Start the week #60
Greetings!
Sorry for going AWOL last week, but I’m back now.
But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.
Terry
What kind of fool am I? 🎶
Do you know, I was wondering why there were so few comments on my recent letter to Rebecca. I mean, it’s erudite, informative, witty, and written by a musical genius who is handsome, debonair and modest. And then Rebecca told me why: I’d set the comments for paid subscribers only. AAAAARGHHHH!
Well, the comments are open to all now, so you have no excuse. Well? I’m waiting.
Inside Freedman towers
Here in the UK, or at least in the London part of it, the most awful chest infection has been doing the rounds, and I succumbed to it. I’ve thrown everything at it: steaming (see pic below), loads of fruit, yoghurt, probiotic capsules, multivits, and two lots of antibiotics. I feel like Tommy Cooper, a British comedian-magician who once said:
“I’m on a penicillin regime. I’ve had a penicillin injection, and I’m taking penecillin every day. Now every time I sneeze I cure somebody.”
Anyway, we had this conversation at home last week:
Me: This has really knocked me for six. I mean, I’m not used to it because I hardly ever get ill.
Elaine: That’s because you’ve got good genes.
Me: Oh yes, Wranglers.
I have no idea what my jeans have got to do with anything, but ours not to reason why and all that.
A few years ago we were on the train and Elaine got chatting to a girl opposite, who was with her boyfriend.
Girl: How long have you guys been married?
Elaine: Thirty years.
Me: [Sotto voce] More than you get for murder.
Girl: So what’s the secret of a long relationship do you think?
Elaine: You have to like the person.
Just then it was our stop. Elaine led the way.
Me to girl: The real secret is that I just say “yes”.
Girl: 😂😂
Elaine: What did you say to her?
Me: Nothing, dear.
The article I haven’t written (yet)
One of these days I shall write about my experience of Transcendental Meditation. I know that because I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and some people have asked me to. But at the moment there is too much ego involved.
Not the variety of ego that appears in the form, “as a more enlightened person than you lot, please sit in awe as I tell you how the universe works”, but the opposite. That is, who am I to say anyhting about TM, and why would anyone care anyway? Well, that’s just as much a form of ego as the more bragging variety, so I’m waiting until a force within me can no longer be resisted, and the article will write itself.
And if that doesn’t happen, well it won’t. And that’s as much profundity as you’re going to get from me this week.
My 50 word prose poem
In case you missed it, I wrote a 50 word story based on a constraint. Can you work out what that constraint is:
My course
Speaking of constraints, I’m running a course, a one-day workshop on creative writing using constraints. Check this out, or be forever cast into the outer darkness:
Videos
And now for some chortleworthy videos. Enjoy!
First up, a completely bonkers advert for Heinekin beer:
Medieval helpdesk
Have you ever considered what it must have been like for people who were used to reading scrolls to be faced with reading books instead?
Bugs Bunny, pianist
Great articles I read last week
I’m in the process of unsubscribing from many substacks, so this article from
struck a chord.
Believe it or not, I have tried to record some sax playing to share here, but it always goes wrong. However, this article by
has made me think perhaps I should just do it, and offer it warts and all. I can’t at the moment because I’m still coughing a bit, but watch this space.
Another incisive article from
. He expresses several things I’ve thought about myself:
Well that’s it for now. On Wednesday I will be writing to
again, replying to her letter to me:
Thanks for reading!
Hooray you're back, and hooray x 2 that you've set comments back to unpaid folks. I thought you were blocking me and didn't want my comments . . . . 😬 Love the pic with the towel and your cat, btw. 😁. Love the videos, too, and yes yes yes please share a video of you playing the saxophone. Will you wear sunglasses when you do so? Hope you feel better and better every single day.
Yeah, you have to be able to comment, or you've lost a reader. Or gained a subscriber, but I rather doubt that works : ) Cheers