Don't Let Anybody Mess With Your Swing

‘La terre est couverte de gens qui ne meritent pas qu’on leur parle.’
Voltaire


My mother wants a pergola for her garden. Do you know what this is? I do, because I had to listen to her going on about it all weekend. Actually, I lie. She took half an hour out to try and start a conversation about what colour cushions she should get for her new garden chairs. I was having none of it, however: 'Just get the olive-green, woman! I am not discussing the difference between russet and terracotta, any more. Not get out of my way, I can't see the telly.'

What a pergola is, essentially, is a sort of wooden cloister-thing that you put creeper plants all over. The fact that I know this depresses me more than you can imagine. If, like Sherlock Holmes, you believe that our brains hold a finite amount of information and we must now make room for useless data that will clog our thinking, you will by now wish that you never found out the meaning of the word 'pergola'. Which is why I am not watching Big Brother this year. Everyone in that house are people whose names I need not know. I am purging all useless information and refusing mercilessly to take in any trash. It is pure, untarnished THINKING that my brain will be doing from here on in. Expect great things...