That's just silly. But even I, unobservant, absent-minded and possibly a bit slow on the uptake, notice things some times. It does help if people point them out, of course. The 'x' thing is an example.
It turns out, also, that I am living in interesting times, as the old Chinese curse goes. Generally I have found that life goes along and goes along and goes along some more. Ho bloody hum indeed. But now, well now, I think maybe I should buy some hat pins. And, as Sir Montague Revesby found, a workmanlike hatpin in the fleshy part of the arm is not to be despised. I like things to have more than one use. it's more fitting for the times.

I found a piece of paper on the floor. As we have high standards re household orderliness I picked it up. Written on it, in blue ink and a small neat hand are the following words:
                                                               Mute is thy wild harp now O Bard Sublime
                                                               Who, amid Scotia's mountain solitude
                                                               Nature taught to build the lofty rhyme
                                                               And even beneath the daily pressure,rude
                                                               of the labouring poverty, thy generous 
                                                               blood fired with the love of freedom-- 
                                                               not subdued.
                                                               Wert thou by the low fortune But a time    
                                                               like this, when the abject chime
                                                               of
 And that was it. Another thing for me to chase up.
                                                            

I've always liked those lyrics and that idea, I wish it could be the case for me, at least some times. But no. I am always consumed by doubt.
On a different note entirely I have to report that I plucked an acorn from the first tree planted in the Christchurch Botanic gardens, the Albert Edward Oak. This tree was planted in July 1863 to commemorate the marriage of the Prince of Wales to HRH Alexandra. I'm not too sure what to do with this acorn. My garden isn't really big enough for an oak tree.