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Life is sometimes sort of okay because...

Started by House of Usher, 23 March, 2009, 05:17:47 PM

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Funt Solo

Back at work in the actual school building this week, with students in non-virtual attendance. I went outside for a cuppa during the lunch break and realized something I've been noticing ever since coming back - there are lots more birds here than there usually are - all singing away with their spring songs.

The humans moved out for a while - the birds moved in. I suppose now that we're back, the birds may move away again - I don't know - but there is that hope for nature's recovery from the shock of humanity.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Definitely Not Mister Pops

I'm booked in for my first jab* next Tuesday. I genuinely didn't think it would be available to me until August/September, but now it looks like I'll get both courses well before then. I have decided this is in spite of the government, not because of it.

I also found out this morning that an old friend of mine has be granted a place on a program researching the immune systems response to a variety of corona viruses, not just covid-19, so that's good.

*as in the covid-19 vaccine, not the Belfast pronunciation of gainful employment
You may quote me on that.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Mister Pops on 21 April, 2021, 10:55:07 AM

*as in the covid-19 vaccine, not the Belfast pronunciation of gainful employment

:lol:

Delighted to hear it anyway, Mister Pops.  It's just occurred to me that you may have named yourself after the first toy I remember Santy bringing me...?
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Not familiar with the toy you're referring to. Pops was a well known local harmless alco from the outskirts of Derry in the late 80s. Then in the mid-to-late nineties he kind of disappeared and his mantle was passed on to me by my mates, who were being a bit ironic, because I didn't really drink much at this stage. It stuck, and became my online "handle", with variations of Mr/Mister/Senior etc. prefixed. To this day, there are folks in Derry who only know me as Pops. This suits me as Derry, like most Irish towns I would assume, is a place where if you fart, everyone wants to sniff it and assume things about you based on the smell.

Found out many years later when the original Pops' actually died*, his sister got cancer, so he cleaned himself up and looked after her. That's why he dropped off the radar. Now I'm probably the same age as him when I first saw this stray man busking with his air guitar.

I didn't intend to go off on one like this when I started typing, but you did ask. And what the fuck else do I have to be doing really?

*It was a World Cup year, the one with all the whinging over vuvuzelas
You may quote me on that.

Funt Solo

I used to work in the local bar of my hometown, and one of the local characters was called Reject - by everyone in the town. It was just his name. He introduced himself that way, answered to it etc. Total numpty on the booze and way too thirsty for it - I used to cut him off by pretending to give him vodka but just smearing a bit on the lip of a glass of lemonade then giving him all his money back in a different format after shoogling around the till a bit to make it look good. We'd spend all of Saturday afternoon stopping him from being beaten up.

Anyway - I bumped into him in the street a few years later, and he was sober and it was only then I realized that I had no idea what his real name was.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Mister Pops on 21 April, 2021, 07:43:42 PM
Not familiar with the toy you're referring to. Pops was a well known local harmless alco from the outskirts of Derry in the late 80s. Then in the mid-to-late nineties he kind of disappeared and his mantle was passed on to me by my mates, who were being a bit ironic, because I didn't really drink much at this stage. It stuck, and became my online "handle", with variations of Mr/Mister/Senior etc. prefixed. To this day, there are folks in Derry who only know me as Pops. This suits me as Derry, like most Irish towns I would assume, is a place where if you fart, everyone wants to sniff it and assume things about you based on the smell.

Found out many years later when the original Pops' actually died*, his sister got cancer, so he cleaned himself up and looked after her. That's why he dropped off the radar. Now I'm probably the same age as him when I first saw this stray man busking with his air guitar.

I didn't intend to go off on one like this when I started typing, but you did ask. And what the fuck else do I have to be doing really?

*It was a World Cup year, the one with all the whinging over vuvuzelas

Don't worry, stories like that are what keeps this thread great!  This was what I was referring to:


Weird, you don't really get many characters like the original Pops, and Reject, any more, but they used to be a dime a dozen.  I remember The Man in the Purple Tracksuit - no idea of his real name - and Fiver, ditto, who looked like the portrait on the Irish five pound note. There was the Monkey Man too, and Terry, which wasn't his real name; he just looked a bit like Terry Wogan. Figgerty's still around, I'm pleased to say; who got his name from a long-decommissioned animated character from the Jacob's Fig Rolls ad.  And that's just my little home village in midlands Ireland.

