I’m not in the habit of blogging about politics or religion*. People are entitled to support or believe in whomever/whatever they choose, however irrational that may seem to me, and as long as they don’t try to shove their beliefs down my throat, I will refrain from pointing out their obvious stupidity.

So what has brought me out of the woodwork today, you might ask. Nothing less than Labour’s absurd attempt to win over female voters with a pink bus. FFS!!!! Really? I mean, this is their best shot?

(more…)

Way back at the beginning of the month, I made some res…er…to-do lists and as part of this list promised a monthly review on my progress. Now we are in the final week of the month, I’ve decided it is time to see how it’s all going. So is all good or a total disaster going the way of most January resolutions to-do lists? See for yourself. Here’s how I’ve got on so far:

(more…)

We went to see the Gothic Exhibition at the British Library on the last Friday of the Christmas hols – myself and the sprogs with my US cousin and his son, who were over for a couple weeks. I love a bit of Gothery and if you do too and want to catch the exhibition, you’d best be quick as it finishes in a couple of weeks. Gothic was nicely summed up by a Victorian poster (below), which has moonlight, bats, a swooning heroine and lurking terrors.

(more…)

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I could write volumes about mine, but that would probably bore you rigid, so I’ll just do my top hits and misses (in no particular order) 🙂

Top Ten Hits: (more…)

DD’s a Winner!

I have to take off my hat to DD, I really didn’t think she was going to do it. Just shy of 19k words, a target of 24k and 1 day left. I thought she’d get half way there and I’d be just as proud of her having done over 20k, but no, she plugged away (with plenty of additional prodding from me) and produced over 5k words in one day! That’s OVER FIVE THOUSAND WORDS IN ONE DAY! (It needed writing out in full and in bold). I am seriously, but seriously impressed!

(more…)

Well, it’s Black Friday and the masses are both seething and rampaging if the news is to be believed, with reports of punch-ups over TVs reminiscent of the kind of thing that used to happen in the January sales, or that bit in Airplane! where the passengers are told to assume crash positions and chaos ensues (see pic). My particular corner of the world seems to have largely avoided bothering with any of it and when I nipped out to collect something earlier, the high street was quiet with no evidence of this lunacy.

(more…)

Today is Remembrance Sunday, when we honour the sacrifice of those who have fallen in battle. I always have mixed feelings about this day. Although I mourn the passing of these brave (or hapless) souls, I can’t help but feel that they died in vain, ordered to their demise by those sitting comfortably behind desks, far removed from any danger, let alone in peril of their own lives and I feel sad and rather angry about that. The “War To End All Wars” and all the others that followed, their pain forgotten like that of childbirth by those who have no excuse for sending the next generation like lambs to slaughter.

(more…)

The Autumn Mystery KAL I mentioned a couple of weeks ago is looking less mysterious now I have completed three-quarters of the pattern. Aside from regularly getting outwitted by where I’ve got to in the lace repeats, due to the usual distractions (dog, TV, offspring, DH, Farcebook), and then having to tink back when it becomes apparent that the pattern no longer lines up, it has all gone quite swiftly. I find myself finishing a Clue after a couple of days and then spending the next 4 or 5 drumming my fingers impatiently on the keyboard awaiting the next release.

Spoiler alert…

(more…)

As you may be aware, TW3 is the abbreviation applied to the 60’s satirical show That Was The Week That Was. (No, I’m not that old, but I am familiar with the show and have pinched the title for my week that was 🙂) Mind you, that was focused on current affairs and despite best efforts, I must admit that this particular week was back at the mid-end of July. Unfortunately, I never got around to posting it as the week and subsequent summer holidays were stupidly busy. So cast you mind back to the hot, stormy weather of the latter part of July… *cue wavy line effect*…

(more…)

I was tidying the accumulated piles of paperwork and stuff doing a little sorting out today and stumbled on a poem I’d knocked off whilst at the V&A a couple of years ago.

The V&A have activity packs to make the business of looking at the exhibited objects a bit more entertaining and interactive. They get snapped up quite quickly so the choice can be limited and we ended up with one which directed us to the section dealing with keys and locks. The packs contain a number of activities, one of which was to write a poem inspired by one of the exhibits and offering a list of keywords.  The item in question was a large sea chest with a great many locks – a treasure chest, in other words.

(more…)