Nappa Goes in Search of Bling Bling

One of my New Year resolutions was to learn some new words. English words.

Over Christmas I picked up chav on the front page of the Telegraph and had to sit humbly while the Wimbledon niece (as opposed to the Wigan niece) explained the meaning and reassured me that the Ranting Nappa is not a chav.

Today I lost my way when a young man on the radio talked about “putting on some bling”. It seemed a good excuse to test the new MSN search engine against Google. Both had good results, the latter leading with a news article to say that the OED now includes bling bling (which of course means flashy jewellery). MSN led me to www.thinkbling.com which started well (links for Hip Hop Jewellery) but then confused the poor Nappa by linking him through to a “singles” dating agency (Looking for Bling Bling?). Oh heck!

On the subject of radio I have discovered Spirit FM – Chichester’s own commercial radio station. Now I know that small American towns have there own local stations, but this is ridiculous. The traffic news was “early morning build-up at the level crossing”, and “quite busy on the bypass” and didn’t fully justify the announcer’s excitement. There was a phone-in quiz with an escalating prize for recognising a mystery voice. Several farmers and a few jolly ladies had called in but none could identify the voice and the prize fund had soared to a giddy £30. But the advertisements are great, truly local stuff like “Buy your blankets at Sheppeys, 40 High Street – Sale Now On”. Presumably Spirit FM is in competition with Bognor Sound and Midhurst FM.

Went to London today and wore the big macintosh which makes me look rather larger than normal (very useful in trains when people are choosing which of the remaining seats to take for themselves). It does however give me a sort of Hagrid-look, and I absolutely terrified someone coming round a corner in a dark corridor of my office building.

London was rather bleak and very crowded. Before getting a haircut I wandered through Sicilian Avenue. The old shop is still empty, along with three or four others. All rather sad.