New Year, New Blog

Any excuse. Having failed to start my blog in the normal New Year, the Chinese New Year will do just as well. Actually I forgot it was Chinese New Year and this morning actually emailed T'reeza in Seattle to ask what the chicken and the chinese writing was all about on the Google homepage.

Seattle T'reeza, you see, was the obvious person to consult about this because she works for Amazon. From my POV in the Middle of Nowhere, that's as good as working for Google: it's all glamourous west coast dotcommery. If you look up T'reeza's wish list on Amazon, incidentally, you will find one of the most scary reading lists of all time. I don't know if you can hack into and subvert other people's Amazon wish lists, but I would love to sneak in just a couple of Mills&Boons, just to lighten hers up a bit.

But I digress. Before I go back to the blog proper, though, one decision I am making about this blog is that it's going to be in British English. I'm concerned I am forgetting how to spell. Today I couldn't remember whether "realise" with an "s" is a real word and I am still not sure. Anyway, Landlady Lynn announced this evening that it's perfectly OK to use British spelling in America. She's just fought a bitter battle involving a case about central European orchestras which resulted in a triumph for British spelling. If an American and The National Orchestra of Slovenia are prepared to stand up for British spelling, then so should I.


WhartonStalkerGuy has made a move. He asked me for my phone number this evening, on the grounds he wanted to discuss police security at Aston Villa games. I have to give him full marks for originality, though frankly I don't know how much gas that conversation could possibly have in the tank... Very undecided about WhartonStalker. Could be an absolute nutter. On the other hand, one of the few sensible observations ever made by KiltGuy was that most of Emma's infamous string of alleged stalkers were really just guys who liked her.

And if you look at movies, if a guy keeps relentlessly pursuing a girl through hell and high water because he realizes/realises They Are Meant To Be about 75 minutes of celluloid before she does, it's dead romantic. In real life, of course, you would have called the Special Victims Unit before the opening credits had finished rolling. Just like, in films or books, when one platonic friend suddenly pounces on another, the pouncee looks a bit surprised and then after a little token resistance snogs the face of the pouncer and They All Live Happily Ever After. In real life, on the other hand, one would probably shove the poor pouncer away and yell "Gerroff, YUCK, what's the matter with you?"

Anyway, WhartonStalker. I guess my reservations (as with PsychoBaghdadStalkerGuy) stem largely from the fact that any normal person would not devote such energy to pursuing correspondence with someone with whom they had had a ten minute business conversation about Wharton's summer language program on the phone. But I suppose Philadelphia's a good 5 and 1/2 hours drive away, so there's not much havoc he can wreak from there.

I have more to say, but it will have to wait for now. ..