IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

I'm thinking of simplifying my life by no longer writing these blogs...

unless of course, you would genuinely miss them

If this is the case please tweet me or DM if you're a follower at 

https://twitter.com/TonyLetts

Have a nice rest of your life  :)

NUTTY NEWS (11)

When my lad was about 6 or so, he went through that boy stage of 'fart fixation'. He did them here there and everywhere. He was, for a while at least, the family fart champion.

Not so now. As I tiptoe into my dotage, I've discovered that I am developing this skill with every passing day. 

How I wish I had the ability back then to show him who was the daddy.

I have discovered though that even I have met my match. Try as I may there is no chance of me literally blowing the roof off my house.

But I know a cow who can... 90 of them in fact, whose farts started such a fire that they were nearly turned into steak and whoosh! - up went the roof.

It's a funny old world.

NOTEWORTHY LYRICS (13)

In which I highlight the poetry in popular songs -

Lennon and McCartney wrote some hauntingly beautiful song lyrics. Paul penned this himself and John always said it was one of his personal favourites.

The story is of the end of a love affair and is incredibly sad...

"For No One"

Your day breaks, your mind aches

You find that all the words of kindness linger on

When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up

She takes her time and doesn't feel she has to hurry

She no longer needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

You want her, you need her

And yet you don't believe her when she said her love is dead

You think she needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

You stay home, she goes out

She says that long ago she knew someone but now he's gone

She doesn't need him

Your day breaks, your mind aches

There will be time when all the things she said will fill your head

You won't forget her

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

NOT APPY

Right Mum's and Dad's - are you sitting comfortably?

Today we're going to look at the best apps for young girls - say 9 years and upwards. 

OK so we have 'Scarlett and the Spark of Life', an exciting adventure in which a princess rescues herself. 

Or how about 'Style Studio: Fashion Designer' which speaks for itself. 

Similar is 'Maya's Dress Up' which reminds me of those paper dolls which I secretly changed the clothes on when I was knee high to a grasshopper.

If these aren't exciting enough why not let your daughter try 'Plastic surgery for Barbie'? What could be more fun than taking a fat Barbie and giving her a surgical tummy tuck or DIY liposuction.

Incredible isn't it? Think about it. Someone actually had the idea to create such a horrendous app for young girls. Next, even more incredibly, they persuaded others to promote and market it and it got to be available on the app store.

There has been such an outcry that it is no longer available but why was it ever there in the first place?

How could it be that there ever existed, as Laura Bates puts it so eloquently "apps that suggested to little girls that their bodies might not be good enough, that being thin was all that mattered, and that being fat would make you unhappy and disgusting. 

The apps that sent the message to little girls as young as nine that women are primarily judged on what they look like. That seemed to tell them the way to make themselves happy and beautiful again was simple – they just needed to let somebody cut away at them with a knife until all the parts that were unacceptable to society had been sucked out or lopped clean off."

Our society is sick and in urgent need of repair. Is there an app for that?

NOTEWORTHY LYRICS (12)

In which I highlight the poetry in popular song lyrics. 

However, we should remember that within poetry, comic verse also has it's place.

This old song often runs round my mind but I only know the line: 'Aunty Mary had a canary up the leg of her drawers...'.

I've always been curious as to what the poor bird was doing there.

The tune is the same as 'Cock o' the north'. This was penned some 300 years ago as 'Jumping Joan'.

There are several variations including

'Auntie Mary had a canary up the leg of her drawers

While she was sleeping he was peeping

Up the leg of her drawers

Uncle Charlie had some barley

Up the leg of his drawers

If you don' t believe me you can feel me

Up the leg of my drawers' 

and also:

'Aunty Mary had a canary

Up the leg of her drawers,

When she farted it departed

Down the leg of her drawers.'

So I'll probably never know how the wretched bird got there.

THE FULL ENGLISH (32)

This one is a phrase I use a lot. 

When I want to say 'absolutely everything', an alternative is to say 'the whole kit and caboodle'. It's a common phrase and I hear it used a lot.

