Thought for the New Year....

TO MY DEAREST FRIENDS & FAMILY:

There were probably many, many times this year when I may have
Disturbed you,
Troubled you,
Pestered you,
Irritated you,
Bugged you,
Or got on your nerves....

So today I just wanted to tell you...........

Suck it up Cupcake!!!


'Cause there are NO CHANGES planned for 2011 !!!

On the squeak.

Yet again, I have been hit with the lurgy. A triple whammy this time, with a dose of ‘flu (ok – not too bad – I’d had the jab), a chest infection and my asthma deciding to go haywire.

The ‘flu and the chest infection haven’t really helped my asthma, and when I went to see the doctor on Friday morning, I was squeaking and wheezing like there was no tomorrow – so it was straight onto the antibiotics and steroid pills (enough to get Mum to duck if I started coughing) and plenty of rest and fluids.

Ok – that go me through until Monday, when I started having to rely really heavily on my blue inhaler, but it didn’t really seem to help. So, back to the doctor I duly go, only to be put on a nebuliser.

This looks like an oxygen mask, with a little pot underneath which seemed to have two colourless liquids mixed in, and was then placed over the nose and mouth, with the instructions to breathe normally.

Ok – so far so good. However, it reminded me of a compressor (guess it was in a way) and all I could see was a sort of vapour escaping from the two side vents. But there was one slight drawback – I had to take my glasses off so that I could read, as the mask was a little too big for me. But, beggars can’t be choosers, and I have to admit that it has helped (as has having a hot water bottle semi permanently attached!)

Now onto the other problem… The boiler has started to play up, meaning that there is little heating in the house (hence the hot water bottle) and British Gas (in their alleged infinite wisdom) decided that as the boiler was running after a fashion, that they would cancel the engineer’s visit that I had booked for Tuesday PM.

Now that was ok on Monday, as the solution that my beloved gave me on Sunday night (bleed the radiators of air bubbles) had seemed to work. But this boiler has proven over the years to be a temperamental little SOB, and has now decided to really play silly buggers. It looks like the air pressure switch is playing up, meaning that the burner won’t catch properly (ah, the joys of the trouble shooting guide in the boiler handbook.)

Now comes the real kick in the teeth. Because the blasted thing is 20 years old, it would be very difficult to get another service contract on it, despite the fact that it normally runs without any problems. So, as I type this, I am sitting at my computer cursing British Gas and wishing that we had insisted on the engineer coming out, whilst Mum is giving British Gas a real blasting on the ‘phone.

I doubt that it will do much good, but I can understand her frustration, as we cancelled the original appointment at the request of British Gas, as we did have heating of a sort. However, the minute we try and point out that one of our neighbours is having a routine service visit, we then get told that because it was booked several weeks ago, then that can’t be changed. Thanks for bloody nothing.

It makes me wonder what the smeg my family have paid out all this money to British Gas over the years for this damned service contract, when all the dopes at the call centre can do is suggest that we go and buy a dimplex heater from B & Q. congratulations – they’ve sold out, and we are snowed in, so even if we wanted to get one, we can’t get out.

Ah well, guess I should go and reheat the hot water bottle and find something to keep myself out of mischief…

Back when I get the chance.


Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells… chaos all the way

I make no apologies for this entry – it was in today’s Daily Mail, and I have to admit it did make me giggle. All credit to Richard Littlejohn – mine is but to post.

Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

*****************
There’s nothing like a good old singsong to raise the spirits up difficult times such as these. With that in mind, I thought I should update same classic holiday hits to reflect the widespread travel disruption which has caused so much mayhem over the past few days. I had hoped to include Chris Rea’s Driving home for Christmas, but due to adverse weather conditions at Scotch Corner on the A1 it has been delayed indefinitely. If you’re stuck on a train, or marooned at the airport, feel free to sing along.

Walking in a winter wonderland

The phones ring
No one’s listening
All the staff
Have gone missing
Check the website
You won’t get a flight
Stranded in the Heathrow hinterland.

Locked away
Are the gritters
Read about it
On Twitter
It’s nobody’s fault
We ran out of salt
Stranded in a Winter Blunderland.

Snowfall came
Without warning
You could blame
Global warming
But nobody cares
About the polar bears
When they’re stranded in a Winter Blunderland.


