Well, it’s Sod’s Law, I suppose – we install our first water butt to conserve water on the Saturday of the beginning of the wettest week in Britain since the dawn of Christendom. While I had rather imagined that the water butt would take a few days or even a few weeks to fill up, in fact the water level had reached the lid by the end of Saturday afternoon and it’s clear that we need half a dozen water butts just to keep pace with the rainfall.
To be fair, the rain has not been pounding down; we’ve had numerous short, sharp showers throughout the week. The bulk of the rain, however, has come in the form of a light, continuous, dreary drizzle of the variety that is just too much for your windscreen wipers to cope with on the intermittent setting but not quite enough to prevent that annoying squeaking when the wipers are operating normally. Very aggravating.
The saga of the disintegration of our consumer products continues. You will remember that last week we had the case of Penelope’s deflating tyres, the failure of our washing machine, and the collapse of the chimnea. You will be delighted to know that Penelope was successful in her quest for a replacement washing machine on the Curry’s auction site which should be delivered this week but she has so far been unsuccessful in bidding for a new wheel rim. Still, while I had imagined that since these incidents tend to occur in three’s we were finished for a spell, it transpires that this is not the case at all. This week has brought the demise of my iPod, the end of the food processor and, most disastrously, the complete failure of our satellite television box. And just to ensure we can look forward to the continuing decimation of our electrical appliances, we’ve a couple of other appliances which would appear to be on the verge of collapse - the tumble dryer does little more than tumble the clothes nowadays (not too much drying, unfortunately) and the microwave seems also to be giving similar hints that it would like to be retired.
As you might imagine, the failure of the satellite box was the calamity which caused me personally the most distress. How could I possibly survive with only five channels to choose from when, with the satellite, we get something in the region of 900. And, to make matters worse, there is almost nothing worth watching on any of the five terrestrial channels (not that there is a great deal worth watching on the other 895 but at least the satellite stations have a decent quantity of American sports from time to time which is well worth cost of subscription).
The good news is that the satellite engineer came out on Wednesday and swapped our box out for another one and I am once again able to catch the basketball and baseball which Penny enjoys so much.
The other bit of enjoyment this week also occurred on Wednesday; we took Nick and Lucy for a bite to eat at an Italian restaurant in Leamington prior to a fabulous Jools Holland concert at Warwick University. I have written in the past about Jools Holland, an exceedingly talented piano player who plays a lot of big band, swing as well as good old rock and roll with his “big” band – three trumpets, four or five trombones and a similar number of saxophonists, drums, guitar, bass guitar, organ and, of course, piano. We’ve seen Jools and his band in concert on a couple of previous occasions and have always had a most enjoyable time. This time the concert was absolutely fantastic – perhaps it was the somewhat more intimate venue of the Butterworth Hall at the University but clearly the band was in a great mood as was the audience. Two hours of non-stop, foot-tapping, head bobbingly great music.
Perhaps it’s the British or, more likely, perhaps it’s because the audience at the concerts we attend nowadays are overwhelmingly middle aged. So, dancing in the aisles and at the front of the hall just in front of the stage is certainly not what one tends to see. However, this concert was so good that the audience did, indeed, start dancing in the aisles and, although one couldn’t really describe it as a great stampede, there was a considerable number of the audience who found themselves at the foot of the stage hopping and bopping. Regrettably, we were in seats in the balcony so couldn’t get down to the front but I was delighted to see a middle-aged gentleman, probably about my age down there strutting his stuff. He was, I was delighted to see, considerably more rotund than I am and with considerably less hair and, equally satisfying, his dancing was arguably even less artistic than mine.
One final point of interest, as the concert reaches its conclusion, each of the players in the band has an opportunity to come down to the front of the stage and perform a little solo after which Jools would call out their name and the audience would clap, whistle and cheer. One of the trumpet players is introduced as one Chris Storr who Nick initially recognises and then, so too does Pen, as a former pupil at Kineton High School who was then and clearly is now a very talented trumpet player. A great evening’s entertainment!
Finally, an article from the BBC web site which caught my eye – we haven’t yet reached this stage in the UK but I expect it won’t be long:
'Start pushing', passengers asked Rather than face the prospect of scores of frustrated passengers launching a chorus of complaints, the driver instead asked them to get out and push. Many chose to get out of their seats and do just that, officials say. It took them more than half an hour to move the electric train 12ft (4m) so that it touched live overhead wires and was able to resume its journey. "In so many years of service in the railways, I have never come across such a bizarre incident," Deepak Kumar Jha, a spokesman for Indian Railways, told the Reuters news agency. Officials say the extraordinary display of passenger power occurred on Tuesday in the eastern state of Bihar after a passenger pulled the train's emergency chain, bringing it to a halt in a "neutral zone". This is a short length of track where there is no power in the overhead wires. Correspondents say that a train's momentum usually allows it to continue moving through neutral zones. |
Love to you all,
Greg
Two farmers at the feed store were discussing the local election for tax collector.
One of the candidates was named Harkins, who was also the operator of the drawbridge over the local river.
"You gonna vote for Harkins?" the first farmer asked.
"No, I don't think so," the other replied.
"Why not?" the first farmer asked.
"Well, you remember that prize bull I used to have? One day I looked in the barn and there's that bull lying down actin' strange. So I asked the vet and he gave me some medicine, and he said it had to be put in the bull's rectum.
"I took the medicine home but I couldn't find a funnel. So I seen this old army bugle hangin' on a nail in the barn and I used that.
"Only problem was that before I could get that bugle out, my bull passed some gas and made a loud toot on that bugle.
"Well sir, that scared my bull somethin' awful and he busted out of the stall, made another toot, then busted through the fence and went runnin' down the road.
"He went down the road, runnin' and tootin' towards the bridge that Harkins runs. That fool old man opened the bridge, and my bull ran across it, fell in the river and drowned.
"Now," the farmer said, "Do you think I could vote for a man that's run that bridge for years but don't know the difference between a boat whistle and a bull blowin' a bugle out his ass?"
Q: "Do you know why you should always invite TWO Baptists to go fishing with you?"
A. "Because if you only invite one, he'll drink all your beer; invite two and they won't drink any."
A little old Jewish lady sold pretzels on a street corner for twenty-five cents each. Every day a young lawyer would leave his office building at lunch time, and as he passed her pretzel stand, he would leave her a quarter but never take a pretzel.
This went on for more than five years. The two of them never spoke. One day, as the lawyer passed the old lady’s stand and left his quarter as usual, the pretzel woman spoke to him.
"Sir, I appreciate your business. You are a good customer, but I have to tell you that the pretzel price has gone up to thirty-five cents."
Back to the Befouled Weakly News Index
Back to Greg's Temporary Home Page