Sunday, October 29, 2006

Mother of All Government Think Tanks

For years I have been irritated (flattered, but irritated) by my friends asking me for advice. There have been several reasons for this: I am bothered by the responsibility; it gave my husband an opportunity to poke fun at my friends (at one stage a certain friend of mine had a disorder of the nether regions, the details of which she regaled me with at length. Every time the phone rang and it was she, said husband would say 'Oh Christ, it's the daily c--- check'); and the phone calls invariably came whilst I was doing something really important like watching 'Friends'.

Since I have been confined to the chair, however, I have, sometimes, welcomed the diversion. Now that there is nobody to laugh at the conversation, and as I have grown in what could be termed either confidence, or more accurately, foolhardiness, I have dispensed erudite half-baked off the wall wisdom at length over the telecommunications network.

How pride cometh before a fall.

I don't know whether this is a precursor to senility, or whether it is time to bow out gracefully, but I just looked at the comments on my daughter's blog (Everything is Electric. Sorry, don't have the technical know-how to link to it), and one of her commenters has described her as being better than a government think tank.

Oracle to Cassandra in one smooth move.

12 comments:

Courtney Hamilton said...

"Sorry, don't have the technical know-how to link to it."

Come on... sort it out. You should get that Katy of yours to help you wack-up some links - isn't that what daugters a for?

Best wishes.

Courtney

Chairwoman of the bored said...

Hello Courtney, nice of you to drop in. I tried that, but she said she couldn't remember.

She did, of course, say it very politely!

Chairwoman of the bored said...

Sunny - Thank you very much :-)

Clarissa said...

Sometimes when reading the enlightening work of Ms. K Newton, I think to myself, "Why can't I be that cleverly insightful and intelligently funny?" ... The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Love reading you both.

Chairwoman of the bored said...

Clarissa - Thank you so much. I have gone quite pink :-)

mad muthas said...

so you passed on the flame of your ineffable wisdom - that's only right and proper. but she's a junior sybil, surely. anyway, i've just proposed doing away with all government think tanks. maybe you two could take over instead. the pay is crap, but i bet i could come up with some snappy uniforms!

Chairwoman of the bored said...

Great idea. With a little lottery funding, you could provide the uniforms and design the stationary, and we could have a nice little NGO going in the conservatory.

Pat said...

D'you know I wondered why you didn't have your daughter on your side thing and am comforted that I am not the only non techy person. I have to get 'young Tom' in to help with such things and it's time I got him again. But on the other hand I feel immensely proud to have worked out scanning and producing photos myself.

Chairwoman of the bored said...

You can scan and produce photos? Wow!

In my defence, I am very good with mobile phones :-)

Pat said...

We are a bad joke with mobile phones taking them both into Taunton, to keep in touch whilst he had dentistry and I shopped. Fortunately we had a rendevous as none of our calls got through. Hopeless!

Chairwoman of the bored said...

My ward, who Katy refers to as 'Little Brother' texts me from his room upstairs. It drives me insane. He must have the most over-developed thumbs in North London

mad muthas said...

thanks for the lisle and paston letters reference. i've had a quick look on-line, and will investigate further. interestingly, my parents knew a paston-bedingfeld, scion of an old catholic family that came originally from norfolk. i wonder, as they say, if they are in some way related ...