Once Works Well was pure technology. Now it seeks merely to divert.
Pansy subjects - Verse! Opera! Domestic trivia! - are now commonplace.
The 300-word limit for posts is retained. The ego is enlarged

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Porn in the utility room

Rouchswalwe, whose sole fault on this earth was to adopt a blogonym that Anglophones found too hard to pronounce (Hence Zu schwer = Too difficult), not only launches regularly into poetry but writes prose that teeters on the brink. Eg:

Once we've touched a thing that feels distinctive… the skin tingles. And if that something is not a thing I can touch with my fingertips?... Sort of like hadaka no tsukiai in a Japanese Onsen [a hot spring bath], where no textiles come between water and skin, making it possible to conversationally commune with any fellow bathers in a state of uniquely textured tensionlessness.

Can’t match that but I have my mini-moments. One of my jobs Chez Bonden is to take laundry downstairs, stick it in the washer, prime the washer appropriately and push buttons. No sweat. But what was once an unexceptional chore has a delicious side-effect. Previously detergent was poured into a plastic container and chucked into the drum. Now it comes in fat squelchy sachets that feel almost organic. I've always regarded detergents as one of the most wearisome subjects known to man, triggering some of the most wearisome TV commercials. Seems that the manufacturer (Ariel) thought the same. But there are limits.

DEAR AGONY VET Occasional Speeder has taken her convalescence to Kenya and we are dog-sitting Missie, the Cairn that cost as much as two cases of Montrachet. I take her on a lead to pick up The Guardian and she sniffs and sprays every two metres of the – fortunately – short walk. But suppose I become impatient and tow her past one of these smelly places: what damage am I inflicting on the inner dog?