As part of the Hundred Days project I’m making lists – for this ten day stretch (Day 30-40). You’d know that if you saw the first five.
This is, of course, in addition to all the press ups and sit ups.
The listing project was inspired by Elise in Brighton. She’s doing some great stuff. So I decided to give it a try. Some lists I made up, and some I sought out.
I enlisted the internet in my searching. This is because I find making clever, interesting, funny, thoughtful lists very time-consuming. Also, I’m already doing lots of pressups and situps (40 of both today).
Here’s the second five lists:
Day 36: Words I just learned:
1. Dipsomania: – noun an irresistible, typically periodic craving for alcoholic drink.
I love words. And dipsomania even made an appearance in the script for Accidental Death of an Anarchist, yet until this day (36), I didn’t know the meaning. Now I do. I’m going to use it every time I need a drink. Who says you can’t have a list with just one item on it? Not I.
Day 37: Things I could be doing right now:
1.Planning a holiday.
2.Sending emails to friends and loved ones.
3.Watching a really good movie.
4.Sleeping.
5.Making balsamic semi-dry tomatoes
6.Searching for pre-made lists with contents that I enjoy
7.Editing some of my writing.
8.Writing some writing.
9.Reading the paper with my feet up on the coffee table, perhaps with a scotch, and thinking about how nice it would be to own a dog I could train to bring me slippers in such situations.
10.Shopping for a dog online.
Day 38: John/Jane Doe in other countries.
I’m just an average guy, and I think this is an above-average list. Of course they’d use other names in other places. From here.
Netherlands- Jan Modaal, Jan Lul
Australia- Fred Nurk, Joe Farnarkle
Belgium- Jan Janssen, Piet Pietersen
Philippines- Juan dela Cruz
Finland- Matti and Maija Meikäläinen
Indonesia- Si Polan
Iceland – Jóna Jónsdóttir
Great Britain- Joe Bloggs
Israel- Israel Israeli
Italy- Mario Rossi
Austria- Hans Meier, Herr und Frau Österreicher
Japan- 名無しの権兵衛 (Nanashi no Gonbei)
China- Chan Siu Ming
Korea- Hong, Guil Dong
Croatia- Ivan Horvat
Poland- Jan Kowalski
Portugal- Zé Ninguém
France- Jean Dupont
Sweden- Erik Johansson
Switzerland- Herr und Frau Schweizer
USA- John Doe, Jane Doe, John Q. Public, Joe Blow, Joe Sixpack
Russia- Vasya Pupkin
Winner: Fred Nurk
Day 39: Things I like about living in London/UK
1.Full English (Actually full vegetarian English) breakfast: Niggling point: Toast comes separately? Really? You need to re-think that policy.
2.Newspaperiffic: They’re everywhere. All the time. Full of inserts, pull-outs, commentary, punditry, insight, photos, recipes, reviews, news, and so on &c. Great for reading. Great for a writer. Niggling point: They take so much time to read. It’s madness. Especially the weekend paper. Fuck me, it is unwieldy.
3.Pubs everywhere: Not all are amazing, but there’s so many that are cozy and full of specialty beers and decent (and not too fancy-pants) food. Or just a bag of crisps. The perfect place for lounging and chatting, reading your weekend papers, watching the footie, watching the people, just sipping beers and whatever… Yeah.
4.Events and Activities Every-Fucking-Where: I haven’t been out much since we’ve been here for many reasons. One reason is that with all of this stuff to do, what do we do!??! Stay home? OK. So much easier.
5.Victoria Park: Lungs of the eastside.
6.No regional blocks on BBC’s iPlayer: Sure there’s alot of Top Gear and Eastenders on – shows I’m not going to get into, but I recently watched the RSC’s modern Hamlet with David Tennant (Dr. Who) as the Danish prince and Patrick Stewart (Picard) as Ghost/Claudius, Dizzee Rascal live in concert with the London Philharmonic, enjoy some Shaun the Sheep, Mock the Week, a one hour special on slapstick comedy… Thanks Auntie Beeb!
7. Coldest winter in 30 years.
Day 40: Lists don’t get much better than this one. The master of Top Ten lists himself, Dave Letterman, with Casey Kasem delivering the Top Ten List of Top Ten Numbers From One to Ten.
For Day 40-50 I’m going to do something that will no doubt make me a better person, even if it’s not really ‘touring’ someone else’s pledge and may not provide tangible results:
Spending a little time each day working on my English accent (I’m thinking standard BBC English, although who knows, depending on the day I might mix it up).
