I haven't written anything all week. This makes me sad. It's not that I haven't wanted to. I simply haven't got around to it. It's been a week in which every spare moment seems to have been filled with something. The bank holiday weekend was spent in Devon. That was nice. We had good weather and ate well as usual. On Monday I spent half the day digging on the allotment. There is something satisfying about it, even if it isn't exactly enjoyable at the time. We have planted many things, but currently we are battling with slugs. Which reminds me, I need to buy more slug pellets.
I have ordered a new bike through the cycle to work scheme. It means that I can spread the payment over the year and it comes straight from my pay. It also means I don't have to pay tax on it. So I save 30% or something. It makes one realise just how much tax is ripped from you before you even see it. I have to wait until the scheme coughs up the vouchers and then I can go and get the bike. It's rather bureaucratic however and I'm not sure when that will happen. This is awkward for two reasons. Firstly, I can't actually reserve a bike, so I might end up with vouchers and then no bike is available. And secondly, I really need it for 14th June for the World Naked Bike Ride.
There is much quirky stuff in the news this week. A Swansea school head master has been suspended after a "sex tape" emerged. I should explain here that the term "sex tape" is being used by the media, but in fact it is slightly misleading. It would appear that the video in question was shot outside his closed office door, and is nothing more than the grunting noises of apparently two people within.
I can see that a headmaster having sex in his office is controversial, but I find it difficult to put into words exactly why that is. I realise that sex is generally a private thing, though only through social convention, but so is picking one's nose, and one is not likely to get suspended when caught nose picking at work. It is after all something we all do, sex I mean, not nose picking. Maybe it's just because the person he was having sex with may not have been his wife. In fact it's not clear whether there was any actual sex going on, and if there was, The identity of the other party. It is suggested that another member of school staff has also been suspended however. I wonder why I let these things bother me.
Moving on, a while back I mentioned that a statue by artist Damien Hirst was causing some controversy in Ilfracomb, Devon. The statue is a 20m tall nude pregnant woman, with cutaway sections to reveal the foetus. It caused some raised eyebrows, and not everyone liked it. It's odd to me that the same work has now been erected in Long Island and the locals there like the piece even less.
The arguments are however quite different. In England it was all about how it was ugly and "not art". In Long Island it's "giving our children nightmares". Honestly, you Americans are funny. It's a statue! In fact the >a href=http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/naked-virgin-mary-statue-residents-arms-article-1.1783426>New York Daily News managed to somehow lever in a religious angle and claim that the statue is the virgin Mary. I don't know where they got that from.
Congratulations if you made it to the end. I'm going to wind this up here for today.
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