Can You Hear Us Honking On Your Radio?

My Christmas Dinner Is Famous!

Click to see a picture of my mum and dad's mate Phil, Goose Farmer and possible Beast Of Oak Wood (something's been taking deer up there, and frankly it's either Phil, my dad or an actual big cat, and dad swears blind he couldn't run one down on his dodgy knee), talking to Sheila Dillon on The Food Program at the weekend. If you're really enthusiastic, you can even listen to the program! That noise you can hear is part of my xmas dinner happily fattening itself up, then being humanely killed. Mmmmm...... radio fresh!

The Beeb have also kindly included the farm's contact details, and given Phil and the very nice Liz are also recommended by Ew Furnely-Wotsit, I'd order now if you want an organic free range goose for Xmas 2006. None of them have mentioned Phil & Liz's daughter, who works in the farm shop and is lovely, so I am! Hello! Save me a tankard of the Home Farm Dry, yeah?

A Wean In A Manger

Well, I'm nearly Yuleready. Presents for everyone, little stocking filler extra bits and surprises, inconvenient near-xmas birthdays sorted. Pretty dress for Christmas day (vintage 1970s Jean Muir little black dress, sweetie), pretty accessories for same, nice shimmery makeup. Nice wellies, warm jumpers, attractive scarf, snowball proof gloves & fabulous hat for going for walks in the country and hopefully rolling in the snow with husband too. New suitcase on wheels to put the presents and clothes in.
I've got the days off I wanted, train tickets with seats booked for the nearest time to xmas day when Waterloo won't be a bear pit (half one on Thursday afternoon), I've got an open return so I don't have to rush back. I've got the promise of a three bird roast for xmas dinner (that's a partridge stuffed in a pheasant stuffed in a goose), I've got myself volunteered to make Coquille Saint Jaques for starter on boxing day. I've got a fair idea that my father has purchased enough and strong enough alcohol to both float and dissolve a battleship.
At home I have inserted festive cheer by means of a little fibre optic maribou tree (similar to the one in the picture, except mine has five pointed stars as well as bunches of fibres, and on mine the lights change colour. Hijack our symbols would you? Well I'm just gonna hijack 'em right back harder.) and a set of antlers and a red nose on one of my cows. And of course my precious, my Yule present, my new life sized fibre glass baby cow. Cows are very festive. My favorite bit of The Christmas Story is the bit where Joyce Grenfell says "Oh you're a cattle are you? And you're going to low! Well that is lovely!".
It puts me in mind of what Billy Connelly said about thinking the words to the carol were "A wean in a manger...", and his friend thinking the hymn was "Gladly the cross-eyed bear". Sometimes it works the other way, too. Being middle class, I always thought you pronounced Margate 'Mar-gate', but since I bought Chas'n'Dave Live At Cesar's Palace Luton I've discovered it's 'Marg't', you know, like 'Highg't'? I've always had this problem myself. It was years until I realised (what with that guy's big Scottish accent making it hard to hear the words properly) that 'Donald, where's yer troosers?' was about a bloke in a kilt, as opposed to someone who'd just forgotten to put his trousers on... Mind you, I used to think it was "Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we", because they lived in a house made of rubbish. Now I'm older, I know better. They were eco-friendly recycling types, so upper-middle. They're probably having the four bird roast for their xmas dinner.
So, all I have to do now is sort out everything at work, take my sister shopping for her present before she heads for the country, buy a few packs of new socks etc to stop my mother squeeking at the state of my husband's footwear, get a suitable box for and wrap and post my dad's birthday present, wrap and post my grandma and grandad's Christmas presents, write and post my cards, make sure all the clothes we want to take with us are washed, wrap the remaining presents, clean the flat, find my railcard, do all the girly de-fuzzing and nail painting and exfoliating (I could swear I don't have any leaves, but you can never be too careful), pack..... Oh fuck, I'm really not ready at all, am I?

"It's only our first exchange, and already the prime minister is asking me the questions!"

What a diabolically clever little monster.

I am concerned. To go in to your first session as leader of the opposition, a Tory opposition at that, look Tony Blair in the eye and ooze "We're going to support you all the way, so there's no way you can fail to get your reforms through, is there?" is utterly too nasty for words. You could see the Labour backbenchers in the background twitching like sharks catching the scent of blood in the water. Henceforth Mr. Cameron shall be referred to as 'The Rt. Hon. Steerpike'. Tony Blair has to go NOW. If we have three years of NewTory/NewTony machinating away until Blair has to rely on their votes to get his reforms through, then we have to trust the Great British public to vote for Gordon Brown after he's only been in a few months, there is a serious danger we will end up with this flaming weasel shite as Prime Minister.

