I came across this on Facebook and I have to say Sir Alec Guiness has summed up my feelings about so many of the modern films made today which unfortunately seem to be favoured by the young and the mass market audience.
Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and so many more just leave me losing the will to live and wondering what on earth anyone sees in them, sadly I think I am in the minority in this respect.
Christmas Day and the young people have taken command of the television in the lounge and my wife is watching Japanese versions of fairy stories while she is cooking in the kitchen, so not wishing to appear too anti-social and retire to the bedroom searching the tv for a decent black and white World War two film, I am left with Facebook as a means of retaining my sanity.
Under new government guidance on how best to support transgender students, teachers in England have been told they do not have to address pupils in their chosen pronouns.
Unfortunately the current crop of teachers who seem to be a little bit “woke” on these matters may have to take a leaf out of the previous generation of teachers, some of whom could have been described as a tad sadistic when it came to dishing out punishment, although speaking personally the cane may sound a little harsh to modern ears but it certainly helped to enforce discipline without a shadow of a doubt.
I can imagine the scene where little Johnny decides he wishes to be addressed as “she” and is taken off to the headmasters study for six of the best and is seen emerging later with a slight tear in his eye expressing a desire to join the Royal Marines.
I know this treatment may seem a little harsh to modern folk but the advantage of this practice would be as a delaying tactic whereby the young students could take some time to reflect on their rather fashionable desire to change sex until they have matured sufficiently to really know who or what they are.
As for those of them who still have the desire to transition into a cat at the ripe old age of eighteen I imagine defecating into a litter tray for a week or two could be used as a means of concentrating the mind as to their chosen lifestyle.
Apparently, there is a bit of a stir going on as Rebecca Welch is set to become the first woman referee to take charge of a men’s FA Cup third-round tie and having seen a photograph of her in her shirt I suddenly thought they could make a song about her as they like to do for football events. Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about football so I managed the first two lines but after that I’m a little stumped, perhaps some of you might be able to help.
I saw this on Facebook and thought it was a good tale, so I borrowed it and added a photo for added atmosphere.
Paddy had been drinking at his local Dublin pub all day and most of the night celebrating Ireland’s draw with Germany.
Mick, the bartender, says “You’ll not be drinking anymore tonight, Paddy”
Paddy replied “OK Mick, I’ll be on my way then.” Paddy spins around on his stool and steps off. He falls flat on his face.
“Shoite” he says and pulls himself up by the stool and dusts himself off. He takes a step towards the door and falls flat on his face. “Shoite, Shoite!”
He looks to the doorway and thinks to himself that if he can just get to the door and some fresh air he’ll be fine. He belly crawls to the door and shimmies up to the door frame.
He sticks his head outside and takes a deep breath of fresh air, feels much better and takes a step out onto the sidewalk. He falls flat on his face. “Bi’Jesus… I’m fockin’ focked,” he says.
He can see his house just a few doors down, and crawled to the door and shimmies up the door frame, opens the door and shimmies inside.
He takes a look up the stairs and says “No fockin’ way”. He crawls up the stairs to his bedroom door and says “I can make it to the bed.” He takes a step into the room and falls flat on his face. He says “Fock it” and falls into bed.
The next morning, his wife, Mary, comes into the room carrying a cup of tea and says, “Get up Paddy. Did you have a bit to drink last night?”. Paddy says, “I did Mary. I was fockin’ pissed. But how’d you know?”
She said “Mick called. You left your wheelchair at the pub again.”
A survey came up on my computer from My London, I have no idea who they are but made an effort to answer the questions as I thought this would give me an opportunity to voice my dislike of the London ULEZ charge.
Sadly I only got as far as question four where there was no option suitable for me to continue.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ULEZ AS EXPANSION ARRIVES?
Are you in favour of London’s ULEZ expanding?
NO
Do you agree with people damaging ULEZ cameras to show their opposition?
YES
Have you used the scrappage scheme, and have you found it fair?
HAVEN’T USED
If Londoners had to be charged for driving in the capital, which system would you prefer?
£12.50 daily charge for drivers (ULEZ scheme)
Pay-by-minute system for drivers
Pay-by-mile system for drivers
Select an option.
I was looking for the option of; It’s a very unfair tax and we shouldn’t have to pay it at all as we pay enough tax for the privilege of driving our cars already but it wasn’t there so I could see no point in continuing with their survey as they obviously didn’t want to hear any answers that did not fit with their agenda.
