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All posts in category: Animals/Pets

🎵 Well it’s one for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, Now throw, cat, throw 🎵

  • August 20, 2023
  • Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Food & Drink
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Have people started flinging things at stage performers? Adele recently at her  Las Vegas concert dared anyone to throw anything at her and see what  happened!   Well, it’s not exactly a new phenomenon. Originally performers were paid by  money thrown at them on stage. I assume the more that was thrown the more  grateful they were.   Tom Jones has had enough knickers thrown at him to supply a decent sized  Marks and Spencer store and no doubt Ozzy Osbourne has enough headless  bats to build a wall.  Recently the objects have ranged from a lemon at Arianne Grande (is that a  subtle comment), a dildo at Lil Nas X, a mobile phone lobbed at Drake, a  teddy at Lady Gaga and weirdest of all, the urn of a fan’s dead mother’s  ashes tossed at Pink! (Before that someone tossed her a Brie de Meaux  cheese)!   There are three issues here that worry me. Firstly, who goes to a concert with  a massive roundel of cheese or even a funeral urn as something suitable to  toss at a performer. Secondly, with supposed security at these events how on  earth do they get in? Thirdly, don’t the people sitting next to them think this is  a tad unusual?

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I am still scared of the dentist - My dog should be too!

  • July 22, 2023
  • Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Does mentioning the dentist to me still bring up images of Lawrence Oliver and Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man?

I suspect my generation are the last of those truly frightened of dentists as we grew up in the white heat of torture during the 1960’s. Back then my dentist thought you were a cissy if you wanted novocaine for a filling, and scrapped tartar of my teeth with a grouting tool. Even now in Malta, with a fabulous dentist who has not inflicted even a tickle during a visit, I still get cold sweats as I go through the doors. I swear he has cloven hoofs and a tail poking out from under his white garment.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I’m back and I’d rather hang myself than another picture

  • July 2, 2023
  • Animals/Pets Food & Drink Life Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Did I persuade my wife to let me help us move? The last 6 weeks I have neither written this blog nor a sentence of my next novel… that I started in April!

My darling wife and indeed our marriage had survived five previous house moves during which for one reason or another I was unable to be there.

I decided this time things would be different but should have heeded the look of foreboding on my wife’s face.

Patience is something I have always interpreted as not doing something now. Well, it isn’t when it comes to moving. Patience is a basic ingredient. Rather than methodically unpack one box at a time if I decide I need something I open twenty looking for it. I then get frustrated and need to lie down… leaving a huge mess.

As you might imagine this can cause industrial scale irritation in my wife. So banished from unpacking duties I become itching to put up every picture everywhere, I set about hanging them.

Here’s what my bruised ego and body have learnt.

1.  Molly screws, which expand as if they were pregnant and are meant to allow you to secure things to plasterboard/gypsum or light walls to hang things from… are actually the devils fingers that are more likely to flip you the bird than be of any use.

2.  Those white hooks with tiny masonry nails that are meant to make drilling holes a thing of the past, well they don’t work either. They have the durability and dependability of Liz Truss’ previous Tory government. Firstly, the hooks themselves crack at the slightest pressure. Secondly, after a few weeks hanging something up, each hook can suddenly say:

“Nah, had enough of this…” and call time on staying put and instead jump out the wall.

3.  Electric screwdrivers are all very well until they shred cheap screw heads and leave you with a half drilled in screw with no way of removing it.

4.  White painted walls may look clean but they mark even by just looking at them.

5.  Parasols no matter how expensive or how heavy the base always blow over in a mild breeze and never last more than two years.

6.  The heaviest furniture always lives in the most difficult part of the house to reach.

7.  Super glue is never the answer, but double sided extra strong Gorilla tape is a gift from the Gods.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

For ffff fakes sake

  • October 10, 2022
  • Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Technology
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

