This one comes via Dans

Overheard at my desk

"Enough about Mandela. Until he's dead, I don't want to hear about it."

It's all gone a bit kumbaya over here

I came to this lovely bit by Bertrand Russell below via this also quite lovely bit by Stephen Fry. Pretty stuff.

It also reminds me a bit of Woody Allen's nice little speech from Manhattan ("Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... and Willie Mays, and... the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and... Louie Armstrong's recording of 'Potatohead Blues'... Swedish movies, naturally... 'Sentimental Education' by Flaubert... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne... the crabs at Sam Wo's..."

I've edited that to avoid spoilers. Anyway. Bertrand!

“What I Have Lived For. 

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. 

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found. 

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. 

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.” 

— The Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography

Signs I may not be amazing at this whole Being An Adult thing

My dinner tonight was two veggie sausages, eaten with my hands, and a small glass of port. Also there was a glass of water, which I managed to pour all over myself.

Baby brain

This women regrets having children.

This woman didn't have kids and thinks she made the right decision.

This woman believes concerns about women and declining fertility after 30 might have been overblown.

This woman sometimes regrets not having kids but mostly... doesn't? I don't know.

THIS woman - no there's no link there, I'm talking about myself - really kinda wishes she could stop reading articles about babies and women with babies and women without babies and babies babies babies.

Things I thought/said/tweeted while watching The Bachelorette.

13 minutes in: I am watching #thebachelorette and this isn't even the dumbest thing said so far: "This isn't my grandfather-type dodgeball". Um, what?

19 minutes in: Bringing up that domestic violence allegation/arrest/restraining order on a first date - bold move, Guy. #thebachelorette

27 minutes in: This candid moment would feel more candid if 2 camera crews weren't filming it. Let me at least try to suspend my disbelief #thebachelorette

35 minutes in: Watching a guy on a dating show get busted by his gf should be terrible but obvs it's amazing and I'm dying of happiness. #thebachelorette

37 minutes in: This cheating sucker nearly turned it around for me by saying "oh my gosh". I mean, that's charming, right? #thebachelorette

(Okay I should mention that I'm sort of making up these times now because, honestly, I'm skipping a lot of this shit).

45 minutes in: Heights, a cold wind and being forced to don a bikini after a heavy meal? #thebachelorette is my worst nightmare on a number of levels.

200 minutes in (feels like): This demeans everyone. Are those horses? I don't even...

Eleventybillion hours in: "All I can do is reassure him." Or maybe stop dating those dozen other guys? I'm just spitballing here. #thebachelorette

I don't even know how many minutes in: And other things not to say to the girl dating another 12 guys: "I am falling in love with you and... we've barely talked." #thebachelorette

Mea Culpa

I have been, it has been put to me, a very bad blogger lately and a very slack one too. I know. I know this is true. The reason is very boring: essentially for boring reasons various aspects of my life are a little bit sad and confusing right now and there aren't that many light-hearted blog posts to be written about it. But, lest you worry I'm about to open a vein let me assure you there are still plenty of things making me happy - even if I'm not writing about them much. Here are some of them.

1. The return of The Bachelorette. If only because that means I can read various hilarious recaps of The Bachelorette, which are approximately 200 times better than the show itself.

2. My new hair (mostly). Even if I do look like Demi Moore from Ghost (thanks Dan).

3. The bar of white Lindt chocolate sitting, untouched (as yet) in my top drawer.

4. Maroon pants. More specifically, the fact that I tried on said pants and can see, kinda almost, a world in which I might buy and - crucially - WEAR - said pants.

5. The novels of Lawrence Sanders. No, there are no new ones (he's dead) but I've been steadily rereading the copies generously loaned to me by Belly a long time ago (I swear I'll return them) and they are the kind of books that cheer you up immediately. So so good.

6. Port. I've never really liked port but at the moment we have a bottle on the go in the house, for some reason, and there is absolutely nothing to beat a tiny little glass of the stuff when one is tucked up in bed.

7. My friends. Not to get all soft about it but some of them are just the best and their presence in my life makes it worth living.

8. My cat, Mr Whiskerley. Not to get even softer but I basically adore him. It's been so many years since my lovely old cat Tikki died that I'd forgotten how wonderful they can be. Neither did I imagine a cat other than Tikki could worm its way so firmly into my heart but goddamnit the little fucker has done it.

Things that were googled during dinner on Saturday night to settle an argument:

1. The name of the TV show on which Chris O'Donnell appears.

2. The genetic origins of the hyena.

Overheard at my desk

"Why do you have a boy's haircut?"

I don't know...

... what this is but according to the wonders at GoFugYourself it is a genuine product, which makes this ad... sort of awesome.

Things to read on a Sunday

Con: I now have a certain very catchy, quite terrible song stuck in my head.

Pro: This made me laugh.