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In the Department of Tabloid Surrealism, more Daily Voice billboards:
HIS LIFE ... AS A SNAKE!
I'm quite fond of the ellipsis in that one, it lends such an air of portentuous expectation. I also can't work out if its hints at animal transformation are more or less suggestively intriguing than the scenario suggested by its billboard-mate:
NO END TO BIN OF DEATH!
While this is clearly talking about binjas, I can't imagine why it's an endless ninja rubbish bin. Perpetual motion binjas?
Went back to the gym this week - feeling quite good, actually. Although, in the Department of the Malice of Inanimate Objects, on my way home from my first session the traffic light on Boundary/Main celebrated my return by suddenly losing the green phase allowing us onto Main Rd, backing up a huge queue of sweaty post-gym-goers who were becoming steadily more annoyed - and, one assumes, smelly - as the lights cycled through phase after phase without ever giving us a chance. Eventually we took matters into our own hands and filtered lawlessly out on the red into gaps in the traffic, amid a cacophony of hooting. It's amazing how persecuted a simple malfunction can make one feel.
Today's inspiration to parents everywhere:
Bibliophibians. Damn straight. I don't have the procreation excuse for my thousands of books, but I really don't propose to let that stop me. Also, this is a clear mandate to go right on buying random books for all the toddlers I know.
Speaking of which, the next kiddilit installment is in honour of The Mysterious Mwotn, since he's also fond of it. Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth is a truly odd exercise in children's allegory, featuring enormous amounts of conceptual and linguistic play. Milo, the hero, drives in his little toy car past his purple tollbooth into a world of embodied concepts: he jumps to Conclusions, becomes lost in the Doldrums, and visits the two kingdoms of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, who are at war having lost the Princesses Rhyme and Reason to the Demons of Ignorance. While the moral is clear, the book's wistful, whimsical tone stops the whole thing from being too preachy, and it has lovely touches of humanity and humour. Part of the charm is, I think, in the illustrations, which capture the tone perfectly.
Last Night I Dreamed: I was staying in a holiday house in England, in the snow, and writing columns for an old academic colleague whose political journal had a circulation of precisely 500 Scotsmen.
HIS LIFE ... AS A SNAKE!
I'm quite fond of the ellipsis in that one, it lends such an air of portentuous expectation. I also can't work out if its hints at animal transformation are more or less suggestively intriguing than the scenario suggested by its billboard-mate:
NO END TO BIN OF DEATH!
While this is clearly talking about binjas, I can't imagine why it's an endless ninja rubbish bin. Perpetual motion binjas?
Went back to the gym this week - feeling quite good, actually. Although, in the Department of the Malice of Inanimate Objects, on my way home from my first session the traffic light on Boundary/Main celebrated my return by suddenly losing the green phase allowing us onto Main Rd, backing up a huge queue of sweaty post-gym-goers who were becoming steadily more annoyed - and, one assumes, smelly - as the lights cycled through phase after phase without ever giving us a chance. Eventually we took matters into our own hands and filtered lawlessly out on the red into gaps in the traffic, amid a cacophony of hooting. It's amazing how persecuted a simple malfunction can make one feel.
Today's inspiration to parents everywhere:
Bibliophibians. Damn straight. I don't have the procreation excuse for my thousands of books, but I really don't propose to let that stop me. Also, this is a clear mandate to go right on buying random books for all the toddlers I know.
Speaking of which, the next kiddilit installment is in honour of The Mysterious Mwotn, since he's also fond of it. Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth is a truly odd exercise in children's allegory, featuring enormous amounts of conceptual and linguistic play. Milo, the hero, drives in his little toy car past his purple tollbooth into a world of embodied concepts: he jumps to Conclusions, becomes lost in the Doldrums, and visits the two kingdoms of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, who are at war having lost the Princesses Rhyme and Reason to the Demons of Ignorance. While the moral is clear, the book's wistful, whimsical tone stops the whole thing from being too preachy, and it has lovely touches of humanity and humour. Part of the charm is, I think, in the illustrations, which capture the tone perfectly.Last Night I Dreamed: I was staying in a holiday house in England, in the snow, and writing columns for an old academic colleague whose political journal had a circulation of precisely 500 Scotsmen.
