The weather man tonight (I know his name but I have no wish to publish it here and pander to his lust for more fame than he deserves) used the following sentence in his forecast tonight....
"Good evening, a couple of areas of rather obdurate cloud today but the majority enjoyed a sunny 2nd of June"
Two things:-
1. We enjoyed that sunny 2nd of June with not a cloud in the sky.
and
2. Really? "Obdurate", is it only myself that has never used this word in any day to day sentence? Well if I am honest that is because I had never heard it before and I had to look it up. I am sure all my acquaintances out there will say that I am a complete philistine for my lack of knowledge of this word.
Just to digress for one moment, the word philistine reminds me of a classic comment by a work colleague many, many moons ago. He was a very arrogant know it all and liked to try to belittle people at every opportunity. On this particular incident he was arguing a point with someone and clearly had no knowledge of the subject what so ever, however this rarely dissuaded him from voicing an opinion. Frustrated at the guys ignorance the person he was arguing with said to him..
"You know what you are? You're a philistine, that's what you are!"
Seizing the opportunity to show his accuser up as simply being incorrect he replied immediately,
"Well then, that shows what you know then doesn't it because I'm actually a Sagittarius, so there!"
It's stupid but it always makes me smirk when I remember it.
So "Obdurate". Do I think the weatherman is a natural wordsmith for whom the joys of predicting and notifying us of the days meteorological possibilities is only an outlet for his poetic parlance (much as my blog is for me!), or...
do I think he had a bet with a mate down the Pub that he had to slip the word Obdurate into the report.
I'm going to watch this guy like a hawk to see if any further extraneous words make an appearance such as "Iceland's eructation has added a sense of gloom to the overcast skies of the Shetlands" or such like....
I'M WATCHING MR DEAKIN, I AM WATCHING AND LISTENING......
Still, however pretentious I may think the word may be all I know for sure is that if I have the first seven letters sitting on my Scrabble rack and there is an available 'E' in the right position on the board I've got a potential score of 42, which may not seem to be very much (especially as it would have to sit on a triple word score) but I would also get the 50 point bonus for using all my letters thus achieving 92 points in total and with the further bonus that my fellow players will be utterly stunned that I might even know such a word.
In short I would be obdurate in my bragging.
BACK TO THE BLOG
We have agreed contracts with local tradesmen regarding the refurbishment of the Annex to this property which we intend to renovate and rent out as either a holiday cottage or a short term let. The first to arrive will be the plumber who will take all the plumbing right back to the source stop-cock. Then the Electrician will kill all the power, except basic requirements, and finally the builders will come in and knock the place into shape. Then the electrician and plumber will return (hopefully) to reinstate their relevant services and then I will have to start all over again by building the kitchen and bathroom and redecorating the whole thing, whilst (again hopefully) attending to B&B guests.All this starts in less than two weeks time!
On my next blog I will add some photos of this annex to show you what we are up against. It is a challenge, not a "Grand Design" scale challenge but for the budget it will test our resolve somewhat.
On a positive note I am very, very close to finishing the en-suite bathroom and I will show those photos, too, fairly soon.
1,569
No comments:
Post a Comment