On the air – I’m aware!

I’m a poet and I wasn’t even aware of that fact. Or something like that. One liners have never been my forte.
Big news this week, Tom of the Close joins the ranks of Podcasting big-wigs. Yes, that was me on The Redboy Podcast, being interviewed. Let me tell you, since that time I’ve been mobbed on the street, I’ve had relatives ring me up, I’ve received a couple of book deals, absolute havoc. But seriously folks, click your way on over to The Redboy Podcast (between you and me they need all the help they can get). I’m just kidding, those guys crack me up.
Speaking of which, only time for a short entry this week. I’ll just leave a few dot points. Use you imagination and fill in my usual ravens.

• Rice cookers are good – I thought a saucepan would do the job but rice cookers are much better
• Can’t get Dr Pepper in Australia – I found a petition and signed it – Google it
• Talk like a pirate day was last week
• Almost finished uni – tearing my hair out with last assignments
• Please leave a comment, I feel like I’m talking to myself here!

Take care of yourselves, I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Love Tom.

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Engagement Update – 1

Just a quick update on the engagement.

I suppose given that this is the first Engagement Update, the big news is that I am engaged! Sorry to hold out on that piece of news for so long, I didn’t know if it would be entertaining enough for you. But, gosh-darn it, I’m excited so you can be too. We’ve now passed the half way mark of the engagement, and what with uni reaching its close, I’d say we’re well and truly on the home stretch. Grinning from ear to ear is now commonplace for the two of us.

Today I’d like to talk about flowers. You can’t make a cake without eggs, you can’t have a wedding without flowers (unless it’s a vegan cake and a hypo-allogetic wedding). In my limited experience with florists, I have found many of them to be polite and courteous. And who wouldn’t be, surrounded with pretty flowers all day long? Which is why it seems so out of place to meet an unpleasant florist. Nevertheless, they seem to exist.

The word ‘snooty’ comes to mind when I try to describe the nature of these thorns among roses. In Newcastle, at least, we don’t have snooty waiters, or snooty antique dealers, we have snooty florists. Lurking about their buds, waiting for a chance to launch an attack of snoot on an unsuspecting customer who had the audacity to expect anything more. I suppose I was tolerant of this before. After all, my purchases were little more than single bouquets. My custom represented the bottom rung of the flora market. “Only half a dozen roses?” he would say with his indifferent gaze. But, I have since discovered that the indifference is universal. My fiancé was treated the same way when she ordered our wedding flowers. I can understand that, for everybody except Anna and I, our wedding isn’t the wedding of the century. Nevertheless, it is surely enough to warrant the baser pleasantries. By all reports, the same level of snoot applies for everyone. It isn’t because the customers aren’t making large enough purchases, it is because they cannot possibly satisfy him. For him, beautiful flowers are just part of the daily grind. What is left for him to stop and smell once in a while?

I’m Tom of the Close, that’s what I think. What do you think?

Strictly speaking

In Australia, there are two different signs: “No Parking” and “Strictly No Parking”.

This is clearly stupidity at work in our community.

What does it mean? That they’re not being strict when they just say “No Parking”? Are they saying, “You can’t park here, but we’re willing to be flexible”? This is very confusing. Which signs are being strict and which ones aren’t? Has anybody ever seen a “Strictly Stop” sign, or a “Strictly Newcastle 74km” sign? Of coarse not, if something’s been printed on a sign, I’m inclined to believe it, I don’t need the sign itself to convince me of its own validity.

I assume Ambulances and Fire Trucks can park where ever they want, so even “Strictly No Parking” isn’t strictly ‘strictly’. Are there pseudo-emergencies that get to ignore “No Parking”, unless it’s “strictly” prefaced?

It seems to me that they’re tring to appeal to all the miscrients and deviants who would otherwise park illegally, saying “Now we really mean it this time…” What’s the point of having a rule that says, “You have to obey this rule”? If somebody is going to break the “no parking” sign, are they going to take notice of a “strictly no parking” sign? What’s the next step “Seriously Strictly No Parking”? The only thing they will accomplish here is to desensitise us to signs that don’t tell us we have to obey them. And it will be a sad world when the road signs need to tell us whether or not we can disregard them.

Actually the only thing more disturbing than the existence of “Stictly No Parking Signs” is the plethora of “Sticktly No parking Signs” you can see at service stations and on people’s driveways. They might as well have a sign up saying “I’m an idiot”. Who goes to all the trouble of making a sign without checking the spelling. And it’s not an essay, how long does it take to proofread three words? Get the spelling right, it’s a sign, not a blog!

This has been a rant by,

Tom of the Close.
(strictly not an idiot)