Bah, humbug!

Old Henry Cole really started something back in 1843 when he produced the world's first Christmas card.  I rather suppose that there were no greetings cards of any description before then - birthday cards, mothers' day cards, Easter cards, get well cards, the whole gamut of the multi-million pound industry that has grown up.  To my mind, grown up too far.

This was the card produced by Sir Henry Cole

Now, I have nothing against sending Christmas greetings to other people; I'm not quite that much of an old curmudgeon.  Frankly, I don't even mind the cost of Christmas cards.  I saw some on sale in Asda yesterday at 10 for a pound.  Not exactly elegant cards, but at 10p each, what can one expect?  Even Henry Cole's card sold at a shilling each, which is 5p in our new-fangled decimal currency.  Blooming expensive back then!  But then, postage was (I think) only one penny.  That's 1d, not 1p (which is 2 1/2d).  Today, it costs 63p to send a card.  That's 12/6 in "real" money!  Twelve shillings and sixpence!  It's daylight robbery!  All the same, I am, if not happy, at least prepared to pay that to send cards to Aunty Fanny in Birkenhead and cousin George in Melton Mowbray - well, I would be if I had an Aunty Fanny and a cousin George.  But friends and relatives in other parts of the country.

What I do find quite inexplicable is the need felt by most people to give cards to everybody they have ever met.  Well, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but it always puzzles me why we feel we must give cards to people we see frequently.  You know what it's like; you go to a do of some sort and start handing Christmas cards to everybody you know while they are busy doing the same thing.  Why can't we just shake each other by the hand and say that we wish them a Merry Christmas?

Bah, humbug!

Some Trivial Trickery for Tuesday

1. While sitting, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles with it.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.
3. Your foot will change direction - and there is nothing you can do about it!

And now for something completely different - a couple of pictures taken yesterday afternoon in Stanmer Park.  First, winter sunshine on the church:

I always think it a little surprising that the church dates only from Victorian times. Stanmer House, which faces the church, is about a hundred years older. And, looking in the opposite direction, bare trees which have a stark beauty of their own.

Desert Island Discs

I'm sure Adam was still in short trousers when the BBC first broadcast this programme on the radio.  Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but it has been around as long as I can remember and it is still going strong.  I have no doubt that other countries have programmes with a similar format, but in case you are unaware of it, the basic idea is very simple.

A celebrity (and I use the word in its loosest possible sense) is invited to imagine being cast ashore on a desert island.  Somehow, a gramophone (that shows how old then programme is!) is also washed up.  The celebrity names eight records that can be washed up along with the gramophone - although how one could play them without electricity is never explained.  And, of course, when the programme started out there were no such things as LPs and record albums so the selection has to be of singles.  During the 30 minutes of the programme, the celebrity chats with the presenter and the choice of music is played.

I was cogitating (as one does when walking the dog) about the records I would choose were I to be invited to take part.  I found it quite difficult to make a reasonably diverse selection.  I would not want eight records of the same type of music - that would be too boring.  Nor would i want to include too many simple tunes; I would want records that needed listening to.  At least, some of them should be like that.  So, for what it's worth (and that ain't a lot!) here's my choice:

• On the Quarter Deck, played by the Band of the Royal Marines.  This march has a sort of swagger about it that, for me, exemplifies the Bootnecks;
• What a Wonderful World, sung by Louis Armstrong.  Just to remind me;
• the 2nd movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto.  This piece is sublime and would calm me in times of frustration.
• Petite Fleur, with Monty Sunshine on clarinet in Chris Barber's jazz band, to remind me of many wonderful holidays, including the one in the Hague where we chanced upon Chris barber and his band playing quite informally in a shopping mall on a Sunday morning while all the shops were closed.
• Jeremiah Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary.  I always think this so very English, despite its alternative name, The Prince of Denmark's March.
• Mr Wonderful, sung by Peggy Lee.  No-one has ever said that to me but I can dream, can't I?
• the 2nd movement of Dvorak's 9th symphony, From the New World.  Just like the Mozart.
• Fanlight Fanny, sung by Clinton Ford with The George Chisholm All Stars.  I smile every time I hear this one, it's so cheerful.

And as celebrities are allowed one luxury, I don't see why I should be any different.  I could, perhaps, ask for an Aston Martin DB5, but there would be little point as there would be no roads or even petrol, so I will ask for an album of all my favourite photographs.

Of course, tomorrow my selection of music and my choice of luxury would probably be completely different!

Why?

I ask myself, why do I do it?  What on earth is the point?  Indeed, is there any point?

That last question is, possibly, the easiest to answer.  And it's a one word answer: no.  No, there is no point.

Which makes it pointless to attempt to answer the earlier question, what is the point?

