The Befouled Weakly News
6 September 2009 Good morning on a slightly overcast morning in beautiful downtown Byfield. The last couple of days have been fairly clear and sunny but undeniably cool. Ms Playchute has demanded the initiation of the season’s central heating provision which does beg the question – when did our “summer” end? I suppose the additional question which must be addressed first – did we, in fact, ever have a summer this year? Nick and Lucy are back from their honeymoon in Cyprus. Although I’ve not seen them yet, I gather they had a grand time relaxing in the blazing sun, lounging by the pool and enjoying the occasional outing to some rotten old ruin. We’re hoping to see them before we leave for the States on Wednesday afternoon. I have started my new “career” as an educational ICT consultant for schools and had two meetings this week and another on Monday as well as two training sessions to come on Monday. So far, so good! As an avid reader of Private Eye and therefore taking my lead from them, I had anticipated charging schools the same kind of consultancy rate which former government ministers seem to be paid by the big firms who hire them to do some part-time lobbying on their behalf. I was reading today that a former nobody who happened to work in Blair’s administration as an under, under something, now “works” a day a week for British Gas as a consultant for which he earns £80,000 a year. Now, I appreciate that primary schools in Oxfordshire perhaps don’t have quite the same level of finance as British Gas, nor am I proposing to give them a day a week – more like a day a month or so. On the other hand, I actually do know something about the use of ICT in education, unlike the former government underling who presumably is worth his consultancy fee because of the people he knows and the “quiet word” he might be able to have with those still in government who advise or rule on energy matters. So, on a pro rata basis, I guess I should be charging them about £9000 a year (just over about £1500 per day). Not surprisingly, the schools have a somewhat different sum in mind. We’ll see how that gets resolved! We’re off on Wednesday evening on our West Coast Adventure. We fly from London to Seattle where we will spend a few days with our friend Rick Robertson and his delightful family. Apparently, Susie has been wangling for an invitation and I gather that she will be joining us at some point which is handy as she can then provide transport to Portland where we are staying for the next few days. Then it’s down to Sarah’s and then ultimately Ben and Donna’s for the Webb reunion on the weekend of 26 September. We’re also planning to get down to Escondido and La Jolla before flying to Boston on 28 September. Finally, back to the UK on Monday 5 October. I hope I’ll have enough time and inclination to produce the usual nonsense next week. If not, at least next Sunday we shall be in the home of Miss Pissed Off in Portland so hopefully there won’t be too many complaints. Finally, I ran across the following on the BBC web site which caught my fancy:
Lovely! Much love to you all, Greg Sid and Barney head out for a quick round of golf. Since they are short on time, they decide to play only 9 holes. Sid says to Barney, "Let's say we make the time worth the while, at least for one of us, and spot $5 on the lowest score for the day." "Deal!" Barney agrees. After the 8th hole, Barney is ahead by 1 stroke, but cuts his ball into the rough on the 9th. "Help me find my ball; you look over there," he says to Sid. After 5 minutes, neither has had any luck, and since a lost ball carries a four-point penalty, Barney pulls a ball from his pocket and tosses it to the ground. "I've found my ball!" he announces triumphantly. Sid looks at him forlornly, "After all the years we've been friends, you'd cheat me on golf for a measly five bucks?" "What do you mean cheat? I found my ball sitting right here!" "And a liar, too!" Sid says with amazement. "I'll have you know I've been standing on your ball for the last five minutes!" After discovering her young daughter playing doctor with the neighbor’s boy, the angry mother grabbed the boy by the ear and dragged him to his house and confronted his mother. "It's only natural for young boys and girls to explore their sexuality by playing doctor at their age." the neighbor said. "Sexuality my ass!" The mother yelled. "He took out her appendix!" Some guy bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying "Free to good home, You want it you take it." For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were too un-trusting of this deal, looks to good to be true, so he changed the sign to read "Fridge for sale $50.00". The next day someone stole it.
|
The Rose 'n' Bowl pub in Stacksteads, Lancashire, hosted the World Gravy Wrestling Championships.