Jingle Bells

Stuck here in the snow
On the Hendon way
Nowhere else to go
It’s been like this all day.
Drivers sound their horns
Lorries flash their lights
It’s all a waste of time
We won’t get home tonight.

Oh Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,
Chaos all the way
What a drag it is to sit
In the Hendon way,
Oh Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,
No one gives a toss
According to the radio,
They’ve just closed Brent cross.


Santa Claus is Coming to Town

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus’s sled has broken down

He planned to come by reindeer
But Rudolph had a crash
Now his sleigh’s been grounded
By a cloud of volcanic ash.

So he plotted his route
He checked it twice
But he didn’t spot
That sheet of black ice.

Santa Claus’s sled has broken down
Santa Claus’s sled has broken down
Santa Claus’s sled has broken down


I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

When the snowman brings the snow
How is he supposed to know
That the whole country will descend into disarray?
If you jump in your car
And try to get away
You’ll only spend your Christmas morning
In the slow lane of the M1 motorway

Well thank God it isn’t Christmas every day,
When the trains stop running
And the buses melt away
Well thank God it isn’t Christmas every day,
Just get the snow ploughs out for Christmas.


Let It Snow

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But you don’t need to be that insightful,
In Winter, a halfwit should know
It’ll snow, it’ll snow.

The moment the clouds start spitting
It’s time to start gritting
Not behave like a headless chicken
It’s only snow, only snow, only snow


Do They Know It’s Christmas?

It’s Christmas time,
There’s no chance to get away
At Christmas time
You can always rely on BAA
In our world of chaos
Where nothing ever works
Throw another log on the fire and stay indoors

But say a prayer
For the unlucky ones
At Christmas time, they’ll be stuck for days at Terminal One,
There’s a world inside the airport
That’s just like a transit camp,
And the traffic isn’t flowing
Because they’ve closed the exit ramp
And the only food on offer
Is cold and three days old
Well tonight, thank God it’s them instead of you.

And it always snows in Ing-er-land at Christmas time
But every year the story is the same
The moment that it snows
They shut down all the roads
Do they care it’s Christmas time at all?

Freeze the world…


I’m Dreaming of A White Christmas

I’m dreading another White Christmas
Just like we’ve had the past three years,
When the snow is falling
The response is appalling
And your bets laid plans will end in tears.

I’m dreading another White Christmas,
Next year I’m going to Sandy Lane,
That’s weather permitting,
If they remember the gritting,
At Gatwick and de-ice the plane.

Lol Cats

This is a website that I stumbled across, and decicded to have a look at..

All I will say is enjoy.

Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

**************************************************************************

see more Lolcats and funny pictures


see more Lolcats and funny pictures


see more Lolcats and funny pictures


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

More on Wiki Leaks...

This was a cartoon from a news web site that I stumbled across, and I thought it summed up the current hysteria really well...


Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

*********************************************************************************

Wikileaks...

This website has been in the news rather a lot just recently, because it's self-styled "editor-in-chief" Julian Assange, has taken it upon himself to publish confidential documents from the US government.

A lot of this stuff has been little more than private gossip from diplomats, and is of no real interest to people (apart from the people that the diplomats have been less than complimentary about) , but revealing things that could cause real problems for governments and military alike is not on.

Now I am all in favour of free speech - and will do my utmost to defend it (and freely admit that I applauded Wikileaks for the details that they released about the atrocities in Iraq) but things such as:

Fears that terrorists may acquire Pakistani nuclear material

Several Arab leaders urged attack on Iran over nuclear issue

US instructs spying on key UN officials

China's changing ties with North Korea

Yemen approved US strikes on militants

Personal and embarrassing comments on world leaders

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai freed dangerous detainees

Russia is a "virtual mafia state" with widespread corruption and bribery

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "paranoid and weak"

The extent of corruption in Afghanistan

Chinese leadership 'hacked Google'

A list of key global facilities the US says are vital to its national security

should not have been released. I've just covered the very vague topics that the documents cover, as I really and truly do not believe that the should have been put up on the web for all to read. I wouldn't be surprised if the US government asked for this man to be extradited to the US to face possible terrorism and / or espionage charges.

Ah well, guess I should call this quits - it's nearly the end of my lunch break.

Back when I get the chance

Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

World Cup? More like World fiasco.