So we are left with the first question: why do I do it?

By now - if you have not been driven completely crazy (or decided that I am) and drifted off to a saner world - you might be wondering what it is that I do that is so pointless.  Could it be avoiding stepping on the cracks between the paving stones so that the bears don't jump out and bite me?  Could it be stuffing my ears with Stilton cheese so I can't hear the cats yowling or the vixen howling?  Well, I'm pretty sure some people would put it on a par with both those activities.

I'm talking about researching family history.

This is something that I have left aside for quite some time but, coincidentally, three people sent messages about my family tree while I was in France, all three providing snippets on information.  And so I have started up again, firstly following downwards from my wife's 3 x great grandfather who was a farmer in Devon back in the 1840s.  But I get hooked on the chase and end up with a list of names, dates and places for 4th cousins twice removed and even more distant relatives.

It really is quite pointless but strangely addictive.

Tempus has definitely fugitted

Here I am, just sitting down at the computer, at half past tea-time - and I haven't even checked my emails yet, let along down the round of the blogs I like to follow.  It has just been one of those always-on-the-go sort of days.  By the time I had done the usual morning chores and walked the dog, it was coffee time, even though I should perhaps have been at the Lions book fair by then.  Not that it mattered me being a little adrift as I wasn't scheduled on the duty rota.  Once that was over and we had cleared books off the tables, we got a couple of production lines going, wrapping the soft toy lions, lambs and bears that we will be delivering to the children in hospital over Christmas.  Home again, an hour after lunch time, and by the time that was cleared away and the washing up done, the dog was getting anxious.  Had I, perhaps, forgotten that she usually has an afternoon walk?

And that has been my day so far.

One for our Facebook page.

I'm so ignorant

It is, I suppose, not entirely surprising that a citizen of one country - in this case, England (or the United Kingdom as it still is for the time being) - should know little about the political minutiae of another country - in this case, France.  Yes, I know the broad brush outlines like the name of the President and that he is left of centre.  Politically, I mean; I have no idea of his sexual leanings and I really don't care.  But when it comes down to the name of political parties across the Channel, I have to admit to almost total ignorance.  I know there is the Front national, the far-right party led by Marine le Pen in succession to her father, and I rather suspect that there is a French Communist party.  The rest, however, is a blank sheet of paper.  This dawned on me while we were sojourning (there's that word again!) en France recently and I have today done a little research.  I almost wish I hadn't bothered.  There seem to be literally dozens of different parties and the government always consists of a coalition of several.

Yesterday evening, at dinner, I admitted my ignorance of German politics to a German Lion and his English wife who were at the same table as the Old Bat and me.  He confirmed my rather hesitant guess that Germany is a federation of states - but even he was unable to tell me exactly how many states although he did reel off there names so he wasn't totally ignorant.

But, reverting to the subject of blank sheets of paper (well, I did use that phrase earlier in this post), I did make another confession last night.  The subject of conversation at the time was chemistry, something about which I am almost as ignorant as I am about French politics.  I confessed that at one time in senior school I, along with the rest of my classmates, sat an end-of-year chemistry exam.  I think I was probably bottom of the table when the marks were announced.  I had just 2% - one mark out of 50.  And that mark was for spelling my name correctly at the top of an otherwise completely blank sheet of paper.  I had not understood one word of the questions!

There was no argument when I announced my decision to give up the subject the following academic year.

Back again

I thought I might be able to sneak away without being missed.  I had, after all, scheduled a couple of innocuous posts to come up while I was away and I did think that they might be enough to hold the fort.  But I was wrong; good old Uncle Skip spotted my absence - yesterday, the day we came back.  The wine cellar (the cupboard under the stairs) is now stocked very satisfactorily for Christmas.  Although I did manage some gardening/maintenance while we were sojourning (now that's a great word!) at the other place, I am almost but not quite ashamed to say that I left with plenty undone.  But it was good just to leave everything behind for a few days, to spend time - possibly too much time - reading and to sleep late.  Now, of course, I have come back down to earth with a thump.  Today is just a catch-up day with emails, blogs, and some personal paperwork before heading out to the Lions' Christmas dinner this evening.  This is to be in the restaurant attached to the technical college with the cooking and waiting all done by students of the catering school.  Just to make your mouths water, here is my choice of dishes:

Glamorgan croquettes with red onion and chilli chutney

Sussex smoky (sic)

Roast turkey with sausage and bacon, cranberry stuffing, bread sauce and roasting jus

Christmas pudding with brandy sauce

Coffee with mincemeat and custard tart.

If last year's experience is anything to go by, this should be great.

Over the course of the last week . .   Nah, I won't bore you with the driving trivia.