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Overheard II
At the chemist, this lunchtime…
Tourist #1: I’m looking for some lozenges, or pastilles, called Diff…diff-something. For coughs.
Pharmacist: …
Tourist #1: Or do you have another type of cough lozenges?
Pharmacist: Oh yes, there are several types [starts shuffling on a shelf behind her]
Tourist #2: I know what you want! You want Difflam! [To pharmacist] Ma’am, he wants Difflam!
Pharmacist: Difflam? That only comes as a mixture, not in lozenges.
Tourist #1: Oh, really? In Sydney it comes in lozenges. Why can’t you get it in Lozenges here?
Tourist #2: Because the queen! She said so!
Tourist #1, wisely: Ah, I see.
He means business
This morning, I noticed a man standing on the roof of one of the six- or seven-storey buildings which our thirteenth-floor office overlooks. He was peering over the edge and moving in an aimless sort of a way. After a bit, he disappeared off around a corner and out of sight, and I realised that at no point had it occurred to me that he was there for anything other than savoury, non-suicidal reasons. I thought about it a bit longer and decided that this was because he had a pencil behind his ear. Killing oneself doesn’t somehow seem compatible with having a pencil behind the ear.
Spam
I’m delighted to be able to report that I am now getting spam with wildly fascinating subject lines, as well as senders. In my inbox this afternoon I have the following offerings, all of which I quite want to read:
FDA finds salmonella strain in jalapeno
Man kills for lottery winnings
Saturated fat found to be good for you
Christian Bale doomed Oscar chances
Woman loses foot in shock attack [I wonder if the foot will later appear washed up on a Canadian beach?]
And my very favourite:
Monkey breast feeds human baby
Still alive
I had a long post about Sherlock Holmes all ready to go yesterday, but at the crucial moment I realised I didn’t have the quote I needed with me. It will appear at some point. In the meantime, with no football happening and rain most days, I don’t seem to have anything to write about.
So here’s some music instead.
Overheard
Outside an Italian restaurant in Bloomsbury, a couple next to us; both indeterminately European. They are discussing his career prospects, and eventually he bursts out: “If I don’t get tenure next year, I’m just going to…blog about it.”
Talking of which
…well, broadly. It’s Passover, and therefore time to link to my favourite ever Passover story, from Nik.
Sponsor me for the Race For Life in June 2012