Well, the hype is over and England has failed in the bid to win the world cup. I'm not upset - far from it, as I dislike football, but what annoys me is the money that has been wasted on the bid.

Ok - I know that it would have been good for the country's economy, and raised the UK profile but it does make we wonder what FIFA were (or more to the point weren't) think about when they awarded the 2018 cup to Russia. I could understand the cup going to South Africa (vuvuzelas anyone?) as there hasn't been an African World Cup, but Russia? Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not saying that the England bid was perfect - far from it - but as far as I can tell, the infrastructure is already in place (and will have been improved further because of the 2012 Olympics in London) but all the reports are saying that Russia will have to do an awful lot of building to be able to cope with the influx of fans...

Add into that, it does make you wonder how much damge the BBC Panorama programme did to the bid. Yes - I agree that the allegations of corruption in FIFA need to be made public, but surely that Panorama programme could have been held over until the voting was over and done with, as it appears to have done quite a bit of damage to the bid.

Ah well, at least we have the Olympics (2012) and Rugby World Cup (2015) to look forward to..

Guess I should call this quits - I'm falling asleep at my PC again...

Back when I get the chance.

Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

Jokes to brighten a gloomy day...

It's a tad on the slow side, so my friends and colleagues have been sending me jokes to make me giggle.

Enjoy.


Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

***********************************************************************

A farmer named Godfrey was overseeing his stock in a remote moorland pasture in North Yorkshire when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced towards him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the farmer, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"

Godfrey looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing stock and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASApage on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the farmer and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Godfrey.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the back of his car.

Then Godfrey says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Member of Parliament for our Government", says Godfrey.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required" answered the farmer. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of pounds worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a flock of sheep....


Now give me back my dog.


And:

Christmas Cake Recipe

Once again this year, I’ve had requests for my Tequila Christmas Cake
recipe so here goes:Please keep in your files as I am beginning to get
tired of typing this up every year!
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup water
1 tsp. salt
1 cup brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
Nuts
1 bottle tequila
2 cups dried fruit

Sample the tequila to check quality Take a large bowl; check the tequila again to be sure it is of the highest quality..

Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.
Add 1 teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.

At this point, it is best to make sure the tequila is still OK. Try another cup just in case.
Turn off the mixerer thingy.

Break 2 eegs and add to the bowl and chuck iin the cup of dried fruit.
Pick the fruit up off the floor.

Mix on the turner.

If the fried druit getas stuck in the beaterers, just pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the tequila to test for tonsisticity.

Next, sift 2 cups of salt, or something.

Check the tequila. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.

Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.

Don't forget to beat off the turner

Finally, throw the bowl through the window.

Finish the tequila and wipe the counter with the cat.

Cherry Christmas

It’s “Snow” Joke

The British seem incapable of coping with winter weather. Now I am not saying that I enjoy this sort of weather - far from it, it’s just the mere fact that the South East of the country gets hit, and it appears to the media that the world is ending.

Parts of the UK are badly hit – I won’t dispute that, but what bugs the living daylights out of me, is the fact that the media has gone into a flat panic demanding to know why the highways agency, the airports and the railways cannot cope with the snow, and are demanding to know why Scandinavian countries cope.

Simple answer to that – they know almost to the week when they will be getting snow and it’s an annual occurrence, so they have all the equipment that they require to deal with this type of weather.

The UK however, has only really had this type of weather the past couple of years, as the weather in the winter tends to run to mild and snow free. So, if the local authorities and the highways agency would be pilloried by the media for wasting money on equipment that is hardly used. So they’re damned by the media which ever way they decide to jump.

Aside from that, I am also getting fed up with the attitude of fellow shoppers – including the stroppy old bat in Waterstones the other day. She was quite rude to the poor lad who was serving her, and I really couldn’t see any reason for her being grumpy – other than the fact that she was an old trout.

Add into that, the mere fact that it’s getting to the stage where you need full riot protection gear to go anywhere near a shopping centre and you get one unhappy person.

And yes – I am the sort that says “Bah Humbug!” as I am getting fed up with Christmas being rammed down my throat – starting in bloody September. I am not against Christmas – far from it. It’s just that the push towards Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier every damned year.

Ah well, time to call this quits – I’m starting to fall asleep in front of my pc, and I have to be in the playpen tomorrow.

Back when I get the chance,

Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most