THE PENDULUM HAS SWUNG TOO FAR

In the ‘60’s there was a swing away from “the establishment” toward “rights for the common working man”. In this country we had a ground break TV show called “That Was The Week That Was”. The material was satirical, cynical and, at times, downright treasonable but they a shone light into murky holes and dragged sleaze and corruption out into the open. It was great stuff.

But now, in my opinion, the pendulum has swung too far. The “common working man” has become the enemy of good, honest, hardworking citizens. I was told a story this week that typifies the petty bureaucracy that is now blighting us.

A friend of mine had her wheelie bin stolen. She rang up the council to ask for another bin and was told that they wouldn’t supply her with a new one. She had two young children in nappies, so she asked what she should do and was told to take her refuse straight to the tip. As you would expect she was incensed, and kicked up an almighty fuss. But the council wouldn’t be moved. No new bin and that was that. She rang them so often to complain that in the end they refused to take her calls. Luckily she had good neighbours who allowed her to deposit rubbish in their bins and that was how she managed to get by.

This lady is a ratepayer, a teacher and her husband’s a computer programmer and because they were diligent and careful with their finances they had managed to buy their own house. A few streets away lived her cousin who was not a ratepayer, had never worked in her life, lived on benefits, and, along with her children, lived in a council house. She complained to the council that her wheelie bin was too small and was immediately issued with a “family size” bin.

One day my friend was in town when there was a political rally taking place. She marched up to the front of the crowd and told her story to the candidate and the next day was issued with a new bin.

Obvious it was within the remit of the council to supply new bins; they had, after all, supplied her cousin with a new bin and, after the candidate intervened, supplied her with a new bin too. So what was going on here?

It is my belief that because she was perceived by the council to be a “successful person” living in her own house she was penalised and because her cousin was perceived to be “underprivileged” she was rewarded. Come back “establishment” all is forgiven. You aren’t the enemy after all. The “common working man” is!

And finally …..no-one ever says 'It's only a game' when their team's winning.

A PRECAUTIONARY TALE

How to turn this:







Into this:










Step 1: Marry a builder
Step 2: Prepare to throw a shed load of money at it
Step 3: Endure two years of merciless banging, hammering, grinding, swearing and falling out, add piles of rubble, dust and a trashed garden and there you have it. Hey presto!

This room has been particularly troublesome because the new limestone floor was mis-laid. And by mis-laid I don't mean lost! When I decided to have a limestone floor our smart ass interior designer son-in-law reminded me of the problems we had had once before when a floor had to be completely re-laid. "Oh no" said I "I know the pitfalls now, that won't happen again". Well it did.

Our son-in-law recommended that this time we use an experienced limestone tiler. When he priced the job up we swallowed hard and immediately our plaster said "I can do that at half the cost" we bit his hand off. Now you would think that OG, being an experienced builder, and me, being an experienced wife of a builder, would be cautious. But we liked the guy, he is a good plasterer and he promised us a good job. So... we took him at his word. The work was crap. When OG complained it was obvious that we were in for a fight and given the fact that we were unsure of his ability to repair his shoddy work we decided to write it off to experience (again). So...four weeks later it has finally been put right at great expense (to us, naturally).

I believe that we may now be on the home straight. Once this room is finished OG only has to complete two ensuite bedrooms and we are finished. Then on to the landscaping and indoor swimming pool complex.....

And finally ... After 70 if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

DADDY'S CAR IN THE WOODS?

"Nanny, do you have two maids that come and do the office"
"Office cleaners?"
"Yes, I just saw two maids"
"I don't think that Ed would be delighted to be called a maid, but whatever"

Ed, you are the the most efficient maid we have ever had cleaning the office. And, incidentally, the prettiest.

And finally .... little Johnny watched his daddy's car pass by the school playground and go into the woods.

Curious, he followed the car and saw Daddy and Aunt Jane in a passionate embrace.

Little Johnny found this so exciting that he could hardly contain himself as he ran home and started to tell his mother.

'Mummy, I was at the playground and I saw Daddy's car go into the woods with Aunt Jane. I went back to look and he was giving Aunt Jane a big kiss, and then he helped her take off her shirt. Then Aunt Jane helped Daddy take his pants off, then Aunt Jane...'

