Greg's Occasional News & Views
We visited our newly married daughter who was preparing her first Thanksgiving dinner. I noticed the turkey thawing in the kitchen sink with a dish drainer inverted over the bird. I asked why a drainer covered the turkey.
Our daughter turned to my wife and said, “Mom, you always did it that way.”
“Yes,” my wife replied, “but you don’t have a cat!” Continue reading “31 July 2011 – Amusements”
Good morning and welcome to another week at the Villa San Francesco. The bad news is that we are half way through this vacation – doesn’t time fly when you are enjoying yourself! The other bad news is that Ben, Nick & Lucy and Bump left yesterday. It’s been absolutely wonderful having them all here and especially having Ben and Adam together. (Of course, I am not saying that it hasn’t been grand having Nick and Lucy here but we do have the opportunity of seeing them quite regularly. The last time we had all three boys together was at Nick and Lucy’s wedding two years ago). Our disappointment in saying “good-bye” to Ben (and Nick, Lucy and Bump) is only marginally tempered by the arrival yesterday evening of our friends Dave and Sue Walton and Sue and Stuart Kelly-Brown who will no doubt try their best to help us through the rest of this week. Continue reading “24 July 2011”
A man was pulled over for speeding down the highway; the officer came to the driver’s window and said, “Sir, may I see your driver’s license and registration?”
The man said, “Well, officer. I don’t have a license, it was taken away for a DUI.”
The officer, in surprise, said,” What!? Do you have a registration for the vehicle?”
So the man replied, “No sir, the car is not mine. I stole it, but I am pretty sure I saw a registration card in the glove box when I put the gun in it.”
The officer stepped back, “There is a gun in the glove box?!?”
The man sighed and said, “Yes sir, I used to kill the woman who owns the car before I stuffed her in the trunk.”
The officer steps toward the back of the car and says, “Sir do not move, I am calling for backup.” The officer calls for backup and about ten minutes another highway patrolman arrives. He walks up to the window slowly and asks the man for his driver’s license and registration.
The man said, “Yes, officer here it is right here.”
It all checked out so the officer said,” Is there a gun in the glove box sir?”
The man laughs and says, “No, officer why would there be a gun in the glove box?” He opened the glove box and showed him that there was no gun.
The second officer asked him to open the trunk because he had reason to believe that there was a body in it. The man agrees and opens the trunk. No dead body.
The second officer says, “Sir, I do not understand. The officer that pulled you over said that you did not have a license, the car was stolen, there was a gun in the glove box, and a dead body in the trunk.”
The man looks the officer in the eyes and says, “Yeah and I’ll bet he said I was speeding too.” Continue reading “24 July 2011 – Amusements”
Hello and welcome to the Villa San Francesco, Bagni di Lucca. We arrived yesterday after a long but reasonably straight-forward journey from downtown Byfield and have been relaxing in the splendour and pleasantness!
As Donna once said (when we flew off to Spain for a week): it must be nice living so close to Europe that one can, indeed, nip off for a week or so very easily and that is certainly true. However, as I said then, it would be even better if we lived as conveniently close to an airport as she and Ben do to LAX. As it happens, our flight was from Gatwick (two and a half hours from Byfield) to Bologna (about two and a half hours drive from Bagni di Lucca). So, five hours of driving sandwiched around a two hour flight. Continue reading “17 July 2011”
“How was your game, dear?” asked Jack’s wife Tracy.
“Well, I was hitting pretty well, but my eyesight’s gotten so bad I couldn’t see where the ball went,” he answered.
“But you’re 75 years old, Jack!” admonished his wife, “Why don’t you take my brother Scott along?”
“But he’s 85 and doesn’t play golf anymore,” protested Jack.
“But he’s got perfect eyesight. He would watch the ball for you,” Tracy pointed out.
The next day Jack teed off with Scott looking on. Jack swung and the ball disappeared down the middle of the fairway. “Do you see it?” asked Jack.
“Yup,” Scott answered.
“Well, where is it?” yelled Jack, peering off into the distance.
“I forgot.” Continue reading “17 July 2011 – Amusements”
Oh my goodness! Can it get any worse than this? I suspect it can!
