Things they should invent

I often notice that we are, in fact, living in the future. (I can talk instantly to someone on the other side of the world! I can fit 10,000 songs into something the size of a fag packet!) But they seem to be being a bit laggardly in inventing certain clearly essential items. Here's my handy list for the boffins to consider, next time they get a moment or two of downtime.

1) Electronic books. Like the iPod, for books. Only you can't call it the iBook, because there's already a thing called that, and it's not this. Think how incredibly handy it would be to just be able to take one wee iPod type thing on holiday, with dozens of books on. Instead of nearly filling your rucksack with reading matter, still running out within the month, and then having to resignedly bookswap for Dan Brown and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (again).

2) Teleporters. Self-explanatory surely.

3) The anti-microwave. To cool things down quickly when they're too hot.

4) Vaguely remembered music recognition. When you've got a song stuck in your head - or something sounds a bit like something - it would identify the song for you. Yes, I know there's something already that can identify songs. I mean, my VRMR unit would work out the song you mean from you humming it very badly or confusedly mentioning facts which may or may not be about that song. Even when what you're singing sounds nothing like the target song or you can only remember that it goes, 'la la, something about a woman...I think...'.

5) A red button like you want it to be. Similar to the above. It would include vaguely remembered actor recognition, so you could be watching the telly and press it and it will tell you what advert the actor in question used to be in, when you last had that product and who it was you used to know at uni who claimed to have snogged the actor's son on holiday. And tell you where the backdrop in news items is, including exactly where the journalist is standing when they are in a city you know. And even more esoteric stuff like how the fuck they got a release form from that person and why in god's name did anyone commission this shit. You know, all the important questions you want answered when watching the telly.

6) In fact, all-pervasive general memory adjunct software would be very useful. When I say 'all-pervasive' I mean wherever you were, whatever you were doing, you could call on it. Walking down the street - what shop used to be next to that pub? Getting dressed in the morning - where did I last see my green shirt? Random conversation - who was the woman who did that thing, y'know, the thingy thing, with the thing like that [vague hand gesture]?. This, of course, would be much like actual memory is supposed to work - but with a better search facility. Although we might spend so much time happily browsing the infinitude of things we've forgotten that we never got anything done. A bit like the internet. Well, actually, a lot like the internet.

Mottos, and also photos

I'll start with the photos. Firstly - something seems to have happened to those photos of my flat. Perhaps some sort of online tidying police. Or my Mum's a lot more web savvy than she appears and doesn't want her friends to know what a slattern I am.

Anyway, my life is too short to try and work out what's up and fix it. If you imagine that the first shows a very small, very messy bedroom, and the second shows a larger, less messy bedroom, then you'll get the picture. To continue our state-of-the-art mind's eye-o-cam, next imagine the second bedroom, only now a riot of haphazard cardboard boxes, piles of dirty clothes and empty crisp packets. Yes, kind of like the first room, only larger. Or, more precisely, like the second room, only messy. I'm pleased to note I have beaten my prediction by a whole week. Who says I'm not efficient?

In lieu of working photos of my own, I was going to link to a photo of the anti-war demo last weekend (as spotted by Geoff, on Urban 75, taken by a complete stranger, but happening to feature me in the background, looking remarkably pissed off, but then, war is bad, y'know?) but the photos have proved so popular that his bandwidth has been exceeded. You'll have to imagine them too - people, placards, pissed off me. This mind's eye-o-cam is pretty good, eh? And here's a photo of me receiving the Nobel Prize. With no wrinkles. But with a big pile of gold and a flat stomach.

Anyway, today's other news - I was browsing Wikipedia while at work today, as you do, and happened to be looking at the entry for Scotland. Did you know that the official motto of Scotland is "Nemo me impune lacessit"?

I thought that was just something it said on the side of pound coins sometimes. I didn't realise it was an official motto for Scotland. A tenner says 95% of people stopped in the street would not know their national motto, rendering the whole exercise somewhat pointless, no?

It means, "No one provokes me with impunity" in Latin. I think we could also render this, with no loss of accuracy, as, "Dinnae try it, pal" or perhaps, 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'. Was Kenneth MacAlpin* from Glasgow, perchance? It also gives the Scots version as 'Wha daur meddle wi me?' which is even more nakedly an invitation to fight. I can't believe you're allowed to have stuff like that as your national motto. Cool, eh?

England's, it turns out, is 'Dieu et mon droit'**, or 'God and my right' - which manages to both be offensive (to me anyway) AND not really make any sense.

*It was also news to me that Scotland was unified by Kenneth I. Now come on, you can't have a King called Kenneth. Ethelred, clearly a much more sensible Kingly name.

**again, yes, I've seen it on pound coins but didn't realise it was supposed to be our national motto. I thought that was, 'Is this the queue?'

My abilities as a housewife

Still something I seem to lack an instinct for. Someone I once slept with choked in surprise, on entering the hallowed den, and said, 'My God, it's like a boy's bedroom!'


Anyway. Behold, the bedroom I had only occupied for three weeks. Note the tasteful way I managed to turn it into a complete tip. Actually, you probably can't tell much from the fuzzy picture, but I'm very excited that my new phone comes with a handy cable to download pics straight onto the pc.




Behold my new bedroom! See how much nicer and more light and spacious! (Probably ditto on the not being able to tell much, but hey). I give it two weeks before it looks like a larger version of the first one.

What I came home from Kathmandu to see...

Andrew's just kindly sent me some photos of his and Alex's wedding. Don't they look lovely? And don't I look brown?

Things I'd never thought of before moving to Bath...

It's annoying when the name of the place you live is also a normal word. Try doing a google search for 'flatshare bath' or 'leisure centre bath' or a million and one other things. I even, I must confess, in a 'let's meet new people' strategy, did a search on Guardian soulmates. Found the details of lots of people, living all over the country, who like having bubble baths. WELL annoying.

And anyway, who the fuck puts that in their lonely hearts profile?

Are there other places that have this problem? Reading. Wick. Tongue (they are definitely going to have problems on the dating site). Hull, perhaps. I must think of some more.