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...

I had a flashback to some 25 years ago when I worked in Guiseley, a small town just south of Otley (famous for Thomas Chippendale) in the Leeds Metropolitan Borough. It is famed for being the origin and headquarters of the world-famous Harry Ramsden's fish and chips, at one time "the world's biggest fish and chip restaurant" and connected to the parents of Harry "Sooty, Sweep and Sue" Corbett (as well as Silver Cross Prams, Shires Bathrooms, Greenwood's Menswear, Compton Lighting and Wendy Wools). On one occasion I was in the then recently built, and at the time, flagship Morrison's Supermarket, a flagship to the extent that Sir Ken Morrison regularly turned up to service behind the deli counter. On that day, I was in the cash-out queue behind a young mother with her twin children in a double buggy (yes, it was a fine, locally-made, Silver Cross double-buggy!). Now bearing in mind this was before the digital revolution that now sees most young moth...