Nobody Does Understatement Like The British

Image via Wikipedia

We had an earthquake today – magnitude 3.9.  I doubt it will make the international news. 

It wasn’t even all ours: we shared it with France, out in the middle of the English Channel.  Of course it was out at sea: no troublesome nature is allowed to mess up our tiny gardens and neatly laid parks.

A man at work felt it:

The office wobbled slightly, the building shook, monitors on the table rattled and the roof creaked a bit.  It felt as if a big lorry had gone by in a hurry, except we don’t have lorries go through here.

It reminds me of the tornado that hit Birmingham a few years ago: residents were upset when some roof tiles fell off.

Even our geological events are understated.  Tutting at the natural world: it’s how we keep our lips stiff.

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‘One’ Is The Loneliest Number

Image by lioil via Flickr

What one feature do you wish WordPress had?

Only one?  Okay, here’s my one:

1.  I wish it was like Word and had the right-click box for Bold, justify, colour and so on.  When you write posts as long as mine, scrolling up and down to italicize a word here, a phrase there, indenting a short paragraph, bullet pointing and the like, takes for……………………………………………………..ever. 

I’d settle for a ‘Return to the top of the page’ button.

1.  I wish it wouldn’t keep changing the rules: a month ago, I knew exactly how to embed a You Tube video.  Then it stopped working that way.  Nobody told me how or why.  Now, it takes me for……………………………………………………..ever to shove in a video, and it doesn’t always work.  When I schedule a post, the video has disappeared, leaving a lot of pink gobbledygook behind.

1.  I could do with a ‘Draft Posts’ category under the ‘All Posts’ heading, because I draft many of my posts.  When I see a joke I like, or I get an idea for a post which I don’t have time to write, I put it into a draft and come back to it.  When I’m scheduling several posts at a time, it takes me for……………………………………………………..ever.

1.  I wish the visual toolbar let me fix default settings so that I could change my font colour permanently from grey to black.  It takes for……………………………………………………..ever to Control-A-red-show-Control-A-black-show.  I have to go via red because it absolutely will not go from grey to black.

1.  I wish, when I pressed that big button on my keyboard to move down a line, WordPress would listen.  As soon as I save the post, if there’s no text, the spaces disappear.  Sometimes I want a double space gap.  Are you listening, WordPress?*  At the moment, I have to use asterisks and colour them white to hide them.  It takes for……………………………………………………..ever

1.  I wish WordPress would link my blog to ‘Freshly Pressed’ at least weekly.  Or even once.  Then I’d be happy for……………………………………………………..ever.  Or at least a month.

1.  I wish it had a ‘Stop writing now, Tilly; your readers are asleep’ button.  Some of them tell me I seem to go on for……………………………………………………..ever.**

1.  I wish I hadn’t started this stupid for……………………………………………………..ever meme.  It stopped being funny at, well, the first time.  But it would take for……………………………………………………..ever to go back and change it.

*Sorry for shouting, dear reader; but sometimes, it’s the only way to get them to listen.

**  Not really.  I’m just fishing for indignant comments defending my honour.

New list (and thus no for……………………………………………………..ever):

1.  I wish the Zemanta images would go back to being moveable instead of sitting in the right-hand corner the whole time, like me at a party.

1.  I wish the photos I insert wouldn’t mess around with the text.  I want the text to be me at a party.

1.  I wish WordPress knew how to count past ‘one’, because then I would have loads of complaints for it.

1.  I wish this post was more interesting.

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Joke 112

A doctor was having an affair with his nurse.  One day, she told him that she was pregnant. Not wanting his wife to know, he gave the nurse a sum of money and asked her to go to Italy and have the baby there.

“But how will I let you know the baby is born?” she asked.

He replied, “Just send me a postcard and write “spaghetti” on the back. I’ll take care of expenses.” Not knowing what else to do, the nurse took the money and flew to Italy.

Six months went by, and then one day the doctor’s wife called him at the office and said, “Dear, you received a very strange postcard in the mail today from Europe, something about spaghetti, and I don’t understand what it means.”

The doctor said, “Just wait until I get home and I will explain it to you.”

Later that evening the doctor came home, read the postcard, and fell to the floor with a heart attack. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital emergency room. The head medic stayed back to comfort the wife. He asked what trauma had precipitated the cardiac arrest.

The wife picked up the card and read: “Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.  Two with sausage and meatballs; two without.”