altar boy

As an altar server, Easter was a busy time for me. Particularly so given one of our priests had delusions of grandeur. To some extent, his ambitions were thwarted because church was built when our town was still a village and was of limited capacity. Easter is one of those times when all those Catholics who have fallen by the wayside briefly rediscover their faith and pile into the front pews at their local adopting a suitably pious expression. I may have only been twelve, but I had them sussed.

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On This Day – 3rd April 1042

Coronation Edward the Confessor

On the 3rd of April 1042 Edward the Confessor was crowned in Winchester.

Edward was born in about 1003. He was the oldest son of Ethelred II (The Unready) and his second wife, Emma sister of Richard II of Normandy.  Ethelred’s name means ‘well advised’, while the epithet ‘Unready’ meant exactly the opposite –  ‘ill advised’.

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Bling up your dead

You’ve probably read in one of the national rags that it’s tomb sweeping festival this weekend. Time to get the diesel generator out the garage and wheel it down to the local graveyard first thing in the morning along with the high pressure hose you bought for cleaning the lawn furniture. Best to beat the crowds; rest assured, it’s going to get busy down at the cemetery this weekend.
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Joke (from a wee Scottish pal)

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, Irish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Irish, in the weeks that followed, an English archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story published in the Sassenach Morning Herald read:

“English archaeologists, finding traces of 130-year-old copper wire,have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 30 years earlier than the Irish”.

One week later, the Banffshire Courier in Buckie, Scotland, reported the following:

“After digging as deep as 30 feet in his pasture near Enzie, Banffshire, Jock Broon, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely fuck all.

“Jock has therefore concluded that 130 years ago, Scotland had already gone wireless.”

Pronouncing “Crisps”

The daughter of one of my Ghanaian friends had a problem pronouncing the plural of the word “crisp”. She had no trouble saying, “the air is crisp this autumn morning” but had great difficulty in saying “May I have packet of crisps please?” Her problem was not knowing when to stop making the “sps” sound at the end of the word. It would have been easier for her to say “May I have a packet of cripps please?” (Cripps being plural and a crip being singular.) So she would in effect be saying “May I have a packet of crispspsps please.”  This used to annoy me because I suspected she was taking the pss. Curiously today, my wife (Ghanaian) said to me “Honey, would you like a packet of cripps?”.

(And thanks to Ara and Bilby for the technical knowhow!)