Robert C. Day's Blog, page 49

Althea

Just back from taking a pee and noticed that the porcelain-ware is on this train is called Althea.
I wonder if there’s a toilet designer somewhere who’s had his heart crushed by a woman of the same name?
Makes me think about all the stories raging under the calm surface of the world.
Makes me wonder about your story. Care to share?

Loan

‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be …‘ (William Shakespeare)

Words, words, words – so many words that we can be sure to run out of choice never. Yet let your words multiply like rabbits. Let them breed, that they may create a new generation of words – bigger, faster and stronger than the last.

Germans don’t create new words – they just stick the old ones together to make sentences without spaces.Until recently (2013), this was a German word:rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertra...

Brilliant

This is the third and final value (the others beingpersonal and simple) that a major transnational corporation near you, may or may not have unleashed on their employees. These values are for internal use only so whatever you do – don’t tell anyone!

Brilliant is my favourite of these three values. The others were either too obvious (personal) or about corporate processes (simple) but this is aboutme being the bestme that I can be. (Great slogan: Me-Me-Be!)

The definition of brilliant is as f...

Keep Smilin’

Cooperation

It used to seem strange to me how the only successful way to cooperate with someone was to give them exactly what they wanted and yet the only to way to get cooperation from them was to give them exactly what they wanted too.

To expect or demand cooperation is to lose cooperation. It’s as if giving is part of acooperative effort, but taking is not part of that cooperation. We always have to rely on receiving.

Cooperation cannot be forced. It has to be given gladly from A to B and then given g...

Incarnation

I know what you’re thinking. What’s writing got to do with evaporated milk* – right? Well sit back and I mighttell you all about it.

Or I might not, because – truth be told writing hasnothing at all to do with milk.Nor does it have much to do with flowers** or the Holy Trinity.***

So, skip that – I’m going to tell you something about verbs.

I found out today thatverbs can havesomething called the subjunctive mood (SM)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood). If you want to travel into...

Colonialism

… the practice of acquiring full or partial control over a landscape from a particular book, TV series or movie and occupying it with existing or new characters performing original actions.

This is, of course, the merging of two definitions: colonialism and fan-fiction. Although they are completely different things, they actually share a common aim and employ asimilar methodology.

Follow these simple tips if you fancy delving into the murky world of fan-fiction:

Don’t lose sight of the rules...

Simple

Here is the second of the internal corporate values that may or may not have recently been introduced to the employees of major international corporation. Once again, I urge you not to divulge this information to anyone due to the management making all staff pinkie-swear that they would not tell.

These are the components of the value ‘simple’. The bold parts are the official words, and the other parts are me trying to understand them, but not attempting to ‘over-complicate them by adding lots...

Feeling Juicy

Triumph

Imagine the few moments before your death. Imagine those few moments when you will experience your whole life flashing before your eyes.

These moment will be worth watching.

You will know satisfaction.

You will have acted on all your ‘what ifs’, dreams, hopes and ideas. You will have created happiness. You will have given help to others.

You will have written your stories.

You will have overcome your fear and pride and you will have loved, but more than this – you will have spoken out for and...