Listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.

Yesterday, P.G. Wodehouse, today, Raymond Chandler.

No, I'm not planning a lie-in...I was referring to Philip Marlowe, detective. And even that's not true because today we're off to Marlow, without the e...

...and I got distracted by Philip Marlowe, when looking for quotes.

More inspirational figurative language:

“The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”

“He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.”

“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.”

Reading phrases like that really makes me up my game and inject surprise and variety into my own writing, so to Raymond Chandler and P.G. Wodehouse...

 Yes, off to Marlow today to have a meal at Tom Kerridge's pub - The Hand And Flowers.

This is Pete's Christmas present from me. June 20th was THE FIRST AVAILABLE DATE when I booked in early December, last year. Should be the best meal ever.

I am doing the honourable thing and going with him. Such self-sacrifice!

Back tomorrow. Late blog.

Make heavy weather of: To exaggerate the difficulty of something to be done.

Today, the weather is heavy.

Marguerite Takvorian-Holmes

The sort of weather where it's hard to catch your breath and even the smallest exertion leaves you (me) bathed in unseemly sweat.

(This is England! People from properly humid countries can laugh in a derisory manner. With absolute justification.)

Heavy weather and I'm making heavy weather of everything I'm doing. Even though nothing I'm doing is demanding. I blame the weather. That's just so I take no responsibility for my lethargy MYSELF, see?

This cheered me up, though. I was looking for 'heavy weather quotes' and came across nothing except a book by P.G. Wodehouse - Heavy Weather

And here was the quote:

  “Good God, Clarence! You look like a bereaved tapeworm.” 

P.G. Wodehouse and his figurative speech - an inspiration!

Anybody can become angry — that is easy...

but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

Aristotle was AMAZING, don't you think? To realise that was written...let me check...something like two and a half thousand years ago...

Yep, today I'm angry.

by martin kratochwil

It's people.

I won't go into the humdrum every day anger about people in my life who are selfish and self-centred. I encounter that too much. Suffice to say, I'm glad I live in my world not theirs.

No, it's people who are SO LAZY and THOUGHTLESS in their use of figurative language. It makes me angry. I will complain. I HAVE complained.

This is what gets me all riled:

On BBC South East Today, a week or so ago, there was a report about potholes in Kent.

Kent - a privileged county in the South East, the garden of England, average house price £296,807 - I just checked.

What was the headline?

"Potholes could leave routes in the South East in a third world state."

Oh dearie me. My heart bleeds for the good people of Kent. Life is so unfair, isn't it? Our fancy wheel-rims might get an itsty-bit dented because there are a few potholes in the roads. I really think we should get Bob Geldof to organise a global concert...

 
PLEASE, stop comparing our paltry first world problems to the daily struggle for survival that millions of people endure in third world countries.