At this point Mummy cut him off and said, 'Johnny, this is such an interesting story, lets save the rest of it for supper time. I want to see the look on Daddy's face when you tell it tonight.'

At the dinner table that evening, Mummy asked little Johnny to tell his story.

Johnny started his story, 'I was at the playground and I saw Daddy's car go into the woods with Aunt Jane. I went back to look and he was giving Aunt Jane a big kiss, then he helped her take off her shirt. Then Aunt Jane helped Daddy take his pants off, then Aunt Jane and Daddy started doing the same thing that Mummy and Uncle Bill used to do when Daddy was away on the rigs.'

Mummy fainted!

Moral: Sometimes you need to just shut the f##k up and listen to the whole story before you interrupt!

NAUGHTY GIRLS - THE FINAL SOLUTION

Day one of looking after the children and I am demented already. The baby is great. He just takes a bottle, laughs a lot and then goes to sleep. The two girls are something else though. While OG is out they are whinging and moaning at me because I won't let them have a water fight. I know that the minute he gets back he will let them and I will have to get mad with him too. You may think that I'm mean, but I know from bitter experience that water fights mean lots of mess, dirty clothes and pools of water in the house. These girls should be boys. No, I retract that last remark. Boys are a lot easier than these two.

They have already changed their clothes several times this morning and now want me to go and see a lightening storm in the distance. "Nanny, nanny we had to rush in, we just heard thunder". How come everything is so exciting at that age? After that they want me to take them home to fetch their scooters, that's after they have been swimming with OG, and, by the way, one of the scooters isn't working properly so there may be a side trip to buy a new one. And it's only 1135. I'm exausted already. Oh my where do they get their energy?!

I've found the solution. They are now behind bars while baby sleeps. Ah peace at last.





And finally .... how come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?

BLOGLET (2)

My bloglet today comes compliments of DogLover. I think this is so funny.

There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job it was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses.

One day, a letter came addressed in a shaky handwriting to God with no actual address or postcode. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. The letter read:

Dear God,

I am an 83 year old widow, living on a very small pension.
Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had £100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension payment. Next Sunday is my birthday, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with, have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope..
Please help me?

Sincerely, Edna

The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few pounds. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected £96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman.

The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow thinking of Edna and the dinner she would be able to share with her friends.
A few days later, another letter came addressed to God and in the same hand. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened.
It read:

Dear God,

How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift.

By the way, there was £4 missing. I think it might have been those bastards at the post office.

Sincerely,

Edna

The meal at Hambelton Hall was to die for. Thank you so much for my birthday treat Tracie and Daniel. It was a great evening out and the company was excellent.

My cooking for the next few days will be of the nursery kind. We have our two great grandaughters and their baby brother coming to stay. So it's cottage pie, spag bol and the like. Not exactly haute cuisine, but I will endeavour to make it tasty (that's if the two naughty girls leave me time to cook). OG is looking forward to their visit so much. He absolutely adores them, as indeed do I.

So the bloglets may continue for a while until I gather my strength again! Question, is a bloglet a twitter?

BLOGLET

My collegues in the office commented that I haven't written a blog for a while. I explained that I am so out of routine and really need to get disciplined again. Clair suggested that in the meantime I should write some bloglets. So here is my bloglet today. This evening one of our daughters is treating OG and me to a "fine dining" experience at http://www.hambletonhall.com. Must go and get ready. Toodle pip.

STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF

It has been commented to me that in "retirement" OG and I have become excessively and sometimes exhaustingly busy. Take the last three days for example. Between us we transported our favourite grandson-in-law between coaching assignments four times, took a great granddaughter to school and back three times, baby sat her sick sister for four hours, went clothes shopping with a granddaugher, took a grandson to buy his birthday present, took him swimming and drum practice, took the car in for MOT, went for a leisurely lunch with a daughter, shoehorned in visits to the dentist, hairdresser and doctors and in our free time watched a bit of Wimbledon!.

The most exhausting part was working out the logistics. This week, because of the complexity of our commitments, I actually had to compile a spreadsheet! Matters were not improved when I suddenly thought that Monday was Tuesday and turned up at the dentist a day early.

And finally…. I was sent this by DogLover. Don’t you just love it?

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?" Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany . Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?" “You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud. "Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog.”