Care about a fake? I note with interest a puff piece in The London Times about the Hollywood nouveau riche hiring Art Consultants. The need is because these well coiffed beings can shuffle their A list clients to the heads of the queue to get a chance to gobble up a piece of art before anyone else. It also makes A listers feel less insecure having someone there to praise or confirm their good taste or have the expert lend Hollywood Royalty some of their own.  Really? I agree if you made a few zillion dollars parading around in Spandex with the  superpower to create a hurricane by blowing through your nose, you don’t really have much credibility as a Serious Actor; but in the art world, like any other, money is money. If the Hulk is prepared to pay more than a Titan of Wall Street for a scribble and dots by Cy Twombly, let the richest man win. I would lend more credibility to all these art experts were it not for the unfeasibly large amount of fakes or overbid artwork that has been sold to our brave Hollywood friends! As long ago as 1989 Sylvester Stallone sued his art consultant for $5m.(Brave person. I would have been more worried about a jab and a hook rather than a law suit). Steve Martin bought a fake Heinrich Campendonk (crazy name crazy guy) as have hoards of others. It appears these consultants no more protect you from a painting by Pinocchio rather than Pollock as anyone else

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Love me, love my dog

  • January 30, 2022
  • Animals/Pets Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life Sex
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

When you come to my house do I suggest you don’t criticise my dogs as I won’t judge your children (at least not out loud).

Now I completely accept some people don’t like dogs... in the same way I accept that some people believe Elvis Presley is alive, well and riding Shergar across Area 51.

The thing about dogs is their love is unconditional. Even Hitler’s pet Alsatian Blondi no doubt thought Adolf a loveable chap who fed him scraps and gave him a splendid kennel complete with a swastika weathervane. That pooch was always pleased to see Mein Fuhrer, even after a hard day’s genocide.

In fact dogs are the ultimate sycophants. They laugh at your jokes, look at you admiringly, even perform tricks on demand... of course in return they expect to get food and shelter.

Dogs have indeed come a long way from their wolf forebears and many are more metrosexual with clipped nails and smart coats than flea infested hunters of old. In fact were man to become extinct in a haze of radioactive mushroom clouds, I’m afraid man’s best friend would follow pretty shortly afterwards.

The idea that Pepe the Chihuahua would survive in a post apocalypse world is farcical unless the radiation allows him to develop thumbs to open any tins of Kanga Chunks that he might uncover in the ruins of the post atomic blast.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

My pet is a drug dealer

  • January 31, 2021
  • Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Life Technology
  • View all 4 Comments
Why...

does my beloved dog get prescribed Prozac easier than me? It seems pets have far easier access to grade 'A' drugs than humans. My pug has been known to bark and the effect of our entire house going into packing cases and being shipped to Malta, now has him in paroxysms of fury. To be fair his eyesight is a bit dodgy and maybe at 13 years old he imagines all the tall wooden cases are people. ( As for the dogs thinking my friends are wooden...well that's a worry at a different level). So to calm his anxiety he has been proscribed Prozac. Who knows... if it gets worse maybe Xanax? He sure has taken on a calm 'Jack Nicholson-like' insouciance now. He's even relaxed and laid back as I prepare his food. Before he used to jump and pirouette in wild anticipation of the plate. Now he just watches looking at me as if to say: " Yeah, OK, Mark. Looks good, bro.Can I check those ingredients? No mono sodium glutamate, no artificial preservatives, contains 80% meat. Perhaps a glass of Pinot Noir with that?" When he and his younger brother go to the park I understand why other dogs come up to him so enthusiastically. They all think he's carrying! No barking, just a wry grin. I can almost hear him saying to the gathered crowd of fellow dogs: "Isn't that grass so green today? Hey, like what you did with your fur...Nice lead....., your owner still going through a bad divorce? Stressed? You should try these. Two bones a pill. Trust me. You'll just glide through the day....."  

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Not only is diet a four letter word, but Darwin was a lying bast*rd

