Bellerophon symbol, variation 7 jonath.co.uk
Friday 24th Jul 2009 23:20:10
 The gods, what of them, were against us
I keep thinking, "Well, why can't I write stuff that would potential offend people? Do I actually care?", which got me thinking of this Steve Hughes sketch (from about 3:22 through to about 5:47). Because, of course, I was gonna begin this rant with, "If I was x, y and z to believe in a god then I would think that god or something was trying to stop us getting to Stratford-upon-Avon this afternoon." The variables x, y and z were fairly derogatory terms, typical of any atheist, I'm sure. But then I figured, and more importantly, that the story itself is far more relevant than any theological discourse into how these things occurred. I had many dreams last night, on account of the storms that broke over our house at about 05:19 last night. I dreamt of electrical fires in my parents' cellar, caused by me . . . I dreamt of corpses discovered in cars (a husband and wife, in their late 60's), that the police insisted had to remain at our house, pending investigation. They looked dead, but as it turned out, they weren't . . . they had just failed in a suicide attempt, having overdosed on 'something'. I remember the man, now recovered, driving down Windsor Avenue in his battered car, playing 'O Solo Mio' very loudly through his stereo. His wife took a bit longer to recover, but they were fine, in the end. And I told Dan at work today, "You know, I had a dream last night about electrical fires and here I am, about to plug in this computer that I just carried back from [another office] and in the process, it got rained on. I'm wondering if this is a good idea." I think I've digressed somewhere along the line . . . I took the afternoon off, having built up some hours as 'flexi-time'. Back at home, after lunch, during the time allocated for 'packing', I had to move the ladder from R******'s room to the landing, in order to fetch the travel cot from the loft. In doing so, I knocked over a tub of blue emulsion from the top of a chest of drawers, onto the carpet. At around this time, R****** managed to fall over and, in doing so, managed to take a bite out of his bottom lip . . . I don't know how else to describe it . . . he has sharp teeth and the fall must have pushed the mandible against the top teeth, with the unfortunate bottom lip caught inbetween. The bleeding only lasted for a minute or so but that set us right back. We spent the next two hours prevaricating about whether or not to take him to the doctors, to the hospital, to nowhere, to somewhere, to the car . . . blah, blah, blah. To cut a long story short, R****** was fine, really, so . . . several hours later than expected, we piled into the car (again) and headed south. After about 38 miles or so, the traffic got bad. We were reduced to 60mph, then 40 then 20 then 0 then 20 then 0 then 40 then 0 . . . nightmare. At about junction 27/28 (I can't remember which), we were like, "Screw this," and careered onto the hard shoulder, quarter of a mile from an exit road, and did the motorway equivalent of a u-turn. Of course, had not the paint been spilled, the lip not bitten, we would have hit the M6 at around the point of some hideous accident . . . so perhaps it was just as well. As it turned out, we just saw the tail end of all that.

Comments received:

  • Name: Jon Cope
  • IP address: 86.157.48.20
  • Date/time: Thursday 30th July 2009 10:57:23
  • Comment: Hello. Your blog is one of the few things that have ever made me 'LOL'. And you are another Jon. Nice one.
  • Name: Former Line Manager
  • IP address: 81.132.202.187
  • Date/time: Monday 24th August 2009 22:59:42
  • Comment: IMHO (.misc) funny dreams are the product of being too warm. Of course you can't remember now but I think on 24 July 2009 you were too warm.
  • Name: jonath
  • IP address: 192.168.0.111
  • Date/time: Sunday 30th August 2009 00:32:25
  • Comment: You know what, FLM, I get the feeling I could write whatever the hell I want here, safe in the knowledge that you will never read this. This is based on past experience. Feel free to prove me wrong, of course. Anyway, what I have to say isn't actually offensive or anything that I wouldn't want you to read: you're right - funny dreams are indeed often caused by being too warm in bed. I've had that happen to me many times. I probably was too warm that night, but I can't remember. M**** likes many layers of duvets and seems to feel the cold much more than I do, so you're probably right - I probably was too warm.

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