That's the thing about being a blog writer, months fly by when my life is as dull as dishwater or alternatively, I'm just too busy doing that thing they call 'work' to enable me to pay for the dishwater, the dishes, the food that occupies the dishes before the need to wash them becomes pertinent, the clothing and roof over the heads of those who eat the food on the dishes, and the gas that cooks the food....I could go on.
Just how fellow bloggers fill weekly, or even daily, blogs with read-worthy material is beyond me, and often, I suspect, beyond the grasp of the reader too. I prefer to tip my dishwater down the drain rather than pour it on to the page. Oh, don't you just love it when an analogy runs and runs....and runs....!?
The internet (oh no, here she goes again) has diluted the written word and personally, I prefer my waffle from Wendy's Waffles on Brid harbour with jam and cream on top. (Mind you, even those are now pre-packed and not like they used to be when I wer' a lass, not that I'm blaming the www for the decline of the freshly made waffle, for that I blame Lidl.)
I know, I know, I'm having a naughty nibble at the hand that feeds me (well, feeds my urge to share my ramblings, not my pocket) but really there is so much drivel on the internet it's mind-boggling and mind-numbing in equal measure.
Cats stuck up trees and petty crime used to suffice when there was a slow news week and column inches to fill in my former life as a reporter but now all journalists have to do is copy out someone's Twitter feed, cut and paste a Facebook selfie and they've got themselves a story. The days of journalists needing to be able to drive, look up a number in the phone book, do shorthand and swig a wee dram at the same time are long gone. (I just dated myself beyond my years for comedy effect, clearly having become a journalist in the early 90s, us journos weren't still joined to the hip flask....we were all too busy popping Es to bother with hard liquor)
And speaking of driving, I walked past a garage last week which displayed a long list of its services including the full integration of a plethora of internet-emitting technology into our vehicles, so not only can we read drivel all day long at home or work, we can read drivel as we drive (hey, they could use that on their banner).
Sod changing gear, steering, indicating, watching the speedometer, observing the road ahead / traffic signals / other road users / little old ladies, hedgehogs and small kiddies etc etc, we now need both hands and both eyes to scroll through Sky Sports News, find the number for the pizza place, phone a friend and text another.
So it's been Christmas, a season that regular withdewrespect readers will know passes me by without much to shout about, let alone write about.
A high point this year was playing The Logo Board Game and asking my husband, "Which Biblical strongman lends his name to a brand of luggage?"
To which he immediately answered: "Popeye!" and swiftly moved his counter along a space, sure of his success.
And speaking of the Bible (or comedy cartoon fiction, (potato, potato)), I heard something rather bonkers the other day in relation to CV writing.
In the way that we now have the right to not disclose age for fear of discrimination, we could soon even delete our name to avoid prejudice as the employer could deduce from it our cultural or religious origins.
Dear God!!! (slash Allah / Jehovah / Top Cat (one for the hubby).
And there's not much point making any reference to how smart you are naturally or how hard you worked to pass your qualifications as employers won't have a bloody clue what you mean anyway as the goal-posts once again shift from an alphabetised grading to a numerical system. Even the kids don't know whether they should be aiming for a 1 or a 9 and it's unlikely the teachers do.
So I've future-proofed my CV.
A person
Some qualifications with various grades
Some previous experience
Contact details (by request)
Gis a job
Well, turns out I did have some dishwater to get out of my system, I feel much better now, thank you for reading.
Oh wait a minute, withdewrespect wouldn't be the same without a moment in the life of my eight-year-old son Daniel. He was recently telling me a story about one of his friends and I didn't know which one he meant so I asked, "what colour hair does he have?"
"The same colour as yours mummy, without the grey bits."
And another peach of an observation about which path of life Daniel is strolling along.
Scene: Me, standing in front of an ipad-engrossed Daniel (he was not driving at the time, I hasten to add, or thankfully, crossing the road), wearing one silver shoe and orangey-coloured shoe.
"Daniel, which colour looks best with this outfit?"
Daniel glanced up from his screen for a mere millisecond: "Peach".
I'll leave being PC to CV writers and beating around the kitchen sink to proper bloggers.