  • January 17, 2021
  • Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Sex
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Do foods I like to eat mean I have to diet? My wife has read me the riot act after indulging in too much Christmas pudding and Port. This is where I have a disagreement with Charles Darwin whilst floating around the Pacific in HMS Beagle. He had his Eureka! moment looking at finches in the Galapagos and noticing different beaks for different foods on different islands. “Aha,” he cried. “We evolve with our surroundings; especially with regards  to eating specific foods.” If, as a species, our diet evolves with our surroundings, surely the fact that I prefer the taste of a Jelly Baby to that of a raw carrot means my body, via evolution, adapts to the candy?  But no. My body apparently directly challenges my taste buds. “Jelly baby, No. Carrot, Yes.” On the other hand if my eating habits were purely hereditary rather than evolutionary surely I would be turning up my nose at a fillet steak or coq au vin whilst longing for a Tyrannosaurus Rex cutlet or Mammoth Osso Buco ? I prefer to think that evolution will catch up. Mac and cheese followed by peach cobbler and ice cream will hopefully do me or at least future generations, far more good than artichoke hearts and a tofu sausage. Mother Nature implants desire into us for our own good.  Humans are sex mad to keep up procreation. Therefore, there must be a method behind me salivating at the smell of frying bacon or going weak at the knees at the sight of a chocolate eclair!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Attention dog toy manufacturers! May I introduce your product development team for 2021

  • January 10, 2021
  • Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

Do ALL dog toys turn into confetti? Fifty years ago we put a man on the moon. In  2004 Greece won the European Football Cup. In 2020 mankind developed a vaccine for an unknown virus in under twelve months. We can do anything... except produce a dog chew that can last longer than the first time a teenage boy has sex. This Christmas some very dear friends sent a Fortnum and Mason hamper to our French Bulldogs Clouseau and Mowgli. They were super impressed. I was green with envy. Inside was an assortment of treats, toys and tucker that should have been enough to keep a pack of Transylvanian werewolves happy for a month. Let’s discuss the toys. The first ‘indestructible’ toy was a floppy rope knotted reindeer from Kong, the leader in indestructible chews. It was shredded in under a minute. The second, an eye wateringly expensive green and red Christmas cushion lasted as long as my first coffee. Next the Fuzzu Donald Trump doll soon had white kapok coming out of his head. It looked like steam from anger, no doubt following the Senate vote in Georgia. Finally there was a tough suede ball made from the same leather as desert boots. I actually heard Mowgli burp as he devoured it. He then looked up at me. “Next time mate, it needs more salt.”

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Maltese Termites are fed up with lockdown

  • October 3, 2020
  • Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Politics
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

Did these wood-chomping insects decide to come out of hiding last week and treat my home as a smorgasbord? Recently I awoke to the sound of my wife cursing and yelling. As I was still in bed I wracked my brain if I had said or done anything offensive the night before. We had hosted a fairly drunken dinner party during which all I could recall was the dogs farted and the charming lady next to me hoovering up food and drink with abandon. Being brave I got up and went to where the wailing and gnashing of teeth came from. My wife was gesticulating at a wall that seemed to be crisscrossed with curved lines of what looked like pepper. She was frantically pulling picture frames off the wall. “They have eaten my ‘I will not talk during class’.”Sure enough a picture frame that housed the final page signed by her father of a punishment of several hundred lines handed out in 2nd grade, now looked like it was made from Swiss cheese. It was full of holes. In fact the entire back of the wooden frame had proved to be a canapé before the main course of this highly prized family heirloom. This troop of munchers seemingly overnight had devoured several picture frames and half a door frame. A feat of gluttony that was pretty impressive. “Honestly, will you look at that. These things are no respecter of Covid lockdown.....” This time I had to move quickly to avoid a slap.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

May I introduce a new dog food

  • February 14, 2020
  • Animals/Pets Food & Drink
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

Do my pets eschew their favourite tin of Kanga chunks and chew my furniture instead? Even if dimmer than a 5 watt bulb, any dog should get into it’s head that the only source of food and water is its owner. In return for a bit of tail wagging, face licking and barking at intruders, the pooch gets sustenance. A recent report showed that next to perish after humans, in a nuclear winter will be man’s best friend. Certainly if they are so confused after centuries of domestication between the nutritional value of a bone, squirrel or cat tail as opposed to the chosen smorgasbord of pic’n’mix delicacies like tennis racquets, running shoes or a chair, they deserve their fate.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

It’s not Dr. Doolittle who talks to the animals

  • January 24, 2020
  • Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Love
  • View all 7 Comments
Why...

