Vegetables and violence

I bet that one got your attention.

I like to eat. Too much, really. My problem isn't so much the food, but the quantity of it. Yeah, I eat crap. However, I also eat vegetables. There are only a few I cannot get on with at all; parsnips, avocado (yes, I know it's a fruit), and brussel sprouts are the most prominent ones.

Tuna salad - mmmmmm...

Julie, on the other hand, is a little more picky when it comes to greens - and whites, oranges and yellows etc. Some are a knee-jerk reflex, having never tried them. Others are a genuine dislike. Cabbage is definitely one of the Disliked.

On a recent visit to my mother, dinner was being prepared, and when we were asked what veg we wanted, I piped up with a joking suggestion.

...you win.

Pay (lots) to play

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an inordinate fondness for facts. Whether they be relevant to something in my life, or just useless trivia, I will usually read about it and think, "well I never." Among the Giles annuals and Pratchett books in my own personal library, there are a number of non-fiction books. Many are to do with natural history, but others will stray out into other sciences, language, history and even mathematics.

Yes, I am a word nerd.

For our wedding, we bucked a few trends; we made our own table centrepieces (with hedgehogs, of course), we insulted the registrar (link), and we made our own wedding favours, to be opened as the meal began. Intended to be something to help relative strangers strike up conversation with each other, we included, along with the ubiquitous sugared almonds, a few chocolate coins, a cheap toy such as you may find inside a Christmas cracker - and a folded piece of paper, upon which was written the following; a joke ("Two fish were in a tank. one said to the other, 'how do you drive this bloody thing?'") and a factoid, a little snippet to make people wonder.

To that end, books like this were invaluable.

Crammed with all sort of useless cra.. uh, information, this and others like it are fun reading. Especially when you are stuck in the smallest room in the house for a while...

I don't know which book it was, but one of my trivia books had a section on words that have been adopted into English from various other languages. And then proceeded to give us a literal translation of said word. For example...

Ba-dum TISH!

Teletlikeitis

In the car one day, we were waiting at a junction to a dual carriageway. Waiting and waiting; it's a busy stretch of road.
Just before the junction, on the dual carriageway itself, there is a pedestrian crossing, the type where you need to press a button for the lights to change.

Unfortunately for us, there was not a pedestrian in sight, and I starting hoping aloud for one to come and push that damn button so the lights would change and thereby allow us out.

Julie suggested I tried to do it by telepathy. I could have let it slide and accepted the sentiment, but I'm a picky bugger and I have a very strong didactic streak in me, so I took the opportunity to explain the correct term and the difference between the two.

Very quick, and - in my view - pretty much spot-on these days. Ironic, though, as I'm not the one that watches X Factor...

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ps: If you're wondering about the title, try saying aloud.

Padding out the truth

I enjoy having a shower. We don't have a shower, but when we are anywhere that has a nice, powerful shower, expect me to only leave it when I am good and pruned. Put it another way; this is the kind of expression I have on my face when I'm enjoying a shower.

The closest I'll ever get to inner peace.

As I said, anywhere with a good shower is a good place for me to stay. And if that shower happens to be in a decent-sized cubicle (as opposed to a clinging curtain around a bath), then I am especially chuffed.

Once, Julie and myself were away for a night or two, so we stopped in a motel or similar. I noticed right away that there was a shower meeting almost all of my requirements for a nice, long soak. The only trouble with showers is that you have to stand up. If someone were to put something for me to sit on while I am under the shower head, then you would probably have to drag me out. With that in mind, I mentioned my need for shower seating to Julie.
Silly me.

I never did ask  for that seat...

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...

HUNGRRRRY! (our 400th post!)

Post number 400? Indeed it is! It's not our 400th Gem, thanks to our prize draws, but we're working on it. It's hard to believe that we started this back in February of 2011 with an odd question from Julie regarding a thin soup.

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Talking of food, I have a confession to make; I enjoy food rather too much. It's not a bolt from the blue for people that know me, but it makes a point.

You see, one of the downsides of eating a lot is that you tend to feel hungry more often. Sometimes it's a phantom feeling, but it's more usually a side-effect of your stomach simply getting into the habit of eating a lot. Julie used to have a problem herself, but a stomach bypass operation has changed that. (Ironically, the first thing that Julie had following the operation was consomme - as Gemmed all that time ago!)

