*May contain strong language and material that some people may find offensive!*
Date: Thursday 26th December 2019
Location: Messingham
Specifically: In a veranda with Stuart & Bronwyn gazing longingly at the dinner table with a rumbling tummy.
... Why?
Well, look at this list.
First of all let me remind you of my Christmas principles!
Don’t buy presents out of a sense of obligation. In fact don't do anything out of a sense of obligation!
No rushing around like a nut (besides some people are allergic to them!)
Enjoy Christmas in your own way
Try not to miss relatives over the Xmas season (it‘s much better if you hit them when they least expect it).
Avoid relatives like the plague
1. Fail! Bought at least 4! Therefore I will need to abuse myself as punishment. 2. Fail! Not only did I rush around like a nut for the dying seconds of Christmas Eve I actually rushed out to buy nuts on Christmas (Shame, shame!) and, considering Alex was with me, I was also with a nut on Christmas Eve!!!
3. Well the fact that I failed 1 & 2 answers that (Ah yes & 3,4 & 5).
4. Well I threw a fluffy rabbit that hit Bronwyn by accident.
5. Hah!!! A miserable failure of very heavy duty proportions. Not only did I visit relatives I managed to visit relatives I don’t even have by visiting my friend Stuarts mothers!!!
Boxing Day Hypocritical Scoff Visit Car journeys are boring - although this can vary depending on age and level of concentration - so people from the ages of 79-89 love car journeys and will quite happily drive around for days at a time often reaching speeds as high as 15mph, deliberately causing accidents (don't blame us we‘re senile) and running into shops (after stopping and getting out of course!). Children between the ages of 3-5 on the other hand get bored very quickly - usually after 1.5 mins driving - and will alleviate their boredom by fighting, arguing, doodling on the upholstery and seeing who can be the first to cause their parent to drive into shrubbery.
Stuart & Bronwyn also like to play games to alleviate the boredom during driving. I’ve tried to tempt them with something more practical like; board games, clay pigeon shooting or archery but they're just not interested. Nope all they do is engage in something they euphemistically call banter but which most people would call ‘arguing’.
Todays ‘banter’ begins with the subject of whether a ‘citizen can legitimately make an arrest. In the drivers seat - Stuart arguing that a member of the public cannot make a citizen's arrest and neither can a community police officer
In the passenger seat, Bronwyn who says you can.
Can
Cant
Can
Cant
(Fascinating)
Can
Can‘t
I tell you you can
I tell you you can‘t
(Bloody hell! Seems serious)
Can
Cant
Can
Cant I tell you you can
I tell you you can‘t
(Better than telly!)
Can
Cant
Pass me the burger with quadruple patties and the diet coke someone.
Can
Cant
Can
Can’t
Its certainly appropriate ‘conversation’ for the time of year - except it usually take place in theatres. and involves people under 3.
I check online before it gets out of hand - yes a person can make a citizens arrest but it’s fraught with legal complications. A community police officer does not have powers of arrest, neither can they interview suspects.
Next up is ‘the public can/can’t use a police light’. Can
Can’t
Can
Can’t
I frantically google it before objects start flying
Can’t
Ca.......hey you cheated!
(Titter)
They can
They Can’t
They can
Can’t
(Snore)
ME! They can’t! There is no authority to use a blue light.
I have a go myself - might as well try to get into it! Here goes......
You can drink any amount of alcohol but the last one should be a half. Example - you go out for an evening and drink 8 pints of beer/lager. Providing you make the last drink a half you are OK to drive!
Maybe not!!!
We arrive at Stuarts Mothers in Messingham near Scunthorpe. House is lovely, very tastily furnished, delightful garden, two very friendly dogs and a TV that wouldn’t look out of place at Wembley Stadium. Then I hear the sound of something I wasn't expecting - voices coming from the patio. Tis the season, not just to be jolly, give presents and scoff your own body weight in food but to throw in a few extra guests - Its fine invite anyone, no one will notice if theres a few extra.
Dinner is served and it looks scrumptious; Mashed potatoes, sprouts, pork, carrots, roast potatoes served with gravy and mint sauce. I do believe Rachael would approve! Of course no dinner would be complete without a little dinnertime conversation bearing in mind the golden rule - never discuss politics or religion. So of course the conversation is about politics and religion.
Brexit enters the conversation as I’m sure it has in many conversation over the past three years. But this is just the warm up, the starter before the big one - the dreaded refugees and asylum seekers ‘we‘re too damned soft’ v ’no we’re not’ argument. I try to do some sort of “I’m sitting this one out‘ body language by using affirmations and a bit of nodding but this only works for so long. Inevitably the old Mastermind spotlight falls on you ”what do you think David?”
What!!? You bastards! Leave me out of this! have I not done enough by creating the illusion that I‘m in agreement with you? I panic because my opinion differs to theirs (it seems to differ to everyones) and I know its going to take all my powers of concentration, tactfulness and diplomacy before I say something that results in my being refused desert, put outside with a dish of water or sent home in disgrace. What!? You think we should be OK with asylum seekers!? Get thee from this place thou foul spawn of satan and take thy opinions with thee whence thy may stick them up thy exhaust pipe and blow off elsewhere”. Good heavens! Fortunately nothing happened, so either my hosts were being tactful or they thought my answer (whatever it was) was OK.