Is there no kind of border, post code or demarcation point for where dogs can crap without the owner having to pick it up? At what point do you say to yourself when bending down wearing a cheap smelling pooh bag as a glove “What am I doing this for? I’m nearly a time zone away from the nearest village.” I always clear up in town after my dogs have answered the call of nature (cats seem to get away scot free though). If I see people let their dogs foul a footpath or park, I march up to them and hand them my own dogs pooh in a bag saying, “I think you forgot this.” They usually are quite shocked, then embarrassed, yet accept the bag. A small victory but quite satisfying. The other day I took my two pugs out to the country. They are essentially town dogs, as metrosexual as David Beckham or P.Diddy. They think mud is what you put on your face whilst having a ‘manny/peddy’, the TV remote is for chewing not sharing and strenuous exercise is running in from the garden to eat their lunch in the kitchen. However I convinced them to go for a walk with my brother-in-law’s labrador way out in the wilds last year. As soon as the big dog got into the forest, it answered the age-old question about what a bear does in the woods. The labrador had a sh*t. After a moment he casually carried on with his walk. My two pugs started barking and ran after the labrador, twitching their noses at him. They then shot me a look. “Hey, buddy. Watch this. Each time we have a crap that idiot comes up with a bag and scoops it up.” The lab stopped, a foreleg lifted in mid-air. “You gotta’ be kidding, ” he said, raising his ears and giving me a furtive glance. My two pugs immediately squatted down and in perfect unison like a pair of synchronised swimmers did their business. I calmly walked by leaving their gift to nature in the grass, relieved at one advantage of being way out in the country. The look of shock on my dogs was palpable. “What the f…? He always picks it up, ” they pleaded looking at the lab who had been watching the non-show. “Lying Townies, ” replied the labrador and with a snort ran off. We may not talk to the animals but they sure talk to each other. And they try and talk to us.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Are there no ghosts from the Stone Age?

  • October 24, 2019
  • Animals/Pets Life
  • View all 2 Comments
Why...

If you believe in things that go bump in the night (excluding booting the dog off the bed) has anyone been haunted by a club wielding Neanderthal dragging his wife along by her hair (just her head of course)? Or how about being spooked by a crazed sixties groupie, complete with kaftan and red sunglasses (but minus her teeth following a lifetime of heroin abuse)? No. How is it mankind has existed for several millennia, yet ghosts did not seem to really get their act together till circa 1500 and lost interest around 400 years later? Clearly an enterprising soul from the other side set up a decent post life ‘how to spook academy’ around 1500. Admissions for this phantom University seem to have reached a peak from the “Burn them! Burn them!” Witch Frenzy of 1560 till the end of the Victorian era at the turn of the 20th Century. That was the real prime time for ghost and ghoulies. After that, it all seemed to quieten down. Maybe spirits found something better to screw with? It is mildly worrying small electrical equipment with its inherent gremlins came into our world about then…but that’s the subject of a different blog……

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Why is my chocolate bar digitally challenged?

  • August 8, 2019
  • Animals/Pets Food & Drink
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Is there a massive gap in the overcrowded chocolate market? Over the past ten years, fancy schmanzy chocolate from every corner of the globe has appeared in retail outlets. Some plain but many with a wild mix of ingredients; everything from moon dust to crushed lark tongue (well not quite, but you know what I mean). However, when it comes to simple chocolate you are offered anemic milk at around 32% chocolate content… then there is a huge gap till you get to 65, 75, 80, 85, even 99%. What the hell happened to mid-range 35%-65% content? This gap is mystifying. I want chocolate to taste of actual chocolate but not be as bitter as a fired Cabinet Minister. 50% would be perfect.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Why hasn’t Viagra saved the rhino?

