A Gentleman's Domain

Thursday Thirteen #43

This week's TT is a booklist made up of leftovers from previous booklists, so there is quite a variety.

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Hollywoodland

I recently reviewed this movie as a guest contributor to the blog Just Eat The Damn Peach.   If you'd like to read it, please walk this way....

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29 Levels of Moi

I saw PJ at the excellent Urban Recluse do this meme and so I decided, without the slightest qualms of conscience, to steal it.  There are 29 levels (I'm not sure why) and only on two levels do I end up with a complete set of blanks.  But I suppose there is still time to do some of the things I have so far left undone.  Others I have no wish to do at all.  And a few questions are irrlevant -- I am not now nor have I ever been a member of Facebook. I interpreted the questions absoutely literally and all my answers are true.

Level 1
(x) Smoked a cigarette.
(x) Smoked a cigar.
(x) Kissed a member of the same sex.
(x) Drank alcohol.

Level 2
(x) Are/been in love.
(x) Been dumped.
( ) Shoplifted.
(x) Been fired.
(x) Been in a fist fight.

Level 3
(x) Had a crush on an older person.
(x) Skipped school.
(x) Slept with a classmate.
(x) Seen someone/something die.

Level 4
( ) Had/have a crush on one of your friends who is now on Facebook.
(x) Been to Paris.
(x) Been to Spain.
(x) Been on a plane.
(x) Thrown up from drinking.

Level 5
( ) Eaten sushi.
( ) Been snowboarding.
( ) Met someone BECAUSE of Facebook.
( ) Been in a mosh pit.

Level 6
( ) Been in an abusive relationship.
(x) Taken pain killers.
(x) Love/loved someone who you can’t have.
(x) Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by.
(x) Made a snow angel.

Level 7
(x) Had a tea party.
(x) Flown a kite.
(x) Built a sand castle.
( ) Gone mudding (offroading).
(x) Played dress up.

Level 8
(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves.
(x) Gone sledging.
(x) Cheated while playing a game.
(x) Been lonely.
(x) Fallen asleep at work/school.

Level 9
(x) Watched the sun set.
(x) Felt an earthquake.
( ) Killed a snake.

Level 10
(x) Been tickled.
(x) Been robbed/vandalized.
(x) Been cheated on.
(x) Been misunderstood.

Level 11
(x) Won a contest.
( ) Been suspended from school.
(x)Had detention.
(x) Been in a car/motorcycle accident.

Level 12
(x) Had/have braces.
( ) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night.
(x) Danced in the moonlight.

Level 13
( ) Hated the way you look.
(x) Witnessed a crime.
( ) Pole danced.
(x) Questioned your heart.
( ) Been obsessed with post-it-notes.

Level 14
(x) Squished barefoot through the mud.
(x) Been lost.
(x) Been to the opposite side of the world.
(x) Swam in the ocean.
( ) Felt like you were dying.

Level 15
( ) Cried yourself to sleep.
(x) Played cops and robbers.
( ) Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers.
( ) Sang karaoke.
(x) Paid for a meal with only coins.

Level 16
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t.
(x) Made prank phone calls.
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose.
(x) Kissed in the rain.

Level 17
( ) Written a letter to Santa Claus.
(x) Watched the sun set/sun rise with someone you care/cared about.
(x) Blown bubbles.
(x) Made a bonfire on the beach or anywhere.

Level 18
(x) Crashed A Party.
( ) Have travelled more than 5 days with a car full of people.
(x) Gone rollerskating/blading.
(x) Had a wish come true.
(x) Slept with a member of the same sex.

Level 19
( ) Worn pearls.
( ) Jumped off a bridge.
( ) Screamed “penis” or “vagina”.
( ) Swam with dolphins.

Level 20
( ) Got your tongue stuck to a pole/freezer/ice cube.
( ) Kissed a fish.
(x) Worn the opposite sex’s clothes.
(x) Sat on a roof top.

