Hell, as I understand it, is quite a hot, dry place. Furnaces, fiery pits, that sort of thing.

I wouldn’t have thought it would have been technically possible for anything to rot therein.

Burn, disintegrate, roast, grill, barbecue, char ? Yes.

The rotting process requires some kind of moisture in the atmosphere. And neglect.

When people yell out ‘rot in hell’ it must be because they’ve heard other people say it and it sounds right.

What they really mean is ‘rot in gaol’ or ‘burn in hell’ perhaps.

<>’Rot in hell’ doesn’t work.

Tags: random as in random not as in weird by jane
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I hate The Sopranos.

There, I’ve said it.

I’m bored by ganster/mafia-and-their-analysts films.

In 1987, 8 months pregnant, wearing an unavoidable orange and black polka-dot ensemble, I walked out of a screening of Repo Man at the Longford in Toorak Road. It was one of only two times in my life I have walked out of a film.

I find Jim Carrey films less boring, predictable and unfunny than mafia/gangster/shoot-em-up/psychological-angst films,    and Jim Carrey is about as funny as cancer.

That being said, I was disappointed by No Country For Old Men.

Why didn’t the Mr Bad-Wig-Scarey-Guy-With-The-Spaniel-Eyes shoot those little kids in the last scene ?

There they were, innocent as all get-out. They’d helped him. One of them had given him the shirt off his youthful, innocent, vulnerable shoulders. They were inadvertenly responsible for his car crash. If anyone deserved to die….
Why didn’t they get the fancy-new-way-to-kill-a-guy-with-a-gas-gun-gun treatment ?

He’d killed everybody else: innocent, guilty, passive, aggressive, male, female, old, young, hero, anti-hero, plus all possible interest in The End.

Wha-t ? Did the budget run out of gas ?

‘I knew when I read the book I just had to make this movie’ said the more articulate Coen brother. (Don’t ask - but the other one is the one who giggles a lot like an incontinent extra from Marat-Sade)
Why, Mr Coen ?

Why did you have to ?

It was a beautiful film. Landscapes like paintings. Landscapes reminiscent of all the episodes of Rawhide and Wagon Train and  Bronco you’d ever seen.

No Clint Eastwood or Ward Bond or Apache on horseback but…  those dead bodies in the bleak landscape. Those flies swimming in blood trickling from the dogs’ mouths…. That was ART-a-go-go. I could have watched it all night.

Come to think of it, it felt like all night….

I could have jumped out of my skin as someone else’s head was blown off, ’til the lights came up. That’s Entertainment.

Everybody dies.

It’s a metaphor, I know.

I am just a chick but I know stuff. Everybody dies and the world is full of psychopathic killers.

Well, of course it is.

Tags: Uncategorized by jane
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‘The suspect is about 175 cm in height’.

I see a dwarf. Like the miniature Stonehenge flown in in Spinal Tap.

‘The suspect is about 6? 4? in height.’

I see a Big Bruiser.

Today’s temperature of 37 was not an adequate description of just how hot it was.

100 degrees ? Now, that’s hot ! That says something. That speaks to me of rivers of sweat around my hairline and between the spare tyres.

One hundred little bubbles of F. One hundred individual jaffles cooking your skin to toasty.

37 is measly, small, paltry. A ‘chilly 37 degrees’ sounds more logical.

Not hot enough, 37.

London’s expected max of 9 - that makes sense. That sounds like it is - crisp, fresh, beanie weather.

Except in the old money it’s probably about 30 something - maybe 37 - and then you’re inured to thinking Celsius-style hot.

I am proposing a New, Improved Bi-Polar Temperature Scale - we’ll call it The Third Degree.

When it’s really hot  -  Big Numbers - bigger than 70, at least.

When it’s really cold - Little Numbers - less than 15 at most.

It would be a much better description and it would make us all feel justified in boiling or freezing our arses off.

‘Man, it’s hot !’   ‘Yeah, it’s like 105 or something.’

Sounds good doesn’t it ?

‘Oh, brr (yes, brrr…) it is freezing !’   ‘Yeah, they said on the radio it was below 10!’

It Just Makes Sense.

Tags: random as in random not as in weird by jane
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I’m refreshing my Sprechen Sie Deutsch and I have woken up with the phrase “Ist das Frühstück im Preis inbegriffen ?” stuck in my brain .

I know asking whether ‘breakfast is included’ is a vital phrase to have on the tip of one’s tongue but it’s not just that.

How delicious are the words ‘Frühstück’ and ‘inbegriffen’ ? As fruity as muesli, as crunchy as toast.

All those umlauts in ‘Frühstück’ - the word looks like a strawberry !

‘Inbegriffen’ - it takes hours to say - it’s as complex as complex carbohydrates.

I have 2 language CDs in the car - German on the way to, French on the way from - but the German is so seductive it often gets a second go on the way from.

It’s not everyone’s cup of kaffee, German. Too gutteral, too many capital letters and weird B’s that make an ‘ess’ sound. But I like it. It’s familiar, like a squelchy whiff of cowdung on an old gumboot.

I’m counting down the days ’til I get on that big bird and fly.

Sechsundzwanzig tags to go.

The flights are paid for, the friends and relatives standing by with clean sheets and open arms, all direct debit payments cancelled for three months, the ‘Household Mysteries & Where To Find Things’ working manual almost written up for the children and landlord, passports in order, considering taking half an Aspro Clear a day for the DVT, still hoping for a juicy-highly-paid-job before I go, and quite a lot of the research for the book complete.

Ich hätte gern ein Glas Rotwein, bitte.

Now, that is a vital phrase !

Tags: Countdown by jane
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