SELFIES, ESCAPE FROM THE RAT-RACE AND MIDDLE-AGED DRUGGIES.

Bet you don’t know what a “Selfie” is!   I didn’t know a few days ago.   It is a new word to be put in the new Oxford Dictionary.   It means, apparently – “a photo of yourself which you have taken with your mobile ‘phone and put up on Facebook or the Internet”.   It seems it is an Australian invention.   It sounds like Aussie-speak.   They call relatives “rellies” and Marmite (the great Australian salty sandwich spread) “Marmie”.    Most Australians love it, and the few who don’t love it, hate it.

My age- group, between sixty and ninety years old have had to take on a lot of new words and concepts – such as the World Wide Web, Mobile phones, texting, chatting on Facebook and Twitter and so on forever.   My granddaughter, Alicia and her partner, Sandy have just bought themselves a 3D Television set.   And so it goes on.   My significant other, Gerald, even enjoys looking at tweets for a spell, most days.   He thinks about these strangers from all over the planet while I do the ironing or cook up a storm in the kitchen.

Just finished reading a book called, “No!  I Don’t Want To Join a Book Club” by Virginia Ironside.   Quite brilliant!   The narrator explains that she has just turned sixty, and is very happy to be able to sit back and think of all the things she doesn’t have to do or worry about now that she  has reached the start of her seventh decade.   Especially she doesn’t want to know about complicated things like relationships with the opposite sex.   Yes, and SEX itself.   She is glad to be rid of such activities for herself.   It’s a hoot!    She writes very amusingly and sympathetically.   I really enjoyed her matter-of-fact style, so easy to read.   Talking about style, my daughter, Mimi Martin (Margaret) has written and published a sort of children’s book called, “Jeremiah Buttons and the Hamlet of the Lost.”   She has written and illustrated it.   Her writing style is so quirky and original.   She is definitely a ‘one-off’, inventive, crazy writer.   Gerald started reading it in bed the other night and he has never laughed so much for a long time.   It is purely mad!

What about the new name on the block in GB. – Paul Flowers?   Craziness is everywhere.   First of all he is a Church minister, a respected pastor.   Also was a Local Government official.   He puts his computer in for repair, and it is reported that he has a store of pornography on it, so he has to give up his political position.   Then he is made Chairman of the Co-operative Bank.  He has little idea about banking and the bank is now in a serious position, having lost much of its money.   He was in the past week or so, filmed buying cocaine and crystal meths, whatever that is, but it sounds  as if it is very bad.     Are the oldies starting to go off their rockers?   Also he is pictured negotiating a session with a male prostitute (rent-boy) in London.   He is caught by the prying newspapers that set the story going.   You couldn’t make it up!

This overweight, middle-aged sinner, Paul Flowers, is matched by the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford.   He has been caught on video smoking crack cocaine.   He has admitted to heavy drinking, and drink-driving.   Also he has made obscene remarks on public   television about his sexual habits.   And the council are having great difficulty getting him to step down from his post .   Who needs fiction when these goings-on are available on your news media every day?

Anyway, I’m a lucky oldie!   It being my birthday this week, my formidable daughters, Laura and Margaret, are taking me for the weekend to the Big Smoke.   Flying from Inverness to Gatwick (London), and then staying at the Marriott  Hotel at St.Pancras station, going to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, and on Saturday night  to a show.   Also being taken to the Tate Gallery to see a show called “Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists.”   And I hope to see the magnificent new staircase at the entrance built by the architects Caruso and his partner, Peter St. John.    Can’t be bad, say I!   So long as the wild girls don’t walk too fast for me.   So wish me luck as you wave me goodbye.

 I made some lovely tomato and cheese pizzas, home-made hamburgers and steak mince for Gerald for while I am away.   Hope he doesn’t go out on the town and forget the way home.      Have bought a new pair of black boots and a short black skirt with a purple horizontal stripe!   Bring on the Gin & Tonics, and what was that joke about the man who escaped the rat-race and went to live in Alaska?   He met a friendly fellow called ‘Lars’!   He got invited to a party!