  • June 28, 2019
  • Animals/Pets Sex Travel/Nature
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Are rhinos still being hunted? I read with some joy that a bunch of white rhinos from different European zoos are meeting in Prague for a few days of R and R before being shipped out for their club 18-30 holiday village in the wilds of Rwanda. It is hoped the traditional summer holiday spirit of fornication, so alive from Fort Lauderdale to Magaluf, will also turn our teen-age rhinos into sex machines and help build back their numbers. Apparently, rhinos are polite beasts and like a ‘getting-to-know-you’ cocktail party before deciding to mate. Hence the Prague get together. Rhino courtship is in fact quite complex involving a lot of pooh smelling by the males to determine which fragrance most pleases them. I can just imagine the chit chat over a gin and tonic: “I say, Griselda. I was mighty impressed with the aroma of your pile back there. I wonder if you would care to accompany me for a stroll in the forest once we reach our holiday destination?” “Why thank you Herman, yes I spent several hours choosing the right food to leave that bouquet. How gallant of you to notice. I’d be delighted to take a walk with you. Meanwhile can you pass me some of those pineapple and cheese chunks on a stick and top up my drink?” Now a rhinoceros is in fact quite a peaceful thing. However, when you reckon they weigh 2,300 kilos and run at twice the speed of Usain Bolt at full tilt, it’s best not to piss them off. Coz you ain’t getting away from them. I spent a pleasant afternoon with some in Nepal not long ago. One did bear a big gash over a hind quarter, but the guide assured me this was a result of a little light foreplay before getting down to some serious rutting rather than ramming a tourist vehicle! However, their ground up horns are highly prized to cure erectile dysfunction. Daft really as it’s made from hair, not bone and thinking hair can help an erection is like thinking you can play snooker with cooked spaghetti. This dust, however, costs as much as Viagra. I do not understand how there is a market for an expensive piece of witchcraft that does not work as opposed to a little blue pill that does. Surely the easiest way to stop this trade is to make Viagra available at deep discounts in those parts of the world that believe this nonsense... and cut the Johnson off anyone stupid enough to buy rhino horn instead of the pill, as they clearly have no idea how a willy works. I suspect by adopting those two simple ideas, the rhino poaching problem would be solved.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Moving house... so time for an overseas trip or be admitted to hospital

  • May 4, 2019
  • Animals/Pets Life Travel/Nature Work
  • View all 2 Comments
Why...

Does my wife and I moving to a new house together equate to impending divorce? My wife was brought up a military brat and so as a kid moved to a new house every two or three years. To her, it’s a disciplined exercise, undertaken with logic. To me it’s a maelstrom of chaos mixed with a healthy dollop of fear. Without fail, the one thing I need will be in the last box I unpack. This means as soon as we arrive, I start emptying one of 300 boxes to find this missing necessity (for example my lucky underpants worn at crucial meetings), without which life as I know it will cease and my business will go bust. On our first move together, my scurrying from box to box emptying contents all over the floor to unpack that moment’s ‘must find item’ upset my wife and sent her off to find a pick-ax to discourage me from my manic actions. That was the first and last time we moved house together. We survived the experience thanks to industrial strength tranquillisers, a plantation’s output of tobacco and a vat full of booze. After that trauma, during all other moves I have either:

  1. been in the US on business,
  2. been in hospital with pneumonia
  3. or left the country at the start of a tax year.
By some miracle each time I arrive back at our new home, I find nearly everything unpacked and all that’s left is to hang the pictures and iron my lucky underpants.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Legs eggs and stupid regs

  • April 19, 2019
  • Animals/Pets Food & Drink Friends Life Sex
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Is Easter so weird? In reality of course it commemorates the trial and death of Jesus Christ. Yet in a deft bit of marketing mixed with heathen tradition it has become all about birth, sex, spring and chocolate eggs. Of course to kick all this off we have all the Mardi Gras parades, the hottest of which is of course the Rio Carnival. I have the utmost respect for the Brazilian Catholic’s. They managed to turn the beginning of 40 days of fasting mixed with sackcloth and ashes into a bacchanalian extravaganza. In fact during the carnival things really do go with a bang. The amount of cocaine consumed is so vast that there are discernible traces in the air! No wonder even your grannie can samba for a week non stop.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I can happily eat quiche, but will never be seen wearing sandals or carrying a manbag

  • March 29, 2019
  • Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Life Work
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Do some men allow themselves such sartorial sins that they verge on crimes against humanity? The disappearance of men in sandals was one of the few blessings of the Dark Ages. And yet there seems to be a renaissance of this fashion disaster made worse by the adoption of wearing these atrocities with white socks. Who on earth outside mung-bean-eating tree-huggers thinks this footwear is acceptable? Puh-lease don’t bleat they are good for walking. They are not. All they do is present lunch to various ants, centipedes and any other carnivore creepy crawlies. Unlike ladies dainty tootsies, men’s hooves are unsightly things that should not be exposed... mine are known to scare children and horses.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Big brother is watching... while serving you bacon and eggs

  • January 10, 2019
  • Animals/Pets Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Do I get paranoid about waiters who hover and watch over me?

