Pestilence by Trevor Plumbly
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em I might be making a bit of a meal of this one, but quite frankly I’ve had a gutful of nit-pickers. Despite some opinions to the contrary, I’ve still got a functioning brain that can operate without contact with Silicone Valley or Beijing. But there’s a growing army out there armed with Google and Wikipedia hell-bent on proving that there’s something to be gained from second-hand thought or worse, gilding an already wilting lily. ‘I wonder?’ doesn’t seem to exist much… Read More
A pocketful of mumbles by Trevor Plumbly
Who knows where the time goes? One of the benefits of age, as far as I can see, is that it waters down a lot of unnecessary mental clutter and excuses you for taking a more jaundiced view of stuff you once thought serious enough to worry about. I’m not thinking about the big things like war, starvation, climate change and so-on, more the irritating personal baggage other people expect us to carry on their behalf. Such people have been around since biblical days, but they’ve got more sophisticated since then and… Read More
Free range speech by Trevor Plumbly
Nutter mutter An English sports presenter’s been hauled over the coals for offering an opinion, as has the chair of Health NZ. It might be an age thing, but I’m beginning to believe that the freedom to say what you think is taking a dive; between racial sensitivity, gender identity and cultural protection, plus minority ‘add-ons’, it’s getting to be a bit of a minefield. Time was that, within reason, we were left to sort the harmless eccentrics from the dangerous loonies for ourselves, but these days social media aggrandises all misfits… Read More
GOBSMACKED! By Trevor Plumbly
Verbal schmerbal I feel a bit hypocritical knocking this one out under ‘Verbalberbal’; let’s face it, as a title it’s not the best use of ‘English as she is spoke’. In hindsight I would have gone for something more biting but tasteful, like ‘Wensleydale’ if you get my drift, but ‘verbal’ came up when whiz words were something of a novelty and now ‘it is what it is’ as they say, and that brings me to my point. The legal and medical fraternity once held a monopoly of evasive language, but since… Read More
Identity crisis by Trevor Plumbly
Don’t ask me, I only work here! Despite sight loss, I can still get all manner of stuff: audio books, podcasts, international news and as I’m writing this, the machine is spelling out the text for me. But when it comes to talking to somebody, especially corporate employees, I have problems; they’re pleasant enough, but they’ve got a sort of spray painted unworldliness about them that I find difficult. After having a credit card ‘compromised’, we rang the 24 hour number, the cards were duly cancelled and the replacements arrived in record… Read More
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