Something to make us all feel better

One of the latest pictures of the previously cojoined twins Trishna and Krishna. They are reported to be sitting up, sleeping in separate beds, and seeing each other for the first time as they continue their recovery from a massive separation surgery.

Those smiles have reduced me to an emotional wreck.

If you thought

that calling Newcastle United's ground The sportsdirect.com@St James' Park Stadium was silly (which it goes without saying it is) how about this?

At the football on Saturday we were informed at the end of the first half that: "The fourth official has indicated that there will be a minimum of two minutes injury time. This message was brought to you in association with Jackson Grundy (local estate agents), sponsors of the Cobblers."

Oh, for goodness sake.

Spoiler alert with a difference

If you don't want to know what is about to happen in Coronation Street beware the Daily Mail, who manage to spoil the plot with their spoiler alert.

That takes a certain kind of genius.

In for him, in for him, we've all got it in for him

'I will be honest, the ball hit my hand,' admitted Henry later.

My cats

I have two cats. The oldest one George is evil. I think this photo captures him quite well.


His not so endearing way of asking for food is to take a chunk out of my ankles in order to get my attention. I have to admit that does tend to get him noticed. All my visitors are terrified of him - and even my family treat him with a great deal of circumspection.

Sophie on the other hand is universally adored. She is a very appealing little cat - who aged 6 is still the size of a kitten (George is the size of the back end of a bus) and she is very affectionate to one and all.



George hates her guts, obviously seeing her as a total creep.

It is however Sophie who is this week in disgrace. First of all she walked over the home baked apple and blackcurrant pie made for yesterday's Sunday dinner, leaving two paw sized holes in it....then she bloody well sat on it.

Local news headline

"Three pizzas stolen by armed gang."

I probably shouldn't find this funny as after all some poor guy was robbed at knife point, but that would seem to be less news worthy to the writer of this piece than the fact that three pizzas were nicked.

So annoying

It has been 'one of those days' for me. It began with me up and planning a bath before work only to find that - inexplicably - the bath plug was missing. I searched high and low for the plug, but without success. I can think of no reason why such an item should take its self off of its own accord. How annoying. Anyway, I had therefore to have a shower which of itself is annoying as the shower head at its highest is only shoulder height to me and I have to stoop under it. Further annoyance was caused when I went to Homebase to buy a replacement bath plug and it took fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, which was made up from minutes spent looking for a plug on own without success and minutes spent looking for a member of staff who could help me find a plug - also without success. Where have all the Homebase staff gone? Long time passing....

When eventually a bath plug was located I was further annoyed by how much money they wanted for such a basic item. Who knew one could pay as much as £9.58 for a bath plug?

Next I went to Tesco wanting a piece of salmon weighing about 600 grams to be cooked 'en croute', but the fishmonger only had ready cut pieces weighing at most 125 grams,and was unable (or unwilling) to cut into a whole salmon so that I could have what I wanted. Very annoying and meant an immediate 'think on feet and change of plan' on the culinary side, which also meant I no longer wanted half of the items I had in my trolley and had to put them back. Tonight though I am cooking something else down at Reidski's which requires a particular quite unusual spice which I already possess. How annoying then that I have just realised I have left the damn stuff at home and won't have time to go back and collect it.

But now I have read this and instead of feeling rather annoyed, I am instead rather amused.

Have a good - and completely unannoying - weekend everyone.


P.S What was REALLY annoying was when I got home with my new bath plug to see the old one sitting on the edge of the bath right next to the taps. GRRRRRR!!!!!!

Outfits and red flowers

My few days away on the Gower peninsular were spent with my sister, her 12 year old daughter and my daughter who is now 16. What they have in common, which I do not share, is a love of the X Factor. (Strictly Come Dancing every time for me - though I have hardly managed to see any of the current series due mainly to the fact that it clashes with Simon Cowell and co.)

The weekend was dominated by concern over the tele in the cabin we were staying at - it was a little temperamental and what WOULD we do if it went wrong during their programme?, and whether whatever we did would leave us enough time to get back in good time for the show - which is on both Saturday and Sunday (not to mention numerous repeats and a gossipy type programme about it too). Anyway - upshot of all this is that I have gained a certain amount of knowledge about this year's X Factor, especially that weekend as it was unavoidable, but also over the other weeks it has been on.

First things first - have to say John and Edward MUST win. Obviously they are totally without talent, but the reason they must win - apart from Simon Cowell promising to leave the country if they do - is that my eldest put 20 quid on them to win when the odds were 66-1 against that eventuality. Think of what a great Christmas present I could be in for if they do in fact win and vote for them on that basis people (Never let it be said I am too proud to beg).

Naturally I thoroughly enjoyed the dress Cheryl Cole was wearing at the weekend.

