60 days ago
As the rain started to come down but before the heavens opened in full, Joshua (13) and myself (87) managed to pick 100 stems of lavender from the bushes that now form a “wall” where the vegetable patch overlooks the track down to the farm. There are plenty mores stems and by next weekend, if it ever stops raining, I aim to have four bunches hanging up in the kitchen on the old meat hooks embedded in its beams.
1063 days ago
In today’s podcast I reflect on yesterday’s family meal in Shipston, then look at Central Copper Resources and Red Rock Resources (RRR), folks may believe in Santa but do they still believe in Andrew Bell? Then I consider Tern (TERN), PCF Group (PCF) and the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME) and I urge you to enter Nigel’s sweepstake HERE before midnight. Finally I have along look at Vast Resources (VAST).
1426 days ago
A triumph for the hard-working chef i.e. me. At the head of the table in a stunning new Indian shirt from his Grandmother sits Joshua. In front of him in order:
1426 days ago
Santa really is a jolly good fellow, spending a good bit of time at the West Ham shop. Hammers Socks for Joshua. Hammers Socks for the Mrs with “The World’s Best Mum” written on the side and a mug for me. In fact, as you can see, one of two mugs he brought me.
1455 days ago
Do not get misunderstand me. Christmas at the Welsh Hovel will not be a dry celebration of the birth of Christ. We too, will tuck into a bird (duck), will enjoy Christmas Pudding and brandy butter. Santa will be left with a glass of Metaxa and a mince pie and will reward good boys, girls, adults and cats with a full stocking. There will be presents for all under our tree which is currently sitting in the garden where it lives for 49 weeks a year as I am a bit of a closet greenie. Indeed, in an unusual burst of efficiency, the main presents for the Mrs and Joshua are already here. However in this household we know what we are celebrating.
2890 days ago
I put it off yesterday, so traumatized was I after a session in Sainsbury's. At the local branch here in Brislington, it was not the staff but gormless young chavs half way between a hangover and a bender, who dressed as Santa or as an elf and roamed the aisles in search of cheap alcohol or mass produced junk food. Such is Christmas 2016 in Britain. It is a long way from a manger in Bethlehem and the poor shepherds.
2955 days ago
I have written to Santa and think that I have been a jolly good boy this year and so I have made him a list of presents which you can see HERE. One of them concerns Cloudtag. But the matter of Cloudtag (CTAG) and Christmas is praying on my mind - when will the fraudsters admit that the guaranteed $5.2 million of orders for this year is not going to happen?
3321 days ago
I wonder how long it will be before that annual ritual occurs when the Daily Mail discovers a CofE vicar who has foolishly told the kiddies that Santa does not exist. The poor chap gets pilloried for a week or so before even the Mail accepts that he cannot be burned at the stake for telling the truth. I have felt a bit like the poor Rev when pointing out that whatever Steve Sanderson of UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) says on camera – and then denies he ever said – there is NOT 100 billion barrels of oil at Horse Hill. Maybe the tide is now turning.
3613 days ago
For some reason I dozed off between the end of Skyfall and the tome to go to midnight mass. As such when waking up on Christmas day the stockings of myself, the Mrs and the cats were opened in something of a rush. Santa clearly thought that we had all behaved well in 2014. Clearly he does not know about how Oakley, the three legged cat, likes weeing on the inside doormat. And thus we were all well rewarded and after a splendid breakfast cooked by yours truly we wandered off to St Cuthbert’s Brislington.
Built in 1933 this church could easily hold 350. As it was with the Mrs and I in attendance there were 15 in the congregation plus vicar and organist. It is not as if midnight mass at Brislington is packed – there cannot have been more than 35 in attendance in 2013. One fears that a couple of cold winters could see just the mrs, the Vicar and I attending Christmas day 2018. We were the youngest in the congregation by a long chalk: what is happening to the C of E?
It is just that Christmas has become one great big godless consumerfest celebrated across the world by folks of whatever background. My 13 year old daughter Olivia – deprived of the alternate Christmases promised by her mother Big Nose 10 years ago, has never once attended Church on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. That I rather regret.
The Mrs and I do not take communion as I am very much lapsed in my faith and the Mrs has grave doubts. But we try to think of what Christmas is about and it is not as the Radio DJs insist on saying “all about family and friends”. However much the PC brigade insist otherwise Christmas is about Jesus. The fact we celebrate this festival and the traditions involved are down to Jesus. We give each other presents because we are celebrating God giving us his only son, whether we regard that as fact, belief or fantasy. To deny the involvement of Jesus in Christmas seems fatuous to me.
The sermon was bland enough but at least this C of E vicar managed to resist the urge to pray for peace in Palestine, the C of E codewords for “all power to Hamas”. And with that