Without putting too fine a point on it, this is bloody typical of the contempt the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has for the rest of us drivers who might have to drive to London.
He on the other hand swans about in a luxury Range Rover which obviously runs on clouds or reindeer fluff which has no polluting effect on the London air whatsoever.
I have just wasted the last 20 to 30 minutes of my life filling in a questionnaire from the City of London Transport Strategy Commonplace and having completed it I had to confirm my comments with a link they had sent me which when clicked said, I had only completed 1 of the 13 tiles and suggested I start again.
Now, it is possible that I have the wrong end of the stick and all my answers have been recorded but I have to wonder if that being the case, why was I invited to go round again this time with photographs?
Anyway, the long and the short of it appears to be more and more penalising the motorist until we finally admit defeat and never venture into London ever again, the only saving grace I could see from their survey was that their suggestion for a blanket 15mph speed limit had been rejected I believe by the Government. There was however a suggestion that they would encourage the use of electric scooters, as if they haven’t injured enough pedestrians already.
Another proposal was to ban freight transport from the City completely, although there was no suggestion as to how the City would exist without the necessary goods for the day to day running of the place unless Uber Eats were going to diversify into multiple deliveries of stationary and other items needed for the smooth running of a modern office together with the employees lunchtime snacks.
I did voice my opinion that most of the proposals seemed to involve yet more measures to impede the use of the motorcar or at the very least, leave it stuck in the single lane allotted for its use whilst the occasional bus or taxi passes and brushes the tumbleweed to the kerb. Reading between the lines I would warn motorist to be prepared for yet more costs with the potential of a new road pricing scheme coming into effect, this in a city where I’m led to believe the Mayor is driven about in a Range Rover.
I was surprised when getting to the end of the survey I was asked what my sexuality was, although Lord knows what that would have to do with traffic management as I would imagine whatever you identify as we all walk or cross the road in a fairly similar fashion, another surprise was the multiplicity of options from which to choose and having checked in my underpants and found a penis lurking there I plumped for the straightforward answer MALE.
Having got to the end of the survey and clicked on the link to confirm my comments I was faced with yet more of the same saying I had only completed 1 of the 13 tiles available, so I started again until halfway through it said I had reached my limit, leaving me to wonder if they can’t run a simple survey how on earth are they going to run the city in a sensible fashion.
So, finally in despair I filled in the last box available to me with the following;
I have just wasted the last 20 minutes filling in your questionnaire and when I got to the part where I had to confirm my comments, it said I have only replied to one of the thirteen tiles so it would appear your questionnaire is faulty or perhaps you didn’t like my answers. Either way I suggest you stick your survey where the sun doesn’t shine as I have better things to do than mess around with this bollocks.
A couple of days ago Angella and I got home from the most wonderful weekend spent meeting friends, shopping, and dancing to some of the best dance bands on the vintage scene, I have to admit I am still in a state of excitement just thinking about it.
The weekend started on Wednesday when we drove to Devizes staying at the Bear Hotel and taking the opportunity for some clothes shopping which I have to say proved a little fruitless this year but knowing what lay ahead we were optimistic we would make up the shortfall over the weekend.
We checked into the Imperial Hotel on Thursday and were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded from our usual sea view to a suite with a sea view. The Imperial is a beautiful hotel with plenty of character and massively high ceilings which may explain why it’s always on the chilly side.
Quite a nice photograph only slightly marred by the plastic bag which for some reason the computer wouldn’t let me crop! This is also the only shot of any of our daytime outfits which as you can see, if you look very closely is a combination of pink/red trousers, white blouse and a red snood, although my description may not be that accurate as like 9 out of 10 men I am slightly colour blind.
The next day we left early and drove the short distance to the Victoria Hotel in an attempt to bag a sufficiently large car parking space for the car, which I’m glad to say we managed, a word to management I’d like this spot again next year!
I then went for a walk to have a coffee and to check out the carpark at the Premier Inn which I’m pleased to say looked suitable so I’m thinking for next year we may be joining those who stay there as I suspect it may be a tad warmer than the Imperial.
My next job was to pick up a very nice valve wireless which I purchased from Alan Axon who had refurbished it and fitted a bluetooth connection and is as I write playing a rather catchy Jack Hylton tune from the playlist I have on my telephone. Blimey, I’ve almost dragged myself into the 20th century and may be bracing myself for the final plunge into the 21st, you never know.
