Well I'll be bugged

I was reading the headline of someone's London Lite on the tube this evening, which read something like "Reporter admits he bugged the Royals"

My immediate reaction was to giggle, as I thought bugged was a slightly longer word and involved an altogether different undercover operation. It's an old trick to use a word that looks uncannily like another - especially in headlines - and far more subtle than the tabloid use of rhyming words. I'm still smiling now and still haven't even considered the weighty substance of the article that no doubt followed...

Relief

For some bizarre reason I was sitting on the train this morning thinking about the day ahead and pictured a man in a sleeping bag lying in a gents' toilet in some remote city.

 

Someone enters the building and remarks to him "What kind of a man can live with human waste?"

 

The man replies "What kind of man can piss on a fellow human being?"

Fen Creative: Writing for People, Pleasure and Profit at http://www.fencreative.co.uk

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Electricity

I'm typing this on a PC ad obviously using electricity to do so. Even had I been on my laptop, it would have first been charged via electricity. My daughter is next door to me on a different PC and the tumble dryer is doing its best to make its presence known in the kitchen. We'll shortly be putting on the lights and cooking tea and no doubt gathering around the television to watch X Factor later. It's an obvious statement but we don't often consider the source of our power to do things, only when the means of creating that source come under the microscope.

Fen Creative: Writing for People, Pleasure and Profit at http://www.fencreative.co.uk

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In the event of a fire

I was in an office building on Regent Street last week, about to enter possibly the smallest, slowest lift in the Western Hemisphere. A sign at the outer entrance door decreed: 'In the event of a fire please do not use the lift.' It might have gone on to elaborate - 'use the fire extinguisher instead.'

The train didn't arrive but customer service did

I had to travel to Nottingham today from my local station at Ely. The train did not arrive, being delayed due to a 'barrier problem at Thetford' and I feared the worst. Delays can often lead to cancellations and plans can be introduced to chaos, the black sheep of the timing family.

 

The station staff proactively suggested we take the next train to Peterborough and see if we could pick up a connection there in case the train was indeed cancelled. Once aboard, the ticket inspector checked for forward connections without my even having to ask. In Peterborough the original train arrived just twenty minutes later and I was able to continue my journey.

 

In an age where customer service on the railways is a byword for, well, bye, I was almost amazed that people should be making such an effort and the delay quickly became a thing of the past.

Fen Creative: Writing for People, Pleasure and Profit at http://www.fencreative.co.uk

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Delete Britney Spears

While her husband may be understandably upset at allegedly being told
in a text of his wife's intention to leave him, he can at least take
solace in the delete text button on his mobile. 'Conversations' can be
wiped clean and even pictures stored on the device can be permanently
removed.

Journeys

Some years ago my wife had a near fatal car accident. Her car aquaplaned across the road after a heavy downpour and ended upside down at the bottom of a ditch that was swollen with the same recent rainwater. She did eventually get out but had counselling for some time afterwards.

 

Her counsellor focused on the fact that we all take journeys in life at different times, in different directions and for different purposes. Unsurprisingly our interaction with other journeys, incidents and environments are dominated more by near misses than actual connections; any accident should be seen in this context as one near miss that wasn't, out of many possibles.

 

I was thinking about this yesterday when I had to travel to the nearby railway station and passed our son's school bus which I'd connected with at the other end. In the evening, my return train arrived at the station just before the train carrying our daughter to Cambridge arrived. Truly we live complex lives, often more interconnected than we perceive.

Fen Creative: Writing for People, Pleasure and Profit at http://www.fencreative.co.uk

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Saddam Hussein - hang on a minute

The verdict in Saddam's trial for crimes against humanity was rarely in doubt despite the disruptive and near anarchic environment in which it took place. I suppose the reactions to his death penalty were equally predictable. I'm not referring to the Muslim factions but to the hysterical applause in the West.

 

I don't believe that there has been an injustice and certainly the victims of Iraqi genocide never had the luxury of level playing fields, but do we need the ITV1 glorification of the death penalty or the noose on the front page of today's Metro as though the media were the prosecuters of justice in our time. Crowds used to gather to see hangings - it seems they still do.

Fen Creative: Writing for People, Pleasure and Profit at http://www.fencreative.co.uk

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Cathedral skies

I've just been for a walk across the Fens that run away from our house. There is definitely a November chill in the air but the autumnal colours remain for now. The yellows and browns of discarded clothing litter the path and trees prepare to shiver. On my return journey the sun set early, casting a red shadow across sky and fields for miles around as if to provide an inner glow for the cold days ahead.

Fen Creative: Writing for People, Pleasure and Profit at http://www.fencreative.co.uk

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Waiting to be interrupted

I was dreaming last night and obviously well tucked-in because I thought I was in the bath. Warm and secure I dreamed that I was drifting in and out of sleep but fighting to stay awake. I was 'listening' to Radio 5 Live and waiting for the latest Leeds United score to come through. I lost the battle and so will never know whether or not they won.


Fen Creative: Writing for People, Pleasure and Profit at http://www.fencreative.co.uk

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