What's not to love when a celebrity looks so daft? But what really made it for me was that as if the dress itself wasn't enough - she had to stick a poppy on it. Indeed there was clearly a three line whip on wearing a poppy even though it is not Remembrance Sunday till next week, and even Bon Jovi had to wear one. I thought it was silly - but now I have read that viewers of MY programme (ie the one I never get to watch but wish I could - SCD) are ringing up the BBC complaining that the dancers are not (shock horror) wearing poppies. When exactly did it happen that not wearing a poppy - whilst taking part in a dancing competition for goodness sake - became beyond the pale?

For the record, as a young leftie I had a problem with wearing a poppy, having been sold the line about it glorifying war blah blah, but when I had sons of my own and got to thinking about how so many families lost their own sons during the World Wars my attitude changed and I did start to buy one. I am rarely to be seen wearing one mind you, but that is solely due to the fact that I have never mastered the pinning them on securely part and I lose them over and again. It is probably a deliberate ploy on behalf of the poppy appeal organisers which ensures they makes a fortune out of people like me.

It seems that the wearing of a poppy competition is getting out of hand. I spotted my first one in September, but how long will it be before the politicians and broadcasters wear them all year round? (I have heard Nick Griffin does just that, but to me that is just another indication of what a twat he is.)

So let's be sensible about this. Cheryl Cole's 'interesting' creation did not need a poppy - nor does that fact that she wore one prove to me how deeply that particular young lady thinks about war and the pity of war. Nor should we have reached the stage where a celebrity whose ballroom dancing costume scarcely covers her bits anyway, needs to wear a poppy with the outfit as an illustration of her respect for our war dead. Before someone hideous like that awful David Duff (is he still around? One hopes not) turns up here to accuse me of not caring, I can't make it through a two minute silence without dissolving into tears, but I don't feel the need to wear a poppy every time I venture out the house to indicate the depth of my own feeling. And I would not actually have been offended if our so called nation's sweetheart, Mrs Cole had thought a poppy an ornamentation too far with that very entertaining dress.

What is the name for a collection of paedophiles?

I know I have been somewhat remiss with this blog recently. Entirely unoriginal reasons for that so I will move swiftly on.

In the last two months I have been to China, New York and most recently, South Wales. I worked out that in the past twelve months I had actually been on four continents (Europe included which I only add because when I mentioned the four continents thing to my daughter she was at a total loss to think what the fourth one could be. I worry about her sometimes...) as it was just a year ago I was in Egypt. Totally amazing - and something I would never have imagined being able to say in my entire lifetime, let alone in the space of one year. I will return with highlights of those trips but for now something that has been playing on my mind this weekend.

Something else I could never imagine being able to say (or even wishing to be able to say) is that I have seen a certain musical* 9 times and counting. I don't even particularly like musicals as a general rule, but this has become a mother and daughter 'thing' for us, as my daughter is somewhat obsessed with the show. If I tell you that in the past few weeks her bedroom has been redecorated solely because she obtained two framed posters of the show, and her previous decor did not show them off to best effect, that may give some indication of the degree of her devotion to this show. She spends hours on the on line fans forum, and is pretty much a font of knowledge of All Things Billy.

Now I do realise 9 times to the same show must sound insane but this pales into insignificance against some of the other people on the fans forum, some of whom regularly see two performances on one day and have seen the show literally hundreds of times.

So who are these truly devoted fans of what they always refer to as BETM?

Well there are of course some young girls like my daughter who are captivated by the storyline, the music and the dancing, and of course by some of the young lads who play the title role. So far, so normal. BUT, and if I knew how to enlarge the font that BUT would have been a much larger BUT, then there is another category of fans and I experienced this group last Saturday night.

It so happened that last Saturday was the last performance of one of the Billy's. A very pretty 14 year old boy he is too. I reluctantly agreed that we could stay behind for a while after the show so that H could try and get a photo and/or an autograph. The signs for success looked good as there were not too many young girls waiting as well, but in the event we were thwarted in our mission . Whilst the young star did indeed come to the door prepared for photographs with fans and to write autographs the instant he appeared there was a stampede and we were just shoved unceremoniously out of the way. Not by other young girls I hasten to add, but by very dodgy looking single men who when I thought about it, had been lurking around in the shadows. These, as I soon learned, were the fanatical fans that see practically every show. Now maybe it is because I am a social worker that I am unable to think of any innocent reason why these particular individuals are so keen on this of all shows?

Not surprisingly the lad's chaperon got him back inside the theatre pretty damn quick.



That aside, if anyone has not seen this show and has the chance to go, it is simply breath taking, and I would recommend it to anyone. Thankfully it is possible to go and avoid the dirty mac brigade.



* The reasons for my reticence to actually name the show here is that on the previous occasions I have written about BE I have been swamped by visitors who search the net for all things Billy, and frankly I don't want perverts here.

This comes

via Gill and is scarier than anything you may have spotted on Halloween.