For me, I find that I am often feeling at least peckish about an hour or so after a meal - something that astounds my wife. Admittedly, I have larger portions than I should, but salad only tends to go so far, no matter how much you eat. Consequently, on a recent occasion, I was feeling a little more than 'peckish'.

Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors as portrayed
by Gazzycakes on deviantArt.
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Audrey-II-38506578

>ahem<

Anyway, there had been noises issuing from my equator, so I decided to do something about it. Julie couldn't believe it.

No, that's not me.

Well played, love, well played.

Hayling Island Week; Pulling power

Hello and welcome back to a week full of Gems born on the south coast resort of Hayling Island.

After a cup of tea and a stroll through the empty fairground, Julie and myself popped into the tourist information office. The woman there was charmingly candid about the island's size and facilities (ie, there aren't many), but was cheerfully chatty and helpful about what there was around there.

Ten minutes later and armed with a map of the island, we headed west.

As you can see from the map, there is a nature reserve on the north side of the western branch of the island. However, since time was pressing on, we elected to pass that by for now and get a bite to eat at the pub next to the ferry, where I had the oddest lasagne I have ever eaten. For some reason, they were using a sort of gravy as the main sauce... Whatever. I'm just glad I didn't have the burger.

After eating, we went for a walk. However, we had forgotten about the nature reserve, having been distracted by a wonderful shingle beach and a lovely blue sea. That and all the dogs that people were walking.*

On a recent visit to my mother, we had gone for a drive around Derbyshire (absolutely beautiful countryside), and had each picked up a book about British wildlife, plants and animals both. I was now carrying around my copy, trying to identify various plants that I deemed to be interesting. This led to an accusation from Julie that I was turning into my father; I couldn't make up my mind whether to deny this or accept it.

One of the plants we looked at looked, from a distance, similar to gorse, which is a shrub I find to be very beautiful (although a bit of a bugger if the path you're walking on happens to be lined with plentiful and encroaching gorse bushes - complete with thorns. Ahh, nostalgia...). Closer up, I was very surprised to realise that the bushes were in fact lupins. Up to that point, I had always been under the impression that lupins formed single stems. Was I ever wrong...

Julie gets a close-up...

It's a glorious sight in bloom, isn't it? I love to have wild flowers in our garden (poppies, foxgloves and a few self-seeded others), and I really, really wanted to have some of this new find growing in one corner or another. However, I'm also fully aware that the law tends to frown on people ripping up parts of the landscape for their own selfish desires. I'm not saying I haven't gently eased a plant or two, or some seeds from their original setting. However, it's actually quite hard to be surreptitious about such an activity when the plant in question is rather larger than yourself and sited on a busy, public stretch of beach in the middle of the day.

Julie knew what I wanted and had a rather less subtle approach.

You know what? I had absolutely nothing to say to that...



*WANT DOGGIE!

Julie's got it covered.

Now that the weather is finally beginning to warm up, there are a lot more things to see and do with your time off. On the one hand, it's great, because getting out and about means a lot more things around you. By the same token, however, that also means distractions when you're driving. Our dad was notorious for this, which was troubling when the road you were on happened to be little more than a track clinging to one side of a valley...

It does tend to provide a talking point though... hehehe...

Earlier today, Julie and myself were taking a drive through the Sussex countryside. With perfect timing, though, it began to rain at precisely the moment we walked out of the house. Just a few drops at first, but when we got into the car, the spots turned to a spattering, and as we drove away along the seafront, it turned heavier.

Well, crud.
It goes without saying, of course, that the latest weather report had it as being beautifully sunny all day.

I shouldn't moan, really. As we progressed, we passed one of those open-topped tour buses; astonishingly, there were still a couple of determined tourists staring forward defiantly from beneath soggy raincoats. Pillocks. You'd never catch us doing something as asinine as that (*coughs uncomfortably...).

Something else we saw was an open-topped kit car with a Q registration plate.

For persons not in the know, the letter 'Q' is generally not included on a UK car registration plate, as it's considered to be too similar to the number zero. However, for kits, rebuilds and vehicles of unsure origins, the Government whacks a 'Q' right there for everyone to see.

Julie wasn't too worried about that, though. For her, a far more interesting (and fair, I have to admit) point was how wet people inside that car would get. After all, it wasn't even a drop-top (convertible). I pointed out that the interior was probably mostly if not entirely waterproof to some degree. Not only that, if they decided to use it for a shopping run or similar, they could always throw a tarpaulin over the back seat.

