I first saw this years ago, but it’s worth posting anyway because it’s just about the best thing I’ve ever seen and I had forgotten about it until I found myself poddling about on YouTube this afternoon. For as long as we live in a world where this is possible, there’s always a reason to be cheerful.
Category: Reasons to be cheerful
And they’re off!
The new season starts today, for people who follow proper football. We’re at home to Watford, and I can’t go because I’m on call for work, which entails being within fifteen minutes of a broadband connection at all times.
I’m predicting Palace 2-1 Watford. We went to watch a pre-season friendly against Fulham, which was actually Dougie Freedman’s testimonial (WHO LET THE DOUG OUT!), and, whilst it was a completely rubbish game, there were some points from which I thought we could take cautious hope. The two youngsters, Scannell and Moses, both looked good, as did a new signing from Bristol City, Nick Carle, who if he continues to play well I will forgive for acting like an arse in the away leg of the play-off semi-final last season, when he took five minutes to leave the pitch after being substituted.
Meanwhile, I’m watching the swimming, the builders who have been making car crash noises on the roof all morning appear to have disappeared, and Final Score is back this afternoon. It could be worse.
Update: it ended 0-0. Still, a point’s a point. Onwards and upwards!
The Olympics!
It’s the Olympics! Ratta-tatta-taaaa, ratta-tatta-taaa, Olympics, woo! Olympics, woo!
I am recording the opening ceremony so I can watch it this evening, when everybody else is at the pub. And then I’m going to spend all weekend watching it (the events, not just the opening ceremony over and over again, although opening ceremonies of major sporting events are one of the best things in the world. They’re so well-intentioned and friendly and joyful, and also so very odd).
I love the Olympics. Will everything be happening at night, though, or while I’m at work? Timings-wise, it can’t be worse than Sydney, and I don’t remember having to get up in the middle of the night eight years ago. But I may have just forgotten.
Genius
Look!
(Photo: Chris Mitchell)
It’s a sink on top of a toilet, in which you wash your hands with the water that then refills the cistern. This is the smartest piece of design I’ve seen for weeks.
For more Japanese (of course) space-boosting cleverness, see the full article – A Very Short Walk Around a Tokyo Apartment.
5-0
Boris’s victory, maddening and saddening though it is, failed to mar an otherwise wildly successful weekend. I’ve never been to a Palace game where we won by anything like as huge a margin. Burnley had nothing to play for, but the other side’s indifference hasn’t stopped us failing to set the game on fire in the past, and the team played really smart and well-put-together football. Particularly pleasing was the fact that every goal was scored by someone different. Full match write-up here.
Even more pleasing was our 5th-place finish, which sees us meet Bristol City in the playoffs. We managed to get tickets for the home leg, which takes place this Saturday. Two games in a week! I am a genuine bona-fide fairweather fan. Good.
It was weird, though: I can’t remember having been to a game where we’ve led by more than one goal in the final minutes. Even when we’re winning I’m used to spending that last quarter of an hour in a state of arm-chewing tension, but you can’t even make a pretence of that when you’re five goals ahead. I felt strangely cheated.
In other news, Ronnie won the snooker and tfl.gov.uk won the People’s Choice for Government website award in the webbys. And it was a three-day weekend. I know I should be more upset about Ken – and I am, really I am – but I can’t seem to shift this good mood. It’s probably not worth fighting it, is it?
Sun
The sun is out! And someone somewhere is having a barbeque. I couldn’t be happier.
Reasons to be cheerful: numbers 5 and 6
I’ve a treat lined up after work today: I’m going to see my genius hairdresser (I’m still not linking to her). I wasn’t sure how long it was since I’d last been, but I see I last posted about her on February 22, almost exactly eight weeks ago. Having short hair is very labour-intensive – when it was long I would have a haircut about once a year, and I’d usually do it myself.
The odd thing is that as soon as I make an appointment to have it cut because it looks raggedy and awful, it starts to look fine, and I have second thoughts. Logically, I think this means I should make a hairdresser’s appointment every day, but never go, thus guaranteeing a lifetime of good hair days.
And the second rtbc is that as I was travelling back from lunch in the lift, two men had a conversation about Palace’s promotion prospects, and they agreed that they were good. I’m not sure I agree, but it was good to hear nonetheless, and all the more welcome for being unexpected. People, generally, are not nice about CPFC.
Small pleasures, number 4
Paying for lunch on a card and having the person you’re with give you the cash. Free money!
A photo
My camera isn’t working so I can’t take any new photos, but I wanted to celebrate the sun coming out, so here’s one taken two summers ago. I like it because they’re having so much fun, and because M looks like a lion hiding in the undergrowth. Also because the thing at the front on the right looks like a giant cartoon bug, but probably isn’t.
A profitable lunchtime
…by which, obviously, I mean one in which I spent money, rather than earned it. Last year, when my income went up from “I can pay the rent and go out to eat” to “I can buy an iPod on a whim” (it’s since gone back to the first one), I decided that rather than spend £10 on boots that last three months, I would invest wisely in expensive but high-quality items that would last forever and end up costing me less money than the cheap version.
Well, it turns out that expensive boots (and bags, and clothes) don’t last any longer; they just cost more. So it’s back to spending £10, or in this case £5, on a new bag, which is bright blue and doesn’t go with anything, but that’s ok, because it only cost £5!
I thought I had done more shopping than that, but it turns out the rest of what I bought was my lunch. Well, that’s ok too.
Also, and not unrelatedly (the sun makes me spend money): it’s spring! I know I’ve said it before, but this time it’s properly true. I even had to take off my incredibly warm and deeply impractical fake fur coat while I was outside. You know, for a bit.
Glad All Over 