This one’s for Tanya in SC

The importance of learning a second language… or even just a few useful words.

Locals in Toledo, Spain heard an American screaming for “Help” in English and thought he was shouting “Pepe” over and over again. It wasn’t until some multilingual German passers-by heard him that the fire brigade was called and he was fished out of the river Tajo after 3 hours of rope action. He was fine by all accounts afterwards and treated for hypothermia.

Help is “Socorro” just for the record. As in succour. A bummer actually, cos I can’t pronounce my double Rs in Spanish… I’ll probably alternate it with ¡Ayúdame! (Help me!) when I’m stuck down a hole.

Daniel’s gone for the weekend, but according to a search “Fördern” might well be Help! in German. Please don’t sue if it isn’t mind…

In or around the Guadalajara area in December, 2006? Fancy learning how to make documentaries in the beautiful environs of Mazamitla with a sound bunch of peeps? Intangible’s new Flash site may just be for you… The mute button’s on the bottom left… and you might have to click on the box to activate it until I get my head round the javascript necassery for IE7 to autoactivate Flash objects…

And now I’m off to hunt down the Tapatian Scrabble Association again…

cos it’s a huge waste of time. But it was that or Pacman and we got our taxes done today and had the dog innoculated against every plague going around so I don’t feel too bad… Anyroad, it led me to this page of winning entries for a “Make up a Jack Handey Deep Thought” compo and for that I thank it… almost as good as the old-as-the-hills originals. My faves?

Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money.

Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it’s not like he really needed them, right?

Skype me if you’d like to know more…

I’m trying to learn flash online from the free bits of tutorials offered by sites trying to sell you whole courses. It’s a bit hit and miss. I managed to get the fade in/out thing easily enough: see here. But the animation bit needs work. This took far too long to make and really is for want of a better description, piss poor:

I’m embarassed for myself. And Klem and Lulu. Still you’ve got to start somewhere, no?

I just heard on Saturday evening that my other grandmother, Grandma, my Dad’s mum, Lillian passed away peacefully and altogether unexpectedly in her sleep. She was 89 and to say she had a good innings would be an understatement. Nonetheless we are all pretty shocked and still coming to terms with our loss of a much-loved, fantastic, kind, generous person in our lives. I’ll attempt some kind of eulogy in these pages soon, but in the meantime, I just wanted to share what was going on.

Here’s Grandma last December haggling over gourmet cheeses in Taunton’s Saturday morning market: