Shut My Mouth

Going To Camp

Paris:– Monday, 25. July 2005:– Sometimes the key to a whole weather forecast is a very tiny phrase only spoken once almost in passing and if you miss it, then you miss the whole essential sense of it and what's coming is a true mystery.

Put another way, if it had slipped by me, then this would be a totally different set of predictions. Tonight the TV–weather news man, wearing a light gray suit with prominent chalk stripes, off–handedly happened to mention that there's a serious low hanging over the UK.

This means, I think, that the northwest corner of France is either going to be covered by nasty clouds or it's going to be threatened with them. The result will be a kind of stormy beginning to tomorrow with maybe a little rain. This might give way to a partly sunny afternoon, but with the temperature expected to hike to 25 degrees, the whole effect may be humid.

This seems to be more likely on Wednesday, with another temperature climb to 28 degrees. In fact Le Parisien is predicting this too – heavy air full of wooly weight, even though the sun may be shining.

And it's a big ditto for Thursday, when there may be sunshine with a high of 28 again, and this thick air, bound to cling like a soggy oven mitt full of corn oil. Okay, so the weather is strange this year – there's no need to be alarmed if it seems a bit tropical, unless you are coming here as a relief from Florida.

Météo Jim, located contra–trans– Atlantic, sends a short weather note about sand storms, which I have included simply because it's not total fantasy, in Arizona at least. Although initially inappropriate, this is the remainder of Météo Jim's forecast for Pommeland weather this week:–

Until last Wednesday the temperatures were in the mid 90's anglograd – 35 eurograd – with pommaise humidity. Then a dry front came through. The temperatures fell a few degrees but more importantly, the humidity nosedived. But there has been no rain and les gazons de Pommeland are turning brown from the drought and the soil is hard and dusty. The temperatures will go back up to the mid 90's until Thursday when a cold front will bring cooling temperatures and some isolated Donnerboomer– blitzeneargesplitten.

The weather center the other day, as strange as it seems, issued an alert for a 'haboob' in Arizona. This is an Arabic word for sandstorm and parts of Arizona were definitely haboobed. This comes from the distant and exotic country of Namboobia where rain does not fall for centuries at a stretch. It is a land where the nearest water is a two day march past your final exertions, where the sun beats forever, the nights are unceaselessly cold and haboobs get in your eyes and up your nose. Just to see how long it would take, someone put an ice cream cone on the sidewalk – if there were any sidewalks – it melted in eight seconds. Not a record!

Café Life

All this talk of 'citizen journalism' that constitutes the latest buzz–phrase makes me feel a little bit tired. Here I am, hacking bravely away for nine or ten years, wearing out keyboards, tip–tapping almost on auto–pilot, filling up this Metropole with somewhere around two million words, and now citizen journalists are going to come along and write the same amount, collectively, in a week at most.

I didn't start out to do this for nine or ten years and I haven't been aiming at getting two million words recorded on a hard disk. I thought I would be finished long before now. Somehow I survived the 'dot–com' boom and bust, mainly by skipping the 'boom' part, even if I secretly hoped I could skip the 'bust' part.

How many other hot trends have I skipped? How many have ignored me? If I am to become an overnight success, I am beginning to wonder if it's going to be in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest 'overnight' in history. If it gets any longer, send the prize to the Golden Gables Oldfolks Camp for really senior dummies.

I can see it all now. All the other old folks are sitting around playing dominos or Snakes and Ladders – not that! That's one of my un–games. Always at the bottom of the ladder because of all the snakes. Yucky slimy snakes. Maybe they are playing ping–pong, anything without animals.

Aides are serving them lemonade and cookies, changing the channels on the TV, turning up their hearing–aids, iPods, samba classes, cha cha cha. While I pump out words, words, words, the oldest geezer 'citizen journalist,' going on 103 and hitting five million words, getting paid in negative, like minus a nickel a word, like living the future in reverse, day after day into the past.

You know, I think I'll skip the 'citizen journalist' scam. It sounds like more work for no pay. I don't know why everybody is so down on the French and their 35–hour work week. So long as you are not being paid, why work longer than 35 hours a week at it? Working 70 hours a week will just throw more people out of work.

Maybe I should take up blogging instead. Naw. Blogging looks like work. This is not why there are a million blogs now. It is because blogging looks like avoiding work. It's the hardest grind of all. I better think of something quick before I grow up.

Without additionalaid, Metropole is still in danger of expiring. Please take a look at the support facility today and dump in all you can stand. Your 'Ed' is not out of the weeds yet.