The Grumpy Old Blog

I have just returned from my sole weekly religious ramble, that is, to collect the guilty pleasure that is a paper version of The Sunday Times. Far more effective and less expensive, I might add, than swatting flies with an iPad. There were three young ladies in the shop, dropping off an assortment of Yodelised parcels for despatch (as opposed to "dispatch" - that is a 'something' that is "sent by speed" which I suspect Yodel cannot be justly accused of).   Their conversation was a model of spoken English. One of the young ladies mentioned that their Christmas dinner tomorrow, after the King's Speech no less, (not too sure whether they will be listening to HRM the King by his replantable Christmas tree - the Palace has NOT cut the roots off, intending to return it to pasture on the 13th day - or whether they mean the Colin Firth film) will be "to die for".   This, to me, seemed a rather terminal outcome for a Festive family dinner. However, sh...

  January New Year sales are off to a fine start with the arrival of Easter Eggs in all supermarkets. A Just Stop Oil protester will take B&Q to court because the tin of blue paint she purchased isn’t green. However, Greta Thunberg gets out of bed with a smirk on her face having lost her virginity to someone very green – the Grinch. Having come under question regarding the provision of an audit trail, the UN ask Hamas to provide them with receipts for their recently purchased rockets. Donald Trump predicts that 2024 could be cancelled as a leap year. February The BBC announces “Richard Osman” month where he will appear in every programme the corporation produces, either as host or as guest, apart from the weather, as his head is likely to poke up over the green screen. Elon Musk buys North Korea. Halloween outfits appear in Home Bargains. Katherine Ryan tells a joke that actually makes some people laugh. BBC weatherman, Tomasz Schafernaker, changes his name to Tom Weatherman. J...

  (Not me by the way!) This morning, I went early doors to have my local barber surgically attend to the three remaining hairs on the back of my head. This was rather than do the " mirror to the back of the head while facing the shaving mirror " thing that inevitably results in a visit to A&E to have the scissors surgically removed from my head. The barber is a rather affable chap of Kurdish descent - he was thrown out of a 'plane over Manchester by that nice Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (who calls himself  "RTE" - does he not realise, seeing as he is a grand press oppressor, those initials are more commonly referred to in this part of the world as the Irish National broadcaster, R adio T elifis E ireann?). Anyway, in commn with dentists, doctors and old-fashioned oak-panelled legal practices, there is an altogether grand selection of "vintage" reading material on the table in the waiting area. Magazines that would have Bargain Hunt's delightful Natas...

The wild and wacky world of banking. I have been a "happy" customer of Halifax for some 20 years now. However, the nearest branch (local cherry, oak and chestnut trees excepted!) to me is either a 40-minute walk in one direction (no, not walking there surrounded by the five tah-ood X-Factor irritations!), or a bus journey in the other. However, there is a Lloyds Bank, which owns Halifax, within five minutes' walk. So I phoned up my own bank to enquire if it would be possible to chuck some cash I'd received into my account via the Lloyds branch. "Yes" came the helpful reply, from a UK-based call centre operative, "it will be credited no later than within two hours". Fabulous, I thought. Trotted off to Lloyds. But lo, they cannot accept cash (or cheques etc). I need a Lloyds debit card. I did my best to explain I was a Halifax customer and that Halifax is part of Lloyds. But to no avail. I suggested the use of a Bank Giro slip. Nada. The cashier said...

"Terribly good" or "Awfully good".   I do not understand these. The wonderfully erudite Stephen Fry uses them with alarming regularity. He's a national treasure, so it is said, which presumably means you can pay an admission fee to inspect his vowels. I thought a national treasure was the likes of Stonehenge, where much to the Swedish Angy Bird's anger, as she jet-sets around the world from one environmental march to another, they have since brought in a hefty team of diesel JCB's to set the henges back one hour until spring. Thunberg, like Gary Crisps (for those not familiar, the appalling Linekar of the BBC -  he has extracted millions of pounds out of Walker's (Lay's throughout the world) to become their ambassador for obesity and cholesterol), seems to have also become a latter-day expert on Gazan affairs.  They both seem to hae a death wish by becoming involved in things they know less than absolutely nothing about, while at the same time de...