As a few people over on Facebook have noticed, today is my birthday.
And as a few people around here will have worked out from an earlier post, this birthday is Officially A Biggie (people tell me).
It is also the only birthday that shares its digits-given-separately expression with an urban slang term for the police. (That was especially for aficionados of the wonderful show The Wire, whose first series I got on DVD as one of my birthday presents).
The above image, which sums up my feeling du jour nicely, came on a Birthday Card from my mother, who shares my taste for mordant humour.
Now, as I said over on Fb, in my family we don’t really do Big Birthday Bash stuff after the age of forty. I seem to remember having four separate birthday celebrations for that one. But this time, it is going to be low key. A nostalgic curry later, and probably a slightly bigger bash with some of the extended family in a week or so’s time. And no-one is around at work at the moment, so the party there will have to wait for September… Think a bit of a dispensation is allowed at my age.
Of course, I’ve had a nice quiet weekend leading up to my birthday – and been able to enjoy England winning at cricket (second game in a row, yet). Some with birthdays this week haven’t been so lucky – like that young whippersnapper The US Prez, who has been spending the weeks leading up to his 50th this Thursday battling to get a debt crisis deal.
All things considered, I’d rather have my spot than his.
Happy Birthday! Its the new 20, so have fun!
Ah, for those of us fixated with the base ten. In binary it’s a lot bigger.
I’ll be joining you in the Ranks of the Aged next year…
I think we need a t-shirt, Henry. Following on from what MGG said above, it should say:
It is done, my friend
http://www.zazzle.com/110010_is_the_new_10100_tshirt-235034481583134655
Stylish!
H’why is it a slang term for police?
Happy birthday and here’s hoping for another half century. Just don’t be baleful. It might seam a huge age but your life isn’t over yet.
Cheers Frank. Actually everything feels exactly the same today as yesterday… It is more a slight feeling of bewilderment, probably common to a lot of middle-aged people, along the lines of:
For anyone that didn’t catch Frank’s joke, and/or still doesn’t know the derivation of “Five-Oh” as a slang term for the police, the answer is the 60s cop show Hawaii Five-O, featuring Jack Lord (of the amazingly immoveable haircut) as Detective Steve McGarrett.
Never really watched the show myself (which they’re now remaking, bizarrely) in the 70s, as I preferred Kojak and The Rockford Files, but there can hardly be a person on earth who doesn’t know the famous and instantly recognisable signature tune, or who hasn’t seen the iconic and much-imitated opening credits sequence (also on the last link). I quite like the version of the tune here (fab period vid too), while this bizarre mechanical ukelele version is good too.
BTW, Up ‘ereabouts the correct regional slang term for HM Constabulary is supposed to be “The Dibble”.
Any connection with Officer Dibble in Top Cat?
Officer Dibble is definitely the point of origin… though why his name became such a strictly local synonym (others within not that many miles are quite different, e.g. down the East Lancs Road in Liverpool it is ‘the bizzies’) I have no idea…
Is that 5-0 on the log scale?
Replace that zero with a few other digits and it starts to look quite young 🙂
viv in nz
Happy belated birthday!
Late to this but many happy returns, old man. Not far behind you. And The Wire will provide plenty of compensation for the calamity of age. Give it 4 or 5 episodes to warm up and you’ll be hooked. Enjoy!
Cheers Stephen
I’m actually already a pretty hardened aficionado of The Wire, so I’ve seen almost all the series twice..! Never had it on DVD, though, so looking forward to a leisurely third time through.
There’s a story attached, actually – the lab where I did my PhD in the 80s had connections at U of Maryland Medical Centre Baltimore, so I went there several times, first in Summer 1987 and again in 1990 if memory serves. So when I came across Wire creator David Simon’s work, first in the wonderful TV cop show Homicide: Life on The Street in the early 90s, it was filmed in places I’d actually been (albeit briefly) and I was totally hooked. When I read Simon’s book the series was derived from (and which is a must for Wire Fans) in about 1994 it was even better than the TV show. I’m afraid that I’m such a fanboy saddo that when I was in Baltimore in 1994 I even went and had my picture taken outside the Fells Point building that used to double as the precinct HQ in Homicide.
PS Guessed you weren’t that far behind me on basic years elapsed. You have made it to a rather more age-appropriate level of the profession, though!! Although – outside the Univ, people don’t really get that being a 50-yr-old lecturer means something specific (and not really in a good way). At least, they don’t cross themselves and shy away in the way that people inside academe do.
Me and Mrs Crox once tried to watch The Wire. Once. After ten minutes we realized we hadn’t been able to comprehend a single word anyone had said.
Heh. Of course, I speaks fluent urban drama, yo.
Talking of American vernacular, when I did my Sabbatical year at NIH in the late 90s I shared a house with two Italians, a Belgian and an Australian. When we watched Jerry Springer for our “US cultural orientation’, my standing role was to provide simultaneous translation of the dialogue into English.
With The Wire, it does certainly take a while to tune the ear. The funny thing is that two of the main actors are an actor and DJ from East Lahndahn, and an Old Etonian school contemporary of David Cameron’s. I guess they must have had to ‘adjust’ too..!
ahh… “Homicide: Life on the street” was one of my faves! Haven’t been to Baltimore yet but it’s on the list! It was the obvious one to watch once the “Hill Street Blues” (I think that was the original English name ‘Spanarna på Hill Street’) had finished. I might have been too young for it, but I was allowed to watch “be safe out there” 🙂
Haven’t tried the Wire again, I think I need subtitles since I didn’t get anything the first time I watched it.
If you liked Homicide, I reckon you’ll definitely get The Wire, if you persevere. It is more of a slow burner than Homicide, which was a more ‘actorly’ sort of show, with faster snappy dialogue… But they actually have a lot in common.
I started on ‘ensemble cop dramas’ with Hill Street Blues too. I remember that when I was a PhD student in the mid 80s I used to set the video to record it on Saturday nights (while we were out) and then watch it after breakfast on Sunday (two large cups of coffee from the trusty Bialetti and fresh small pastries from Grodzinski’s bakery).
I think it’s more of persevere in “understanding any of the dialogue” 😉 Maybe the dvd will come with “text for the hearingimpaired” – my usual helper while watching some English speaking shows/movies with some special dialects/wordings.
[not pointing out the obvious difference that not only did my family not have a vcr recorder that early on, but since I was not even a teen mid 80ies there was no problem with watching something Friday or Sat night. I mean, there were obvious problems with age-appropriate etc but not due to being out roaming the streets 😉 ]
In base 50, you’re only 1, you know.
Happy Birthday to you. And yes, in keeping with long-established tradition, I am late in wishing it. In my defence, I was in an internet-free zone on the day in question.
Also, at least your row of kitchen containers doesn’t have one labeled “v.i.a.g.r.a”.
Belated Happy Birthday Austin! Hope you had a great day 🙂 And as all the others have said “what’s in a number really?”
Ta any I haven’t thanked already for the salutations.
BTW, The Grauniad has put up a fancy interactive timeline for “President Obama at 50”