Can I just say - ITV Christmas Day peak time line-up - Midsomer Murders... That's dreadful telly for a Sunday, never mind what is supposed to be the glistering crown of the television year
(sidebar one - I am trying to revive the word glister, because misquotations of 'all that glisters is not gold' make me stupidly incandescent with rage)
(sidebar two - being eloquent about television programming lineups has made me remember Bernard Cribbins masterful performance in Fawlty Towers 'Hotel Inspectors' I can't think of anything else I've ever liked him in, not counting voice-overs for the Wombles (sidebar to sidebar - I occasionally find myself recalling fancying Madame Cholet when I was a child, she had that Samantha-from-Bewitched way of scrunching up her nose when she was eating porridge, but Tobermory frightened me very much))
anyone sing this at school...it makes no sense but children seldom do
Jingle bells
batman smells
robin flew away
he did a fart
behind a cart
and blew up the U S A
Our family have decided this year that we are not going to buy each other presents as the kids have too much and so do we.
At first we were going to have a 'secret santa' type thing where everyone bought a present for under £10 and they were handed out at random - but that anyone wanting what you had just opened could demand a swap with their present.
This was deemed too competitive and time wasting. Now we have been allocated one member of the family each to buy for - but what about the random boyfriends and girlfriends who turn up on the day? They can't be left out. So now the parents of the child who brings a 'nother half' has to bring a present for said person - but that's upsetting the 'nother halves who want to contribute.
Meanwhile some members of the family are rebelling and saying they'll buy for everyone anyway.
And my mother's ill and giving us all a hard time. She was opposed to this in the first place and now she's stirring it.
Joy and Goodwill to all.
Went to B&Q today and bought a 6ft artificial tree. First time ever I havent had a real one, but the kitten that pisses on the parquet behind the telly would possibly get poisoned paws from a real one, and although she is making my life hell at the moment, I dont wish her to suffer (much). She would also bat constantly at baubles and chew electric fairy lights, so the tree is going at the top of the stairs instead of in the sitting room. The kids are miffed, but they love the kitten.
The tree was very cheap and the man who sold it ruffled my hair and called me treacle. Sometimes I feel very young.
Christmas is obviously the big day in the Hox house, bringing new slippers and joy unconfined. There is always that special air of anticipation mixed with uncertainty; will they be moccassins, backless, suede, leather, patterned or plain?
Sometimes the waiting is too much to bear, and I have to insert a minicam into the wrapped box, a sort of footwear amniocentesis.
When we were little, Christmas always began on the day that Granny sent the radio times down from Harrogate Spa. She would post it one week ahead of her arrival with her telly choices for the festive period circled in pink.
If she couldn't watch her choices, she would video them. And then sit by the video recorder, intermittently looking through the tape flap to make sure it was working. Once she stayed up until 2am when the movie finished (TV off - she didn't want to spoilt it) to make sure it had recorded, somehow worried that if she left the room the VCR would double cross her. Granny is dead now, but I still buy the radio times at Christmas.
when i was trying on a top in oxfam - behind the flimsy curtain which - any time someone entered the shop - threatened to billow and show my knockers to everyone ... anyway when i was trying on the top someone at the counter was buying a chicken ...
a chicken from oxfam costs ten whole english pounds
"it's good... " said the woman behind the counter - as i prayed that the curtain wouldnt billow showing my knockers to the chicken buying woman and some other silent and only guessed at patrons of oxfam - "it's good because the 10 pounds actually DOES buy a chicken ... and you're not always sure are you?"
my palm trees are dying!
bastards!
they come over here with their promises of tropical beauty and then cark it at the first sign of a frost!
Have some backbone! You're a tree for christsake not a butterfly!
I will NOT make them coats!
p.s. the chicken buying woman was buying the chicken as a CHRISTMAS PRESENT for someone else who wouldnt actually get a CHICKEN ... just a CERTIFICATE ...
