We’re roughly two thirds of the way through August and here in Edinburgh we’ve already had three times the average rainfall for the entire month. Consequently, I’ve recently spent a fair amount of time negotiating the streets with my umbrella (which is one of those huge marquee-on-a-stick type golf jobs) and noticed that there is an abundance of poor umbrellamanship around.
- If you’re smaller than the person walking towards you then don’t try and raise your brolly over theirs. People a good foot shorter than me have tried to get the upper hand as it were and only succeeded in poking me in the head.
- If you are the taller of the two parties then an early exaggerated movement upwards of your umbrella should stop any attempt by the other person to blind you.
- If you are both of a similar height, then tilt your canopy to the opposite side than the side that the oncoming person will pass you on.
- Do not shake the water from your umbrella into the path of other people.
- Do not have your umbrella up when passing under bus stops or other shelters.
- If you appear to be the only person with your umbrella up and you can no longer see the rain or splashes of raindrops in puddles then it has stopped raining. Put your umbrella down for crying out loud!
I am very tempted to purchase one of these unbreakable fighting umbrellas as used by Philippine presidential bodyguards for when people don’t adhere to the rules.
Gordon Ramsey is in Sydney at the moment for the Good Food and Wine Show. While here, he has been mentioned in the parliament for his abusive language and rudeness on television. To clarify, that’s the Australian parliament. Oh the irony! Aussies swear like a docker who just stubbed his toe at the best of times.
A few years ago I got talking to an Australian girl in a bar in Edinburgh. Once she realised that I was English she asked me how I felt having the whole world hate me. I explained that not everyone in the world knew me and enquired if having such a pleasant demeanour helped her make friends easily. The conversation carried on in a similar vein for a while until I eventually lost patience and told the criminal to rack off.
Chef Ramsey has snubbed Sydney and opted to locate his first restaurant in Melbourne instead. Apparently he thinks Melbourne is more like New York. I’ll find out for myself this week.
Recently there was some amount of ill feeling directed toward Apple after they started installing their Safari Internet browser with their iTunes software update. (I also just noticed that “up to date” is no longer hyphenated in OS X 10.5 Leopard Software Update but that’s a discussion for another day.)
While this in itself is bad enough behaviour for any software company, it is not the main annoyance I have with their practices. I like to keep things organised how I like them. Like my “Start Menu” for instance.
Every single frickin’ time that I update iTunes (and Quicktime) Apple deems it acceptable for them to place a couple of shortcuts in my Start Menu, Quick Launch area and on my Desktop which I then have to delete.
