When I was in high school my best friend and I had a game we used to play while getting drunk on her mother's cooking sherry and smoking illicit fags. Remember that song by the Motels called 'Take the L out of Lover and it's over'? That's the game. Take a letter out of a word and see what you come up with. Stupid song, great wordplay fun. Of course, you have to say the line in a tragic voice to match Martha's peerless musical whining.
Decades later I still catch myself doing it. I stumbled onto a goodie the other day as I was setting type:
-- Take the I out of Married and it's marred.
A serious little number, non?
I'm feeling like shit on a plate today. Head-cold city. In fact, after flirting with the idea of working on my computer by testing myself on a blog entry, I think it's time to crawl back to bed and to a good book. I'm reading Jonathon Strange and Mr Norris at the moment, which takes masses of energy only because you have to hold the bloody thing -- such a thick book! If they'd just reduced the leading a bit (which would have suited the ye olde worldy style the publishers were trying to achieve) it would be a lot lighter. A reviewer called this book Harry Potter meets Charles Dickens. Pretty fair assessment so far, but with the worst of each, not the best. I'm enjoying it so far, but there's a fair way to go and I'm wondering if Susannah Clarke can sustain the (casual) pace. A pretty good book to read during the Canberra Slow Festival.
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