Christmas Cheer!

In a radical departure from my normal anti-government and anti-corporate rants let me give you a gift for Christmas.  This remarkable clip was sent to me by my daughter.  I do not know who first thought it up but it was pure genius!  I still feel sorry for the guy who wanted socks and pants!!

Merry Christmas!

Today we had a pre Christmas pub lunch with my family from Derby. This is what Christmas is all about for me because families make a real effort to join together. Actually there was no lunch we just shared time together (and a few drinks) before my sister in law, my niece and the impressive father of her daughter departed to visit my mother.

Regular followers of this blog know that I am family man who hates the Political Class because I regard most of them as traitors to their heritage. My mother is in her final days (I hope) because her quality of life is negligible. We can only hope that she is comfortable and that is why we all visit regularly.

My mother was the bedrock of the family but today she is unrecognisable. Even my beloved daughter was shocked at how different she has become.  It is time for the end.

So everyone Christmas is a poignant time of year. On one hand we celebrate the birth of a new member of the family and yet we may have the death of a much revered person who, in her time, has been a genuine mother and grandmother to us all.

Today, it is past midnight, the girls will delight us all by their reaction to their presents. They are always spoiled but we can do it. Nobody in my family goes into debt for Christmas (to my knowledge). I love the family atmosphere and the togetherness and I hope that my family in Derby keeps in touch. They are the family of my late brother who tragically died aged 38 many years ago.

Despite that may I take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Christmas and let's hope that next year we take the fight to the politicians again. Did you really expect me to wish you anything else? Celebrate our lives because they end too soon. Merry Christmas1

Happy Christmas!

It is time for the grumpy one to wish everyone a really Happy Christmas! I have just returned home from a normal Friday evening at my local club. The bowls section of the club always congregate in the same corner...it is becoming a row because it seems to be expanding.


I am so thankful that I have so many social friends because life is meaningless without friends. It is at this time of year that people actually begin to appreciate what they have got. So Merry Christmas to my family, to my mates, Bert, Derrick (spelling), John, Paul, Rob and Margaret, Colin and Cinth, Michael and Jane, my relations Chris and Derek and their families and my mother in law, to Ali's church friends, to Ruth and Ben and family, to my dear Mum, to my NLITEC ex trainees, Jay (who supports me without question) and her family, lovely Jackie who works such long hours and Bec who I have found again after so many years. Then we go north to Scotland to Iain's friends Jess, Tris, Linda and Dan and Ann. 


I would also like to include my son's ex wife Janine because she is responsible for our third granddaughter Taylor. My old army mate Bill and his wife Valerie and then Dennis and Jen and Pete and Sue and Ann and Mick and Alex and Jane...this is getting ridiculous!


I have probably forgotten so many people but I have tried to illustrate how friendships are so important and mean so much at this time of year. I could go further afield to America and to Australia, to Hong Kong but I have just realised what a lucky guy I am! Maybe in the New Year I should stop being so grumpy but then I seriously care about the state of my country!  


Finally may I just thank all of the people who have drifted past this blog and contributed. Somehow I am attracting an audience of sorts because my viewing figures continue to escalate. Most of it is thanks to Captain Ranty for picking up this humble blog and granting me an Awkward Sod status! The fight against oppression will continue.    

Boxing Day

I really quite like Boxing Day because the pressure is off. This is a guy talking and the build up to present giving has gone. We have either won or lost but whatever, if you rely on your daughter for advice you will probably back a winner and I did.

Tomorrow us guys are a bit back to normal. Sport is back on the agenda and we normally have a full football programme, usually Horse Racing is back and down under we continue to contest The Ashes.

The ladies in my family concentrate on food and we usually have a cracking lunch. I will have to entertain the girls which I love but I always have one eye on the game at Pride Park Derby. One good consequence of this really bad weather is that the Kempton Park race meeting featuring the King George VI champion chase has been put back one day! Yippee!

Horse racing is a passion of mine. I have had a great season recently and I have often thought of opening up this blog to my thoughts on betting. I was at one time what the Intelligence Corps described as an 'Analyst' and I was in love with the job. When I left the forces only horse racing replaced the buzz.

And so back to Sky TV and the Ashes series...and we have just won the toss!

Christmas Presents

As usual we had a lovely Christmas Day! My grandaughters were treated to an X Box so we spent the day prancing about in front of the telly throwing the javelin and discus, hurdling, sprinting and ten pin bowling. The wonders of modern technology!

I also received a couple of books one by Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail entitled '50 people who buggered up Britain' and another quaintly entitled 'Crap MPs'! Perhaps I should try and tone things down a bit. My daughter obviously thinks her Dad is a revolutionary! It did however give me an idea for a follow up book 'Even Crappier MPs'.

I would probably be spoiled for choice!

It is that time of year....

Here we go it's humbug time! You know that I talk to my mates and we all dread Christmas because it take us out of our comfort zone. We have to go shopping for female things! Ouch! We are no longer single men with any sexual charisma and so we cannot anticipate what is right and what is wrong.

I mean what do we know about jewellery, handbags, cosmetics and suchlike. It is ridiculous! I wandered around town today groping for inspiration. The helpful shop assistants asked if they could help but how can they when I have no idea what I want/need/like!