Okay. Time to shift gears.

I have a very curious mind, especially when it comes to words. I love how various languages relate to each other, how words can have different meanings but the same historical root, how the English language evolved... well, you get the idea. I'm a word nerd.

When I mentioned to Julie about the possibility of tarpaulin usage, my WN gene switched on and suddenly decided it wanted to know the historical roots of the word. Unfortunately, I wondered this aloud to my wife, someone who has, at best, a most pragmatic approach to the English language.

Well played, love. Well played.

For anyone that is interested in the etymological roots of the word 'tarpaulin', here is the Wikipedia entry.

Of course, if you happen to be anything like myself, you're going to want to look up the entry for 'palling', and thereby doom yourself to hours of chained searches on Wikipedia....

A positively Pythonesque love life

It was a wet and windy winter afternoon. It's very possible that there is nothing as soul-sapping as living in a seaside town during the out-of-season months. Those few people that do venture out either dash everywhere, trying to stay dry. Or they shuffle along in a resigned manner, knowing that they're wet and likely to become even wetter.
In such weather, getting to work is unpleasant. If you don't have you're own transport, you have to hope that the bus shelter can protect you from the worst of the elements. And then you have to spend your shift in damp, uncomfortable clothing.

Yeah, we have a car.

I dashed to the car, pressing the button on the key on my way. Wet as it was, I just hoped I hadn't hit the button that locked it.
Behind me, Julie locked the front door. Turning to leave, she hesitated. The damn gutter was overflowing, sending a steady stream of rainwater onto the front path. Easy enough to dodge most times, but the wind was blowing the water back and forth. No matter which way you went, you just knew you were going to get a lump of water down the back of your neck.
Sure enough, as I dived into the driver's seat, I heard my wife make a sound of disgust, closely followed by a clang as the gate was hurriedly closed after her.

We sat in the car for a moment, looking out at the rain coursing down the windscreen. What a nasty day.
I hit the ignition, and the car rumbled into life. We reached for our seatbelts, and fumbled for the clasps at our sides; our coats kept getting in the way.
As we moved off, we reflected silently that it was a bloody miserable day to be going anywhere. But even then, going to work wasn't a pleasant thought.

Visibility was poor, what with the wind driving the rain straight onto my window - I could hardly see if there was traffic coming or not.
After driving for a while without speaking, Julie muttered, "horrible weather," and lapsed into silence once more. I laughed to myself, thinking of the Monty Python song 'Always look on the bright side of life'. I began singing an appropriate snippet, only to be interrupted by Julie.

...cheers, love.
(she was joking, by the way.)

It mutts be love at a rescue centre

Sorry! Terrible pun, I know.
The thing is, my family has had a few dogs over the years. The first I recall was Skip, an English Springer Spaniel - and a big bugger he was too. He was a pure breed, and as such had many of the problems that pure-breed dogs (and cats) do. In the end, it was bowel cancer that got him, but he lived a happy life. Even happier if there was ice-cream in the offing.
It took quite some years before my folks could bear to get themselves another dog. That dog is Toby, a Jack Russell terrier - again, a pure-breed. Again, he's had quite a few medical issues, but again, he's in his old age and still enjoying himself enormously. It's fairly pleasant too, in that he's generally a lot more well-behaved and mindful of himself than Skip was. Skip was a great dog, and tremendously loyal, but he had the attention span of-SQUIRREL!

Ever since moving out of my parents' place for good, I have to admit I have missed having a dog around the place. The thing is though, I work full-time, as does Julie (in a roundabout manner), so it wouldn't be fair on any animal if we did take one in. The closest we got was when Julie sponsored a dog from the charity, The Dogs Trust. This is Jacob.

As you can see, he's not a pure-breed, although there is a lot of Jack Russell in there. I never got to meet him, as the sponsorship was all done online and he lived half a country away. Oh well.
My point, though, is that I approve heartily of The Dogs Trust and what they do. When we are out for a walk and we see some runty little hairpiece or a slobbering beast with more muscles than brain cells or something that looks like it makes a living from chasing parked cars, we know that we could never go the pure-breed route.
For me, it goes even further, as I explained to Julie.

Pow.
Mind you, I suppose it would have to be a mentally robust animal, considering how off-beat its new humans would be...

