Wrong pin

I had a good laugh at Liverpool Airport the other day when hiring a car. I used a French credit card to pay the deposit, so the "intelligent" software, recognizing the card's provenance, displayed the read-outs on the pin-pad in French.
When the time came to key in my "PIN-number" the message "Saisir broche" was displayed. A moment's reflection made me realize that was a direct translation of "pin" in the sense of the terminal pins you get on a jack-lead, for example. An attempt therefore to render "Enter PIN"*. Good stuff, but not exactly obvious. What if poor Jean-Pierre turns up for his car and enters the digits on the pin-pad that correspond to B-R-O-C-H-E, thinking that the next step will be to enter his PIN?! I zink J-P will be catching ze bus.

*Just in case you're wondering, it should have been "Saisir PIN". Duhhh!

Let your fingers do the walking

Why are the Yellow Pages yellow, and why are they universally so (Pages Jaunes, Gelbe Seiten, show me the way to Amarillo, etc.)?
I shan't bother asking why the White Pages are black and white and read all over.

9/11

With the anniversary of September 11, otherwise known as November the 9th, just having been commemorated, it occurs to me that on the day the twin towers were Fred Dibnah'd I rushed to the Internet to cop a screen shot of the live view from the webcam at the top of one of the towers, along with a screenshot of the panoramic restaurant on the 90 umpteenth floor. I wonder if I could cash in by selling these last minute memorabilia on Ebay? (the live view was... well, black, but beautifully framed).

Heroes and other damp squibs

I see from the TV listings that Heroes is coming up to halfway point on the Beeb. Well, in Douce France it's already been and gone, and I would like to spare anyone the trouble of sitting through the rest of it. Why? Think "Lost". Remember how intriguing that seemed at first. Hell, I even missed two episodes of Heroes early on and paid a fee to download them, so keen I was on the premise and the prospect of what was to come. Although the frustration had been welling up for weeks, I only actually stopped watching half way through the very last episode. How futile is that? Regrets: I have a few. The time I spent watching Heroes I could have fruitfully employed constructing an intricate structure out of spent matches, were I that way inclined.

When pooh occurs

We are told to Count our Blessings. This is all very well, and a noble injunction, but sometimes it's not so easy. It's one thing rationalizing: "Well, as long as you've got your health, you're laughing," only still to feel unfulfilled, or frustrated, or jealous, or whatever.
It's only when shit happens, and you come out the other end with a sigh of relief, that the dictum becomes easier to appreciate. Shit that ended up flushed and wiped for me in the recent past: having a recurrent slipped disk that was "there for life" according to the doc, but which seems to have gone AWOL for longer than a term in Guantanamo; my little lad having to be operated on, but then it turned out fine; losing my jacket and hence my wallet (that I've had since age 17) on a drunken night out, containing my bank cards, driving licence, ID and myriad other cards, only to be called by the cop shop in the early hours to say it had been handed in (minus the cash, but what the hell...).
Of course, it would be nice to win the lottery but, after all, as long as you've got your health...

Allez les bleus-blancs-rouges

What a fine day for the armchair sports fan with a heart of Albion! England's national side in action on three fronts, in the cricket, the football and the rugby. Leaving aside the latter (a win against a team of US amateurs that smacked more of defeat and which never stood much of a chance in any case in the viewing stakes, being scheduled at precisely the same time as the football), England's wins on the cricket field against India and at New Wembley against Israel were the source of great satisfaction, and the cricketers had the sense to finish off the Indians just as McClaren's men were about to kick off on another channel. Great, super, smashing.

Yet a source of real revelation for this particular sports fan was the evening game (let's face it, today I was in it for the duration) between France and Italy.

After over a decade of living in the country I think it's fair to say that tonight was the first time I really wanted France to win like it was my home team. One reason of course was that France was playing Italy, and no-one likes cheats. But even at the last World Cup Final, I found myself having to suppress an inward chuckle when my hosts fell over at the last hurdle against the very same ghastly Gattuso and his henchmen. "C'était plus fort que moi", I couldn't help it, as they say.

Don't get me wrong, when England next come up against the French, there'll be no contest (apart from the Rugby League where I'll continue to root for the Catalan Dragons - although that's more of a plucky underdog thing I suppose), and I'll no doubt be rooting for the Scots on Wednesday when they play the French (or I would if England weren't playing at the same time). But when you've got two little Froggy nippers avidly watching beside their Roast Beef dad on the couch, and who are as much a product of this land as they are of your own loins, then I guess a bit of their blood finds its way back into you.

Hey Luciano

What's the difference between a hard-drinking navvy the day before payday and the city of Modena in Italy? Answer: one's short of a tenner,...

Oo-ar-yer, oo-ar-yer

I quite like posting stuff of me larking about on YouTube, not least for the odd comment that comes one's way. So far I've been described as "a nobody" and a "sad, strange little man". On the other hand (or would that be a false dichotomy?) I've been seemingly mistaken by two people for Jerry Springer. It's enough to give a sad, strange nobody an identity crisis. JERRY! JERRY! (etc., ad infinitum).

School's in

Our little lad started proper school this week. It was quite poignant dropping him off in the same classroom with the same teacher as for our little lass four years previously. The only thing that had changed was that the teacher looked a little more careworn, but that's teaching for you. Of course, despite going on about it for days, he didn't want to stay when it came to leaving him, until that is he saw Brisane, a little girl he knew already from nursery. She took him under her wing and declared that "She wanted to go to the toilet and so did he". She led off and, dutifully, he followed. Beware where women lead you, my boy.