On the Beat

Catherine Townsend, a columnist on the Independent, has posted about some bizarre reactions to the use of the word "choice".

It is very strange how, for some people, a single word can embody so much meaning. Words do indeed have power.

I have just seen an ad for "Femme" by Hugo Boss. It featured music by the J&MC. It was (I think) the intro to "Just Like Honey".

This is completely bizarre. But I guess the Reid brothers need to eat.

I was dozing listening to the radio early yesterday morning, and "Wake Up To Money" was on. (This is a misnomer; I have woken up to this many, many times - but no more money than I ever have.) Half awake, I would swear that I heard them tell me the Co-Op was buying Sellafield (aka Windscale), a British nuclear facility. I was very, very confused.

It was only later that I realised they must have been talking about a bid for the supermarket chain Somerfield...

* * *

Then this morning I was glancing through radio listings in the paper when I noticed that Front Row featured Mark Lawson investigating the role of female dentists.

I had to read it again before I realised it said Mark Lawson investigates the role of the female dramatist.

Why is a scanned image of a table from an article in the Scotsman the second-most viewed image of mine in flickr?

I used it to explain some of the intricacies of the voting system in the Scottish elections.

And yet every week, many people look at this picture.

It is just strange: this is people actually clicking on the image to look at it. Weird.

Chinese South Africans now black.

I just heard this reported on the news. Apparently, Chinese South Africans have won the right to be classified as black - so they can take advantage of positive discrimination. Good luck to them, but ...

I was sitting on the bus to work listening to Radio 3 on my walkman when the 8.30 am news headlines came. There is nothing strange about this; it happens every day (although, being Radio 3 sometimes a little early, sometimes a little late).

What was strange was that it was yesterday's news.

I would sware that they were the same headlines as yesterday:

• report published in Strasburg say EU governments probably knew about CIA "rendition" flights
  
• Gordon Brown supports Tony Blair's changes to the education policy
  
• Seventeen women with breast cancer were misdiagnosed
  

and so on.

It could be some kind of deja vu; or maybe it is just that by 8.30 I have heard the news so often that it just seems like yesterday's news (although that didn't happen yesterday).

Or maybe I am trapped in some kind of Groundhog Day reliving of my past.

So let's see what happens yesterday, then...

It is the party season. I have been to three Christmas celebrations, two work-based and one supplier. I had expected that they would yield exciting tales to regale you with. But I am not sure that I come out of those too well, so I shall keep my ruminations on Christmas parties to myself.

After the last party on Thursday, I came home slightly the worse for wear – only slightly – and sat down, playing with the cats. The way my cats show affection when I play with them is by drawing as much blood as they can; they were very affectionate on Thursday night.

(I was playing with the cats this afternoon, as well: “So you’re not just stupid when you’re drunk”, said my wife.)

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