Good morning on a surprisingly fine if somewhat blustery morning. I say “surprisingly” because, while we have had gorgeous mornings all week with bright sunshine, clear blue skies and very pleasant Spring-like temperatures, today we are supposed to see the arrival of winter weather of the usual catastrophic proportions. Apparently, the wind is due to come howling in from the Arctic bringing snow with drifts the size of Everest, etc., etc. As I say, while it certainly is windy today (and that’s the weather, not just me) the temperature is still tolerably pleasant and the skies still largely blue so somehow I don’t see the record-breaking snow storms which they are predicting. I did send the BBC the photograph of the snow at Lake George which Pam sent a few weeks back. Imagine my surprise in seeing it on the 6.00 o’clock news last night as an indication of what Britain would look like by Monday morning. Still, since they are predicting snow storms of Biblical proportions I suppose I’d better go rummage through my drawers and see if I can find some appropriate apparel – my short trousers are in there somewhere.
Yesterday was the last night of the annual Byfield Cabaret which is always a great delight. I’m sure I have written about it in the past but, essentially, it provides an opportunity for everyone in the village who really fancies that they could have been a star of the stage or a singer with a top ten recording an opportunity to perform in front of a, fortunately, largely sympathetic audience. Suffice it to say that no one who performed last night should be seeking to give up their day job in a hurry. I am sure you have all experienced the same type of performances at some point in the past – the singer who is just marginally off key on the high (and low) notes (and a significant proportion of those in between), the comedian whose timing is just not quite right and whose material was last performed in public by Noah, the dancer who concentrates so diligently on his/her steps that they cannot relax and enjoy themselves and spend the whole time staring at their feet and counting not quite aloud.. Still, there were the occasional highlight – one little girl from the other end of the village who walks Molly occasionally who really can dance (without having to look at her feet and count her steps), another young girl who had a genuinely tuneful voice and a middle-aged woman (a bit younger than us, in other words) who reprised one of Victoria Woods’ classics and performed a very amusing and very passable rendition of “Let’s Do It”. Most of you, of course, won’t know Victoria Woods but a quick Google brought up the lyrics:
Let’s Do It! Freda and Barry sat one night. She licked her lips. She felt sublime. Let's do it! I'm on fire But he said: I can't do it. No derision! So she said: Let's do it! This folly But he said: I can't do it. I'm imploring: So she said: Let's do it! Don't starve a But he said: I can't do it. Don't angle Stop pouting. Let's do it! To quote Milton, I can't do it. Stop nagging. Let's do it! Be drastic I can't do it. Don't choose me. Let's do it! No cautions, I can't do it. No dramas! Let's do it! Be mighty. Let's do it! Not bleakly, |
And finally, I had a nice reply to last week’s rant about Daylight Savings Time from Donna who sent along the summary of a report on the impact in terms of energy savings to the early switch to Daylight Savings:
| "We found that if people do maintain their daily schedules then spring and fall Daylight Saving Time extensions would probably cause a 2 to 5% drop in the evening peak load. Meanwhile, morning electricity use would grow some, but probably not enough to offset evening savings. The net effect is small and uncertain: a best guess of total net energy savings is on the order of 1/2 of one percent, but savings could just as well be zero. Moreover, our statistical analysis leaves us with one chance in four there could be a very small increase in electricity use. The possibility of an increase in electric use is not just academic. A recent study of the impact of DST in the state of Victoria Australia found that when DST came 2 months early for the 2000 Olympics, residents of Victoria experienced a sharp morning spike in electricity use resulting in an overall increase in consumption and peak load." |
Love to you all,
Greg
When a customer left his cell phone in my store, I scrolled through his saved numbers, stopped at "Mom" and pushed send. His mother answered, and I told her what happened.
"Don't worry," she said, "I'll take care of it."
A few minutes later, the cell phone rang. It was "Mom."
"Martin," she said, "you left your cell phone at the convenience store."
Walking into the bar, Mike said to Charlie the bartender, "Pour me a stiff one - just had another fight with the little woman."
"Oh yeah?" said Charlie, "And how did this one end?"
"When it was over," Mike replied, "She came to me on her hands and knees.
"Really," said Charles, "Now that's a switch! What did she say?"
She said, "Come out from under the bed, you little chicken."
Flynn staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking buddy, Paddy. He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Mary.
He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom step. As he caught himself by grabbing the banister, his body swung around and he landed heavily on his rump. A whiskey bottle in each back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful.
Managing not to yell, Flynn sprung up, pulled down his pants, and looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt cheeks were cut and bleeding. He managed to quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place he saw blood.
He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and stumbled his way to bed.
In the morning, Flyn woke up with searing pain in both his head and butt and Mary staring at him from across the room.
She said, "You were drunk again last night weren't you?"
Flynn said, "Why you say such a mean thing?"
"Well," Mary said, "it could be the open front door, it could be the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could be the drops of blood trailing through the house, it could be your bloodshot eyes, but mostly.....it's all those Band-Aids stuck on the hall mirror.
A man stood on the side of the road hitchhiking on a dark night in the middle of a storm so strong, he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. As time passed and no cars appeared on the road, he began to feel desperate.
Suddenly, he saw a car approach and it stopped just a few feet ahead of him. The guy, without thinking about it, got in the car and closed the door, only to realize that nobody was behind the wheel. The car continued slowly forward, apparently of its own accord. Scared, he couldn't move but started praying fervently.
The guy looked ahead and saw a curve in the road approaching.
He sat, immobilized, as he begged for his life. He hadn't come out of his state of shock, when just before he hit the curve, a hand appeared through the window and moved the wheel, steering the car to safety. The guy, paralyzed by terror, watched the hand appear through the window to save him every time before a curve.
The hitchhiker gathered up his strength, jumped out of the ghostly car, and ran to the nearest town. Wet and in shock, he stumbled into a cantina and asked for two shots of tequila, then proceeded to tell everybody about the horrible experience he went through.
A silence enveloped the crowd as they realized the man was really crying and wasn't drunk.
About half an hour later, two strangers walked into the same cantina, tired and damp. One of the men elbowed the other and pointed. "Look Pete. That's the idiot who climbed into the car while we were pushing."
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