John Grey and Dorothy Parker

What I say is what I mean.
what you see is what you get,
what I think shows on my face,
and yet you’re still confused, my pet?

How to use a sword to cut the top off a bottle of champagne

Ramblin’ round t’internet the other night I found a website dedicated to “the noble art of sabering champagne”.

It’s all rather fun in a Pirates of the Carribean kinda way, if you like your fun to feature more testosterone than sense. I was amused by following safety tip:

Drape a towel/linen napkin over the bottom portion of the bottle should the bottle explode. The towel will help to contain the glass.

Useful advice, that, doncha think?

(I owe the link to Doug).

“Make this Valentine’s Day Extra Special”

Made I laugh.

Twelth night, or what you make of it

For sale:

6 brace of game-birds (partridges) well hung

A perry orchard (one dozen trees)

A flock of pigeons (22 birds, mainly white)

A flock of fancy hens (30 birds)

Song-birds, (36 available in singles or pairs – cages supplied to first 9 applicants)

A large flock of geese, good layers (42 birds, will separate)

21 pairs of swans (only to homes with open water)

Herd of cattle (40 beasts, TB tested, from BSE-free herds, good milkers)

Available for hire:

Dairy operatives (40 available for reasonable rates, will travel)

Dance troupe (36 females, 30 males, fancy costumes included)

Military-style band (22 woodwind players, 12 percussionists)

Laughter the best medicine – available on prescription only

Bloglily produced the rather chilling statistic the other day, that children laugh thousands of times a day, but adults manage to laugh only 14 times.

So, plagiarist that I am, I conducted my own laughter audit.

8.00-9.00 – driving to work, listening to Sir Terry et al on Radio 2 – several giggles but no laugh out loud guffaws.

9.00-10.30 – da nada.

10.30-10.45 – some general purpose wise-cracking at work – I can’t remember the details, but the mood was jovial. It took me three months to get that team to lighten up.

10.45-3.20 – da nada.

3.20-3.30 – more wise-cracking – I do like working with bright, sarcastic, clever peeps.

3.30-5.45 – da nada.

5.45-6.00 – my boss claims that someone else was “agressive” in a meeting. Think pot. Think kettle. Think Aphra saying so. Think boss looking sheepish. Not guffaws, but gentle ribbing.

6.00-6.30 – driving home listening to the news. No laughs there.

6.30-7.00 – driving back from work, listening to the evening “funny”on Radio 4 – one smiley moment, but no actual, you know, laughy stuff.

7.00-7.30 – talking to a girlfriend on the phone, lots of goss and giggles – she thought she’d pulled a tennis coach, so she booked herself in for a complete de-fuzz, but then the bugger stood her up. Or “sobered up” as her best friend put it.

7.30 – text from the one I like to get texts from – private but laugh out loud funny.

7.30-10.00 – Christmas cooking demo at the WI- do you know the scene in “Catch 22″ where the entire hall of enlisted men starts moaning at the sight of the Colonel’s tottie? – well there was an unanimous moan of hungry appreciation from an entire hall of middle aged ladies as the demonstrator folded melted chocolate into whipped cream to make a torte, which gave me a private silent giggle. Chocolate and cream aside, (and that is a hard phrase to type), there were l moments of individual and shared laughter at the WI too.

10.00-10.05 – talking to friend who’s visiting tonight and tomorrow, including a couple of laughy moments about why he was late setting off (he was tarting around on IM, trying to pull – I’d put him in touch with the girlfriend from earlier in the evening, but she’s got her eye on the tennis coach’s second service) and the fact that he is doomed to get lost on the moors a la “American Werewolf”.

11.00-01.30 – with said friend, (I don’t ususally entertain this late, but I wasn’t going to stand up the WI, and he’s coming to the theatre with us tomorrow night). Lots of laughter. He’s a clever and witty bloke. Favourite anecdote was one he told about his mother’s hyper-flexive cat. He picked it up, folded it nose to tail and showed it to a friend who was mildly impressed and said, “Very good, can you make it into a bird”.

So no rolling-on-the-floor-laughing-my-ass off episodes, but not bad for a weekday. But it would be much duller without the sarcastic buggers I work with.

Good news, bad news

I don’t have to wait until the afternoon of Christmas Day to read the autumn Terry Pratchett

I have to buy it myself

No-one tells me “that dress is really unflattering from behind”

I can’t tell when what I’m wearing is really unflattering from behind

My bank balance is nobody’s business but my own

Paying off the mortgage is up to me

Sex is dirty again

It can also be infected

Buying erotica at the bookshop is a symptom of how liberated and sexually at ease I am with myself

Sometimes flirting with the guy at the till in the bookshop is the nearest I get to an erotic encounter

Someone else will raise his teenage kids

Someone else is raising his pre-schoolers

I can use any colour I like to paint the bedroom

I am the one who has to paint it

I don’t have to choose Christmas and Birthday presents for his family

I no longer get the gossip about his sister’s latest lunacy

I can eat pasta with pesto every night for a week if I want to

I am putting on weight

And finally:

The loo-seat is down when I go to the bathroom

Nope. There isn’t a downside to that one