You will all recollect the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, one of Rupert Murdoch’s News International titles. Clearly, the attempted cover-up has not succeeded and the story has been blown wide open this week with such a force and pace that it’s difficult for a poor befuddled weekly periodical such as the Befouled Weakly News to keep pace. I don’t imagine there will have been quite so much coverage in countries other than the UK so I’ll try to provide a potted update of the latest developments. For fuller details have a look at the Guardian’s coverage. Continue reading “10 July 2011”
The police came to my front door last night holding a picture of my wife and asked, “Is this your wife, sir?”
Shocked, I answered, “Yes it is.”
They said, “I’m afraid it looks like she’s been hit by a bus.”
I said, “I know, but she has a lovely personality and she’s good with the kids.” Continue reading “10 July 2011 – Amusements”
Apologies for the failure to provide any advance warning of last week’s Weakly News “outage”. Some of you know that what it’s like becoming increasingly incapable of remembering stuff and remembering that we were off to the south coast last weekend was clearly one of those things that this tired brain was incapable of doing.
As I mentioned, we were making our way to the south coast to spend some time with our friends Sue and Stuart and to join in the celebrations surrounding Stuart’s 60th birthday. When we had planned all this many months ago, we knew that Sue and Stuart would have a houseful of family and guests so, on this occasion, we would be obliged to find alternative accommodation in the vicinity. Similarly, some months ago our neighbours across the road, Paul and Mary, commented that we would be welcome to borrow their camper van if we ever wanted to. Continue reading “3 July 2011”
In California’s Sonoma Valley where vineyards cater to wine snobbery, a woman phoned the classified ad department of a newspaper. She offered for sale what sounded like “well-aged Caumeneur.”
The ad-taker was unfamiliar with that particular wine but was used to the infusion of French words into the local vocabulary.
“Could you please spell that?” she asked.
“You know” said the woman impatiently “C-o-w M-a-n-u-r-e.” Continue reading “3 July 2011 – Amusements”
Oops! I forgot to say last time that there would be no News this weekend. We are off to the south coast to visit with our friends Sue and Stuart and to participate in the celebrations associated with Stuart’s 60th birthday. Apologies for that and I’ll bring you a full account next weekend.
I’m afraid you’ll have to be satisfied with (a) a photo of a poppy at Edgecote and (b) a couple of feeble “amusements.”
Another of those pesky technical support issues:
Tech Support: “I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.”
Customer: “Ok.”
Tech Support: “Did you get a pop-up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?”
Customer: “Sure, you told me to write ‘click’ and I wrote click’.”
Three women friends, one in a casual relationship, one engaged to be married and one a long-time wife, met for drinks after work. The conversation eventually drifted towards how best to spice up their sex lives.
After much discussion, they decided to surprise their men by engaging in some S&M role playing.
The following week they met up again to compare notes. Sipping her drink, the single girl leered and said, “Last Friday at the end of the work day I went to my boyfriend’s office wearing a leather coat. When all the other people had left, I slipped out of it and all I had on was a leather bodice, black stockings and stiletto heels. He was so aroused that we made mad passionate love on his desk right then and there!”
The engaged woman giggled and said, “That’s pretty much my story! When my fiancé got home last Friday, he found me waiting for him in a black mask, leather bodice, black hose and stiletto pumps. He was so turned on that we not only had sex all night, he wants to move up our wedding date!
The married woman put her glass down and said, “I did a lot of planning. I made arrangements for the kids to stay over at Grandma’s. I took a long scented-oil bath and then put on my best perfume. I slipped into a tight leather bodice, a black garter belt, black stockings and six-inch stilettos. I finished it off with a black mask. When my husband got home from work, he grabbed a beer and the remote, sat down and yelled, ‘Hey, Batman, what’s for dinner?'”
We’ve had it before but who remembers these things?
A young man at his first job as a waiter in a diner has a large trucker sit down at the counter and order, “Gimme three flat tires and a couple of headlights.”
Bewildered he goes to the kitchen and tells the cook, “I think this guy’s in the wrong store, look at what he ordered!”
The cook says, “He wants three pancakes and two eggs sunny-side up.”
The waiter takes a bowl of beans to the trucker. He looks at it and growls, “What’s this? I didn’t order this!”
The waiter tells him, “The cook says that while you’re waiting for your car parts you might as well gas up!”