He’s the universal soldier

North America was just about the last place I had expected to see queen’s guards doing their I am not really a human I am a pole act but there they were in Ottawa guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier. And just like in London they were attracting tourists like flies who were alternating between trying to get a reaction from underneath the hairy hat and having their photo taken next to the furry pole.  I half expected to turn around and see a red double-decker bus pass by or a group of girls on a night out wearing belts as skirts.

Do you want to wait and watch the changing of the guards my OSF suggested. Remembering my less than gracious outburst in the parliament not so long before I decided it was safer to stay far away from anything remotely queen related.

Hmm I replied, I think I’d rather watch the changing of the guards’ uniforms.

Now’s the time to celebrate the glory of this imperfection

Yesterday I received the following totally unsolicited e mail

           ___________________________________________

 

Dear Conortje author,
 
Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 7.2 score out of (10) in the Personal Blogs category of Blogged.com.

This is quite an achievement!
 
We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.
After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 7.2 score.
 
Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!
 
Sincerely,

 

 

Amy Liu
Marketing Department
amy@blogged.com
http://www.blogged.com. 

__________________________________________________

I am not sure what bothers me more – the rating of 7.2 or their apparent excitement at such a mediocre score. They seem to be damning me with faint praise I never asked for. In fact I had never even heard of them before this e mail.

I must admit I find it somewhat difficult to muster up any pride for a measly 7.2. They could have at least given me some warning and allowed me time to study and prepare for the test. I’m sure with a bit of effort I could have stretched my grade to a 7.5 Although, if I stand back and look at their criteria I actually think they were rather lenient on me.

Frequency of updates – Nobody is more surprised than myself that I am still writing anything on this blog. Every post is one more than I ever expect to do.

Relevance of content – relevant to what exactly? Let’s face it, I write about nothing. Nothing is either completely irrelevant or vitally relevant to everything.  This is a major philosophical point which I intend to never write extensively about some day.

Site design – Design? Oh dear,  I wonder does a signpost to Purgatory qualify as a design concept?

Writing style – Seeing as I don’t have a style I fear this is where I may have lost most points. Although not having a style could very well be a style itself. Hmm, maybe if the whole mechanic thing doesn’t work out for me I could become a philosopher…I clearly can’t become a professional blogger with only a 7.2 rating. I wonder if they do recounts.

In my private universe

As I hadn’t seen my occasionally nefarious friend for a while we were filling each other in on the important events of the last week or so.  One of my impossibly enthralling tales was how I found the little risk soldier on the floor a year after playing the game and how perhaps it was an idea that I hoover once in a while. Oh yeah, I read about that he uttered matter-of-factly. Despite it being about a toy soldier and despite that he clearly read it on my blog I felt an enormous wave of pride and excitement. It was like I had been featured in Newsweek and my private life had been splashed all over the newstands. You see, I discovered a long time ago that reality isn’t anywhere near as thrilling as the little dream worlds I create for myself.

Yesterday Alan sent me an e mail asking if I would be a guest blogger on his site. A Guest Blogger I said to myself over and over again making it sound more and more glamorous each time. A guest made me sound as if I would be appearing on Letterman or at the very least on The Late Late Show. Of course the excitement soon disintegrated as I quickly realised that he expected me to write something that he would actually put on his blog. Then the nerves, doubt and utter fear set in.  But I did it, sent it and then waited for the standard rejection letter ending in Thank you for your interest in my blog. I expect what happened was he didn’t have time to read it and just posted anyway and now it’s too late. So I cordially invite everyone to go and have a wee peek here. If nobody looks I’ll never be invited as a guest anywhere again.

If, after that little adventure, you still find time on your hands and have energy to waste I would also like to invite you to take a look here. There will be a prize for the most outrageous and over the top review. I can’t divulge what the prize is just yet but it’s most likely small, plastic and covered in dust.

It helps you on your way, gets you through your busy day

I am a firm believer in denial. I just can’t imagine why it gets such bad publicity. It really doesn’t deserve the bad name it’s gained for itself over the years. It saw me nicely through university ensuring I never got too stressed with exams and borderline poverty. It watched over me protectively through my first year in The Netherlands ensuring I coped gracefully with so many changes and once again … borderline poverty.

Now that poverty isn’t such a pressing issue denial has graduated to helping me through the day to day trials of life. Like that awkward bulb that has blown in my kitchen. I spent ten minutes attempting to figure out how to open up the spot light to free the expired bulb, all in vain. Instead of getting horribly frustrated at the end – I just calmly hopped on the denial express. Perhaps it’ll just fix itself and start working again. Those filthy windows? There’s bound to be a good rain storm soon – sure it’d just be a waste of time filling up a bucket and getting myself all sudsy for something that nature will take care of perfectly well, eventually.

Over the years I’ve been accumulating a mountain of old clothes that no longer fit or are hideously out of fashion (or have never been in fashion more likely). It got to the stage where I had more of these than I had clothes that I actually wear – three enormous bags of the things. I knew there was a recycling bin in town but how was I ever going to manage to get there with three massive sacks? Cue Mr Denial, well Conortje perhaps you’ll put on weight and these clothes will fit again one day, maybe fashion will take an acute right turn and geeky yellow will be all the rage. Maybe some kind soul will come to your door and take them all off your hands.

And you know what. It finally happened. After three years, someone did come to the door and in a few weeks there will be a little village in Africa where the inhabitants are going about their business in clothes that wouldn’t look out of place on a children’s TV presenter. Denial wins again.

Embrace denial today. It’s comforting, it’s free and all you need is a little patience. Now, when is that rain storm going to happen…