Gifted Typist

Is it possible for a dictator to believe in democracy?
Can you withhold voting rights from others and deny and the will of the majority and STILL exercise your own democratic rights?
Can you be both democrat and autocrat at the same time?
Go here to find out? 

I may have a dishwasher at the dacha, but for the past week I’ve had no mirror.
And this is sort of interesting. With no mirror, you don’t see what your hair looks like. You don’t notice the slow tan (that gets through the 30-block sun screen) building on your face. And make-up? Whassa?
It’s not that vanity has gone [...]

Tell me, can a “cottage” have a dishwasher?
Until recently, my experience of a cottage has always been a wooden salt box with no insulation, a party-line telephone, lumpy bunk beds with mildew-scented sheets, chipped dishes, poor ventilation, no ceilings, cracks in the outside walls big enough to let in  the mosquitos, and no – repeat no – dishwasher.
I know that a [...]

A year ago, I wasn’t even sure what a blog was, much less how to go about doing one.
So what better time to launch my own blog with this post. I don’t think it worked because blogs don’t lend themselves to recycled newspaper content or writing styles. But hey. What did I know?
Over the past [...]

You think the action scenes in Bourne Ultimatum and Casino Royale were exciting?
They were nothing compared to the epic battle of good verses evil I witnessed in my kitchen the other night.
It was man versus fruit fly. Go here to see who won.

Last week the Gifted Typist asked if “hey” is the new “hi”.
Today a Toronto newspaper published a piece on the very same subject.
Hmmmmmm.
The words are not the same, but it is curious that the piece should appear so soon after GT’s post. Shall we sue?
Thanks to the etymological work, historical citations and cultural insights [...]

As someone close to me always says: “Food is life.”
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I get Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and even Paris Hilton. I don’t particularly admire these celebrities or their antics but I get it.
They are 21st-century post-modern celebs feeding off media attention. Like plants in the jungle, they opportunistically exploit their environments to enhance their survival. It could be argued that LiLo and BriSpo possess [...]

I truly do appreciate living a civil society that keeps its streets clean.
I also appreciate the effort of city workers who operate street cleaning machines.
I particularly appreciate the fact that they operate these big hulking machines in the middle of the night so as not to disrupt the movement of traffic and people through our [...]

The one war in which everyone changes sides.
Cyril Connolly, British essayist (GT’s favourite mid-20th male British essayist)

Under the darkening skies of approaching storms and with the radio shrieking “severe thunderstorms,” we arrived at our trailer for our holiday.
That’s when the Cheddar-the-cat bolted out of her cat taxi. She zigzagged around the property and then darted into the woods.
Being a city cat, Cheddar isn’t familiar with raccoons, skunks and other creatures of [...]

Thirty years ago today, Elvis was found dead in the bathroom of Graceland.
And thirty years ago today, my beloved cat Tiger was found strangled to death in my backyard.
The culprit was a spurned suitor, a boy in the ‘hood who asked me to go out with him.
I said no. He strangled my cat. This is [...]

It turns out that we might have been fooling ourselves with the “hi” to “hey” controversy.
We were discussing when the word “hey” became the new “hi” and wondering if this was a Friendsism creeping into the language.
It was at this point that the intrepid Holly entered the discussion with a very productive search of the [...]

The last few weeks I’ve been noticing “hey” or “hey there” being used to open certain CBC programs – as in “Hey there, welcome to Q.”
This leads a typist to wonder if “hey” isn’t replacing “hi” as a casual greeting.
I first noticed the Hey-for-Hi transposition on the TV program Friends, as in: Ross to Rachel: [...]

My wife screams when she is having sex. Especially when I walk in on her.
Roy “Chubby” Brown, British comedian