Vote for John Sergeant!

Throughout the ancestral pile chez Jennyta cries can be heard as an 'animated discussion' gets underway over the merits (or otherwise) of one of the contestants of tonight's edition of Strictly . Yes, it's good old John Sergeant, the contestant I'm rooting for. Keith, incomprehensibly, doesn't really rate him; in fact, he thinks he should have been out of the competition long ago. I however, appreciate his gentle, self deprecating wit and think he's an all-round good egg. OK, so his terpsichorean ability would not set the world on fire but you have to admit, he has put in a lot of effort, sufficient to lose two stone in weight in fact, and the clip of him dragging his poor partner across the dance floor a few weeks ago is sufficient to set me giggling any time it comes to mind. Check it out yourself
While dancing ability is undoubtedly important, 'Strictly' is a family entertainment show, which means that personality has to be a vital ingredient and John certainly has that.

I would really like to see a burgeoning 'John Sergeant' fan club with a rapidly expanding sideline in stickers, banners, flags with captions along the line of 'Vote for John Sergeant - Strictly's next winner!' I want to see houses festooned with banners across their front windows, cars with stickers on their rear bumpers.

Come on everyone - VOTE FOR JOHN SERGEANT! You know you want to!

(No, I haven't even started on the red wine yet!)

Remember, remember the 5th of November

An experience to avoid - counselling clients during the evening of November 5th. The repeated explosions in the immediate vicinity are not conducive to a peaceful session!
Speaking of which, can anyone explain why, in this era of Health and Safety overload, in which the Nanny State involves itself in every minute aspect of daily life, it is still regarded as perfectly acceptable to buy explosives and set them off in the privacy of your own garden?

Looking after pets

This post on Daphne's blog stirred up memories of when my children were growing up and the boys had a variety of animals between them. Mostly they were Younger Son's, though and at one time we had 13 rabbits, several mice, hamsters, gerbils, a couple of chinchillas and weasels and then there were the reptiles, an iguana and a water snake. The iguana feasted on crickets for preference and these were bought from the local pet shop. The water snake, on the other hand, was partial to baby rats, dead ones, which were also bought from the local pet shop but, being dead, had to be frozen until they were used. You see where I'm going with this? The clue is in the word 'frozen.'
Which is why one day at work, I received an extremely irate phone call from ex-husband who had plunged his hand into the freezer to find something for dinner that evening and had encountered a plastic bag of frozen baby rats.
The only thing which puzzled me was that, as I had had no idea that YS had put the rats in the freezer, it should have been my fault. Perhaps one of those examples of how 'a mother's place is in the wrong'?

Snow???

Well tomorrow, it seems, it's officially winter but someone didn't tell Wales. This morning, my neighbour had a visitor in a snow covered car and the forecast for tonight is minus 2 degrees.
Just one problem - I'm still waiting for summer!

Vive l'internet!

Reading Gemmak's latest post this morning led me to pondering on how important the internet has been to me. Having come to computers in the days of the BBC microcomputer (32 bit memory!), I was hooked immediately, but it was some years later when I made the acquaintance of the internet. In fact it was when Elder Daughter went off to university and we were able to set up a dial up connection which was temperamental, to say the least. But it was a start and eventually we graduated to broadband and the delights of the world wide web became more accessible.
Now, I am well and truly hooked and couldn't imagine having to do without it (witness my withdrawal symptoms when I am away from home and have no access!) I have made lots of online friends through Blogger, of course, and emailing friends and family is so much easier and more immediate than old fashioned 'snail mail'. When Elder Son is abroad on a tour of duty, I can email him and he receives the email within a couple of days rather than having to wait for weeks and during my last few years of teaching, internet access in the classroom through an interactive whiteboard was a real thrill for me, although the six year old pupils were so much more blase about it, of course.
Through the internet, I have renewed contact with people from my past and when you have an intenet 'presence' who knows who you might be reunited with or what new friends are just a click away? It can be a two-edged sword, but my life would be very different now were it not for the internet and yes, I'm happy about that.

Walking some more

There was a prescription for Keith waiting at the chemist so off I went yesterday morning, braving the gale force winds, uphill all the way, to walk the two and a half (or maybe three) miles to Coed Poeth where the chemist's shop is.
"I walked to Coed Poeth this morning," I said to Keith later.
"You didn't! You're joking!What on earth did you do that for?" was the reply.
Not really what I was looking for. "Thank you for getting my prescription," would have been more the sort of reaction I was seeking.
"Oh yes, thank you for getting my prescription," he said meekly.
(Anyway it must have been at least half a stone's worth of walking - at least.)

The Government and the banks are looking after us - honest!

I was sent a link to The Daily Mash in an email this weekend and couldn't resist posting it here. We probably mostly breathed a sigh of relief that the USA and European governments finally decided to do something about the chaotic financial abyss yawning at our feet, but looking at it this way - well, it does make you wonder...
The Government is to invest £500bn of your money in British banks so they can lend it back to you with interest.
The historic move is being hailed as a lifeline for the financial system as long as nobody asks too many questions. Julian Cook, chief economist at Corbett and Barker, said: "The government will give your money to the banks so the banks can start lending you that money, probably at around 7% APR. Thanks to all the interest you're paying on your own money, the banks will make billions of pounds again and normality will be restored. After a few years of this the government will cash in the bank shares it bought with your money and use the profits to build a huge f*****g dome somewhere."
He added: "In case you hadn't already worked it out - the entire global financial system is predicated on the assumption that you're an idiot."
Chancellor Alistair Darling said the decision had been taken in tandem with the banking industry, adding: "They used a lot of dirty words I'd never heard before and one of them had an angry looking dog."
Meanwhile, Emma Bradford, a sales manager from Bath, said: "Why doesn't the government just give my money to me so I can buy stuff from businesses who will then make a profit and put it in a bank?"
But Mr Darling insisted: "Shut up."
And then, of course, when you keep hearing snippets of news about how the city wizz kids are still getting their fantastic bonuses and no heads are really rolling over this and no-one seems to be addressing the question of how to prevent this sort of thing happening again, you have to wonder if your money (if you still have any) would be safer in a sock under the mattress.