There is also the problem of Thatcher. Although I still wait in breathy anticipation every time a BBC news alert to pops up on my screen, although I still jump out of bed in the morning and sprint to the TV in case today's the day, although I am quietly bumping off a generation of Scousers to get nearer the head of the conga line that will dance over her grave (and we were close, so close. As a wise man once said, it's not the despair, I can cope with the despair. It's the hope...), I greatly fear that Thatcher will deal out her last piece of evil and pop her clogs in the very very near future, thus creating an 'End-Of-Days-Dawning-Of-The-Age-Of-Aquarius-A-Chosen-One-Shall-Arise' situation.

WE MUST FIGHT, PEOPLE! WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN.

The trouble with the British is lack of blood flow to the extremities, as it were. Look at the bloody state of us! It has come to a pretty pass when you can get chucked out of a rock band called The Libertines for taking too many drugs. "Why does it always rain on me?" indeed! Because you're utterly wet and a weed and nature likes a joke as much as anyone. When was the last time someone famous died in a pool of their own vomit? Even George Best went quietly. We are being seduced by the American Oprah Winfrey Rehab/Detox culture, when it's utterly alien to the way the British mind functions.

Religion in America is about what America is about: new starts, forgiveness, absolution, the idea that you can make yourself a person fit for heaven, even if it is on the nineteenth try. Religion in Britain is about the need to believe that by getting on with the interminable grind of life day after day for the whole of your life you can earn your place in paradise. We don't expect to feel the holy spirit of whatever religion we are coursing through us like electricity. We don't expect a personal relationship with a deity. You know that poem thing about the guy walking along the beach with Jesus, seeing footprints in the sand and wondering why at the hardest times of his life, there was only one set of prints? In America, Jesus says "It was then that I carried you." In Britain, if we're walking down the beach with anyone it's likely to be the dog, and for those of us that do have someone in our lives we love and trust to look after us always, the poem would finish "When you saw only one set of prints, it was then that I had gone to get you a beer."

Well it has to stop. WAKE UP!

Ladies and gentlemen of 2005, get passionate. Drink glasses of flaming spirits, dance and shout and wave your arms around. Wear bright colours. Vote for politicians who look like they'd face down a tank to defend your liberties. Demand that people do their jobs. Celebrate and appreciate excellence. Stop watching programs about gardening and hanging wallpaper. Turn that damn music up. Stop allowing Katie Melua to release records. And fight fight fight to stop insipid, insidious and downright insane politicians hijacking our country and using it as a guinea pig for their loopy foreign-sounding ideas. All-night drinking? Bloody stupid idea. If you're out much past eleven thirty on a Saturday, there's no way you'll be up in time for the Archers omnibus Sunday morning. And if people stop spending two hours every Sunday listening to mooing noises and meditating on what it is to be English and middle class, then where will we be?

That's right- France. With President Steerpike telling us that we can't put beautiful new words like chav in the dictionary.

Three Ways You Can Tell British People Never Learn

1) Don't you all come running to me when it's nearly two decades later and there's no viable way of getting rid of her.

2) "Yeahbutnobutyeahbutnobut my forcast might have been wrong, yeah, but there's more money to stop council tax going up and I'm extending the winter fuel payment."








3) "Awright Tory geezers, I'm your new "Leader", innit?"

This Is Me

This is my Yahoo Avatar. It's really quite like me, except for the tights.

Yeah, alright, Meg, there's no need to laugh quite that hard...

Now That I Can Dance

When I was young I used to go ice skating. Every Sunday I'd turn up at Lea Valley with my little white boots, have a half hour lesson, then skate the session. And every Sunday about two thirds of the way through, the DJ cued up The Immaculate Collection and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, then buggered off for a break. So the music from Dirty Dancing is a part of my childhood, associated with the smell of ice rinks and the taste of blue raspberry 'IC Fizz' slushes. Mmmmmm.......IC Fizz......... And you've gotta like a film with dancing in when you're pre-teen, innit?
Time wears on, and you see Patrick Swayze in anything other than To Wong Foo, and you see who champions the movie, and you think 'Oh the shame! Can it be that the Dancing King could really just be an orange no-talent? Can it be that the music I feel so warmly about is nothing but The Best Chav Anthem Album In The World Ever? Alas! I shall never admit to liking anything associated with That Film ever again! No more shall my shoulders bop subtly to the intro to Time Of My Life! Nevermore!'
Then the years roll by even further, and one day Strictly Come Dancing breathes life back into the dream of twirling gracefully in something pretty, and then, as if by magic, a gift like no other is given unto us: Patrick Swayze trained as a ballet dancer. He's a professional dancer. He was never meant to be an actor in the first place! That explains everything.
And somehow that makes it all ok again.
So, with me please ladies:
Just remember!
You're the one thiiiiiing
I can't get enough of
So I tell you something
THIS COULD BE LOVE
Because
I've had the time of my LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!