Distinctly different

I'm sat here, typing this out and a neighbour - a few houses away, actually - is noodling on his guitar. I would say 'playing', but it's jazz. In other words, a random mess.

I don't like jazz. Can you tell?

This is not to say, however, that my neighbour is a poor guitarist. Far from it. We have heard some lovely music, usually blues-based, coming from his house. Normally,  it's just noodling though. Practice.

One day, some time ago, we were sat in our front room, reading quietly. After a while, I realised I could hear our neighbour playing his guitar. Only just, though. He must have had his windows closed - or the breeze was blowing the wrong way, carrying the majority of the sound with it. As I said, it was a very soft noise, far from intrusive. In fact, when I commented to Julie that our neighbour had begun his guitar practice, she was surprised. In fact, even when I drew her attention to it, it still wasn't registering.

Zing!
Well, I lost that one. Not only was I confusing, Julie also managed to fit in a truly apposite pun. In the meantime, perhaps Julie could use these to boost her hearing...

The platypus and the identity crisis.

I don't tend to watch TV that much. This means I need to find an alternative method of finding out the news. Sure, in these times the internet is pretty much the source for all the news you could ever want - and don't want. Or isn't true. Whatever. I'm not that old, in my mid-forties, but I'm certainly of an age and disposition that I prefer to read a newspaper, printed on paper.

Obviously, the question then becomes 'which newspaper'? No way am I going to read the parochial Daily Mail and the Princess Diana-fixated Daily Express. Likewise, I want to actually read news about real things, so that eliminates The Sun and the Daily Star. After that, you then turn you what are known as the broadsheets; The Times and The Guardian. However, they are known as broadsheets for a very good reason - their size. I'm sorry, but I don't want to have to wrestle with my newspaper. Also, I have to admit that while I like to think of myself as being better than reading the redtops with their pictures of topless women, The Guardian and especially The Times are far too highbrow for me.

This leads me to The independent..
However, buying a newspaper every day is a tad pricey, especially when you don't have much money coming in. And this is where the people at The Independent had a cracking idea - why not publish a digest version of the main newspaper - give the main points for each story and then move on.
Since The Independent by definition and reputation is fairly unbiased in its political leanings, this is another point in its favour for me. Also, since the i, as the digest paper is known (including the colour), necessarily cuts out a lot of stuff for the sake of space, this means there is a lot, lot less celebrity crap.
Oh, and the paper is stapled, so no trouble with keeping it all together.
All for 20p (30p on Saturdays, as it covers the weekend).

The i is a great read, for me at least, but there is one feature that Julie, my mother and me all enjoy; the crossword at the back. It's general knowledge, and of moderate difficulty. One feature of this crossword is especially fun for us - the first two (sometimes three) clues across make up a pun. For example, the answer to the across clues could be 'Hart' (a stag) and felt (a soft material, often used for hats). If you put them together, you then get 'heartfelt'. Not a funny pun, but it's a little something just to help you along.

Recently, both Julie and myself found ourselves momentarily stumped by a particular clue.

14A Diving duck (6)

Since other answers had given us _C___R, we should have had enough to work with. Unfortunately neither of us are bird-watchers, and I had a headache in any case. Since our habit is to pass the crossword back and forth, each filling in until we get stuck, did that. and then we fell back on our normal practice; trying to talk it out. We worried at a couple of other problematic clues for a while, and then returned to our diving duck. Initially, we both sat in silence, trying to think is through, but then we tried our emergency option - wild guesses.
On this occasion, the wild guesses were to get a little wilder than before...

Obviously, Julie was in quite a whimsical frame of mind.

By the way, the answer to the clue was 'scoter' (to be honest, I'd never have got that). Have a look at the RSPB page for it.

Magnificent motors, post-haste!

This weekend, there were a couple of events taking place in Eastbourne. One was a semi-regular 'continental' market along the seafront promenade, which sells product from Europe and the UK - and, for some reason, native American Indian-themed clothing and accoutrements. Hence the use of quote marks above. There were plenty of foodstuffs - mostly pricey foodstuffs. Admittedly, they were tasty, but they were still pricey. Baklava (or however you wish to spell it), churros, paella (so very tempted by this), noodles, biscuits, cakes, cheeses (including a cheddar infused with Guinness. VERY nice melted onto toast) and sweets. There was even a guy trying, in the chill wind, to sell slush puppies. Yeah. I'm guessing he wasn't making much of a profit this weekend.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the long prom (and back a bit), there was the annual event known as Magnificent Motors. We're not petrolheads, not in the slightest. Any interest in cars, vans, buses or lorries is going to be on a purely cultural basis. We don't care how smooth a ride it is/was, or what goes on under the bonnet (or 'hood' for our American friends). However, it was something to do on a bank holiday weekend, so we wandered along, grateful that there was no entry fee.

