Dumb Ways to Die: Cadavers in Crevices

Well, woke up with a 7 in it and thought to myself that I didn't have to get up, so lay there and considered things for "5 quarters of an hour".

But sooner or later the day has to start and for me, it started with more Youtube videos of a bloke crashing a cyber-van off a virtual bridge. 2 scrambled eggs later, a plan was hatched to make me go out and stop watching the videos.

This is the kind of annoying thing that these keen parents insist on, to get the son and heir outside into the sun and air, just like that railway poster advert. So we parked down by Beach Road and they talked about houses for sale god they're boring and we came out by the sunken Rose Garden and we circled that one a few times, for it is lovely, and I showed Jof where I hide and always win when playing hide'n'seek with Ben and the JBs.

But on the seafront, there was death aplenty. The storms, plus the dredging being undertaken to make the port approach deep enough for the new aircraft carriers, has put the starfish population in severe jeopardy and millions of them wash up and air-freeze to death on the shingle. They are accompanied by crabs and shells and anemones and shoes and seaweed and cigarette lighters and dogfish egg sacs and rubber gloves, and they all sit there at the high tide mark whiffing something chronic.

And they also get stranded in the crevices between the giant granite chunks, put there to stop the sea destroying the wall. We found many. Later, we threw stones at the radar targets and met Baby Edward, not so baby now he's at my school. Another son and heir out getting the sunshine, you see.

In acting we practised Under Milk Wood, which is our new play, and full of madness it is too. There were only 3 of us in the class (one new boy) so we are all likely to get parts. I have to annotate my script because Mrs Beynon is pronounced Bunion, due to being Welsh, which is not strictly her fault but is a disability nonetheless, sorry to pointless Welshies.

Meanwhile, Bud bought 7 new coins for my collection from the antique shop that supplied my Evacuee suitcase (see 2 days ago), half crowns, thruppenny bits, and some piastres from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, as you do. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan employs Piastres, Fils, Quirsh AND Dinars, most confusing.

Sydney has discovered Dumb Ways to Die. This was originally a railway safety advert for not killing yourself on the Melbourne Metro, but also has a song, game and probably followers too. The song is mildly amusing for the first few plays but she clearly has heard it before, eat a 2 week-old fridge pie, use your willy as piranha bait, what does this red button do, etc.

Now, we all have our foibles, fallacies and mini-mental blocks. I am a man who has enjoyed full-on Schwarzenegger movies since I was 8, and can quote, refer to and generally discuss the gorier aspects of such bullet-fests far more competently than I can analyse the English comprehension texts in our school literacy classes. I can accurately say gosh isn't that the guy who played 3rd mutant transvestite Martian prostitute in Total Recall, or that's just like when he dropped the guy off the cliff in Commando, saying I know I said I'd kill you last, but I lied.

But I have an issue with squirmy squelchy aliens, after the Simpsons episode where Krusty falls into the bowl of worms. So Saturday-Night-Is-Film-night new movie "Flight of the Navigator" (1986, brick-sized mobile phones, computers the size of HMS Illustrious) held terrible fears for me and I threatened to go upstairs and read at 7pm.

But then it was funny and I liked the music and all is now cool in movie-terror-land, just you wait until they say watch 'Short Circuit' with me.

Other images posted today are just to suggest that sunny Southsea Saturdays can be as crisply rendered and historically rich as you like, possibly better than a view of the lorry park of the gasworks at Grimsby.