It is possible you disregarded the Home Service.
Well thatâs it now, all over bar the shouting, as my old dad used to say. I never really knew what he meant unless it was to do with the arguments over the result of something, whether it be a referendum or a sporting event. To my way of thinking, itâs the shouting that is usually the start of something.
Our council have decided that wrapping paper cannot be recycled because so much of it contains micro-plastic, so itâs all to go in a hole in the ground.
Master Fruitcake the Elder spent a post Solstice Day with us and was most disappointed to hear this so took the recycled wrapping paper covered in vegan ink patterns back home after we exchanged gifts so he could put it in his own recycling box.
Personally I donât see whatâs wrong with using good old-fashioned brown paper and string to wrap Yule gifts, but since we are a multi-belief household, gaudy plastic filled christmas paper was bought as if it was bog-roll during a bog-roll shortage.
Not having been to shops, markets, and salvage yards for many a Moon-cycle, I was unable to come up with a unique idea for my Lovely Cousin 'cept being a bit crafty by fitting lights to a fancy biscuit tin with a silhouette Winter scene on it.
Iâve received boring but essential stuff like PJs and hand kerchiefs, and a lot of gin, plus some good books to keep me occupied whilst the plague (hopefully) passes us by.
I hope you all enjoyed whatever festivities you celebrate around this time of year. As Dave Allen was oft wont to say, may your god be with you.
Oh, I nearly forgot. I was given a new floor steamer with multi-attachments for cleaning windows and grouting and upholstery and stuff. The Goddess of the White must have decided I had been a good boy this year to give me such a splendid gift.
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Greetings oh nut and fruitcake - I trust you had a gin soaked Xmas and some un-mentioned nibbles ? - thus the most suitable present from the fairy you mention which could be described as a modern styled exercise machine for those with little to do these days now that there is pandermonia or is that panderdemica everywhere?
may I wish you and yours a bright and prosperous and busy new year a swingin around with your cleaning irons [ sorta indoor golf practice really?] for my part I have managed to work my way through the countless bottles of bourbon and muscat - my favourite tipplets and then there were the varieties of meat and fish portions including kippers of course and prawns to name a few - the cat and dog send their regards and much delight as they joined me with the left overs!
no snow as usual out here as perhaps is the same for you too? but we have now entered the cyclone season and monsoonal downpours much needed rain of course but one does require a 4 x drive to get through the impasses. ahoy there me sailors!
isnât there a little gem missing in our jewellry collection - youâd think I could have sent a small card or summat?
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Jem leaves folks wanting more 
, (Bond Reference) he is a cunning linguist, but, has limitations, ainât we all 
. We all âShedâ just a bit of info. 
talkin of sheds - how is your sun lounge these days ? finished? or full of nippon bikes that wonât work? I once watched a doco with Johanna Lumley in it when she was visiting Japan - she entered here hotel and was met by walking [well sorta rollin] robots at the book in desk ; carrying her luggage and escorting her to her room - she was not amused! The nippons are drastically attempting to remove all human movements apart from lifting beer glasses in the male only bars at night - and so making any sort of human work unnecessary - they are not very clever on homo sapien psychology theories yet? 
Yer know Gummy, is quite ironic (as Alanis Morissette sang), having built the Office, Iâm so busy working, canât seem so spend anytime in there, this scenario has its roots in psychology, see, during adolescence, I discovered the delights of becoming âHands Onâ and although the target of this inclination has modified, the basic philosophy has not 
or to put it in plainer english âyou just canât relax and would rather be rooting in psychology?â mind you doing that in a glass surround office may not be too efficacious either?
Cats give us one of the finest metaphors, two cats basking in the sun, you approach, at 5 yards away, one scarpers and takes shelter under a parked car, the other stays firmly put to such an extent you have to step over it, its all about perceptions. 
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you still have cats and sun over there - wow so lucky - they do say a cat basking in the sun in Uk is a sure sign of climate change and an obsession with cats! - but they have always been more endearing than foxes heh - foxy who mentioned foxy? - the pacemaker wonder!!
Anything that Basques, well, a gentleman should not go there, he should just keep observing the antics of the pussies.
Glad you all had a lovely time of the holidays and great to see yiz all scribbling away to yer hearts content, never forgetting that this thread was built on bullshit. 
That should be the 11th commandment: âThou shalt not bask with fellow basket casesâ
We had a very enjoyable festive season despite the restrictions, thank you Pixie and Gumbud for the kind festive wishes.
Iâve been working on some Valentines day card verses for a pal of mine, (I also do birthdays, special occasions etc., so if you want to cement your love for a dear one just let me know and Iâll only be too pleased to oblige, all different and only 50p per dozen).
One of my old drinking buddies has fallen in love with a new neighbour of his, he lives with his older sister since his missus passed away some 15 years ago and heâs never bothered with women since, until he met Vera, the new neighbour. Heâs head over heels, God help him.
He was explaining it to me over the Christmas, hereâs his own words.
âJem, I need yer advice, thereâs an old dear I have me eye on up our street, she has a lovely tight hairdo in platinum blonde, well styled and none of your long straight dumb blonde split ends by the million stuff, me sister calls her the scull, behind her back of course, they are quite good friends.
