Pig Sty Avenue

Freedom, as someone once observed, is like the taste of potatoes.

Being at the utter limit of the baggage allowance when I first went to Shanghai, I could only take the Holga, and of course I had the camera-phone I took this on. On a visit home I'm picking up the FED2 with its Industar 61 lens. And I'm going to go Street and Somewhat Surreal. I'm going to revisit this scene, for starters. Also, I've been through the Flickr account and privatized most of the content, publishing only the ones I like, and they are SSS. And I've left all the annoying groups. Voila. This feels somehow significant, photographically speaking.

I'm just looking at our team sheet , and you know, next season's going to be fine.  Just look at that injured list, man.  Get those lads off the sofa, with a half-way decent new striker, and we'll be away with it.  As for tomorrow, a point at Stamford Bridge would be nice.  I won't get to see it, because it clashes with Shenhua v Tianjin, which I'll be watching irl.  

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think this is specific to Jarrow.  It means and officious, bad-mannered person, little Hitler , is equivalent in Standard British English.  The story from my dad is that Jarrow was the place where all probation coppers were sent to finish their training - I don't know if that was before or after the Northumbria police were established.  So the town was infested with nervous, aggressive young people in uniform who didn't belong-Jarra. There was also the phrase, half-a-polis, an insulting term for a park keeper or any official in uniform.   The first syllable in polis has a short vowel, like Polly , and the second is schwa + /s/ . [I'm buggered if I can remember the keyboard shortcuts I set ages ago for the IPA.  Which is interesting in itself.]

Felt a bit like this .  Of course, I wasn't a journalist, and there wasn't a war on back then, but there was still a vast craziness.  Like the hotel clerk, sitting chatting to his friend, would see you coming and start to write in a ledger in front of him.  As you asked him for the key to your room, or for an extra blanket or whatever, he'd carry on writing and ignoring you.  When you asked again, without looking up, he'd shout "Passport!"  Happy days.  Whoever could want such a lovely regime to change? 

The reason to allow a candidate to hear a sound text twice is, that's what you do in real life.  If someone says something to you, and you weren't paying attention, it's ok to ask them to repeat it, once.  Think about it.  To need to hear it a third time would be tiresome and inappropriate and indicate hearing impairment.