where art collides philosoperontap

It’s raining on the roof of the world. Well on the roof of my conservatory at least. I can hear it and I can see it. Being a bespectacled person I can also often provide advanced warning of the imminence of such precipitation. It only takes a drop or two. There is probably a scientific formula that states the necessary rainfall density (drops per square metre) required for this early warning mechanism to work and likely includes the value of the surface area of the specs (glasses – not specifications – use of the latter word would not have made contextual sense in this sentence). Today I am sitting inside the conservatory so talk of an early warning system is immaterial.

I have just come back from town. A trip down town is never countenanced lightly but on this occasion I had to buy Joe a pair of trousers before we go on holiday. The task was made harder by the fact that he was not there with me and I had instead his little brother John in tow. Anyway I came away with some trousers and bribed some peace off John by taking him to Cafe Nero.

I am not the biggest fan of sitting in coffee shops. I think people do it for the sake of it. This time was different. We had good window seats and my phone was out of order so I had to talk to my son! It was great.

We sat there looking out of the window. The biggest question was who was in the goldfish bowl? Was it us sat inside or was it all the other people scurrying along under their umbrellas or huddled overcoats. We were the smaller box but there again when you go and visit an aquarium you sometimes go through a small space under a tank and look at the sharks and fish swimming around you.

The right answer is in the mind of the questioner. There is no right answer and all answers are right, without question 🙂  Just put that bit in as an afterthought and the smiley face indicates that I was quite pleased with myself. That is something completely within my control in this case. I could have chosen a different emotion. Exhibited surprise perhaps or even nonchalance. It isn’t beyond the realms of the imagination to see how one might say that sentence again in a nonchalant manner, twirling a stick as I go along. I don’t know how to do a nonchalant emoticon btw.

Anne’s cousin bought me a walking stick for my 40th birthday once. Ok ok I know I don’t sound as if I am forty. In fact I’m not. That was nearly ten years ago. Can’t believe it! I’m still a kid. Who but an immature adolescent boy could write such drivel anyway? Huh.

It’s not the warmest of rooms today, is the conservatory. Warmer than outside maybe but really merits a thicker sweater than I am currently wearing. I’m actually wearing an Animal hoodie, quite consistent with being an adolescent. My mum bought it for me last summer – there’s a general thread of consistency running right through this bit of writing don’t you think?

Well we can kill that one off straight away.

You don’t see much gold top milk in the shops these days. It’s mostly just full fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed. I’ve never quite seen the point of skimmed milk. It’s just coloured water if you ask me. Also once weaned off full fat, which is of course normal milk, and on to semi skimmed it is difficult to go back and the idea of drinking the ordinary stuff let alone gold top. There again, you never see it any more…

This leads nicely to the fact that I have just taken delivery of hte February issue of Agri-News, published for Manx farmers by the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture. The kids signed me up for it when we were at the Southern Agricultural Show outside Castletown one summer holiday. We go there every year – the Isle of Man not the Agricultural Show. Not that I mind going to such shows. In fact I very much like em.

Its good to keep in touch with our farming roots. My lot were farmers if you go back far enough. These days the Davies family is in the internet business. Wasn’t much of it around way back when. In fact you don’t have to go back very far for there not ot have been internet. Its one of the reasons that the third law is not yet widely known, although I have never met anyone that either disagrees with the hypothesis (theory?) or has been able to disprove it.

I’m not sure whether either hypothesis or theory were the correct words (and there was no real reason for the word “theory” to be in brackets either) but you know what? It just doesn’t matter. Not a jot or an inch or a gobble or a quack. Note the mixing of terms of measurement there. The latter two were not even that but they instantly came to mind – from the song “If I were a rich man” AND NOT EVEN IN THE RIGHT ORDER. Caps accidentally switched on there but I couldn’t be bothered to undo them.

I once recorded the first verse of If I were a rich man on our answer phone – me playing the guitar. At the end of the song I just said “please leave a message”. I found later this was a mistake. I was away on business in the Soviet Union and every time I rang home I had to wait a whole minute before I could leave Anne a message. In those days the costs were something stupid like £5 a minute. Ah well. It was an expenses job anyway.

As I approach the one thousand word mark for this episode the words begin to slowly run out and stop exactly there.

3rd law part 8

3rd Law part 10

Editor’s footnote: for authoritative post on rainfall measurement techniques see here.