CYMBALISM

The padre catches me smirking in prayers and asks me with his thin-lipped smile what I found "so amusing."

I point him back to the 150th psalm and ask him if that isn't the darnedest slick product placement and - by St Patroclus' bones! - I sincerely hope the Zildjian rep got bonus shekels for such smart footwork.

Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise Him with the lute and harp!
Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with crashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord!

I mean, loud and clashing cymbals? TWO mentions when the lutes, flutes, harps and timbrels only get one?

1-CLICK

Oh, so that's how the arrow cursor thang works ... just run your mouse around the centre for the nano-scopic view of what's going on down there.

A-way in a Manager

Young lady to whom I teach guitar - yes, she did send me a nice pic, didn't she? - has also adopted Busker as Old Fart Mentor.

She started her first job the other day and phoned me in tears: one of the seniors was bullying her ... everyone, in fact.

"She isn't even in my department but she walks around being mean to everyone and acting like she is the president of us all."

A great man once nailed it, and I have not forgot the killer line.

"Leni," I said, "maybe not you but *someone* should remind her that "'You're A manager, you're not MY manager.' Try it, girl."

Ecstatic email later: "Xristos - amazing! Menelaos said it and we all applaused and the boss came out and asked what is the story and Mene told it and orli endaxi."

Cometh the hour, cometh the quote.

My Generation

The 'Zimmers' totally shred The Who's seminal chanson. These biddies ROCK.

Nothing else to add. In the face of true sass and soul, what else but shove the wheelchair to one side and join the jamboree.

"People try to put us d-down ..."

Not this bunch.

Armigerous

Sorry, American readers, but Chris Howse's accurate quiz will probably leave you un peu out in the cold ....

"What class are you?" Fauntleroyal chuckle.

And guess what, chaps? Moi scored a blue-blooded 330, placing me up with the coat-of-arms brigade.

I can't tell you what that means to a wool-dyed snob like me.

The only question I didn't get was the end one about Jordan.

Petra? Cereal? What all have they to do with the comely Katie Price?

Virginny Shoot-out

We get Asia CNN out here in the Ionians, mostly hosted from Hong Kong with a suitable rainbow of weather chatters et co.

Coverage is pretty broad across the events spectrum, advertorials heavy on Dubai business centres, and a leetle too many cheesy sports items.

Ever since news broke, it's been an unrelieved diet of the Virginia Tech gunning.

Enough already. It's terrible, appalling, incomprehensible - all that - but I know there's other stuff going on around the globe and I don't like this creeping feeling of slaughter fatigue.

"I'm Ass" Imus

Apart from rather envying his basso profundo American male voice, I've not listened to too much Don Imus.

But I heard his 'nappy hos' (or whatever) broadcast and you can hear the show grind to a halt as both presenters *know* something just got said but they're carrying on in the hopes that the heat won't go down.

But duude - the Imus looks as craggy 'n' old as the hills. I once saw a cartoon of a customer in a pub - clearly after a night on the tiles - groaning to the barman, "I feel like Keith Richards warmed up." Well, move over deathly Keef and give room to the grimly reaping Imus.

But *what* a to-do, what? How I'd have loved to have been a fly on Imus' fly as he "dialogued" with those Rutgers babes - ooooh, they must have enjoyed that and how the groveling Don must have loathed eating his words.

But I've learnt something, that 'nappy' refers to those dusky gazelless' tight coiffures - the kind my Spitfire daughter went thru a stage of yearning while doing her 'White Chicks and Gang Signs' stage and playing up her minute Chineseness over her parents' bland Akron-meets-Oz roots.

Oy veh!

Blogging Brits

"Happy slapping a chav digging some dogging", is about right.

I know NO ONE back home in Blighty who has the faintest idea what blogging is ...

Oh, I forgot. I'm ancient as the hills and juvie as tomorrow's viral.

Damn.

Pissed Orf

The price of readability is eternal editorial vigilance.

I had kicked off with a turgid tale of iron gates and intruders. Thanks to a incisive comment, I now see that the worth of this posting was entirely in the last paragraphs.

[Excise a Bible's length of waffle ... camera - lights - action]

I am such a lazy boy. At this hour I can't always be bothered to find the loo but just pee over the balcony.

Just now stepped out and drenched the patio round the garden shed only to hear cusses and howls in distinctly Alabanian tones.

It has been a bone of contention that Kosta allows his compadres to simply roll up and "borrow" our fine jardinerie tools. As a result, they do it under cloak of darkness, as was the case ce soir.

My piddling coincided with some varlet's exiting with our best shovels and that nice rake I like to use outside my room.

Right on the bloke's bonce. Poetic justice.