Most Ironic Work-Related Accident. Everrr.

I read in Wikipedia today that Gabriel Sanson, the younger son of the reluctant executioner Charles Henri Sanson, and the assistant to his elder brother Henri, the sixth Sanson to hold the inherited office, met the most unlikely and ironic of fates when he: "died from an accident at work of falling down from the scaffold while presenting a cut off head in 1792".

I would love to know who he had just executed who had such sweet revenge upon his executioner...

Blog Orientation

I have neglected this blog, and on my occasional visits steered its subject matter unintentionally away from the Hill O. As an atonement for this editorial abandonment I have composed a poem, which speaks to the imbalance of chores as they are sometimes divided up between the residents of the Hill O:

I can't do many things at once, I can do one.
But doing isn't the same as being, or as seeing.
I can see you and me being together and
That is a thousand things at once.

I am going to do the ironing (ha! likely!),
Or the washing up (even less likely!),
Or perhaps do nothing very helpful -
But all the time I'm seeing you and being me.

I know you don't know it, but everytime
You smile at me, or gently reach out and
Ask me if I have lost my mind playing FIFA:

My heart jumps in my chest and my brain
Is flooded with warmth and I feel like I'm
Flying when I'm sitting still.

Someone so beautiful is setting great store
By the one thing I can do. Even if I haven't done it.

Chewed Green Highlighter of Recurring Occurrence

There's a chewed green highlighter on my desk at work. Its not mine. This is not the first time that it has appeared on my desk. I know because each time I see it I am appalled by its chewed tail, and the knowledge that I never highlight in green (too earthy, like I imagine highlighting in brown would be). So who's is it? Who comes into my office and sits at my desk and highlights nervously, before taking their adorned documentation away with them? (Nothing on my desk is highlighted in green).

The Vernon Harcourt Nuptials

OK I haven't added anything to this blog in a long old while - but after floating around for a while elsewhere I've touched back down here. Last weekend I was best man at Olly and Jo's wedding, and that meant all sorts of things, and involved all sorts of duties, roles and responsibilities.






Clearly, however, none more important than the playing of the traditional air guitar with the bride...






There's a quiet dignity in the observation I think many will agree.

In other news my lovely girlfriend is dwarfed by pints of ale...

A Lorca Interlude

This has nothing to do with the Hill, but I came across an extract from a translation of a short poem by Lorca which I found appealing:

A pin that dives
until it finds the roots of a scream.
And the sea stops still.

The rest is all Who?> When? Whassat? And other staccato pieces of grammatical splurge, but this stands out. Its probably not what he intended to say, me no habla espanol, but I like it in English. For those who do speak Spanish, here is what he actually said:

Un alfiler que bucea
hasta encontrar las raicillas del grito.
Y el mar deja de moverse.

Dishwashers ARE a bad thing

News just in - it was us all along. The dishwasher has been leaking onto and through the floorboards, soaking the flat below. David and I sorted it out last night, but the damage is done...

Neighbourhood Watch

OK the situation with our neighbours is now poorly represented by this blog. Nadia is no longer the banshee of the corridor, the gorgon of the floorboards, she appears to have become a much calmer person. This is more than likely because she also now has a boyfriend. He stays over alot and when he does they play extremely loud extremely bad music and smoke together. Cigarettes, but like in the olden days, like its a pastime.

In her place a new danger has emerged. Liliana, who is another neighbour, has complained entirely reasonably of water pouring through her ceiling and our washing machine shaking the rest of it off in her bathroom... It is clear now - the real menace in this block of flats is... US.

We are the noisy tapdancers, the tremor-emitting irresponsible washers, and the flooders of other peoples houses... (to be 100% fair I, Bill Savage and our Landlord all think its rainwater that's come through, but the impact on our neighbours, and their perception of us remains...)