The "real" coal fire radiates the most comforting warmth. To bathe the spirit in the warmth of a real coal fire is a joy during the winter months. But it's a pain in the arse to prepare and light. Are we prepared to sacrifice quality for convenience and do we realise just what we are sacrificing in our efforts to save time and energy? The plastic 'world within in a world' we have created ultimately excludes the beauty, quality and simplicity of nature. The uncarved block!
people ARE stupid when they're shopping. I saw a woman in Asda today who was pondering a box of eggs for about ten minutes, she was in my way, middle of the aisle, hand thoughtfully on chin. what's to ponder?
leter she was squatted by a family sized bag of mini snacks (mini mars, twix etc) and squeezing it to, I can only assume, check how many of each were in there. How would she know?
she had no trolley or basket and hadn't even brought the eggs with her from earlier!
and don't get me started on the families with one trolley and every living relative in tow including all forty teenage daughters and their baby buggies, stood in an aisle having a huge chat with another enormous family they know when they could do the same thing in the car park!
I know it's anal of me but i really wish there were lane markings, lights and traffic cops in supermarkets.
they say a dog is for life not just for christmas ... this means i have to endure a lifetime of Mo running madly round and round the garden with an empty 5 litre water bottle in her drippy hairy chops ...
I love Christmas Trees, so much so that I find taking the tree down on 6th Jan terribly depressing. Was thinking perhaps the world would be a nicer place if we had trees for all seasons in our homes.
For example, in the Spring you could have a tree decorated with bunnies and umbrellas, in the summer (palm) trees decorated with Speedos and cucumbers (or any other Pimm's making ingredients) and in the Autumn perhaps a variety of shellfish and witches hats. I think perhaps I will appoint myself president of the FrouFrou Folliage society.
I'm playing chicken with the Christmas shopping this year. I had intended to do it today, but I'm putting it off 'til tomorrow. Or Thursday. Maybe Friday if I'm strong enough.
Am busting with my hand up to answer Ely's last thread. But won't. In case I incur the wrath of Tuff. Stephen D has been mean to me on another thread. I am annoyed but feeling charitable since is Christmas (nearly) and Friday (definitely).
*whispers to Ely - she was trying to work out where she could fit them all. Was she wearing a large coat? Or hobbling?*
Colin,
Ely, Rachel and Hen have broken the rules and now i have too!
Peter Tatchell looks remarkably like Adolf Hitler, less gay perhaps, but even more miserable.
My "boss" has just retired leaving me to do all the work.
Buying him a leaving card was a problem - card shops are stocked to the brim with red and gold glittery Christmas ones and NOBODY leaves their job in December, at least not until after their bonus is secure.
Right, Lippipissi is straight to the sin bin to join Henstoat - who's sentence is doubled (like he ever says anything short and sweet). I'll throw in a sprig of mistletoe and lock the door and they can peck away 'till their hearts are content.
Ely, Rachel, Tan and Alumbloom are yellow carded. One more offence and you get to join Hen and Lippy in a padded cell.
Now try and behave while I type my next post.
An update:
Al, the missing typo, has been arrested after being spotted on the A1 trying to hitch a lift wearing Firstwife's feather boa from the hen party.
Oaf said The Incredibles is credible.
Outfit pouted.
We bought a plastic tree today.
I've heard some damn good beer-incident stories over the years (and told some) but the one I heard today will take some beating.
I attended a meeting at 11am today in Toddington (beds). There were four present. One looked decidedly hungover. He clutched the back of a chair and looked through the window at the horizon before he could speak.
He had been to a christmas party in London last night and got home at 3AM. Most of his entourage had got almost legless, apart from a bloke he referred to as Bimbo, who got completely legless. Bimbo is, apparently, a large bloke and took out two tables, three drinkers and several pints in his collapse.
Somehow, they got him home. At 10.50 this morning the bloke telling the story received a phone call from Bimbo.
I ought to say at this point that Bimbo is married to a ferocious and very houseproud woman.
Bimbo arrived home and promptly chucked up over his lounge carpet. He knew he was in the shit and sat there wondering how to remove all traces of puke before his wife got up in the morning.
His addled brain found a solution and, convinced his wife would never know, he headed (sniggering) for his tool-box.
Stanley knife in hand he carefully cut around the puke area, folded up the stained piece of carpet, threw it in the bin and went to bed.
When he woke up, shortly before his phone call to the bloke who told the story, he was astonished to find a circle of carpet missing in his lounge and, as it came back to him, phoned for womanly asylum.
Superb!
I went bowling tonight. Except that I didn't.
Bowl that is.
Due to my VERY BAD BACK that everyone I met tonight put down to "too much sex"
Oh, ha fucking ha fucking ha.