The bands are always good at Riviera Swing but this year was superb from The Big R Band, The Pasadena Roof Orchestra and possibly everyone’s favourite 32 piece band, The Sleepy Lagoon Orchestra.
I have to say a big thank you to Mark and Hoc for their brilliant dance classes during the day, it’s quite amazing how much they can teach in such a short time, which meant together with the lessons from our ballroom teacher Cheryl enabled Angella and I to dance considerably more than we did last year.
The following are just a selection of our outfits for the evening from Friday to Sunday, which arrived far too soon, although with all the dancing my feet were glad of a rest.
And finally, an image which reminds me of some years ago when I first came across a photograph on Facebook of a large group of chaps on a staircase at a previous Riviera Swing in white tie and tails and I called Angella to come and look, “Angella, you’ve got to see this, it’s absolutely barmy we have to go.”
What a fabulous time we had, Riviera Swing gets better every year. Thank you to all those involved who make it such a wonderful event. Roll on next year!
Modern life has struck once again with a problem with my Tomtom sat nav which has caused me to waste many hours of what is left of my fast dwindling life, I do not have the time for this nonsense.
I know I’m a bit of a Luddite but this is not my first Tomtom and prior to this should I wish to add a feature or change something on the device I would open the mydrive connect thingy on the computer and connect the device with the lead and hey presto the computer would recognise it and allow me to do whatever was wanted.
Now, mydrive connect will not open, and having deleted it and uploaded it again it still stubbornly refuses to completely load nor open and when I seem to be getting somewhere when I connect the device it asks me to connect to my phone by my bluetooth personal hot spot which has me wondering, why when it used to work with the wire connection would it now want to connect to bluetooth? Answers on a postcard to Robert Robinson, BBC Points of View!
So having contacted Tomtom who doesn’t have a telephone help line and made an effort to communicate with a robot by following the various options suggested to me I have finally given up and gone for the option of sending an email but as it appears they only staff the help centre from 10.00 to 4.00 Monday to Friday this will not be much use to me on my journey tomorrow to Devon.
The following is my communication with what I assume to be the Tomtom robot.
My Tomtom mydrive connect on my computer seems to have stopped working, I have tried to uninstall and install again but it still won’t work. I used to just plug the device in and it would recognise it and let me update and add features but nothing seems to be working and talking to a machine for answers is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Much more of this nonsense and I will smash the machine and never buy another of your products ever again. It’s very sad that you can sell a product with such useless back up. Kind regards, Joe Wells.
I know quite a few people, mainly somewhat younger than myself who use their telephone for navigation by using Google maps and I have been greatly impressed by its capabilities especially accuracy and lane discipline advice when driving and am tempted to do likewise.
However, there is a slight catch 22 situation, in that I have an iphone 14 (I think) which is extremely good and not too bulky for my pocket whilst my Tomtom sat nav has a much larger screen and is therefore easier to glance at when driving but the advantage of the iphone is it will do what I want.
Should I not get the Tomtom working as I want, my decision to swop to using the iphone will be that much easier to make as when I have taken a hammer to the offending Tomtom I suspect there will be very little to see on the screen at all.
To say I’m somewhat shocked to see one of the best events of the year will be no more, with this years Woodhall Spa Forties Weekend 2023 being the final one.
I have seen suggestions that we should go regardless, after all the hotels must be responsible for putting on their own entertainment and vintage clothes shopping, perhaps the dance in the village hall would go ahead. What’s to stop the classic cars from parking in the high street, I wouldn’t want to be the parking attendant that tried, they would be severely outnumbered.
I seem to have talked myself into going, we can’t let this event die like this.
A week or so ago I organised a forties night dance for my local car club, we had the excellent Alex Jones vintage singer and dance lessons from myself and my wife, the Peabody being very popular.
Most people made an effort to dress the part and add to the atmosphere with bunting posters, incendiary bombs, red cross parcels and each table had a theme and period correct sweets for all.
Luckily the incendiary bomb was in a bucket of sand and no-one trod on the land mine.
Although we had a stirrup pump handy should things have got out of hand.
The Red Cross parcels came in very handy for the POW’s but no-one managed to remove the fuse from my disposal training bomb without the warning bell sounding.
Hopefully a good time was had by all and it kept me out of mischief for a while, I was hoping to use my display models for my audition for Blue Peter but apparently they are no longer going to make the programme.
The Diary of a Country Bumpkin 