Level 21
(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs.
( ) Done/attempted a one-handed cartwheel.
(x) Talked on the phone for more than six hours (in one day).
( ) Recently stayed up for a while talking to someone you care about.

Level 22
( ) Picked and ate an apple right off the tree.
(x) Climbed a tree.
(x) Had/been in a tree house.
( ) Been scared to watch scary movies alone.

Level 23
(x) Believed in ghosts.
( ) Have had more than thirty pairs of shoes (not necessarily all at once).
( ) Gone streaking.
(x) Visited jail.

Level 24
( ) Played chicken.
( ) Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on.
(x) Been told you’re hot by a complete stranger.
( ) Broken a bone.
(x) Been easily amused.

Level 25
( ) Caught a fish then ate it later.
( ) Made a porn video.
( ) Caught A butterfly.
(x) Laughed so hard you cried.
( ) Cried so hard you laughed.

Level 26
(x) Mooned/flashed someone.
(x) Had someone moon/flash you.
(x) Cheated on a test.
(x) Forgotten someone’s name.
( ) French braided someone’s hair.
(x) Gone skinny dipping.
( ) Been kicked out of your house.
( ) Tried to hurt yourself.

Level 27
(x) Rode a roller coaster.
(x) Went scuba-diving/snorkelling.
(x) Had a cavity.
( ) Black-mailed someone.
( ) Been black mailed.

Level 28
(x) Been used.
(x) Fell going up the stairs.
( ) Licked a cat.
( ) Bitten someone.
( ) Licked someone - not in private places…

Level 29
(x) Been shot at/or at gunpoint.
(x) Had sex in the rain.
( ) Flattened someone’s tires.
(x) Rode your car/truck until the gas light came on.
( ) Got five dollars or less worth of gas.

Please help yourself to this meme if you want to have a go -- but remember: honest answers only!

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Thursday Thirteen #42

I have done a few TTs featuring some of the DVDs in my collection, and may well do so again if I run out of ideas.  But  before DVDs, of course,  there were videos.  I am so old I can remember the days when you had to watch a TV show when it was broadcast or else you didn’t see it at all (I can also remember when you had to get out of your chair and walk up to the TV set to change the channel, but that’s another matter).  Then along came the VCR, and all of a sudden we were set free from the shackles of TV schedules.  You could tape a show and watch it when you wanted to, as often as you wanted to.  And we could buy or rent movies on tape to see in the comfort of our own homes.  Some people said that would kill the movie industry but that never happened (Mind you those same people said that TV would kill the cinema, tape recorders would destroy the record industry and that file sharing would demolish live music, but none of that took place).  Before we bought a DVD player, we watched films on VHS tapes, and we still have about 100 of them – both pre-recorded and stuff we have lifted off TV.   Over time we will get them replaced by DVDs but until then, as we have four VCRs in our home, we enjoy them in VHS format.  Here are a few of them.

  Thirteen Movies On VHS We Still Watch

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A Taxing Time For All Concerned

Normally I tend not to believe that tax inspectors have even the vestiges of a sense of humour.  There is too much about them of the bully to admit that  they could be like you and me. Then every so often something comes along to make me think otherwise.  The letter reproduced below appeared in The Guardian newspaper in England and is apparently a genuine letter from a member of the Inland Revenue (the UK equivalent to the IRS) to a reluctant and obstreperous taxpayer.  This must be a few years old now, because the Inland revenue has been renamed The Dept of revenue & Customs, but it is still worth reading. Who says the taxman doesn’t smile now and again? 

 
Dear Mr Addison,

I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise. I will address them, as ever, in order.

Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a "begging letter". It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a "tax demand". This is how we at the Inland Revenue have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the "endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat" has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer I would cautiously suggest that their being from "pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and puissant gas-mongerers" might indicate that your decision to "file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies" is at best a little ill-advised. In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a "lackwit bumpkin" or, come to that, a "sodding charity". More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole. Which brings me to my next point, whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay "go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services", a moment's rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to "stump up for the whole damned party" yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor's disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on "junkets for Bunterish lickspittles" and "dancing whores" whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, "that box-ticking façade of a university system." A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:

1. The reason we don't simply write "Muggins" on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system; 2. You can rest assured that "sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give" has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to "give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India" you would still owe us the money. Please send it to us by Friday.


Yours sincerely,

H J Lee
Customer Relations

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Thursday Thirteen #41

This week my TT is another list of books with one-word titles.  Enjoy!

Pet Pleasures

The other day, Infinity Goods tagged me for a pet meme.  Okay, I’ll bite.   The rule is, I have to write seven random facts about my pets, and then tag seven people myself.  Let’s see now….

1.   I used to have a goldfish called Fishface when I was about twelve. I won him at a hoopla stall at the Hampstead Fair and bore him home with pride in a plastic bag full of water. He has long since died been called to the giant fishbowl in the sky (via the regular sized toilet bowl in the bathroom).

2.   My mother used to breed Great Danes, so I grew up with these lovely gentle giants.

3.   My young nephew found a crab on the beach at Shanklin, Isle of Wight, some years ago and it took my sister and me quite a while to persuade him that his plan to put it in a box and take it home as a pet was not a good idea, and wouldn’t have been very kind to the crab.

4.   We have three cats now.  One of them likes to sleep on his back which shows how domesticated he is. No cat in the wild would ever do that.  I took a picture of him and used it a header for a Thursday Thirteen.

5.   I don’t believe that cats can talk, or even write blogs, though one of ours does seem to have been writing limericks when I wasn’t looking.

6.   One of our cats has outsize front paws.

7.   We have a hamster too.  I didn’t want one, but after ceaseless bullying from my wife, and my daughter who was visiting, I caved in and they chose a Chinese dwarf hamster.  My wife was delighted.  It turns out that the hamster can’t stand my wife, who loves her, and any attempt at contact is met with full frontal attack and vicious use of her front teeth. On the other hand I, who never wanted her at all, am adored and trusted. She will take food from my fingers and lets me stroke her. My wife, meanwhile, has to suffer the trauma of rodent rejection.

I won't actually tag anyone, but anyone who wants to have a go, please feel free!

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Thursday Thirteen #40

A few weeks ago, I had a look at some books that, for better or worse, have been made into movies.  There certainly are a lot of them.  Here is another TT’s worth; some became pretty good films while others, in my view, should have been left on the cutting room floor.  Anyway, here are….

          13 More Books That Have Been Made Into Movies

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If You Like This Sort Of Thing....

…which I do, you may well agree with me that this is absolutely brilliant.  Never mind the bit at the start when Cab Calloway is with them, doing a bit of scat singing.  He leaves them after a few moments, and lets them get on with it.  This is pure artistry and perfect co-ordination, and the Nicholas Brothers make it look so easy because they have worked very, very hard at their art.  They must have extraordinary lower body strength.  At one point, with seemingly no effort at all, they both do standing jumps up onto platforms at least three feet high.  At other moments, they make a man’s eyes water! How long did they have to practice doing the splits like that before they could do it without hurting themselves?  Fred Astaire, no mean dancer himself, called this the best dance routine ever filmed.  This was from a movie called “Stormy Weather” (1943) ( Note the all-black audience – that’s the way things were in America then.).   If you like this sort of thing, which I do, watch this and then compare it to the second rate crap that people fawn over these days in “Dancing With The Stars” and similar wastes of time.  If you don’t like this sort of thing, I’m sorry to have bothered you: please click onto something else.

Thursday Thirteen #39

And here we are again, for the first TT of 2008!  This is another random sampling from my DVD collection.  There is a noticeable lack of chick-flicks in what I watch, but apart from that it’s a fairly wide variety.  And this is only a sampling after all.

13 More DVDs From My Collection

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