Ding-Dong-Merrily

It's been a while since I enlightened the world on my daily happenings so I thought an update was in order. Firstly, and in case you hadn't noticed, it was Christmas last week. A family affair for me.....back to the homestead in Bognor with the rents and added sibling.....no skiing, log cabins/fires or building snowmen for me....nope, and the extra chilly weather which we had been experiencing at least could have provided something in resemblance to 'Winter Wonderlandish' for extra Christmassiness (it can be a word), but this was replaced with the usual dark, cloudy and soggy on the day itself....yep traditional British Christmas weather right there.

As with most people Christmas traditions are upheld each year in our house (decorations, lights, listening to Christmas songs, arguments, ingestion of way too much chocolate and the need for Gaviscon) , the main one is to turn off the TV (not the whole time I hasten to add) and observe some quality family time in the guise of participation in 'fun' card and board games (non-optional.....unless you're mum, well she is in charge of the food provisions so if she wants to be the festive Grinch there's no argument from me). Cribbage, Uno, Trivial Pursuit and, the newly purchased, Underground: The London board game were the top choices this year. Fun and frolics were had by all, even though some, so called, family members lowered the wholesome tone by cheating, none too discreetly either *coughs* Sarah *coughs*....tables were turned however when father and I ganged up and gave her an arse whooping in a later game.....yep, like I said honest, wholesome family fun.

So, further to my Christmas round up another observed tradition is, or at least should be, watching the top Christmas TV line up, which this year equated to BBC's Oliver Twist (which was actually pre-Christmas), ITV's The Old Curiosity Shop, Eastenders (because absolute misery is a must for Christmas viewing) and Doctor Who (of course).....the latter was excellent even if it bore more than a passing resemblance to The Poseidon Adventure, but in space and with less Gene Hackman and a little more Kylie Minogue. Apart from that I was very thankful for the 11 DVDs I received from Santa, as the traditional Christmas TV fare was beyond pants....I mean seriously as pants go this was a choice of either grannies frilly pantaloons or discarded 1960's woollies, ripped and with skid marks.

So, the New Year is on the way....I'll soon be returning to the new postcode and hopefully may even find employment, if i can convince some silly bugger I'm worth it....for now though there's just enough time for me to whoop dad at Cribbage one last time.

Club Mercury's Final Christmas Do

Crikey, I've been busier in the last couple of days than I have been in the last six months. Visited the old haunting ground of Southampton yesterday, meeting up with Alison (times 2) Elin and Dan (the bat) for lunch and mass gossip session.

The poxy train took much longer than expected/advertised, which meant that the shopping I was going to do in the town had to be scrapped. Still, I had a decent chat with Alison, much laughs with Dan and when the other pair finally showed up (who knew it would be difficult to park in S'ton the week before x-mas) we ate food and made a mess with wrapping paper and envelopes. I'd gone with fluffy venereal diseases for Elin and Ally (Herpes and Syphilis to be exact) the gift which keeps on giving and can be shared with loved ones. (http://www.giantmicrobes.com/) thanks to the attached leaflet we all learnt something useful and tried to remember which monarch had gone doo-lally with the pink worm....I'm going with Nigel Hawthorne.

So, after our meal, and due to our current location being cold enough to freeze off brass monkeys (or however the phrase goes), we descended on a well known coffee house for hot chocolate and cake.....hmmmmmm. Not long after this I realised I was about to miss my train and hi-tailed it to the station....where I arrived just in time to see said train pulling out of the station and, subsequently, the rush-hour (which isn't rushed in any sense of the word, nor does it take an hour) journey took me just shy of 3 hours and 3 changes to get home.....by which time I was officially an Ems-sicle.

Today I wandered round pretty much every side road in the Worthing area shopping, seeing to appointments and generally getting my bearings (which was a little trial and error....with emphasis on the error), hopefully I'll be all over the direction stuff when I venture out tomorrow.