Last year, it turned out that I was far more interested in one of the bands playing than in anything else - as we approached, I heard the strains of a cover of a tune by The Specials. All of a sudden, Julie found herself talking to thin air (I know, I know...), as I peeled off at speed and a tangent, and made a beeline for the stage where Ska'd 4Life were banging out some great tunes. There was a half decent crowd, but only myself, a couple of young children and one woman (who turned out to be a band WAG) near the stage showed any inclination to pump elbows and dance along. Julie, in the meantime, maintained a cautious distance.
Sadly, the music this year wasn't up to par, although I had to give the singer we saw some credit for singing the Joni Mitchell hit 'Big Yellow Taxi' at a motor show.* I'd have put a pile of money on nobody else getting the joke, though...

It didn't take us long to wander around, although we did stop and have a chat with one guy who was running a stall devoted to making and selling DVDs of old film footage of various forms of public transport around the South of Britain. I was very tempted, but Julie persuaded me not to bother. I'm still thinking about it though. Hmm, look at that, I seem to have his website....
Shortly after that, we came across this beautiful old car.

Apologies for the quality, I was only using my phone-cam.

Now, bear in mind that, as I said before, neither of us have any knowledge or interest of a car's workings, I was curious as to what that brass plate I have pointed out was actually for. In fact, it put me in mind of something else...

Facepalm time. Well done, love, you caught me out with that one. Terrible pun, but you got me, nonetheless.

*Oh come on, you know the lyrics; "... they paved paradise and put up a parking lot..."

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OK, so we're now into the final week of our prize draw. If you haven't put your name in yet, then do so immediately, if not sooner. The prizes, as if you need reminding, are as follows.

1 person wins a special edition of 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, a special edition of Audrey Niffenegger's 'The Time Traveler's Wife, an official Julie's Gems bookmark and a funky slap-watch.
4 people will win a special edition of 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman and an official Julie's Gems bookmark.

Remember, anyone can enter, the prizes will be sent to anywhere in the world at no cost to you. All you have to do is send us an email (no postal addresses yet!) to juliesgemsuk@hotmail.co.uk
The latest date for entries is this Sunday, 13th of May

Time to finish with a video - a little bit of Ska'd 4 Life, anyone?

John, Ringo, George and Pun.

On one of our many trips out, we were sat in a cafe, supping tea and discussing various letter-themed tunes that we could install on our mobile phones - just to use for an alert for any incoming text messages. I know; sad, isn't it? The usual suspects turned up pretty quickly - The Proclaimers' "Letter From America" and The Carpenters' "Please Mr. Postman".
It didn't take long before we fell quiet, having run out of obvious choices, but then Julie threw something in that was so left-field it was positively trippy.

"Oh dear," I thought, "It's going to be like that is it?"

Thank Frunchie it's Criday!

Apologies for the title - it's a spoonerism of a popular advertisement catchphrase - courtesy of Julie, naturally. However, it's not purely because today happens to be that glorious day (yes, it HAS been a rough week at work - could you tell?).

One day last week, Julie and me had been shopping and were crossing the car park, discussing whether to catch a bus or to walk. From the car park, we had a good view of the road and therefore of the bus that passed along it - accompanied by a choice oath from my beloved.
"Never mind," I said, "we didn't want that bus anyway. It was a double decker and they're usually the 51, the one that turns off partway down the road."
"The 55 is sometimes a double decker," Julie pointed out.

However, all this talk of double deckers gave me an idea for a quick joke. As you'll see, quick as I may have been, I was positively lethargic compared to Julie's reply.

You may notice I wasn't too upset by Julie's one-upping of me. As far as I am concerned it was a brilliant comeback, and far swifter in its conception than my original, terribly unsubtle gag.
We were talking about it a short while later, while waiting for a (different) bus...

Gah! She did it again!!

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An apology
It occurs to me that this may be a rather Brit-centric joke, so in the interest of international understanding, here is a picture of some of the chocolate bars made by Cadbury.

Hopefully, in that stack, you can see the bars Flake, Wispa and - of course - Double Decker.

This has all the signs of a pun

And that's just the title. Yeah... sorry about that one.

You may have noticed that times are getting a little hard. Belts are being tightened everywhere. Unless you happen to be a politician, of course, in which case not only are belts being loosened after each and every meal, but larger pockets are being installed.
>sigh<
If you look along the road at the bottom of our street, you'll see many of the shops have closed down and there are plenty of these signs to be seen.

Seriously, there are a LOT. This picture was taken in Birmingham, which is apparently one of the worst-hit places in Britain. Our town isn't so bad off, but it's not good. The only businesses that seem to be opening and thriving are cafes, hair salons and beauty treatment places. Oh well, when it hits the final fan, we'll have nothing to do but look good and be refreshed.
In the meantime, business after business it closing down and there are more 'To Let' signs appearing almost weekly, it seems. In fact, as Julie so rightly put it...

Ba-boom tish!