What puzzles me slightly is what it was about this particular phrase which so caught the imagination that it is still in popular use well over a hundred years after it was coined.

First things first - what does it literally mean?

Well 'the whole kit' means a set of items, like a toolkit, or what a soldier would keep in his kit-bag. A 'caboodle' (or just 'boodle') - is an archaic term meaning a group or collection, normally of people.

Origins are certainly American and certainly from the early 19th century but the first use of the phrase in the way we use it was this:

From the Syracuse Sunday Standard, New York, Nov, 1884:

"More audiences have been disappointed by him and by the whole kit-and-caboodle of his rivals."

The reasons why the phrase came to be used in this way are rather sketchy so if anyone knows the full details please let me know - then I shall have the whole kit and caboodle.

THE SOUND OF OOZE SICK

There's nothing new under the sun. While my better half was watching 'The Sound of Music' and 'How do you solve a problem like Maria' was echoing all over the house, I dreamed up this little parody:

How do you solve a problem like Diarrhoea?

How do you stop your pants from turning brown?

How do you find a word that means Diarrhoea?

'The runs',  'The trots' , which always bring you down.

Many a time you wish you hadn't farted

Wished that your ankles wore elastic bands

But how do you find a way

To make it all go away

Without it getting all over your hands?

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Diarrhoea?

Without it getting all over your hands?

Then I discovered this :(

BEING RESOLUTE

No doubt some of you have made New Year resolutions.

I just have the one - not to make any. I just can't bear the sense of failure when - well when you fail.

If you must make one I hope it's to give up smoking. I'm one of those pious ex-smokers who now feel that it's an obnoxious habit but if you are addicted, I feel your pain.

Here are my tips for how to give it up. 

1. Plan ahead. In my case I allowed 14 years for this. I was a cigarette smoker and knew that one day I would want to give up. I also knew that I would find it impossible to do so given my absolute dependence on my fags.  Then I devised my cunning plan. It occurred to me that giving up a pipe should be easier because pipe-smokers are already used to going for a few hours without smoking. So I switched to a pipe. Then 14 years later I gave it up.

2. Give up pipe-smoking. This is explained here.

What's that you say? You're female and women don't smoke pipes? Think again.

THE FULL ENGLISH (31)

I suppose we all have relatives who are, shall we say, less welcome guests than others. 

My Grandmother used to say of my uncle, 'he always turns up like a bad penny'. Most people know the phrase but what does it mean and what are its origins?

One wrong suggestion which I've encountered is that it is to do with tossing a coin. Because there is a version of the phrase which goes 'a bad penny always turns up' some think it means that a bad penny keeps being heads or tails instead of giving a 50-50 chance.

The actual origin is at least from the 18th century when pennies were valuable coins. This made them juicy targets for counterfeiters, and discovering that you had such a counterfeit coin, a “bad” penny, was very annoying.  

The best solution if you got a “bad penny” was to try to spend it quickly and hope that the shopkeeper wouldn't notice it.  

Unfortunately though, because so many people were trying to use their “bad pennies” this way, the odds of encountering one, or even the very same one you had got rid of a week earlier, were quite high.  Thus “bad penny” became an idiom meaning “an unwanted thing that keeps showing up.”

Just like my Uncle used to do.

NOTEWORTHY LYRICS (11)

In which I highlight the poetry in favourite song lyrics. 

Singer, songwriter and in my opinion - poet, Adele is one of my absolute favourite artists. She wrote this with Dan Wilson and it will surely be a classic for a very long time.

"Someone Like You"

I heard that you're settled down

That you found a girl and you're married now.

I heard that your dreams came true.

Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you.

Old friend, why are you so shy?

Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light.

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited

But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.

I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded

That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you too

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,

Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead"

You know how the time flies

Only yesterday was the time of our lives

We were born and raised

In a summer haze

Bound by the surprise of our glory days

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited

But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.

I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded

That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you too

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

Nothing compares

No worries or cares

Regrets and mistakes

They are memories made.

Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you too

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,

Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

NUTTY NEWS (10)

I live near Cheltenham, home to  eight out of 20 original Victorian Penfold pillar boxes still existing in the UK.

I mention this because I've recently discovered that when I take the trouble to write a letter and then stamp the envelope before trudging out of the house to post it, I could have been saving my energy.

It seems that P.G.Wodehouse, of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves fame, never bothered to go out to post his letters but merely tossed them out of the window. 

He trusted in his fellow citizens to take them to a post box and do the job for him which inevitably they did.

The Gloucestershire Echo has tried the method out in Cheltenham with great success - 83% of the letters being dutifully posted.

I can only say that it's a good job they didn't try it round here. 

My neighbours would have had a field day steaming off the stamps for re-use.

HO HO HO

A few giggles for Christmas…

'Snowball' by Shel Silverstein

I made myself a snowball,

As perfect as could be,

I thought I'd keep it as a pet,

And let it sleep with me.

I made it some pyjamas,

And a pillow for its head,

Then last night it ran away,

But first - it wet the bed!

*****

'Thank You' by William Church

For your Christmas presents,

I thank you one and all.

For the big ones many thanks,

And fewer for the small.

*****

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

- George Carlin 

*****

Let's be naughty and save Santa the trip.

- Gary Allan 

*****

“Mail your parcels early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.” – Johnny Carson

*****

Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit.

*****

Anyone who believes that men are the equal of women has never seen a man trying to wrap a Christmas present.

*****

CHRISTMAS CONTEST

We are blessed with having two one-year olds with us for Christmas. 

All is ready. The tree is shining with lights and baubles. Decorations adorn the room. The kitchen is packed with festive food. 

Under the tree there are a large number of presents destined for the two tiddlers and this leaves the question - which will be the favourite present of all?

Will it be the brightly coloured wrapping paper which easily tears to shreds with lovely ripping noises? 

Perhaps it will be the lovely bubble wrap inside some of the parcels which waits patiently to be popped. That's if the adults don't all pop it first in a pretence of showing the kids how to do it.

Then there's the cardboard with shiny cellophane windows so you can see what's inside.

No - my vote is for the silver or gold foil which not only makes lovely crispy noises when you scrunch it but has the added bonus of being shiny too. 

Just such a shame that each of these things has some sort of junk inside it which you have to toss aside so as to get to the wrapping.

NUTTY NEWS (9)

This time the nutty news is literally 'nutty'. 

It seems that Her Majesty the Queen is rather partial to a crafty cashew or two. She has a very savoury tooth and enjoys the odd pick of the pistachios. Accordingly, bowls of nuts are distributed freely around Buck House in case the Queen wishes to partake of a pecan or two.

Imagine her disappointment when she discovered that her nibbles were being nicked. Just when she fancied a wallow in the walnuts she found that they had gone. 

Just to prove that she wasn't losing her marbles she began marking a line on the side of the bowl and soon had clear proof that they were being purloined.

The guilty party? Her own police force when on security duties, were pinching her peanuts which explained why she had to keep shelling out for more.

Perhaps the police should be given a pay rise - after all if you pay peanuts...

WISH I'D SAID THAT

Wise words spoken by who?

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will."

Nelson Mandela - (1918-2013)

COMPLETELY CRACKERS

Usually when you pull a Christmas cracker, out pops a joke and a silly hat. However when I pulled one the other day I got a history lesson.

Luckily, I like history so was intrigued to discover how the Christmas cracker came to be and who invented it. These are the details:

“The History of Tom Smith

 It was on a trip to Paris in 1840 that an adventurous and forward-thinking Tom Smith discovered the “bon-bon” sugared almond, wrapped in a twist of tissue paper.  Seven years later this simple idea evolved into the Christmas Cracker. 

By placing a small love motto in the tissue paper he created enormous interest in this product, especially at Christmas and it was during a search for inspiration to achieve even greater sales that he casually threw a log on the fire.  The crackle sound, made by the burning log, gave him the idea that would eventually lead to the crackers we know and love today.  After a great deal of hard work and experimentation, he came up with a  cracking mechanism that created a “pop” as the “bon-bon” wrapping was broken.  This eventually became the snap and the cracker was born.