Irn Bru Christmas Ad

New Diggs

Officially got all moved into my room in the shared house in Worthing yesterday.....It was a relatively simple process, even if there was panicky moment when we thought that the TV wasn't going to work ( I hate technology it should be press button, switch on, does everything automatically, done)....but crisis was soon averted and my fabulous Viera switched on in all it's Technicolor glory.

Still need some storage, mainly for my excessive dvd collection, curtains (thankfully it's proper dark in the mornings at the moment) and some lamps to make it cozy. I also need to move some more stuff in, but since I'm back to Bognor next week for Christmas, that can wait.

One of my new housemates, Emma, had invited a couple of her friends round to watch the finale of (Fi)X-Factor and had prepared a bunch of tasty munchies. I decided to forgo the (Fi)X-Factor part of proceedings, retiring instead back to my room with a plate full of food to watch Robin Hood.

Speaking of, quite impressed by last nights episode....plenty of expected action and adventure, complete with a treasure hunt....who'd have thought it'd be the Oxo mum.....a randy Oxo mum apparently too. Marian got herself into to a right load of doo-doo....actually feeling sorry for Guy of Gisbourne, not only is he being led a merry dance by the young maiden but he seems to be the only bloke in Nottingham who can't recognise lady lumps under a tunic.....for heavens sake man, do you not have eyes!

Anyway, the Nightwatchman was revealed to Guy and then he and Alan covered it up to protect Marian in front of the sheriff....is Guy doing this out of the good of his heart or to manipulate Marian in the future.....hmmm it's a puzzler.

???????

The incomprehensible has happened....I just don't know what to do.....how will I possibly cope?......I just keep pinching myself hoping that it is in fact some kind of terrible nightmare, but then I open my eyes and see something which chills me to the core......

"No satellite signal is being received"

I'm not going to panic, nope...panic.....me....not going to happen....I can manage without television, it's not like I'm addicted or anything.....is it me or is it getting hot in here, my palms are getting awfully sweaty.......I'm just going to sit in the corner on my own for a while, hug a pillow and rock gently for a few hours......but not because I'm panicking.

T-Minus

I move house in four days....four days people and there's a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be sorted before then.....TV licence, wrap Christmas presents, arrange DSS appointment in Worthing Branch, get a job, write and post Christmas cards....and , um, well pack everything. Notice my priorities there, hmm maybe I should work through that 'to do' list backwards.

I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff which I've forgotten about which also need to be taken into consideration for the move....like why the heck am I moving house this close to Christmas....but certain parental factions are sure to have the slack and will probably be whipping me with it before long.....personally I'm of the 'chuck everything into a box and sort it out sometime in the future' vain of moving, but I'm not too sure how successful that will turn out...meh.

So the countdown continues and I'm sure there's something constructive I could be doing right now......Ooo, is that a split end...better sort that.

Robin of Muttley

Still finding Robin Hood relatively entertaining, it seems to have found a decent enough balance of swashbuckling, comedy and postmodern referencing. Though the other week Allan-a-Dale, after wrestling a nun into bushes (could have turned into a whole other show right there) was guilty of delivering the, ever-so-slightly, dodgy line of 'say a little prayer for me' before pegging it.

This evening I must admit I nearly laughed up a lung due to the gratuitous Hanna/Barbera ref.....I guess it was only a matter of time during an episode where the principle plot device was a pigeon...could have been worse, Little John could have sparked up a long distance relationship with Clara or perhaps Djaq could have had a Tet-a-tet with Dr Glossop while Much took his pet squirrel to see the wondrous and knowledgeable Macadoo.

In case you missed it the ref I am referring to is the sheriff's dialogue of 'Catch that pigeon.....Now!'

While I'm on dialogue there was some corking stuff in an episode a few weeks back delivered by the fantastically funny Josie Lawrence (whatever has she been doing since Who's Line....It's a puzzler), highlights included; 'Hello baldy' (to the sheriff), 'Slimey little snothead' (descriptive of Guy) and my personal favourite....'Hairy pig witted fox turd I’ll pluck your eyeballs from your bony skull and squelch them into cesspits'....a phrase which surely deserves to be integrated into modern societal dialect....for example when dealing with cold callers, mad drivers, chavs......and carol singers