Author: Janus

Hey! I'm back ...... and front

A moot point

Our resident lawyer has raised a vital issue:

… how are there going to be ‘British’ embassies to no longer promote whisky? … (whatever name you come up with for the rest of the Disunited Kingdom).

If Nova Caledonia floats away, Britain will be diminished! Britannia’s rump will be……what? Anglia, including West Anglia?

This problem would never have arisen if Victoria’s desire to rename Scotland ‘North Britain’ had been adopted. Britain would now survive any minor pruning by hysterical apostates.

Please submit name suggestions for un-Jocked Britain – there’ll be prizes of course: 1st prize a week in Stirling, 2nd prize 2 weeks in Stirling.

A Michael Caine moment

As a mere Sassenach I’m hardly qualified to draw conclusions but I wonder if Alex the Braveheart realises how much business his Nova Caledonia stands to lose by cutting itself adrift?

The other day a Tory minister let slip that scotch would no longer be promoted by British embassies worldwide. No doubt Irish whiskeys and bourbon would do instead. And an even deeper cut was revealed today: English people consume more haggis than Scots! Which would certainly cease to be the case if Alex prevailed. We’d resort to tripe and onions, Cornish pasties and Eccles cakes.

So be careful, once more, for what you wish for, you apostates.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/9038376/English-eat-more-haggis-than-Scots.html

Another sonnet for the pomes comp

Its all a load o balderdash! Dyou wish

To keep those pesky commas in mid-air?

How can they influence the price of fish?

If bookshops want to drop them, do I care?

Them Waterstones will still sell books, I smise

Like Boots will do the drugs and Tiffnys jewls?

And Ronald will make burgers, Sainsbrys pies?

Do squiggles in some logos make them fools?

So lets go back to dear old GBS.

He knew a thing or two bout grammar stuff.

Lets rite it ow we say it – dont digress.

Of snobby arty farty crap – enuff!

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

I shall! And sweep that comma clean away!

The rest is easy

Woman wearing pyjamas outdoors

My cherished contemporaries will recall a satirical ‘sixties show called TWTWTW with David Frost, Willie Rushton, Millicent Martin and Roy Kinnear – plus a few other ‘names’ – who came up with the classic one-liner: ‘The rest is easy with Bonsoir pyjamas.’ Very naughty in those innocent days.

Fifty years on, it seems that pyjamas are making an unwelcome appearance outside the confines of the family bedrooms. No, not the garb traditionally worn by middle-eastern folk, but real pyjamas. Understandably perhaps – given the modern malaise of retiring too late and over-sleeeping – which allows little time for washing and dressing in street attire.

But enough is enough for a Dublin welfare office and a Belfast school. Apparently they refuse to accept that their pyjama-ed visitors prefer to conduct their morning business and return to their duvets in short order.

By and large I see their point but it sets a dangerous precedent. Soon they’ll demand that council workers and teachers themselves dress respectably!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16740199

 

Another setback for the Don

Yes, we’re leaving the La Mancha region of the Baltic, having tilted at the monster mills and lost the fight. The local council, this evening, was unimpressed by our action group’s petition from 350 burghers, maintaining that the noise is no worse than the birdsong from the hedgerows and the new generation of turbines, far from being a blot on the landscape, will be a tourist attraction. Who could argue with logic like that? Oh and they’re cheaper to install than mills out to sea. So there. Think green. Yeah, right.

Fortunately we are well on the way to negotiating a not-too-painful departure from here by Easter, before the spreading wheat fields become an industrial zone.

A (different) place for us?

‘Hey, Pancho!’ quoth Don Quixote. Or was that the Cisco Kid? Any road up, the house on the harbour turned out to be a goldfish bowl. Great location but overlooked from every angle and at the mercy of marauding German sailors of a mid-summer’s night. But undaunted our heroes found an 1850 ship-owner’s pad on the town square; big enough for us at 2,000 squ.ft., fully restored and with a glimpse of the sea from upstairs. Its walled garden backs onto the church with the wonky spire. Negotiations in progress.

Somewhere a place for us

To the strains of West Side Story…..

“There’s a place for us, Somewhere a place for us. Peace and quiet and open air Wait for us Somewhere.” And maybe we’ve found the place, if not the akshull home, yet: a sleepy old harbour town on the south-east corner of our island, called Nysted (yes, Newstead, if you will).

No, I don’t think it really competes with Chesterfield or Pisa but you get the idea. We’re going to look at several pretty properties today, all a stone’s throw from the water, and the only windmills are way out to sea, where they should be. In summer it’s a popular port of call for sailors from all over the Baltic region and even hosts a visit from the Tall Ships every year. So off we go to see if the little Nisse, the elf who lives in a good home, is anywhere to be found thereabouts.

Sweet love all

This is a tough time for patriots. The Australian Grand Slam is already quickening the pulse. Andy the North Brit threatened disaster as usual, but won; while Sam Stosur, the local favourite, didn’t make it over the first hurdle, in company with all the rest of the British contenders.

Meanwhile in deference to the unattached Cuprum, the England cricket team are demonstrating their powers of collapse. Does Pakistan have a point to prove, I wonder? (Not a single no ball yet, I see!)

I think I’d better hibernate for a few days, or the tension will take its toll. Only call me if there’s some good news.