The Christmas lights were shit too.
my son thinks its a good idea to cook everyone steak in stilton sauce ... sauce made from gallons of double cream and tons of stilton ... served with spicy potato wedges ...
this has been the final straw in the assault on my poor innards ... they are in turmoil ...
*looks up ely's enema*
Just finished working on some book covers that will be in the post by Monday at latest. Pity same can't be said about Christ ma scards.
Have downed one fifth of a bottle of The Famous Grouse.
Have not mentioned Arsenal or Spurs out of sheer gentlemanliness.
Where's sadbelle when you want to sneer and scoff?
I'm wondering if fish often mistakes mo for bert.
mobertmobmobert@aol.com?
Are we still on speaking terms, Storms? Tony?
Regards,
Florent Sinama Pongolle.
and a big HELLO/GOODBYE to all Arses out there from
the one they call Gerd
Mellor.
[%sig%]
*kicks the shit out of the sin bin (but only after kicking the shit out of cockweasel) and heads back to the thread with all guns blazing. Sees Colin leaning against the bar bemoaning his bad back and kicks the legs out from under him. I'm getting the hang of this kicking business now. OK, who wants some?*
We live in London. It's zone 2 so it's almost central London. Why then, are there people walking up and down our road doing their Christmas shopping wearing wellies? I have seen four people today in wellington boots (one green pair). It's beyond me. Take most of these people to the countryside and they'd break out in hives, dive for the cover of their chelsea tractors and make their way back up the A3 to the mothership of SW1.
Due to being on crutches Christmsa shopping is going to be a nightmare this year. It is every year but it's even worse this year. I only go shopping once a year and need all sorts of stimulants to get me round the course. I decided that as I can only carry a very little bit at a time I would do it in bits. Yesterday I bought some chocolate snowmen from the organic chocolate shop to go in her stocking. Off the internet I bought an 'everlasting' torch and an ironing board cover where the towel comes off the naked man on the picture when the hot iron goes over it. They arrived in the post this morning. That was good service, wasn't it?
I am just so bad at buying things. I can't think of anything I could possibly want. I have clothes, I have books, I have food and drink and I have lots of records. What else could I possibly want? And if I don't want stuff then what on earth would the other half want? It's all beyond me.
we have already had our works christmas "do" ... how ridiculous is that? ... i have barely begun to even think about christmas shopping and whatnot and i am suddenly expected to sing hi ho silver lining with a piece of tinsel round my neck in a room full of prison officers????
i didnt go ...
Two little scally kids came round last night and sang "We wish you a merry christmas" and then then stopped and looked at us like we should give them something for those 6 words alone.
We didn't.
in a further expression of yuletide warmth and human compassion mixed with friendliness my neighbour has reported me to the pigs for not correctly displaying my tax disc ...
I know that the spirit of Christmas is here.
A guy in a wheelchair got onto the train from Brighton this morning. We arrived at Victoria. Everyone except me and this bloke got off the carriage as we were the slowest. I asked 'are you OK? Are you going to get off the train?' He said: 'I'll just wait for someone to come along'.
Now being on crutches at the moment I was not the person who could help him best but I offered all the same.
I went to the ticket barrier and pointed out to the man in charge that there was someone stuck on the train who needed the wheelchair ramp bringing to him.
His response? "I'm on tickets. It's nothing to do with me."
I hobbled over to a man in a green jacket whose badge told me that he was in charge. I pointed out the problem.
'I'm on my break,' he said.
'So, you expect me, a cripple and nothing to do with the railways, to sort this out.'
At which point his conscience was pricked.
'Oi,' he yelled at the nearest man in an orange jacket who stood 100 yards (110 metres) up the the platform. 'Ramp needed for him in train there.'
Now, that was whilst he was on his break.
Who said the spirit of Christmas is dead?
to shout badly of ramps while breaking is surely the spirit of our lord incarnate Brother Antonio.
He will be remembered in my prayers at evensong this winter's night.
...and lo, he did shout "Oi!" and so was the word given unto his brother, who was NOT on a break, so that he might help the troubled stranger who's crippled and broken servent had sought the light... and a ramp too.
there is a hideous house in murky that has a front garden entirely full of illuminated reindeer and winking drop your trouser santas ... the front of the house is swathed and bedecked in every chasing blinking musical frippery you can imagine and santa himself (twice lifesize) is on the roof with some reindeer ...
they had a launch on the green with a bouncy castle ...
it makes me barf
Pages