Fortunately the conversation turned to more neutral topics, or at least less incendiary ones, that were less likely to result in a bun fight.
Musical instruments and the playing of...!!!!
Good safe topic that and it doesn't matter if there’s total disagreement. Its the usual stuff, ‘so and so plays this‘ ‘so and so plays that’, ‘are you musical?‘ ‘do you play?‘ OMG you should drag your banjo/guitar/double bass/tin whistle/paper snd comb out of the attic and have a crack at it again!” Its dazzling the amount of instruments Stuart & Bronwyn have in their home; drums, violins, cello, keyboards, harp and zither, the place is like a music store! They also recently bought something called a harmonium - which I think is some sort of instrument that is played by mouth! (See picture!)
For some reason I have gained a reputation as being a miserable bastard. Lets see if I can give an example
Lets take visiting relatives. Its not that I don’t enjoy visiting them as such - in fact more often than not I do tend to enjoy myself - its just that, to some degree or other, I always feel uncomfortable and on edge in other people’s homes. Maybe it‘s just me but whenever I look at other guests and visitors they always seem pretty much at ease to me.
You recall that advert about the best place to watch a movie is at the cinema? Nah - is it bollox, I don’t care if the screen is big enough to keep the whole of North Wales dry in a thunderstorm, or whether they have a seemingly limitless supply of refreshments (and you will need refreshment when you see the prices!) or that they show the latest movies in 2D, 3D, Double D (or whatever the hell the next one up the chain is) and virtual reality so realistic that watching a porn movie leaves you staggering towards the exit smelling of tuna fish and cum shampoo. It’s SHIT!! Compared to watching a movie in your own house!
Lets check out the facts (which is my little way of saying that, since I’m on a roll, I might as well continue until I go purple and fall of the couch)
OK Lets just skip the part where you've driven 3 miles in the dark through badly lit streets in the pouring rain to get to the cinema (followed by another 23 miles to find a parking space).
Admission:
Bit of background. Movies were never called ‘movies’ they were called ‘films’ and the ‘cinema’ was never called the ‘Cinema’ it was called the ‘pictures’.
Problem is ‘going to the pictures to watch a film’
doesnt sound anywhere near as cool as ’going to the cinema to see a movie’. In fact it sounds so lame it ought to have been put out of its misery a lot sooner. Besides you can charge more for something if it‘s perceived as cool!
Image: Queuing for shit pictures and the cinemas
Also when you went to the ‘pictures to see a film’ What are you actually got was the news-reel, followed by a B movie (i.e the warm up before the main film and not an abbreviation for blue movie in case you were wondering). Sandwiched between this B movie and the A movie were the bain of theatregoers everywhere, ‘the adverts’.
Now, forget all this nonsense about the adverts being better than the movie (though I’m sure that’s true in many cases) these ‘adverts’ were truly something else. They were produced by a company called Pearl and Dean, featured in cinemas throughout the country and by God you knew about it when they came on.
Most people are aware by now that the adverts are played at a louder volume than the movie (or whatever program it is you happen to be watching). On television this volume is set by the TV company but at the ‘pictures‘ it was set manually by the projectionist. I was never able to check but I could swear these projectionists had a volume control that was labelled; ‘Soft’, ‘Fairly Quiet’ ‘Loud’, ‘very loud’, and ‘Holy Shit!’
There you would be sat, chatting to your friend, date, wife etc munching a hot dog or slurping an ice-cream when suddenly there would be a deafening fanfare of brass, as the adverts came on;
‘Pah pah p pah p pah p pah p p pah,
‘Pah pah p pah-ah!‘
This would be followed by; screaming, people clinging to each other quaking in fear, hot dog sausages would be launched skywards like missiles meeting popcorn raining down from The Gods (the seating area at the highest tier of the theatre) and ice-cream found its way into hats, on trousers and down necks.
Go on have a listen, but don’t forget to grab some cotton wool for when you start bleeding from the ears! Pearl & Dean Advertising (Intro) was Circa 1970
https://youtu.be/CCo1Ffn9_u8
Anyway I appear to have digrestified somewhat. So back to my point - all these things centre around making money. All people want is to see the movie they paid for, not the news reel, documentary, a B movie or any of that shit - at least that how the cinema owners have convinced us of. Besides if you show just thr main frature tiy can shie it several tines and maje mote cash. As far as I’m concerned the whole cinema experience is geared up to parting you from your cash. None of it in my view makes for comfortable viewing.
Now lets move on to the thing that really puts the wind up us at christmas (or perhaps I should say rapidly expels it!). I refer of course to the matter of breaking wind (which is not a sequel to ‘Breaking Bad‘ no matter how much it might sound like it!).
Believe me when I tell you that Nothing! NOTHING!! that takes place over the festive season is guaranteed to cause more internal misery, pain and discomfort than the expelation of air through your little starfish aka the arsehole or (more to the point) trying to prevent its expelation in the first place.
One happy (thunder) clapper!
Yes, I refer to that torturously difficult struggle that goes on in trying to save your blushes by fighting an internal battle with yourself by the quiet (you hope) effort required to hold back a tumultous great thunderclap of a fart when (let us admit it) your whole instinct is to let rip with a beautifully satisfying beefy eggo of a blast guaranteed to send the kids into fits of laughter, tear a hole in your underpants and curdle the cheescake.
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