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?

Sun tan lotion, SPF 'caterpillar'

This one's going back a year or so now, but it's worth the wait. It's actually kind of fun to rummage around the box of paper under my desk, just to see what Gem may surface. In fact, it's even better than you'd think, because Julie's normal reaction upon hearing what I had written down is something along the lines of, "I never said that! You're making it up!"
Yeah, right. I wish. If I could make up this kind of stuff, I'd be making millions from script and/or book writing.

Normally, when I dredge something up from the depths of time, I find that I have absolutely no ideas what was going on to make it such a howler in the first place. It's precisely like the old family in-joke, the type that's never funny to anyone, because you had to be there at the time. Well, until I learned to jot down a little context, I felt like someone was trying to tell me the story while I'm sat there nodding and smiling politely...
Not this time. I can recall this one very clearly, although I have to admit that the length of the Gem itself does help to fill in some of the details. You see, before Julie managed to land the evening job at the hospital, she would often come and meet me from work and we'd then walk home together. It was really rather nice, especially during the warmer months. The route home is really rather straightforward, just a few main roads once you leave the industrial estate where I work. However, it's much better to nip up and along some of the side roads. It doesn't add much to the journey and it's far better than walking alongside the rush-hour traffic.
We were walking along and generally chatting away, when I suddenly noticed I had a small passenger on my arm.

Cute little fellow, isn't he? This caterpillar was only a couple of centimetres long and a few millimetres wide, but it must have had springs concealed somewhere about its person, because I couldn't recall brushing up against anything.

(please note; the following conversation takes place between Julie and myself, despite the fact my opening line is directed to the caterpillar. I say this only to forestall the inevitable smart comments. You may, however, feel quite free to come up with any other smart comments)

... yes dear.


That's it for this week, we hope you have a great weekend. Next week, we'll be kicking things off with a Gem topic that just will not go away...

Rihanna goes upmarket for her next single...

Famous for being bashed about by her boyfriend and wearing very little in the way of clothing - oh, and for singing, apparently - Barbados-born Rihanna has had quite a few singles and a clutch of half-decent albums under her belt (or is that her skirt?). However, it seems she is contemplating a change of direction for her music. According to Julie, that is.

Changing the scene, Julie and myself were heading up to Birmingham and playing the Alpha(bet)game; it's an easy thing and has various names. Essentially, you pick a category and then you work through the alphabet, taking it in turns to come up with something that begins with the appropriate letter and belongs to the chosen topic. Our default subject is 'songs, but name the artist performing them". Instrumentals are allowed too. For example, the person going first could play "Apache" by The Shadows. The next person could then follow that up with "Brilliant Mind" by Furniture, and so on. Allowances are made for difficult letters, such as 'X'.
It's a fun little game and keeps me awake on long motorway journeys - especially when I'm fighting a headache.
On our most recent trip, we were playing the game and Julie reached the letter 'U'. She had one to mind rather quickly, but it wasn't one of her favourites.

Hah! Headache or not, I knew a Gem when I heard one, especially when it's such a zinger. Even though i was driving, that had to be jotted down - just as well Julie has her own pad and pen handy at most times!

Spike, the lazy lovefool

It was a bit quiet at work today. Well, I say that, but I was was boxing posters for more than half the day. Yeah, thrilling, or what? At one point (don't ask me when, the day was all a blur), I decided to send my wife to tell her those three little words - with a small twist of humour.

Julie, however, was definitely on the ball.

Yes ma'am!
So much for romance! To be fair to Julie, though, she did soften the blow with a final 'lol!'.

A soupcon of soup and sun*

*Already, I have to admit to cheating a little with the title, all for the sake of a snappy tagline - read on for more details.
Oh yes, and while we're on the subject of cheating, judging by the viewing figures for my confessional bonus post yesterday, it would seem that a lot of you were expecting me to finally admit that I have been casting a great slur upon my wife's character and made up everything that I've posted.
So sorry to have disappointed you.


A few days ago, Julie was feeling hungry, but not hungry enough to be cooking a proper meal - and that's for the size as much as not being bothered with the hassle. After a brief rummage in the cupboard, she came out with a small microwaveable snack meal.

As you can see, it's most definitely NOT a soup.

In it went, and a short while later, PING! it was ready.
Julie must have been hungry, because, as I was putting some bread into the toaster, I heard her exclaim in pain.

