tomorrow's leaders

If you are happy and you do, know it, is it really that appropriate to clap your hands?

And if you are not happy, or indeed, are happy but unaware of your true feelings, will you mindlessly clap your hands along with all the rest of The Happy People and thus increase the number of hand clappers to reflect an untrue result?

And if this is the case, how do we know how many people really are happy and how many are just being swayed by the tide?

And has anyone considered the folks who are not happy, but just enjoy a good hand clap to let off a bit of steam!?!

If hand clapping/happiness indication is what we are teaching the young people today, in a pressured over-hyped atmosphere, what hope do we have of authenticity and even-tempered self awareness in the leaders of tomorrow?

Radio ga ga

Well, that was a fizzer! The whole thing seemed to really underscore my perception that no one gives a tinkers cuss about the struggling choristers of this land!

I rushed from a prior arrangement (playing guitar at church) to arrive early for our arranged 12:30 - 1pm slot, anticipating that we could possibly meet and talk before we went on-air... to no avail! The guy was with another guest, an interesting sounding young Scottish woman (fab accent!) who, it became apparent, had been working for the radio station and was just preparing to leave them. It dragged on until some other co-worker (I presume) arrived about 12:45 to present her with a greenstone pendant. It was lovely and, I'm sure, appropriate but it did leaving me feeling as though my time was less than valued... when I was finally ushered into the hot seat it was to listen to 8 minutes of detailed national news (it was 1pm by now) before ripping into the interview with very little time to talk about the direction the discussion was likely to take... or anything really.

The conversation meandered all over the place including the full names of my parents and the interviewers line of enquiry leading to the romantic hope that my family sang together at public engagements. I replied No... we're not the von Trapp family!
Does that sound rude? Could that be considered as controversial? A large percentage of me hopes it is- is that wrong!?!
I also was amused by Mel's introduction. Something along the lines of "While other young people we hear about in the news are doing wheelies in their cars and downloading music for their ipod's it is refreshing to know that there are some who care about and participate in The Arts through the medium of music, specifically the Human Voice in the Choral context" If you think that sounds over-the-top you must add the fact that he has a deep, boomy voice that he obviously knows is a "perfect radio voice" and he used it with variation of pitch and speed to further accentuate point and air of intelligence. God bless the volunteers of free-to-air local community radio!

Another point in proceedings that springs to mind is when Bruce, the technician/producer guy, broke in when we were on the subject of fundraising for my trip with the choir. "I have to ask, are you doing any busking?" ...to which I replied "Ah, no. No. While I can sing I haven't quite mastered the art of singing multiple parts in harmony with one another."
What a cheeky little chorister!
The technician played an ad halfway through Mendelssohn's "Ehre Sei Gott" to cut it short. He ejected the CD, passed it to me and bid me farewell as the host ushered in the next important guests, whom they wanted to start on time with, some local active retirees, starting a new Probus club.
I put in my ears buds and selected shuffle as spun a donut in the car park.

Monday Musings

So I've write emails quite often and I've been thinking about how I sign off my emails. You don't say "Yours Sincerely" or anything like that but what are you 'meant' to say?
I have struck upon the thought that, to infuse a bit of humour into your day, it could be fun to sign off emails a little differently... Instead of the fun and friendly "Later Skater" you could try- "Later Slater" or "Later Scatter-brain" or "Later Dickhead"
If you often use "See you later" you could try "See ya- wouldn't wanna be ya" or "See you when I'm looking at yo ugly mug" or "(I hope I don't have to) See you later"
It seems many people think it fun to play with common rhymes. In place of "No probs corn cobs" try "No probs dick face" or "over and out, arse breath"
Rather than "Goodbye porkpie" substitute "Goodbye fart-breath" or "Goodbye lard-arse"

You could add a touch of intellectualism and quote famous sign-off lines such as
"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits" (S Hussein)
"Eat my shorts" (Bart Simpson)
"Kinds retards" (Winstone Churchill)
"Sincere commiserations to your Mother" (Robin Williams)

I wonder if engrish might have a special place in new and exciting email sign-offs... instead of using the english language to make sense it could be rewarding to use it more artistically
"Happy day to shine you on" or "happiness rarely last as long as life is long. Be happy you on this day then"

I would appreciate any feed back and idea regarding this matter. I feel a revolution coming on!