I have had vertigo since 6th January. It is quite an interesting affliction, none of your dull common colds and 'flu for ME, thank you. It is like being an old TV (I mean television not transvestite) with no horizontal hold. I feel perfectly well until I change position. Upon so doing my head does that thing where the room spins around, which normally only affects the drunk. And that's another thing; I have been unwillingly de-toxified. I haven't had a fag for over a week and no alcohol has invigorated my body for even longer. This has distressed me, it is uncanny and unnatural. I fear that I may be further compromised by contracting a secondary infection that causes me to jog,or do Yoga. I am just sitting on the sofa with my bust expanding and my mind contracting, as I am unable to read very much either. This will only result in me becoming highly attractive to men,if I am not careful. I never have been before. I don't mind, really.I used to mind a great deal, when I was a young woman. I was unconsoled by the reasonably large number of boys who would approach me, for the minute I spoke they would retreat, sometimes falling over their feet in their haste to be away. I did not speak in tongues, or have dragon's breath. I checked, endlessly. My brother once remarked upon this phenomenon. "Hmmm, yes, I have seen it happening.." he mused. "What it is,is, you just aren't sexy. Goodlooking, but not sexy". I was too young to consider how right and proper it was that my brother had this view.We may have lived in Fazackerley, but it wasn't the Appalachians ; and incest was discouraged, particularly in the Co-op. I was dashed. Although I might have considered my brother's then choice of lady companion; he tended towards girls whose look might best be described as "raucous". I was pondering this because a) I am vain, ridiculous, and self-obsessed, and b) some lovely people have asked me to write an article about Valentine's Day. This led me to consider the great mystery of human attraction, and how we now celebrate the wondrous thing that is romantic love by creating an atmosphere of hysterical pink heart-shaped commercialism on 14th February. St Valentine himself is not to blame for any of this, and indeed, had his own troubles, being "possibly as many as fourteen people", according to the Roman Directory of Saints. You can see how that might be a stretch. He is also reported to have cured the blind daughter of his jailer, refused to worship Roman idols, and carried out (or not) a confusing selection of marvellous acts. His C.V. is a bit muddy, but seems to have concluded with him being stoned, beheaded, and/or beaten to death with clubs.
His skull popped up in a basilica in Rome, crowned with flowers. In 1836, it, and some other relics were transported to Dublin , donated by Pope Gregory to the Whitefriars Carmelite Church. It was there that he became associated with young people in love.
Now I don't think there is anything to objectionable there; but I do wonder how that story seems to have triggered the current unpleasantness where restaurants chage twice as much for food that is half as good as usual. It is also rather embarrassing, Valentine's Day. As a nation we quite enjoy being embarrassed, it used to be our default setting,and a major export,along with umbrellas and stiff upper lips. I feel the capacity to be abashed is what seperates man from the apes,well, that and the ability to accessorise.But it is cruel and unusual for men, the gender who have enough trouble remembering their own birthdays, to be expected to come up with a carefully-planned spontaneous gesture of romance,when they have only just recovered from forgetting to post the Christmas cards. And it causes ructions in schools; girls go completely insane for weeks before and after. I am so glad to have given up teaching that age group before they all got access to Twitter and MSM and Facebook. They waged enough psychological warfare with cards from Clinton's, in my day. The boys tended to be rather oblivious to the currents and eddies of high emotion sweeping across the sixth-form common room in the Valentine's period, poor beasts. It's a Girl Thing. I have warned the GB, but he seems to be untroubled, noting with only slight irritation that large displays of Valentine's tut were in the way of the Easter Eggs in Asda.
Oh well. I shall keep my head down until it goes away. A wise action in the circumstances. And at my advanced age I am more likely to be attacked by moths than by Cupid. In either case, I have a spray ready.
His skull popped up in a basilica in Rome, crowned with flowers. In 1836, it, and some other relics were transported to Dublin , donated by Pope Gregory to the Whitefriars Carmelite Church. It was there that he became associated with young people in love.
Now I don't think there is anything to objectionable there; but I do wonder how that story seems to have triggered the current unpleasantness where restaurants chage twice as much for food that is half as good as usual. It is also rather embarrassing, Valentine's Day. As a nation we quite enjoy being embarrassed, it used to be our default setting,and a major export,along with umbrellas and stiff upper lips. I feel the capacity to be abashed is what seperates man from the apes,well, that and the ability to accessorise.But it is cruel and unusual for men, the gender who have enough trouble remembering their own birthdays, to be expected to come up with a carefully-planned spontaneous gesture of romance,when they have only just recovered from forgetting to post the Christmas cards. And it causes ructions in schools; girls go completely insane for weeks before and after. I am so glad to have given up teaching that age group before they all got access to Twitter and MSM and Facebook. They waged enough psychological warfare with cards from Clinton's, in my day. The boys tended to be rather oblivious to the currents and eddies of high emotion sweeping across the sixth-form common room in the Valentine's period, poor beasts. It's a Girl Thing. I have warned the GB, but he seems to be untroubled, noting with only slight irritation that large displays of Valentine's tut were in the way of the Easter Eggs in Asda.
Oh well. I shall keep my head down until it goes away. A wise action in the circumstances. And at my advanced age I am more likely to be attacked by moths than by Cupid. In either case, I have a spray ready.
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