Over the next few years his idea evolved and grew and he moved from his original premises in Clerkenwell, East London, to Finsbury Square in the City.  His sons, Tom, Walter and Henry took over the business when he died and later a drinking fountain was erected in Finsbury Square by Walter, in memory of his mother and to commemorate the man who invented the Christmas Cracker.

It was Walter who introduced the paper hats and he toured the world to find new and unusual ideas for the gifts.

The Company was very aware of current affairs and crackers  were created for Suffragettes, War Heroes, Charlie Chaplin, the Coronation and many other great occasions.  Exclusive crackers were also made for the Royal Family and still are to this day”

Care to pull my cracker your Majesty?

THE FULL ENGLISH (30)

 

I used to pride myself on being able to read Chaucer in the old English with an accent which hopefully, our beloved Geoffrey would have recognised.

I had fun practising on the original of this phrase: 'Every little helps'. Still in common use today and the meaning is very clear but the origin?

Well as far as I can discover it was:

'Every little helps said the wren when she pissed in the sea.' 

A wren of course is a very tiny bird but her little contribution helped to keep up the sea levels.

But in 1623 the olde English version was:

'Euery thing helpes, quoth the Wren when she pist i' the sea.'

Even earlier in 1602 they seem to have been a little more reluctant to use the bawdy words so we had:

'The wrenn sayde all helpte when she — in the sea.'

See what a prudish nation we used to be.

THE BUTTERFLY

I found this story very touching and wanted to share - author unknown.

The story of the butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared.
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole.
Then it stopped, as if it couldn't go further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily but it had a swollen body and shrivelled wings. The man continued to watch it, expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the body.

Neither happened!
In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around. It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand:
The restricting cocoon and the struggle required by the butterfly to get through the opening was a way of forcing the fluid from the body into the wings so that it would be ready for flight once that was achieved.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us. We will not be as strong as we could have been and we would never fly.

THE OLD ONES ARE THE BEST

I recognised a long time ago that although I have my moments, other people are usually funnier than I am.

With this in mind, let me offer you these items of evidence on the subject of old age:

Don't let ageing get you down. It's too hard to get back up. - John Wagner

Age mellows some people; others it makes rotten. - Anonymous

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age. - Lucille Ball

I'm 59 and people call me middle aged. How many 118 year old men do you know? - Barry Cryer

As you get older, three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two... - Sir Norman Wisdom

There is absolutely nothing to be said in favour of growing old. There ought to be legislation against it. - Patrick Moore

When I was young I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then and I'm labelled senile. - George Burns

As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer. - Robert Quillen

I refuse to admit I'm more than fifty-two, even if that does make my sons illegitimate. - Nancy Astor

A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, 'At my age, I don't even buy green bananas'. - Claude Pepper

You know you're getting old when everything hurts. And what doesn't hurt doesn't work. - Hy Gardner

I'm so old they've canceled my blood type. - Bob Hope

I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity. - Tom Stoppard

Respect old people. They graduated from school without Google or Wikipedia. - Unknown

SMALL CHANGE

Jingle jangle, jingle jangle - it does my head in. I'm talking about coins and all the shrapnel you collect in your pockets.

The traders try to make us feel things are cheap by pricing everything at £3.99 or £4.99 which means you keep getting a penny change.

Like most men, I drop my coins in a little tray at night and then stick it all back in my pocket the next morning and off I go, jingle jangling down the street.

Well not any more. Now I have two coin trays. I put all the small change in one and the serious stuff in the other. As soon as the small coins add up to 10p I take them out and spend them.

Why has it taken me over half a century to think of doing this?

I pay £1.30 to play table tennis so sometimes I pay with a £1 coin, a 20p coin and ten 1p coins. 

They must be so glad to have the small change from me occasionally don't you think?