Hey up y’all. Have we all recovered from New Year’s Eve then.? I have although I can no longer talk properly and if I try and sing anything above middle C it comes out as a squeak. The kind of squeak you only usually hear when you squeeze a hamster too hard. Anyway on with 2007…
For Christmas I got many lovely presents but one in particular stood out for “educational” reasons. It is entitled “Frozen In Time” and it chronicles Britain’s worst winters in modern times, specifically 1947, 1962/63 and 1978/79. How many of you remember snow in Weston.? When I say snow I don’t mean the light fluffy stuff that appears most years, stays for about two hours and then disappears into the night like a thief. I mean the stuff like in 1981/82 (looking back through family photos brings up an image of a 3 year old Fluffy Bunny in a red waterproof romper suit in foot deep snow in the back garden. I will dig it out and scan it sometime for your entertainment, THAT was real snow).
I like the winter more than the summer, I always have. Much as I like the warm sun and the flowers, smell of cut grass, not shivering between pubs etc etc, it is so much easier to get warm than it is to try and keep cool. But our winters have been getting steadily more and more mild since the industrial revolution in the early 19th century. The last “Frost Fare” on the totally frozen River Thames was in 1814, maybe that is a little of a sign of global warming, who knows, but we have been through many little dips in our weather since records began.
The three periods I mentioned above consisted of incredibly harsh conditions, deaths of hundreds of people, snow drifts up to SIXTY FEET deep (the average semi-detached house is 25 foot tall), frozen rivers, sea ice up to 200 yards from the shore and a massive amount of people lost electricity, gas and telephone connections for weeks, even months, at a time.!
For instance one woman on a farm in Yorkshire saw only her husband and NO ONE ELSE for three months in 1979 from February to May. Sounds like the ideal thing to prevent all that sychronised PMT but hell if you want to chat about Neighbours.!
Apparently in two weeks the temperature in Britain may drop to below -12
*****LATE NEWS*****
Alright then. First rant of the year…
Let us start with people owning an illegal, dangerous dog and letting it lie around near kids. Pit bull, check, five year old, check, mauling, check. All done there then. What I don’t understand is the usual lack of responsibility.
“My family realises that our child was killed by a dog known to have a temper. We also knew the dog had a natural trait for being a born attack dog and that the owner was warned by the Police TWICE. But we didn’t mind our child being around it.”
A very bad start to a new year that was totally predictable. If you have an animal that is violent then you don’t tend to introduce it to your kids. If I went out and purchased a huge lioness I would be rather idiotic to take it for a wander any where near a nursery (that is actually more about the Swarfega and rhubarb incident than having a 7 foot long killer on a lead with me). Ditto if I bought an electric eel, it would be ill advised for me to introduce it to the local swimming pool during an afternoon session.
Honestly. Some people.!
On another matter, rail fares. Gone up again then people.? Quel surprise. There is actually a special equation that they use in all the workings out of “how much to rip our passengers off”. This is it…
“badly needed extra, LONGER trains” + “lower fares” = “more people using our trains” + “more money for fuel, cleaners and access charges” therefore “pissing all the money away on overpaid fat cat bosses, stock holder dividends and constant rebranding” + “hiking up fares at every possible opportunity” = “less of those annoying common folk on our overcrowded routes” + “no penalty fines from Government” + “more money for director to spend on dirty weekends away for their wives secretaries”
Oi, Blair you total waste of public money (and DNA actually), renationalise the railways. You KNOW you can do it without having to pay companies huge amounts of buy back money, purely by not extending or renewing operating contracts, you have done it twice already to my knowledge and already the services are better. If you honestly think that allowing a company such as First the ability to run a rail contract then you are catastrophically more repugnant and ridiculous than I ever believed you were.
Sort it out.
Oh and while I am on the ranting “train”…
Reggie Yates, Fern Cotton, Edith Bowman, all in one place at the same time on the TOTP Christmas edition and NO ONE set off a large nail bomb.??? I am disgusted. Could have improved my weekend mornings so easily. Bloody terrorists, never around when they are needed.
Dammit, that leads me into another thing, no, TWO…
Firstly Christmas number one. Oh for fuck sake. X Factor, she will be working in fast food in a few months time, pointless, untalented, ugly bint, I hope all who bought that god awful single get Pitbull’s pushed through their letter boxes very soon.
Secondly. Moyles is away (I thought the ego aura around the country had moved slightly), so the show is in the hands of Nihal. Errrr who.?? That isn’t a name. Same as Lemar isn’t either. It would appear he is Asian. Ok, no problem there, but he is about as good a DJ as double decadence pizza is a diet food.! As an example his playlist for the “urban music show” he also presents lists a lot of underground music but includes Nelly Furtado. Unlucky.
Ok enough for now.!!!