That'll teach me to try and be sarcastic...

The calendar and the whiskey diet

Hola and Happy New Year, folks! We thought we would be kind and treat you to one last Gem for 2011. Of course, by the time we post this, it will be 2012 for a fair part of the world, so...

Over a drink earlier today, Julie was telling me about an article she had read somewhere about the island of Samoa, and the fact that they are changing their status regarding their position to the international dateline.
Mind you, what with Julie's epic facility for recalling details and her masterly grasp of Geography, it actually came out more like "I read this article about something, somewhere, it was some island somewhere, I think it was..." Fortunately, Julie realised she was heading towards a rambling Moment and stopped to tack stock of what she was trying to say.
Apparently, the island of Samoa lost December 30th this year to the mists of time. Like I said, it was all to do with their position relative to the International Dateline. You can read more about it HERE.
What Julie told me triggered a vague memory of some thing that I, myself, had read on a very similar theme.

That must have been a hell of a party for an entire country to be so smashed out of their heads to have lost the best part of a fortnight....
Of course, the reality is very different. Basically, Britain was quite some way behind the times, when it came to reckoning time - especially on an annual scale. While much of Europe had switched to the new-fangled Gregorian Calendar, stubborn ol' Britain continued to use the Julian calendar. Of course, since the Julian calendar was based on the solar year, as opposed to the astronomical year, the days were tagged as being somewhat shorter than they actually were. All this meant that, by the time Britain finally gave in and adopted the Gregorian calendar, we were out by ten whole days.
Of course, there was the predictable set of complaints about people who were concerned that their businesses may suffer due to the change, which is fair enough, one supposes. But then too, there were also plenty of others who literally believed they were going to lose ten whole days of their allotted lifespan. I dread to think what it would have been like if that parochial and reactionary rag, The Daily Mail, had been around then...

Shorn of hair and short of sense.

We have something of a bonanza for you today; three Gems for the price of one. Not bad since they're free in the first place, eh?
Anyway.

I like to have my hair short. I just can't be bothered with all that high-maintenance that so many people seem to feel is necessary. One of the great things about really short hair is that washing it suddenly becomes a case of finding an available wash basin, getting a little bit of soap and away you go. That's nothing though. The best thing is that you can buy a set of clippers and do the whole cutting thing yourself. You save yourself so much money and hassle that way. Well, since I don't have it quite as short as suede, I'm not totally keen on clipping it myself, so Julie very kindly does this bit for me. I sit down, and away she goes.

Last Saturday, we were in town and I was looking at hair dyes. Julie asked if I wanted to 'go' red. I replied that I would, but they didn't have anything vivid enough for me. What I really want, I continued, is to colour it green. Julie's reply to this cannot be reproduced here on grounds of common decency, but be assured it wasn't a positive response.

Matt nil, Julie one.
On Sunday, we finally got around to cutting my hair. I know it had been a while, but I don't think it had really been  long enough for Julie to fall out of practise. She seemed to be a little rougher than usual.

Matt nil, Julie two. I'm not doing too well here, am I?
Like I said, Julie seemed to be struggling with my hair this time. There were plenty of tuts and sighs and stopping to clean hair out of the clippers. And then she complained,

Matt v Julie: Match cancelled due to extreme bafflement.
Apparently, Julie was passing comment on the length of my hair and how it was making the cutting process more difficult. You know, now I know that, I look back at the comment, and I still haven't got a bloody clue why she said that.

Surely a Titanic tin of dog meat?

Fabulous Friday to you all!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, the one I shall now plug with a final Trivial Pursuit-related Gem. Since this is technically 'Julie's Gems', I thought it best to return the spotlight to my darling wife. I had to choose between two Gems today, because there were two questions which Julie answered in her own inimitable style. The other may be posted tomorrow as a Saturday bonus... if the fancy takes you that way, that is.
Back to today. Here, I'm asking the question of Mum or Dad (I can't quite remember which), but Julie buts in with her own answer. To be honest, it's much better than the one on the card...

(a little note for our international friends; In case you didn't know, Pedigree Chum is a popular brand of dog food over here in Britain. Unfortunately, things change and it seems the company had the temerity to streamline their name to the mono-worded 'Pedigree'. Boo, hiss etc etc. There's a pic of one of the original cans below as proof.)

ps... the real answer, as you probably know, was 'Icebergs'.

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!