Marvin Gaye "What's Going On / What's Happening Brother"

Beyond a Joke

I'm fed up with snow. It's been nearly a month now since the first fall here, and we are still blanketed in the stuff. At night , we are seeing double digit minus numbers on the thermometer. My stack of firewood is diminishing rapidly, and cutting it up is tiring me out.

Bah! Humbug!

Merry Xmas

I CAN'T RESIST A GOOD PENGUIN JOKE...

Shamelessly pinched from Munguin's Republic





A man was driving down the road with a car full of penguins. Penguins sticking out the windows, penguins coming out the sunroof, penguins everywhere.

A bobby pulled him over and told him if he didn't want a ticket he'd better take those penguins straight to the zoo. The man promised he would and drove off.

The next day, the same road, the same car, the same guy, the same polisman and the same penguins - only this time the penguins were all wearing sunglasses!

The bobby pulled the guy over and said, "I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo!"

"I did" said the guy, "today I'm taking them to the beach!"

Antidote

The world's probably going to hell in a handbasket and I don't know the way out of it all. But I do know if you listen to this Emmylou Harris concert, it will put the smile back on your face. This links to the first part of the show, but you can follow it on through five sections in total.

Nations divided by a common tongue

Two Weddings and a Funeral

I know of a young woman about to marry a serving member of the Royal Air force. Not Kate Middleton, but my daughter Nicola. Her fiance has just begun a four month long posting to the Falkland Islands, so he'll come back to a frenzy of preparations for a wedding in July.

News of a wedding is always good - there's always a story of happiness and commitment there. I'm delighted about Nicola's situation, and I can't find it in me to be grumpy about the forthcoming royal nuptials. Yes, there will be a relentless tide of publicity, the shops will be full of souvenir tat, and the BBC will fawn and scrape obsequiously. Yes, the monarchy is a fossilised relic of an unjust and outdated model of society that belongs on the scrapheap. None of this will be the fault of the young people involved, and I wish them well. Like Nicola and her fiance Chris, they met in St Andrews, just six or seven miles away from where I sit now. There's a nice syncronicity to all of this that I am enjoying.

It's just a month since my father's funeral, and it is good to be reminded that life is a regenerative process. I've been utterly flat and ill for the last month, having massively overdrawn my stamina and energy accounts during the time of my father's death, and I'll take my comfort from where I can find it.