The Befouled Weakly News
7 June 2009 Well, what a great summer that was! Six days of wonderful weather – bright, clear sunny skies with very pleasant temperatures. Admittedly, not the scorching, burning days of summer some of us might have preferred but pleasant never the less. Now, it’s clear that we’ve entered the run-up to autumn with rain, wind and plummeting temperatures with which we are so familiar. Good to see that things are getting back to normal. It’s been a good, busy week on the whole. There was only one day in the week when one might have preferred to have stayed in bed – if only there was a way of glancing (just a bit) into the future one could avoid all the frustrations of a really, really, lousy day. On Wednesday I had a relatively relaxed itinerary mapped out – an 11.00 meeting in a school to discuss their plans to upgrade their ICT infrastructure and then a 4.00 meeting at a school to host an area meeting with ICT co-ordinators from a number of primary schools. Good – a fine leisurely start to the day with ample opportunity to get some other stuff done in between the two commitments. Of course, I should have known that anything so simple and straight-forward was doomed to turn into “one of those days”. The first clue arrived about ten minutes after I had left home for the drive to Oxford – the traffic was backed up about two miles from the motorway junction. So, after waiting patiently in the queue for about fifteen minutes, I turned off to follow an alternative, non-motorway route. To say the subsidiary roads were crowded would be a gross understatement – every man, woman, child, dog, bus and lorry driver was similarly seeking an alternative route. It turns out that a lorry had jack-knifed across the motorway about halfway between us and Oxford and the motorway was closed in both directions – at the height of the rush hour. Not much fun but after two and three-quarter hours I finally arrived at the office, just in time to get to my first meeting which, fortunately, was not far from the office. So, a great start to the day. Then, at about 3.00 as I was about to set off for my area meeting I checked the traffic news to discover that the motorway was still closed and, as a result, the road I would have taken to the meeting was similar jammed. Never mind, I know the byways and highways of Oxfordshire like the back of my hand so I was able to take a succession of very scenic and picturesque country lanes to my destination and arrived in plenty of time for my meeting. And, since those attending work in the local schools, they too arrived in ample time and the meeting went well. It was when I arrived home to discover that my wallet was missing that I realised that this was indeed destined to be “one of those days.” Since the only place I had been was this particular school for the area meeting, I was pretty confident that my wallet had merely slipped out of my pocket. No problem – telephone the school in the morning, tell them where I had been sitting and, hey presto! someone would retrieve my wallet and all would be well with the world. If you’ve been through the process of losing a wallet or purse you can imagine the sinking feeling on Thursday morning when the school reported that they could not, in fact, find the wallet. I was delivering a training session all day so unfortunately the distinctly tedious task of telephoning all the credit card providers fell to Ms Playchute who spent the morning on the phone reporting their disappearance. Fortunately, it turned out there had been no skulduggery and no attempts to purchase a multitude of flat screen plasma television sets online so, apart from the inconvenience of having no credit cards for the next two weeks or so, all was well. She had just finished the task of contacting all the card providers and arranging for their cancellation when I received a phone call from the school to report that, in fact, they had found the wallet after all! Much relief, of course, that its contents had not been used to purchase a used car dealership in Bulgaria but some disappointment at the wasted time and, as I say, the inconvenience of having no credit for up to two weeks. (Of course, Penny’s cards on the same accounts similarly have to be replaced but fortunately she has her own debit card which was unaffected). So, for the next couple of weeks we will be back in the cash economy which will undoubtedly seem somewhat unfamiliar – I cannot remember the last time I bought petrol, for example, with a fist full of cash? We’ll let you know how it goes! As we gear up to this year’s Tour de France in July, I thought the following from the BBC site was tolerably amusing:
No breakaways allowed! Love to you all, Greg My 60 year old sister sent me this: A woman visited a plastic surgeon who told her about a new procedure called 'The Knob,' where a small knob is placed at the top of the woman's head and could be turned to tighten up her skin and produce the effect of a brand new face-lift. Of course, the woman wanted 'The Knob.' Over the course of the years, the woman tightened the knob, and the effects were wonderful, the woman remained young looking and vibrant. After fifteen years, the woman returned to the surgeon with two problems. 'All these years, everything has been working just fine. I've had to turn the knob many times and I've always loved the results. But now I've developed two annoying problems: First, I have these terrible bags under my eyes and the knob won't get rid of them.' The doctor looked at her closely and said, 'Those aren't bags, those are your breasts.' She said, 'Well, I guess there's no point in asking about the goatee. Each morning Jake would drive down Sunset Blvd. on his way to work. For the past year a pretty hooker standing on the corner of Sunset gave him the eye as he passed. Of late, she took to showing him parts of what he would get if he stopped to pick her up. Jake was a good husband and family man and didn't want to cheat on his wife. However, lately the hooker was looking so tempting, he could not get her out of his mind. After spending many sleepless nights, he went to consult a psychiatrist. He told the psychiatrist she was driving him crazy, he was married 25 years, and did not want to cheat on his wife. "What should I do?" asked Jake. The psychiatrist said, "Take Melrose Avenue." An old man turned 105 and was being interviewed by a reporter for the local paper. During the interview the reporter noticed that the yard was full of children of all ages playing together. A very pretty young woman of about 20 served the old man and the reporter, keeping them in fresh tea and running errands for them. "Are these your grandkids?" the reporter asked. "Naw, sir, they all be my younguns," the old man replied with a sly grin. "Your kids?" said the reporter. "What about this beautiful young lady who keeps bringing us tea? Is she one of your children too?" "Naw, sir," said the old man. "She be my wife." "Your wife?" said the surprised reporter. "But she can't be more than 20 or 21 years old!" "Thass right," said the old man with pride. "Well, surely you can't have a sex life with you being 105 and she being only 20," the reporter remarked. "Naw, sir, " said the old man. "We have sex every night. Every night two of my boys helps me on it, and every morning six of my boys helps me off." "Wait just one minute," said the newspaperman. "Why does it only take two of your boys to put you on, but it takes six of them to take you off?" "Cause," the spry old man said with a balled fist, "I fights 'em!"
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