We have just returned from an exercise in fear that my wife called a holiday in Nepal. Somewhere around 50 years old I turned from someone happy to do a handstand on the top of the 50 metre/160 ft high Roman Aqueduct The Pont du Gard to becoming afraid of heights. When I was in my twenties, before a litany of accidents, I was scared of nothing. Fall off a horse a few times and suddenly it gets harder to get back in that saddle. Therefore the knocks and bangs from reckless adventuring in my life has annoyingly driven fear through experience into my psyche. The self preservation instinct has turned me from Leo the Lion into The Cowardly Lion.

Nevertheless I was always told to face down your fears... so not to be outdone by my fearless (and younger) wife, I gritted my teeth through a helicopter ride across Annapurna range and a plane ride to Mount Everest! Added to this was a jump off Mount Annapurna in a hang glider and a trip on the world’s fastest (120KPH 80 MPH) and longest (2km 1.2mile) zip line. Toss into that an encounter with several rhinos and a tiger... all without having to change my underpants.

My wife on the other hand thought all this a hoot and in every photo is seen grinning like Jack Nicholson in One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest while I had the fixed manic smile when Jack played the Joker in Batman. I have tried to explain to her to make the most of it as soon, she too will be grabbed by old age jitters.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I spy with my little eye... well anything I want if I’m a Russian

  • October 12, 2018
  • Animals/Pets Life Politics
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Why...

Do we all act surprised and indignant that our Russian friends have been peeking into our electronic in-tray. It was ever thus. Ever since Neolithic man discovered he could use an empty coconut shell as an eavesdropping devise and hear his neighbors in the next cave having sex with a Mammoth, we have all been snooping on one another. Let’s face it. Most of what those Russkies tap into is either boring or irrelevant. And if they could actually influence an American election with a couple of tweets as opposed to the $1 billion Hillary and Donald used to batter the electorate into submission, campaign managers and spin doctors should all be made redundant. For the West it’s perfectly OK for 007 to surreptitiously bump off a double agent or photograph the head of the secret police in bed with a nun to blackmail him, but it’s completely outrageous if Putin’s Dzhemys Bondski gets one over on us. If there is one heartening thing to come out of all this, is that the GRU (formerly KGB) aren’t very good. Assassinations go awry, and if the rumours of Trump Golden Rain on Obama’s bed are true, so what? Trump seems unblackmailable! The GRU launched a spy ring of young girls in the 2000’s working at MIT who were so unutterably incompetent that the FBI didn’t bother to arrest them. Tatiana and Lyudmilla (cover names Tiffany and Chablis) even put sticky notes on their computers with their passwords as remembering them as well as the names of the best nightclubs in town was too much for the vodka addled brains.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Nice outfit. Where do you keep the fire extinguisher?

  • September 28, 2018
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Why...

Are we obsessed with safety in all things, except what can actually kill us? Last Christmas my wife and I attended a carol service in London. Before the service started with a candlelit procession and a lone voice singing out ‘Silent Night’, we got a safety announcement. Yup. All the lights were switched on, organ music stopped and the priest in full air stewardess mode pointed out where the fire exits were in case a candle ignited a choir boy’s cassock or some incense managed to set fire to a pew. This in a building that had survived over 1,000 years and never so much as had a runaway candle singe an altar cloth. However later this year my wife has organised a huge charity bash here in Malta to save the Valletta Skyline starring the world’s best ABBA Tribute Band, Revival. So it’s time for fancy dress… out with blue eyeliner, bellbottom trousers and platform shoes. As I am not quite the snake hipped love god of 40 years ago, my old clothes are a tad snug, so I need to hire an outfit. There is a smorgasbord of ABBA costumes available to buy on the web... most of which have a small warning saying stay away from a naked flame or the wearer will turn into a Roman Candle. So there you have it. Come to a church made predominantly out of stone and be subjected to a fire drill, but buy some clothes that can toast you like a marshmallow and tough luck.  Yo-yo (You are on Your own).

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

What is rss? "rss" is about getting live web feeds
directly to your computer.