Quote: Rood Eye @ 10th January 2020, 3:39 PMIf the party is held on the brewery's premises: it's almost impossible for anything to go wrong.
PS. Everybody in Britain knows I'm right.
Depends who organises it. Bumbling Boris could f**k it up and he's the PM.
Has anyone else experienced the intense psychological quagmire which emerges with New Year's Resolutions? My decision to think more carefully about what I ate started easily enough with a decent compromise. Rather than giving up buying Coco Pops altogether, I switched to purchasing them only for the cartoon figure on its box and simply threw all the contents into my recycling cubicle. There's nothing very unusual about this. It is being done up and down this country. To compensate, you would have thought the manufacturer could have at least re-introduced the concept of a hidden bag containing a plastic spaceman but oh no. They tell us that the monkey on the front should be more than enough.
Whatever, on 6th January, I employed a nutritional scientist to visit my home specifically so as to congratulate me for my reinvigorated larder. I had been to the supermarket to stock up on food with low calories, low fat and even vegan compatibility, not that I am one. With great fanfare, this stuff now takes up so much of the room there that they have had to abandon their fruit alcove and vegetable booth. To my surprise, she told me to ditch the lot immediately as none of them were, quote, "low carb". "So in other words", I said, "what they are doing is talking in an evil language which suggests that green is blue and cold is hot. I'm suing". But on the 9th - the day that I had booked an appointment with my solicitor - I found that I was quite unable to get out of my bed. There was nothing especially wrong with me physically. It was just that everything I had always done instinctively like eat had been buggered up and this had extended to walking.
The more I thought about it, the less able I was to do it. All I could do was lie there for six hours vaguely contemplating whether it was something about the cereal monkey that I had pinned to my pyjamas. Perhaps I should instead have bought Frosties, bagged them up and handed them in to a food bank kiosk, then put Tony the Tiger in a neat designer frame. It was only the telephone which ultimately triggered in me a natural impulse to rise. The incessant ringing in my ears was such that my neurology knew it had to be answered. But to be fair had I known it was going to be the Civil Liberties brigade, even that wouldn't have been arsed. It's the same every day with them now. A sinister voice at the other end saying "take the shop to the courts if you insist but you are not actually on the phone and this is not a phone call".
Luckily on the 11th I did manage to get out of my house for an appointment at my new doctor's surgery. It is in a tiny tented recess just off the local bypass. I didn't want to miss it as back in October during a white bread and blancmange frenzy I had broken a fingernail and being urgent they had given me ten minutes in mid January. The wait there was only an hour and a quarter but I still had time to be bludgeoned by all the posters on its canvassed walls declaring if I had experienced this or that it could be serious and I must speak to a doctor. Once with the GP, I mentioned that I thought I had 47 of the frightening conditions. "I can't wave a magic wand" she barked. "and can only deal with one thing". Maybe her sugar levels had suddenly become elevated or had free radically dropped. I really don't know. Alternatively it might just be that society itself has become a wild collection of slightly sadistic and downright contrary, raving mad people.
Upset, I returned via the supermarket and scribbled on all the porridge boxes "I'm not buying this as the Quaker isn't a proper cartoon". Getting home, wobbly on my legs without instinctive coordination. my bungalow was much the same except that it had decreased tenfold in size so I had to crawl and squeeze my way through its vastly reduced front door. Every room was now the size of a telephone box or the kind of broom cupboard hutch in which one would keep a painting of a grinning motionless animated gerbil. In contrast, the radio natter sounded twenty times as loud and my TV with its messages of totally irrational helpfulness came across as the size of several Shards. But then that is the modern version of aforementioned society for you. What is the answer? Everyone has his or her own solution. I put on my pyjamas with the pinned monkey and walked on my hands into the capsule. The one in my cot which contains a bubble wrapped micro silo,
Did you ever experiment with a tab or two when you were younger?Just asking
Unfollowed almost everyone from Instagram.
Quote: john tregorran @ 15th January 2020, 7:45 PMDid you ever experiment with a tab or two when you were younger?Just asking
I never felt the urge to. 
Quote: ell @ 15th January 2020, 9:49 PMUnfollowed almost everyone from Instagram.
Are you making some sort of protest ?
I'm not on social media,apart from this,so I'm not sure what you mean.
Quote: A Horseradish @ 15th January 2020, 10:44 PMI never felt the urge to.
Well you certainly don't need to.You have a very unconventional and creative imagination ,if I may say so
Quote: john tregorran @ 15th January 2020, 11:25 PMWell you certainly don't need to.You have a very unconventional and creative imagination ,if I may say so
Thank you.
Some of it is real and some of it is not so real.
There are observational strands in it which allude to what is often a genuine feeling of deep anxiety.
I like to assume, probably wrongly, that any reader can be crystal clear about the distinctions.
People who have known me for most of my life still struggle for a word to label me.
They have finally settled on - and if you knew them you would know that it is not meant at all flatteringly - multi-layered.
Quote: john tregorran @ 15th January 2020, 11:25 PMAre you making some sort of protest ?
I'm not on social media,apart from this,so I'm not sure what you mean
Oh is this entire thread dedicated to you? I thought it was just a status update where everyone writes about what's going on for them right now.
nice.
Most people deep down don't want to be on social media sites. If they did, there would be millions at summer fetes yearning to see who has grown the biggest marrow. But it is better to be lured into unfollowing, which is safe as it isn't actually a word, than into the alternative for that carries the risk of being accused by the village people of stalking.
They sounded glum,I was being empathetic,that's very fashionable at the moment.
I only come here when someone has forgotten to leave the things to do list.
I am starting to contemplate removing the Christmas tree and Christmas cards but I'm not rushing myself.
Tonight is Twelfth Night as it was before all the dates were artificially changed by the Calendar Act of 1750.
In parts of the South West of England, they ignore the post 1750 inaccuracies and celebrate with a wassail.
Three Cheers for the Apple Tree - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFF6ozduQ1A
Why do we celebrate ANYTHING? We're just insects crawling on the face of the earth. What weight do our celebrations have?
Quote: Briosaid @ 17th January 2020, 7:43 PMWhy do we celebrate ANYTHING? We're just insects crawling on the face of the earth.
New type of nectar found? Crowning of the Queen ant?
Currently exploring radio stations and memorable names. On Monocle 24, Markus Hippi describes what food trends we can expect in the new year 2016 - the way he says his own name twice in the introduction is totally brilliant and it beats anyone else's pronunciation of their own name. https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-globalist/1090/.
I'm also reading about the first Rudolph Wurlitzer whose organs were not only unique but they in effect went on to invent the jukebox and Gypsy Petrulengo who was apparently Christened Xavier and lived until age 98, departing in the 1960s. Hello. I'm Marrrkoooosh Hyeeppi. - I love it. It might be Saturday - well, it is - but I'm now glad I stayed in.