evening having just played a blinder against Liverpool. However, this year, it ended up being swilled around in someone's mouth, and next year - same thing. Tradition is a wonderful thing.