Simple repairs for common household items

Occasionally I get really incensed hearing men constantly droning on about how gorgeous Polish girls are: hence the slight diatribe at W-Wa in the form of a comment on an earlier post. Generally one thinks, well, women have other qualities apart from the ability to look decorative. Like designing buildings, curing illnesses, sitting in a little box and turning one language into another and back again in a matter of seconds. Why focus on prettiness? It's not something that any of us can do very much about.

However, as a rule I have to admit I agree. When you walk down the street in a Polish town the other women are much more likely to be attractive and slim than in the UK, where I am increasingly surprised by the size of everyone.

There's a quote from Family Guy where the teenage daughter asks Death to kill all the girls that are prettier than her: 'Well that would just leave England'. Ouch. And secretly, I'm proud of being asked for directions, not because I look like a local but because it implies- as a Pole suggested- that I don't look stereotypically ugly enough to be a Brit. Thanks. I think.

Well, I'm afraid I'm letting the side down something chronic at the moment.

Yesterday morning I hauled myself out of bed several minutes before the alarm (which I forgot to set anyway) and staggered into the bathroom, apparently via Switzerland and the hanging gardens of Babylon.*
The face in the mirror looked as though it had been punched by the back end of a bus through a hedge backwards.
Several hours of vodka and bawling your eyes out is not the ideal way to stay young and beautiful. Salt water is most terribly dehydrating to the skin.

Students of interpreting often practice with speeches which describe a process. These are easier to remember because they have a logical progressive sequence. For example, the process of making a cup of coffee or of ironing a shirt.

For students then, here are some key English expressions to use in the process of breaking off a relationship. Anglophones, repeat with me- I think we know them by heart by now:

- This is going to be one of those difficult conversations (good opener)
- It's not you, it's me (classic)
- I think you're a really great person (but:)
- I really, really like spending time with you (this is pushing it)
- If we'd already been together twenty years, this would be fantastic (you should be so lucky)
- My friends will tell me I'm an idiot (aims to flatter but generally ineffective)
- Actually there's this other girl (wait for it...)
- Nothing's actually happened
- Can we still be friends?

Szanowny Państwo, dziękuję za uwagę.

This time, I gave back the jumper (didn't suit me).

I kept the 1999 Rioja Reserva.



*Mr Izzard: sorry yet again.