The power of suggestion

Just reading a book of ghost stories by E Nesbit (for grownups, not children) - full of moments where a character leans forward from his fireside armchair, takes his pipe out of his mouth, and says "Great Scott, Langley, haven't you heard? It can't have been Edwards you spoke to - he's been dead since last week!". I love that kind of thing (M R James is another deeply fabulous and creepy example). I know H P Lovecraft is supposed to be the daddy but I can't take seriously stories that end with a full paragraph in italics ("and as it drew closer, its tentacles waving blindly, I could barely prevent myself from screaming in HORROR as the ghastly THING crept from the bowels of Great Cthulhu..."). Rather like the difference between films of the eerily suggested (Hitchcock, for example, or "The Others") and the slasher-porn likes of "Saw IV". Obviously I'm aware that what with my equally lavish use of capitals and italics I can hardly diss Lovecraft but there you go.
Absolutely chucking it down today - well, we've had the requisite 4 days in May that constitutes a British summer, and as always I am incorrectly dressed. For the last couple of sundrenched days I warily went to work in a coat (which I always ended up dragging home, purple-faced and drenched in sweat) and sneakers (my ankles were swollen like a couple of butternut squash). Yesterday I daringly wore flipflops, and as a result am so abraded between my toes that I'm hobbling like the little mermaid. Today - sneakers, light cardigan, no coat... and it's hosing it down like a carwash. I am resigned to always wearing the wrong clothes but this is getting silly. Tomorrow I shall wear a ballgown, wellies, a pith helmet and longjohns. With SPF 50 and one of those silver-foil hypothermia blankets.

Sunday afternoon. Brain bit slowish.

The following TV adverts have made me worry slightly about whether I missed some serious tectonic shift in modern-day society, possibly while asleep or reading comics.

1) "It's bad enough when your home smells of fish..." (Febreze) - A daily problem for, I fear, all of us, everywhere. Even those whose name doesn't contain the word "fish".

2) "For the woman who isn't yet ready for cosmetic surgery.." (Olay or something) - Obviously I'm having it, just not yet. Maybe when I'm really ugly and, say, aged 23 or something gross and haggy.

3) Is it acceptable for Ainsley Harriott to yell "Shit! Shit!" at his basset hound on primetime TV? (Fairy Powertabs) - Just a quibble.

4) And how deeply sad is it when the best thing a french car manufacturer can find to say about their new car is that it could be mistaken for a BMW if you squint at it sideways and ignore the badge?

Sunday afternoons chez Fishwife always fall into the same pattern - Sunday papers, buckets of tea, "Countryfile" for Mr Fishwife (who I suspect may have adopted John Craven as his Silver Fox Older Man Role Model - why not George Clooney? - You may well ask), 15 hours of Frasier repeats or "Singin' In The Rain" for me, and cheese toasties for lunch thank to my best ever Christmas present. I feel it's a sign of huge intelligence and lateral thinking to take a health-promoting gadget like the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grillin' Machine and use it to make oozingly fatty cheese and ham toasties.