Sleepless

Dear folks who read these blurblings from time to time, (or stumble across them by accident, and stare at the fish-bass-wielding author's picture with a mixture of bewilderment and disappointment, thinking "huh? This isn't 'the difference between bflat and double bflat tuba'. Man, [insert your most detested search engine here] sucks!" - a genuine search query, by the way, that saw some poor Parisian thrown in the direction of my nonsense), I'm afraid that if you were expecting this to be the usual, insomnia-conquering mountain of prose, then I'm going to disappoint you. (cue sound f.x. of crowd cheering wildly, 21-gun salute, fireworks, etc.)

Owing to 'mini-primate no.2' failing to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time (that being an absolute maximum) for the last couple of weeks, I'm currently experiencing a complete absence of energy, creativity, and motivation - especially when both the kids are finally in bed, and I've got time to sit down and inflict this nonsense on the world. I had a relatively interesting (I thought) topic all researched and raring to go, along with a couple of other bits and pieces that might have been mildly amusing, but every time I've sat down...ahhhh..what was the point? Why bother? Have some mental vegetating time instead...which is desperately self-indulgent, self-pitying, and highly indisciplined (apparently there are 'specialist practitioners' who can provide 'stern correction' for the latter problem, but I'm not a great fan of pain, and they can be, so I am told, quite expensive...personal trainers, I mean. Who else could you possibly have been thinking of?).

While we're on the subject of mini-primates, I got a bit of a shock a couple of days ago...you see, I assumed (never a good start) that, after all the nappy-changing experience I've had, nothing that burst forth from a baby's bum could mount a serious assault on my olfactory senses. "Surely", I (foolishly) thought, "Surely I must be innured to the smell of poo by now, yea even that which is most noisomely pungent, and in its noxiousness can be likened only to a rotting marmoset, or some other such creature of low habits and base uncleanliness". (Apologies for possibly besmirching the reputation of all marmosets, who may well be most fastidious in their habits regarding hygiene - it just sounded like a good 'comedy animal' name...). Well, tiny man proved me oh-so-very-very-wrong - several times over the course of the day, in fact - with offerings that smelled so acrid I almost lost all of my appetite for chocolate (!)...along with the remnants of my last couple of meals. Quite incredible what chemicals these kids can synthesise in their guts...and a little worrying, considering he eats exactly what I do - so I haven't exactly got anyone else (or their food) to blame.

Now, before anyone accuses me of exaggeration (perish the thought), I've dealt with some very pungent odours in my time - clearing-out a blocked drain at the back of a tenement block in Edinburgh, elbow-deep in a mixture of other people's chip-pan grease and hair, springs to mind (partly because I did it more than once - well, it was either that, or pay inordinate sums of cash to a plumber), as does having to replace a toilet outflow pipe that had slowly become fully 'backed-up' over the course of several days. A period, alas, when no-one in the house was suffering from constipation... Yet even that was no match for a toddler's nappy...!

Right, going to end this small slice of irrelevance with a literal 'pop' quiz:

What do Aretha Franklin, Sly & The Family Stone, Edwin Starr, The Temptations, Al Green, Sam & Dave, Gladys Knight (with all, any, or even none of her 'Pips'), Wilson Pickett, The Isley Brothers, Otis Redding, Martha & The Vandellas, and James Brown all have in common ? (apart from the bleedin' obvious, naturally)

All shall be revealed (although most of you probably know the answer already, in which case it'll be a huge anticlimax - mind you, that might be compensated-for by your feelings of vast smugness at being a know-it-all smarty-pants - who can say?) in my next post, which should appear (everything standing as it does, currently)...ohh..I don't know?..sometime before christmas?