2001-03-16 - 15:06:51

�There�s a voice, that keeps on calling me�.�

It has been a less than productive day, though on the plus side I did end a two and a half year city-wide search for a shop that sells oil for hair clippers. That�s right, here I am living in a world capital and you have to hunt like a peasant for even the most mundane sundries. Is it any wonder we�re no longer a world power and everyone beats us at sports? I�d previously been using some kind of industrial lubricant that we found underneath the sink � probably not the best thing for a sensitive scalp. A surprising number of people have been recently asking how often I shave my head. For the record, it�s once a week. I remember when I lived in Japan and I didn�t have a haircut for about 8 months because I couldn�t figure out what to say. I ended up looking like Neil Diamond. Love on the rocks? Ain�t no surprise.

The word �Shampoo� is from the Hindustani language and it refers to the kneading motion involved. Ah, three years of Applied Linguistics didn�t go to waste. I note that last year, the shampoo �Wash & Go�, the selling point of which was that it was a shampoo and conditioner in one, released a version that was JUST SHAMPOO. Er, call me Mr Unimpressed, but doesn�t that kind of negate the concept behind the original product? In a similar display of marketing-related congenital retardation, British Telecom, who operate most of the public payphones, have launched a campaign to lure people away from mobile phones and back into those cozy streetside phone boxes, some of which actually haven�t recently been used as a toilet. But then you turn on the TV and there�s an advert saying no, no, no, stick with your mobiles because our network is the bees whiskers, and it�s from, er, British Telecom.

There�s a tribe in the Amazon with only three number words �One�, �Two�, and �More than two�. No-one in the tribe works in advertising.

�Down the road, that�s where I�ll always be��

Unrelated trivia: I read that human eyes are gradually getting closer together � it will take a million years before they merge into one big pulsating eyeball, but it�s happening. Pronunciation of the letter R is changing to such an extent that eventually, it will become like a W. English has the most colour words of any language, giving rise to a disproportionate number of interior designers in English speaking countries. There was an ad on TV this morning for internet classes for absolute beginners, but the only way to get information was to visit their website. A boy in my class at school thought �Madame Tussauds� was �Madame Two Swords�. The shortest translation for the Aboriginal word �katarta� is �the hole left by a burrowing mammal when it has broken through the surface after hibernation�.

And now�I�m going to shave my head.

�Every stop I make, I make a new friend��

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