Well hello and welcome back folks.  I haven’t posted for a while as I’ve been having trouble with my web publishing software; or so I’ve been led to believe.  I’ve always championed Apple products, and have had no problems in the past, so the irony of what ensued was not lost on me.

I sent a detailed email to Apple in which I described the minutiae of the symptoms I have been experiencing.  Several weeks have passed during which time there has been a long and drawn-out email exchange, which included a two-hour web ‘chat’.  I’ve just received what appears to be Apple’s final word on the subject which, bugger me, does little more than describe the minutiae of the symptoms I have been experiencing. Talk about coming full circle!

It would appear that if you don’t continue to spend money buying the most up to date version of your software, it’s unreasonable of you to expect what software you’ve currently got to continue to work properly.  The euphemism they use to describe this practice of rendering older software inoperative is ‘withdrawing support for the product’. 

Maybe I’m just used to stuff being designed and built to last.  My alto sax is now well into its sixth decade of use, and it just seems to get better and better with each passing year.  Maybe it’s just me getting old.

Speaking of which, I’ve reached the stage where I’m becoming baffled by the fashion choices of the ‘yoof’ of today.  For instance the trend of wearing your trousers so they look like they’re falling down.  I’m told that this is all about gang culture and a desire to look like a jail-bird.  Apparently it’s down to the fact that in US penal institutions, inmates are deprived of belts in case they use them to harm themselves or others. 

Whist conducting auditions earlier this year, I came across a chap who was wearing his jeans so low, they were actually below his buttocks and, irony of ironies, required a really tight belt to keep them in place.  It made him walk like a penguin too.  Despite his best efforts, the lad (probably very middle-class and from the home counties) didn’t look very ‘Gangsta’ at all.  In fact he looked a c***.  I’m always tempted to ask people if they know their baseball cap’s on back to front too.

Whoops, I hope I haven’t offended anyone by using ‘the C word’.  I once used it very casually in front of an American colleague and you’d have thought from his reaction that I’d just goosed the Queen or something.  It’s odd how certain swear-words have different weights in the various English-speaking cultures around the world.  Anyone who saw the Paul Hogan show on tv in the 80s will know that ‘w*nk*r’ is bandied around much more casually in Australia than here in Blighty.

I’ll cite one further example, and then I’ll endeavour never again to darken these pages with such crudity – honest!  One of my fellow embroiderers told me this: (see The Secret of Looking Young)

The incident happened many years ago on a band bus bound for a gig up North.  Most of the occupants were dozing; a state of affairs that seems to be the norm in band buses, as you can see.

The reveries of the wandering minstrels were rudely interrupted by a heated argument which had broken out between two of their colleagues.  The first sprang to his feet, pointed an accusatory finger at his neighbour and declared “ You know the trouble with you is that you’re an utter c***!”  The other guy who must have thought himself a master of riposte and witty repartee, raised his palms, shrugged his shoulders and countered with, “ I know, I know; but what can I do about it?”

“Nothing!” screamed the exasperated aggressor, “You’re a c*** now and you’ll always be a c***!”

I do hope you found that as amusing as I did.  I told someone the other day and it fell flat on its face.  The story that is, not the person I was telling.

Ok that’s about it for now folks.  I promise I’ll clean my act up for the next entry; the stream of consciousness just took me in that direction today.  I like to think I subscribe to the theory that habitual swearing is merely indicative of a limited vocabulary.  It has to be said, however, that when you hear an expert swearing, it’s almost an artform.

Penultimately... for fellow students of rhyming slang:

Remember, no Lording in front of the saucepans.

And finally... isn’t it odd how the stiff, upstanding, self-righteous broadsheet newspapers print swear-words in full yet the tabloids, whose stock-in-trade seems to me to be gossip, humiliation and tits, sanctimoniously use asterisks in swear-words.  Incidentally, I’ve opted to use asterisks to avoid my site being blocked by ‘nanny’ software and the like.

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The new Sentinels album is imminent – check site for details