Persistent

Max Pain

Went to see it with Simon this afternoon, I like Marl Wahlberg he was great in Four Brothers, excellent in The Departed and brilliant in The Shooter.
Now I have have to try and figure out why he chose to make Max Payne.
Worth seeing, but not worth going to see. More of the latter.
Disappointing.

Christmas

It is unusual for me to be ahead with the Christmas present buying. For many years Rebecca and I have done the last minute run-around, racing around shops with a limited budget just a few days before Christmas in the hope that there are some decent things left to purchase.

But not this year, this year is different, because this year for the first time before the end of November  I have managed to get the big presents for most of the direct family, Simon, Sophie, Kieran and Rebecca are sorted, and this year for the first time I have not set foot into a shop. Everything that has been bought so far has come from the internet, and I wont be in the least bit surprised if this year Rebecca and I sit and browse through web pages to choose presents for our parents and siblings, it is easier on the feet and after choosing a quick run to www.myvouchercodes.co.uk (or similar web site) can often get you five or ten percent discount.

I have just completed my Christmas wish list (available to all upon request) and all of it is web based, in fact if I get the things I want Amazon will do well this year.

So come on Christmas, for once I am not frightened of you, and that feels quite good.

Lets jump on the bandwagon cos we can't think of anything else to do.

 I think perhaps that Ipswich MP Chris Mole goes into hospital to have whatever is irritating him removed from his cavity.

It may have been wrong for Jeremy Clarkson to make the prostitute death joke, but anyone who watches or reads Clarkson knows that he has always driven close to the edge with his narration, it is part of his broadcasting style. And if on this occasion he has toppled over the aforementioned edge then let him take the internal BBC slap on the wrist then get on with his career.

 Chris Mole shouting for Mr Clarkson’s dismissal is just a cheap way for him to get headlines, perhaps the excitement of judging the Ipswich Yoyo competition in the previous week was just too much for him and put him into a high which he felt he needed to peak once again.
Or perhaps he has never heard of the  UK laws that protect people from being sacked just because some idiot with a different opinion jumps up and down.

Holidays are so much fun

I have a week off, but I seem to have so much to do that I can’t bring myself to start.

I have to do two days of work on the ‘work’ magazine so that I have assigned to half day today, half day Wednesday andmost of Friday. I can’t do Tuesday as Rebecca is off and we are going to Newcastle.

At some point this week Frank is coming around to make a bow (or at least start) and I have no idea which day as I said to him jovially “Oh, I am on holiday, so any day that suits you Frank” Urrg!

I want to start writing again, I left ‘the book’ off a while ago but ideas have been ticking through my head and I need to start again, I hope to do that this week, and I have promised to ring some companies to drum up some Xmas hamper business which I want to do so that PON has a good winter, and I will have to keep Kieran occupied when he gets back from my mums.

Of course being on holiday also means that I can’t expect Rebecca to make tea every night so I need to get that sorted too.

11am Monday, 2 hours into my week off. Oh joy!

This site cheered me up

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/

I hope you like it too
:)

Morpeth

Two weeks ago we went into Morpeth on the Sunday afternoon and walked around one of the areas that had been hit by the floods just one week before. It was heartbreaking to see the streets lined with skips full of people’s possessions. Carpets, furniture, white goods, and the heartbreaking children’s toys, soggy wet teddy bears probably once cherished now stinking and unlovable.

Nearly every house had an industrial sized dryer/dehumidifier chugging away next to it, the long white sterile drying pipes coming out through part opened windows. All of the houses were empty. There were whole rows of deserted dead streets and full skips, and on a warm Sunday afternoon the only people around were ourselves and one other couple who were also devastation tourists.

I found some photographs on a local photographers website that shows how high the water was the rest of the pictures are at www.ljbell.com

 

Brrrrday

In olden times people looked  to gods for the naming of items.

Days of the week for example and months of the year.

I think that the opportunity of living in changeable English weather which sits nicely beside the weird weather patterns of climate change gives us the opportunity to rename the days of the week according to how the weather turns.

From this point on days should be named thus:

Mugday

Glumday

Twoday

Wetday

Brrrrrrrrday

Fryday

Flatertaterday

Just need to work on the months now.

Smoking Gnomes

Do you remember the time before 24 hour TV?

We were talking about it at work today, at around 11.30pm every weeknight there would be the final program called Epilogue in which someone talked about Jesus while attempting to sit up straight in a big chair, then the screen would disappear into a little dot and there would be darkness until around 10.30am when the test card would come on with the transmission information for TV repairmen being read out. No mobiles or emails in those days, the TV you worked on also gave you the information you needed. I remember listening to how Pontop Pike and Bilsdale transmitters would be off line at certain times excited because I knew that soon the real TV would start.

 It was only weekends when TV started earlier at around 8am we would have the Banana Splits, a program called Why don’t you just switch off your television set and go and do something less boring instead’ (now replaced by a program called Big Brother) then an old black & white movie, usually a movie about WW2. These movies were later replaced with programs like Swap Shop and TISWAS.

 For those who do not remember it was 1983 when breakfast TV started, for the first time ever we could turn the TV on to hear the news instead of having to listen to the radio. That caused a huge change as the radio ‘breakfast’ DJ spot was no longer the best and all radio concentration moved to ‘drive time’. A term we take for granted now but that was never used before TV invaded the morning schedules.

 At that time they didn’t change schedules for school holidays either, during the summer holidays TV still started at around 11am in the morning, I was usually out playing by then, although I do have to admit that there were some rainy mornings when I would be sitting there at 10.55am just waiting to see if they would start just a few minutes early.

 Of course in the early 70’s they started to transmit school programs (even in the summer holidays) at around 9.30am so there was something to watch until midday when the BBC would do ‘Watch with Mother’ (so named because mother would plonk you in front of it and go and do something else) and ITV would put on Rainbow.

This hour of children’s TV would be followed by some news, then a program called Crown Court, a drama in which people talked nicely to each other about petty crime. Then General Hospital, more children’s programs, crossroads and the news.

 24 hour TV just did not exist, and overall I don’t remember missing it too much because it wasn’t there.

 While I am remembering, does anyone remember Paulus the Woodgnome, voiced by Spike Milligan and puffing his pipe in front of the children. If not here is something to help you remember.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aFsAs8KuuU&feature=related

For those of you who missed it

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