Dublin had the Man with the Pole, and Bang Bang (way before my time), who used to pull out a giant key and shoot you with it, saying 'Bang Bang!' 
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Funt Solo

Sydney had The Possum Lady, when I lived there. She kept two live possums down her front. Glasgow's West End, for a couple of seasons, had The Squirrel Man, who had made friends with the squirrel population on the banks of the Kelvin and could be seen, standing off the path in the underbrush, covered by his little rodent army.

There's a weird superhero story in there somewhere...
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Definitely Not Mister Pops

These people were never a dime a dozen. To quote Hunter S. Thompson they were each:

QuoteOne of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die
You may quote me on that.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Mister Pops on 21 April, 2021, 10:39:28 PM
These people were never a dime a dozen. To quote Hunter S. Thompson they were each:

QuoteOne of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die

Quite a few of them mentioned by Paul Auster in City of Glass.  Yeah, you're right - never a dime a dozen.  But scarcer now.


Back on topic - My motorbike injury from a few weeks ago started flaring up again.  Went to the GP.  1 - It's not broken and it's nothing serious.  2 - I hadn't even had seen the doctor yet when the receptionist said I could get vaccinated next Friday if I wanted.  I wanted.  Officially, my age group hasn't even started registering yet - the clinic must have ordered extra ones or something.  The beginning is nigh!
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Funt Solo

Ah! Something good happened!

I've worked with a selective mute for the past few months, which has created some interesting communication challenges for both of us, as you might imagine. In this case, we were operating strictly on yes/no responses.

Anyway - they spoke to me today! Three separate times! And - also communicated using typed sentences. I didn't make a big deal of it because I didn't want to lay on any pressure - I don't even know how to let them know I'm celebrating. Maybe I just don't do that part.

Oh frabjous day!
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

TordelBack


JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 May, 2021, 07:23:09 PM
Ah! Something good happened!

I've worked with a selective mute for the past few months, which has created some interesting communication challenges for both of us, as you might imagine. In this case, we were operating strictly on yes/no responses.

Anyway - they spoke to me today! Three separate times! And - also communicated using typed sentences. I didn't make a big deal of it because I didn't want to lay on any pressure - I don't even know how to let them know I'm celebrating. Maybe I just don't do that part.

Oh frabjous day!

Had to look up selective mutism, but yeah, that's freakin arsom.  Fair play, Funt.

Wonder if I was somewhere on that spectrum as a young lad? Never knew it had a name.  It was horrendous though, and thank Grud the teaching job helped me overcome it.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Funt Solo

Yeah - it's a weird name because it makes it sound like the person with the condition is opting not to talk - but of course that's not the case.

I've had three cases over about ten years, and they've all presented differently, as you might imagine. In this case, it went beyond speech and also covered expression through text and art. Although they can express themselves perfectly well in code and mathematics. And at home, apparently.

I've got high hopes that they have a career in coding ahead of them.

Different topic, probably, but I read recently that stuttering, in at least some cases, has little to do with anxiety and a lot to do with a specific brain condition. So, treatments that focused on overcoming anxiety weren't really going to work for those people. I get that having a condition like that could also provoke anxiety as a side effect. Complicated stuff.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 May, 2021, 08:48:00 PM
Yeah - it's a weird name because it makes it sound like the person with the condition is opting not to talk - but of course that's not the case.

I've had three cases over about ten years, and they've all presented differently, as you might imagine. In this case, it went beyond speech and also covered expression through text and art. Although they can express themselves perfectly well in code and mathematics. And at home, apparently.

I've got high hopes that they have a career in coding ahead of them.

Different topic, probably, but I read recently that stuttering, in at least some cases, has little to do with anxiety and a lot to do with a specific brain condition. So, treatments that focused on overcoming anxiety weren't really going to work for those people. I get that having a condition like that could also provoke anxiety as a side effect. Complicated stuff.

That is very interesting.  I know in my case it was severe social anxiety that was the problem, and made me freeze up around strangers (women in particular, sadly).  But I don't think I could describe myself as selectively mute - I was just shy.

The stuttering thing is different, though. I've known a few people with fairly severe cases, but a few of them improved naturally as they got older.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

milstar

Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.