The Insomniac Meaderings Post : Grumpy Old Man Edition

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Yesterday I had an argument with my daughter. The background to it was personal and like the weather outside blown over anyway. But it was just another reminder that she was getting older and I was just old. And a grumpy old man at that.

I've shown before that I can be a grumpy old man on many issues such as Christmas. But there are others.

Let's start with this.

I don't know whether this is throughout the Disunited Kingdom. But there is a tendency where I live here in South Wales to say "See you later".

When I was young when people would say "See you later" later meant some time that very same day. Now however it means any unspecific time in the far off future when our spirits meet again to discuss the weather before drifting off after five minutes.

"See you later" has become like the use of the word literally. Where it's original meaning has been overwhelmed by misuse.

Yesterday a woman said to me to "Have a nice week".

This seemed odd. Has "Have a nice day" been forced to be increased by inflation?  Also yesterday remember was Friday. So has the concept of what constitutes the start of the week been changed because of the shift in people's working patterns? All very odd.

I don't know why this thought occurred to me this week but here we go. When you go to secondary school there are two subjects where you know instantly whether you're good at it or not. One is Physical Education. I was lucky that way. Because amazingly I wasn't the best but neither was I the worst. It was mid table respectability. PE was the subject where the academically inclined are liable to be mocked by those unable to tie up their own shoelaces.

The other subject, and the one which truly applied to me was art. I was hopeless at it. I truly did not have the gift. I remember once being upset for having detention because my art homework was so bad. I mean come on!

To be fair my parents didn't have a go at me. They understood (unlike the art teacher - a thin weedy man - yes it still hurts!) that I did my best. But at the time no one (even parents) argued with a teacher so I had to take the detention.

Anyway if you're bad at art after the first year the first year at secondary school you should have the automatic option to leave it. You're never going to be an artist so why prolong the agony?

I've noticed on Twitter people saying "[Insert name here] Has  Just Joined The LibDems. Why Don't You?"

Well let's be clear. In Wales the only certain thing in politics is that the LibDems are an irrelevance. I don't know who their leader in Wales is and I can't be bothered to find out either. The middle way has served no one well except the wealthy. If you join the Libdems in Wales clearly you've no interest in politics.

Let me praise an English Labour idea. They are proposing free bus travel for the under 25s. Seems good to me. Good for the environment as well. Which leads to the question Cardiff Labour council who runs Cardiff Bus why don't you do it?

The London Marathon is tomorrow. I've explained before how I stopped merely jogging decades ago because I realised I was meals on legs to untethered dogs. So it's not my thing. Got to be honest though as a TV view ignoring the start and the finish it's actually quite dull. I'm sure you could put many years of marathon running into one programme, pretending it's the same race (start/finish aside) and few would actually know it's been spliced together.

Wandering around the countryside. Not really my thing. Funny though as I've shown in the blog am quite happy to wander round towns. You don't really know what you will see when you turn into a street or an avenue. A town can sometimes surprise with the unexpected.

Until the next time.