I was walking into Stratford uA town centre at lunchtime and passed a couple of blokes greeting each other with lots of smiles and hugs so clearly very matey. One guy said to the other ‘ haven’t seen you in ages, how you doing?’ To which the other guy replied ‘just the same, how you doing?’ To which the other chap said, ‘oh just the same’. Then they shook hands and parted. I mean if you’re going to start a conversation guys, is that really the best you can do? Bloody hell.
Well I’ve finished all the work for my current batch of clients and need to find some new ones for my writing service It’s Write For You. So if anyone out there needs some words producing either for personal reasons – like a new CV, LinkedIn profile or important speech – or for business purposes – like a key presentation, press release, some fresh website copy, sales material etc – then check out my website at http://www.itswriteforyou.co.uk, e-mail me at wordsfrompaul@gmail.com or get in touch via the numbers in the website. My best qualities – great with women, great with words and utterly modest. Ha! What’s not to like?
If I don’t get swamped with approaches this week I’m going to have to write that synopsis for a new sitcom with my good mate C.
pp
This isn’t a posting about football as such but I was amused to read some words this weekend from a Premiership manager who showed once again the ex-footballer truism; that his brains and modesty are distant cousins from his mouth. The manager is Alan Pardew who, in case you don’t know, was recently banned from all stadia for 3 matches for head-butting a player during a Premiership match. It sounds incredibly hot-headed and thuggish but it’s true. Then again he is employed by Newcastle United, a club which seems to have learned all about sound governance from Led Zeppelin’s management team in the 70’s, which pays Mr Pardew just the £1.5M per year to set a fine example to its playing staff and recently rewarded Alan with an 8 year virtually unbreakable contract. Anyway the manager was back in the dressing room for this week-end’s match against Southampton after seeing his side lose two games in his absence, although he will not actually be allowed on the touchline for another 4 games. At the pre-match briefings he told the listening journos that ‘It’s good to be back. You have that relationship with players. Put on top my personality, which we all know is a bit of a winning mentality (it’s true I swear) and I want to make sure we win’. Well no doubt inspired by the return of their smart silver-haired manager and his profound words, the Newcastle team ran out and received a proper gubbing, losing 4-0 and it could easily have been double that. Ahh Alan, you’re the Sultan of Self-Centredness and you just can’t stop yourself from saying things that give me real pleasure. It’s that winnning personality eh.
Well it’s an interesting number, 750. It’d be one hell of an innings at cricket and almost a world record total at scrabble. It’s the weight in tons of a giant A380 aircraft and the awesome age of the oldest sequoia trees. It’s a big amount in anybody’s language. And It just happens to be the number of postings I’ve written on Pasta Paulie with this one. In terms of total wordage it’s about 250,000 more than in War and Peace. Blimey, that’s a lot of uninformed opinion. Perhaps I should have called the blog Wordsa Paulie.
I think my last few postings have gotten a little earnest and a bit self-regarding. My normally caustic rants are beginning to read like a bitter Daily Mail columnist and who really wants to hear about my medical condition for heaven’s sake? So I’m going to try and write with a little more bite and irreverence and hopefully a bit more fun. First up it’s a feature on a rather popular networking platform.
Look at this….a lovely bottle of Vimto, a cordial made from a secret blend of blackberries, grapes and raspberries and some special herbs and brewed oop north for t’last 100 years and more. It’s like the northern equivalent of Coca Cola and, yes, there is a carbonated version now and a shiny new logo style too (which I don’t really like if truth be told). It’s what we grew up drinking as kids and just recently we’ve introduced it to our two grandsons. A bit of Lancs DNA in a bottle. And they love it, naturally. They aren’t exactly talking with flat vowels just yet but it was amusing to hear our eldest grandson asking for another glass of that really tasty stuff ‘Vomit’. Ah spoken like one or two Blackpool lads I used to know. Makes you raht proud. And as Paul Daniels might have said if he’d spent less time in hospital and more time studying, ‘Now that’s Metathesis’ …….
Metathesis (English pronunciation: /məˈtæθəsɪs/; from Greek μετά-θε-σις, from μετα-τί-θη-μι “I put in a different order”: Latin trānspositiō) is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more adjacent sounds.
Magic!
pp
After a busyish sort of day I’ve had a couple of hours just to myself this afternoon, and I’ve done nothing other than sit here and just think about, well, unimportant things – blissful. Regular readers will recognise this tendency of mine to muse on life’s big issues and today I’ve been giving thought to the Co-op and more specifically to their strap-line ‘Good with food’.
It’s one of those snappy little brand phrases which is almost perfect. It sums up the essence of the supermarket and looks great written down because of the repetition of the ‘ood’ expression. It’s tempting to say ‘nice assonance’ but the English language is nothing if not contrary and wouldn’t you know it, the words good and food are pronounced slightly differently. Perfidious Albion eh. It’s the most powerful language on earth but it must drive new learners to absolute distraction. But that’s why I find it so utterly intriguing. To be truly perfect, food would need to be pronounced as fud but of course it isn’t. So the canny Co-op have employed the fine Scottish actor John Hannah, who has a distinctive S. Lanarkshire accent, to do the voice-over in their adverts. So that when you hear the line it sounds like ‘Guid with Fuid’.
Hats off; they nearly pull it off. But I still see one thing and yet I want to hear ‘good with fud’ which just makes me smile. Don’t you love it when things that are almost brilliant but slightly imperfect? As John Hannah might say ‘wuds are guid’. Typical Scots; English mashers!
pp
Pasta Paulie 