Anyway I think she looks great, sheâs got the right head for short hair, sort of like a Mia Farrow sized head, only a young thing too at 65, and in great shape, a retired widowed nurse she tells me and sheâs great craic, holds her pints well, loves joking and is a good sport, I mean what more could a man ask for in a woman.â
When that sunk in he then added: âI was thinking of anonymously sending her a verse on a Valentine card, what do you think of me chances Jem?â
âAs good as anyoneâs Brian, Iâll write you a verse that should do the trickâ
And here it is, straight off the sausage machine.
âHappy Valentines day
Youâre not ugly, despite what they say
When you sit on your ass
And look in the glass
Youâll frighten those wrinkles away.â
From a secret admirer xxx
Well he did say she could take a joke, I expect to see him around the 15 of February with two black eyes, serve him right the randy old git, most women can take a joke but they donât like you joking about their looks.
welcome back you old rascal - I have been talkin to a secret admirer of yours recently and trying to entice her back - but just talking to her back does get a bit monotonous ! Anyway I have sown the seeds so now a bit of water and lets see what happens - youâll know when it does so warn the missus heh! - sheâs a bit of a Phyllistine??
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Why not combine commandments with a romantic advice for your pal?
âThou shall not covet thy neighbourâs arse.â
Speaking of commandments, I believe there were originally eleven, but one religious faction combined two to make a nice round ten, and not to be outdone, another religious faction combined two different ones to also make ten.
Personally, I think the truth is that one left before the rest became famous.
We used to have commandments at work, one of which was, Thou shall not get caught, and another was, Thou shall trust no barsteward.
Itâs been mild and damp by here on the Riviera as is the norm around Solstice time. You can have warm and wet or cold and dry.
Iâve had a play with my new toy. Itâs great for doing the floors but useless for cleaning windows.
I havenât started on the gin yet. I have a daily fluid limit and a weekly alcohol limit as dictated to me by the local heart failure team. I shall have to do some sums and fine tune some of my beers with lower ABVs so I can add in a gin or perhaps two without exceeding my permitted weekly alcohol unit limit.
Commandments, donât you just hate (some of) them.
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Fruity you reminded me of that old TV repairmans jokeâ
When were televisions fist mentioned in the bible?
When God appeared to Moses in a Bush. 
My father in law was a TV repairman God be good to him, he had just completed a course on the ânewâ coloured TVâs when he passed away in 1970, sad, he was only 60, we always got on well.
I used ton help him out on me day off, carrying in an out TVâs from houses pubs and flats for repair, they weighed a ton back then.
Yeah it would be nice to have herself back again to liven up the new year Gummy, time will tell, fair play to you for making the effort.
And now a light hearted look at the new normal.
Since this covid curse has descended upon us all we have been inflicted with dozens of new expressions, abbreviations, terms etc., and we are all supposed to know immediately what they are, how and when to use them, they even have the gall to tell us not to use covid test kits as per instructions, if that doesnât show you they donât know their arse from their elbows I donât know what does!
Well this old fools head is already full of covid crap and doesnât need to install any more, thank you very much.
I had to take a lateral flow test before I went out the other night.
Me, being an uneducated old man didnât know what the word âlateralâ meant, so I looked it up, it means âTo the side of, away from the middle of the body, âthe ears are lateral to the noseâ.
Now I had the idea, just ignore the instructions on the box and use your own interpretation.
We are lucky to have a side garden to our house so I went out to the side of the house and lay on the grass, it was very cold out there, I spread me arms as far away from the my body as possible and got the wife to âflowâ several drops from the tiny bottle of liquid into each of me ears, then waited for them to change colour.
They did, they turned purple very quickly, from the cold and not from the liquid. The wife who had a torch aimed at one ear as it was very dark outside the house, said:
âYour ear is a dark purple colour Jem, what does that mean in the test?â
âIt means Iâm bleedinâ freezing to death, feck this for a game of soldiersâ
I got up, went inside and reheated myself by the fire, dried off me ears and went out to the pub for a stiff drink to heat up me insides.
That was my first and last lateral flow test, donât buy them as they are a con, thatâs the trouble these days, companies have no consideration for their customers, an innocent fellow could catch pneumonia doing that test. 
As the man said, âThis is not a drill, a Black & Decker is a drill.â
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This made me laugh, 
Sums it up.
well Happy New Year for some an guess you are still waiting for yours or slumped on the coach with the missus and a flat can of beer on the go? - I am so over NYE celebrations etc etc that I cannot tell you what happened last night. Hit the sack about 10 ish and didnât hear the cock crow this morn even. Mind you that might be cos we had to behead it for xmas lunch a week ago? Well most of us know what the new year will bring for a while longer yet - yep heads down bums up and get vaxxed - or vaxxxed or as many as uzzz want? walk around lookin like a pin cushion if yuzzz want?
I have just watched a doco of the great ABC bit like your BBC and it;s history in Oz. and how it has been decimated by consecutive Tory govt in oz - it had and still does provide a vital service to all our neighbors the South Sea Islands in so many ways apart from training some of them to become journalists etc - and it is fighting back to retain that honor - long may it prosper - it has a great reputation out here~!!
Gum, just one thing, I havenât âSlumpedâ for years and, havenât âSlummed Itâ for even longer, we need to be clear on this.
Talkin of slumping where is that fellow Jem ? - surely not down the pub on a NYEâs night with Fiona having a bevvy?? - or maybe safely tucked away in his shed polishing up another wee Jem for a NYD present? - and letâs not forget fruitcake who I am sure has shed his drinking days with the lads now and maybe having a quiet night in?