Tomorrow I meet my mates and the last thing that we will discuss will be Christmas. We all love our families and it is lovely to spend time with them... but presents? It is so often a waste of money. We try to please and spend money that we would normally never even consider but somehow for some guys it is never enough and it ruins the occasion.

Fortunately I have the best advice a man could have. I have an absolute expert on shopping, someone unparalled in the art of pleasing her mum, someone who every year saves her dad from shame and ensures that her mum is happy! I just hope that she is reading this.

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful day today having a real British Christmas with our daughter her husband and our two lovely granddaughters. I sometimes think that my family are the backbone of the country because everyone is and has been hardworking, respectable and live their lives on Christian principles.

Some of us believe in God and attend church regularly and others like me are not convinced by religion but I would never decry those members of my family who believe because that is their right and frankly they are better people for their belief.

Mother is 93 and three days before Christmas she fractured her pelvis stepping off the bottom stair in the house. She has not responded well but she is being well looked after in the local Community hospital. I believe that things will change from now on but my theme is family.

My brother died back in 1995 but his family keep in touch. They are really supportive and have regularly visited my mother/mother-in-law/Grandmother even though they have to travel from Derby. My son rang from Edinburgh and my only cousin rang from Hong Kong. We are small but close knit.

We do not have arguments even though we are all educated, independent in thought and qualified in something or other. All my family work nights but all bases are covered even by my wife who often sleeps over to look after our grandchildren, even though the cats sleep on her head!!

Today was magical and lovely and far removed from what is happening in the country today. We are all deserving of government support because we all pay our taxes but regularly we see our money pissed up against the wall by a ridiculous and incompetent Marxist government. Even the granddaughters boo when Gordon Brown appears on television.

This Cabinet will never understand how much they are reviled by the genuine familes of England. If we had a backbone somebody would arise and erect a gallows very close to Downing Street!

Merry Christmas

I can hardly believe that it is Christmas Eve. That is the problem when one retires because the build up almost passes you by. Apart from buying presents and watching everyone else hurling themselves into the frazzle we old people can view it largely from afar!

The highlights will of course be watching my grandchildren opening their presents safe in the knowledge that they will once again have been vastly over indulged. I bet most of them would give it up for one of days in the countryside that I had as a kid when we roved around all day knowing that the streets were safe and that if we had a problem there was usually a policeman close at hand.

Still that is their lot now so we try and make it up in other ways.

I can hardly believe that this BLOG is nearly one year old. It began as a means to air my frustration at the modern day political world which was ruining or had ruined my country. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that 2008 would go down in history as an even worse year than the preceding ones under NoLab but of course it has.

This morning I watched a couple of items on BBC2 one of which highlighted the railways in the fifties when the country was sane. It was a world of steam engines, pipe smoking, woollen pullovers and working men with pride and dignity in doing a job well done. It is difficult to believe how far this country has fallen since those days.

Still I have done my little bit to filter through some common sense and let people, who don't normally read a paper or who haven't got the time to wade into politics, know just what is actually happening.

As you can see this is a no frills, no pictures BLOG but much to my utter surprise I have had 888 visitors so far this year. Now I know that some are repeat visitors but I just hope that I have made somebody think about what is going on. Thanks for passing by and Merry Christmas!

Christmas

If anything illustrates the difference between the sexes it just has to be Christmas!
Most of the guys I know will be happy to see the end of it all and we can fully understand the 'Bah Humbug' club which was recently publicised on TV. It is not that we begrudge the kids a treat,it is not that we don't want to buy our loved ones a present but Christmas has been turned into a gigantic orgy of extravagance and it is the women who have done it.

For weeks ahead they plan, organize, conspire and plot for this day of all days while the men just shake their heads and go along with it all. Most of us would happily have a few pints, shake a few hands, enjoy a family dinner and get on with life but is that enough? Oh no... not in today's modern female world. We must search for clues as to what she wants. If we miss the clues then we are in the doghouse. If we don't enthuse over every expense we are in the doghouse. If we don't take an interest we are in the doghouse.

Christmas makes us men vulnerable on all fronts. Do we normally go present shopping? Do we know where to go? How many of us have a degree in present wrapping? Are we experts in decorating a bloody Christmas tree? Do we care? The whole thing has become a nightmare and tomorrow night when I meet my mates at my bowls club we will no doubt swop horror stories!

Still that is the lot of the elderly male. This year I am ahead of the game because I learned my lesson years ago that waiting until the last week or two before you think of a present is a bad idea. The good thing is that with typical male cunning I always get the best advice. One thing that I discovered in my years of military service is that you must surround yourself with the best talent and that is how I survive Christmas.

I lean heavily on my daughter!! Guys that is the answer. If you think you have a great idea you must first run it past your daughter or a close female friend of your wife. Generally you suddenly discover that your brilliant idea was in fact crap but because you have made the effort then you find that your ally knows exactly what the perfect present would be. You will gain so many brownie points you will actually become quite smug.

Perhaps I should write a book about how to survive Christmas but then after all it only lasts three months. Merry Christmas to all of you who have found me. Hopefully next year we will see some sanity return to our country but somehow I have my doubts.