February 10th 2012
Twitter has taught me many things over the last few years. I've discovered, for example, the names of two of the members of One Direction, that there is a band called One Direction, that One Direction fans call themselves Directioners, the name of Justin Bieber's mum and the birthday of Harry from One Direction. And now Twitter has taught me something else: a new meaning of the phrase 'as if'.
No, not the short-lived and unloved comedy drama As If (sorry Simon), but the common-or-garden two-word phrase. Forgive me if you're already au fait with the newly (?) adopted meaning, but I shall explain: 'as if' has, for as long as I can remember and no doubt longer, been used to described an unlikely hypothetical situation: "As if Ed Miliband would ever become Prime Minister." But increasingly - on the Twittersphere and, very possibly, in real life - it is being used to describe an actual situation that is actually happening. And is unlikely or, sometimes, simply unpleasant. Such as: "As if I'm stuck in traffic on the M5!" Whether this 'evolution' of the language is here to stay, or will go the same way as "missioning it", is yet to be seen. Hopefully Twitter will keep me posted.
In other news, you'll be pleased to know that I am now a fully fledged professional, and not just in the getting-paid-to-do-my-job sense. Thanks to my Professional Skills course, in which we discussed difficult questions like "Should actuaries know what they're doing?" and "Is it a conflict of interest to advise a client from whom you're stealing?", I've got a cheap-looking certificate insisting that I'm a pro. The positives of this course were that it was in Oxford, so I got to see Simon, and that it's been reduced from two days to one.
Speaking of Simon, he has tried to introduce me to several sitcoms over the years, with minimal success. Sometimes this is because the sitcom is rubbish (What I Like About You, for example) but usually I reckon it's because anything suffers when the build-up is too big (this, btway, is not limited to Simon's recommendations: the very same phenomenon was recorded in HIMYM with Ted, Marshall & Jerry Maguire taking the place of Simon, me & Samantha Who?). After a litany of failures, though, we may have hit the bullseye with Happy Endings. It's not up there with my favourite sitcoms - at least not yet - but I've seen a few episodes and it's got plenty of funny lines & good performances (and I must say that the stunning Elisha Cuthbert doesn't hurt). Well done E4 for snapping it up.
On this day in 2004... After 9 pages of Brave New World I decided that it's not for me...
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what am I listening to?
All Things Must Pass - George Harrison |
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what am I reading?
Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey |
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what am I watching?
One Day |
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