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...

Down at Le Café Crazy

It was some years ago that I first came across the concept of a cream tea. In my teens, I would be on family trips and see them on menus, but choose not to have them. As it happened, nobody else had them either, so any curiosity I may have had at the time remained unassuaged.
Some years later, I had dropped ignominiously out of college and everything was, for quite some time operating on a shoestring. Eventually though, things got better and I could then afford to go places. One of the first things I did do was take a trip to a large family event that was taking place quite some distance away. Since the invite was for guest 'plus one' and my sister was taking her current beau - one of my friends - I asked if it was OK to bring along another friend as my '+1'. This friend was the fourth and final member of our little coterie and would have been the only uninvited member. This was OK'd (even though it led to long-running speculation upon my sexual preferences), so we all booked rooms in the same B&B near the party.
The four of us arrived a day early for the party, so we decided to venture out into town (Southend), just to get our bearings. After a while, we decided to take a breather and stopped at a cafe. My friend looked at the menu and opted for the cream tea. I was curious by now about what a cream tea entailed, but I had never ordered one, just in case it meant a cup of tea with cream instead of milk. As it turned out, a cream tea is a pot of tea, one or two scones, some jam and a portion of cream (clotted cream for preference).

NB - many cafes mistakenly include butter with the cream tea. Wrong - this is why you should use clotted cream, because it is effectively replacing the butter. Cut open the scone, spread some cream and then spoon some jam on top. Oh yes - and the scones should be freshly baked to, so they crumble slightly when you bite into them.
Yum.
Anyway... where was I? Oh yes.
Fast forward to the present. I have since met, fallen in love with, and married Julie.
This weekend just gone, the two of us were out and about and popped by a cafe called Neates Cakery. As you can guess, they have a certain specialisation. And believe me, they do very well in that area - here's the menu:

And here's their basic(!) selection of cakes - usually also available as cupcakes.

Pity the website isn't complete - they're on Facebook though.

Lovely cakes, eh?
In the end, though, I went for a tuna/cheese melt panini, and Julie opted for the cream tea. Well, there was a little moment of hesitation before the final decision was made.

Seriously?
If it wasn't bad enough, I've actually lost count of the amount of times, Julie has had, or at the very least shared, a cream tea. Oh, deary me.

BONUS - Not always related

I've posted before some articles about people from service and retail industries and how the people they deal with aren't always the sharpest knife in the drawer. Today, after a long period away from the site, I went back to find out they now have a new companion site - Not Always Related. Naturally, my interest was piqued, after all, isn't this essentially what we do here on Julie's Gems? So I toddled over there so see what it was like - and I wasn't disappointed. Yep, it's chock-full of familial slips and misunderstandings.
Since I'm a generous sort, I thought I'd give you a few tasters before you went over for the main course, as it were.

Hopefully, you like these. Now, why not sidle over to the main site and see some more?

Youseddit

Not too sure what it is about mothers at the moment. So far, one friend has supplied me with a couple of Gems from her mum - and assures me there'll be plenty where they came from. Now, Sharron has come to the fore and come up with something from her own mother. I have to admit, though, it's more of a'Fail' than a Gem.
Apparently, the family were sat around, watching Agatha Christie's Poirot on TV. You know - that famous detective from Belgium. The one best played by David Suchet.

Some way into the programme, Sharron's mother evidently has a flash of insight.

Well, yes. Yes, i... Actually, no. No, it's not. It's not 'just like' a whodunnit, it IS a bloody whodunnit.
Fortunately, what with everyone else giving her carefully blank looks (laced with a modicum of humour), Sharron's mother quickly realised what she had just said and led the laughter. Which, I am told, lasted a fair few minutes.

All for none and none.. for... wait, what?

With thanks to a friend on Facebook for bringing this one up. This is right up Julie's street. It makes sense. You know it makes sense, but ... should it?

You got that?

One of these things is/isn't/is like the other (huh?)

We went out for a little stroll along the seafront today. As I'm still a bit iffy on my feet, what with the slipped disc and all, we had just stopped for a little rest on a bench - on the seafront. It being the seafront, there were plenty of seagulls around, including the shrill squeals of hungry young gulls. It was enough to make you want to buy a shotgun, I tell you.
The gulls weren't the only ones though. Because I live in a town, there were of course the omnipresent pigeons, those horrible little feathered plague pits.
No sooner had we sat down than one particularly ugly pigeon fluttered down and began to strut back and forth in front of us - on the off-chance we had something it could eat. Push off, Percy. Not happening.
And then I noticed one of its legs looked particularly deformed.

...er... Yes, dear.
Now, the thing was, I hadn't actually taken my notepad with me. As we were leaving, I told Julie, "Now, don't say anything funny, please."
And then she comes up with the comment above. For a moment, I let it slide. Then I started rummaging in my pockets desperately. No way was I risking the chance of forgetting this. In the end, I found a shop receipt and scribbled it onto the back of that. That'll teach me.

Actually, this Gem reminds me of one of my all-time favourite jokes - well, it's not so much a joke as an exercise in dada-ist absurdism

I say, I say, I say - what's the difference between a duck?
One of its legs is both the same.

See? silly, isn't it?
Anyhow, I shall now leave you with further avian absurdism; the hit single, 'Mouldy Old Dough' by Lieutenant Pigeon. At that point in time and for quite some time after, this had the honour of having the oldest person in the charts - have a look at the other pianist...




Well. it was either this or - no, sod it. You know what, I'm going to post this one too. Have a listen to a little-known Genesis single (well, e.p., really); Pigeons.




TTFN!

Merry Christmas to all our readers

So here it iis, Merry Christmas! Everybody's having fun.
Loook to the future now, it's only just begu-u-un!

No kidding. Thanks, Slade, for pointing out the bloomin' obvious.
A few days ago, I/we/whatever had the idea of making a Julie's Gems alternative to The Queen's Speech. For those unaware of this particular festive tradition, this involves a pre-recorded message to the multifarious subjects  of HRH Queen Elizabeth II. This message is broadcast on BBC1, just after lunchtime on Christmas Day. This is truly one of the most inspired pieces of TV scheduling ever, because after a massive meal and (usually) copious amounts of alcohol, even the most hard bitten cynic is likely to feel rather more amenable to Royal condescension. If nothing else, by that point, they can't physically move anyway and the remote has been accidentally thrown away with all the wrapping paper from the presents (along with - oh, how DID they slip in there? - those horrible socks from Auntie Violet).

Our short clip differs quite widely from the original in one or two ways. Well, most of them, if you want to be picky. However, what we DO hope is that it is eminently watchable and fairly charming. We also hope it's not too condescending.

(you'll need to turn the volume up a bit, I'm afraid.)

Julie's Gems; A Festive Message from Spike Matthews on Vimeo.

There. I hope that wasn't too painful.
Have a great time, folks and hopefully, we'll keep on seeing you popping by to stand in awe of our language skills.

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Incidentally, if you would like to see more of these clips featuring Julie and/or myself, please let us know. Also, if there's anything in particular you would like us to cover (or, more likely, vaguely touch upon), then why not let us know - either in the comments or via our email address - juliesgemsuk@hotmail.co.uk
Don't forget, you can also use this email address to submit any Gem-like situations you have found or been involved in yourselves. We will credit you, unless you'd really rather we didn't.