A bit of fun to start the week. With so many bland TV commercials around these days thank heaven for YouTube. Here’s the classic Weetabix take on the Robin Hood legend.
Category Archives: fun stuff
shock, horror! monty python not funny?
On Facebook today I learned of others who did not find Monty Python funny, and realised that I was not alone, at least if you exclude the older generation of the time.
I had grown up on the extreme radio comedy of the Goons, and later such wonders as Cambridge Circus, I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, and then their morphing into TV with At Last The 1948 Show and similar, so Monty Python was much looked forward to.
For me, though, it largely bombed. I faithfully watched very week, despite (or maybe because of) parental disapproval, but it let me down every time. The only thing that I found mildly amusing was the Lumberjack Song sketch and that was my lot. As for the follow-up films, I did see a couple because the lady in my life at the time was a fan, but I thought them abysmal.
Maybe there is a touch of the Emperor’s New Clothes here; no-one wants to speak out, but now there is some hope. For years I have though that it must be me, because the programmes are so much-loved as a cult classic, so it is nice to know that, whilst I may be in a minority, I am not alone.
On that note, with apologies to Mr Cleese, I will make another confession. I don’t like Fawlty Towers either. Its only redeeming feature for me was Prunella Scales’ performance as Sybil, the rest of it I found embarrassingly awful.
john bowen? no, that one isn’t me
Hardly an original title, but since I started to get active on the blogging front I’ve come across all sorts of namesakes around the world and over time.
Just for the fun of it I’ve created a page here to list some of the other JBs with a link to more information about them, or to their web sites if they have one.
It will build over time as I come across ones I think that I’d like to include and, if you are a JB and would like me to mention you here, please let me know and I’ll gladly include you.
To see who’s there, click on the tab at the top of the page, or on this link.
friday fun in the sun
Well it is a beautiful morning (no I’m not about to burst into a selection from Oklahoma!) and I am having a few moments in front of the laptop checking emails, blogging and passing the time until I have to capture a pair of moggies and take them off to the vets for the annual jabs.
All of a sudden here in Jottings I have got all political again. After GE2010 I promised myself that I would leave the soap box in the shed for a while, but the Yes2av campaign crept up on me and had got the juices flowing in opposition, so apologies to my regular readers who prefer my more whimsical offerings, but there will be a steady stream of no2av campagning for the next few weeks.
I will try to add more of my usual scibblings to water things down though, so please bear with me if you find the politics boring.
So, time to drink my tea and turn into Hunter John and track down the cats. This posting will be filed amongst Wildlife Encounters; they may me domestic animals, but somehow they know that a trip in the cage is coming and are already plotting against me. I shall return later to dress my own wounds and with a lighter wallet.
Filed under about me, fun stuff, wildlife encounters
letters to the editor – disposing of unpopular leaders
Sir
So our Prime Minister and his government believe that it is acceptable to have an unpopular leader assassinated. Perhaps they should be carefull of what they wish for….
I think that we should be told.
Yours faithfully
Surprised of Swindon
letters to the editor – mobile phone technology
Sir
I try not to use my mobile, or cell as my US friends call it, phone too much. After all, I am not a servant to be summoned by the ringing of a bell, and my mobile phone appears to be fitted with some sort of proximity detector that always ensures that it will ring when I am about to do something important.
For example it will often ring just as I get to the till to pay for something, or at another extremely inconvenient (or in convenience) moment when I have my hands otherwise occupied.
Surely if they can fit phones with such a device to make them ring at these times, then the same device could be made to stop them ringing until such moments have passed?
Until then I will have to carry on turning it off and back on again myself.
I think that we should be told.
Yours faithfully
Harassed of Hamilton
a trouble shared is a trouble halved – not in my book
It is an old saying that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, and I understand the sentiment. Sure, if the person that you share your trouble with can help, then maybe it does make things much better.
But, even as the optimist that I am, for most of my life I’ve found that telling a trouble will double it to start with because someone else knows. And if you can’t rely on them to keep it to themselves then your trouble will multiply at an horrific rate.
I’m a great believer in the self help route because it has always worked better for me over my, nearly 60, years on this planet (and several hundred on a different planet if you believe some people!). It has worked much better for me that on the times that I have shared a problem.
So what prompted this thread? I’m keeping that to myself.
Filed under fun stuff, serious stuff
more joys of shopping + London2012
Reading of the desecration of some of my old haunts that is going on in order for the 2012 Olympics to take place (I sold commercial vehicles spares and other things all around that patch back in the 1970s) I was prompted to thoughts of how we could scoop some extra medals from the home event.
Competitive shopping! Once again this weekend the Berkshire Belle and I have been out there scrounging for some nosh in both Cheltenham and Swindon and, as ever, we have had to pick our way through the ranks of those who see the weekly shop as some sort of assault course.
This is not a phenomenon we come across in other countries, so Team GB could be in for some world domination here; we could have different classes for different age groups perhaps. The OAPs hunt in packs, younger folks that can’t shop without the mobile phone clamped to the ear whilst savaging the opposition with their trolleys and so on. And then the men’s class would be for the “I’ll show the other half how it’s done” dash round in record time with points scored for casualties on the way, whilst the lady’s class would be more along the lines of ” can I take so long getting my purse out to pay that everything the next person in line has bought goes past its sell by date”. And there could be a family class for the greatest number of aisles blocked to other shoppers while we all stand and debate.
If nothing else we should be able to win on sheer naked aggression. Every weekend I go into therapy for ankles clipped by countless shopping carts and friction burns from arms that have been shoved across my face to grab something.
And we certainly play it as a body contact sport. The Berkshire Belle and I have mutual grounds for divorce after every trip to the shops on the basis that we’ve had far more physical contact with total strangers that we’ve managed with each other.
If Team GB want a good medal haul at London2012 next year then Competitive Shopping is clearly the way to go.
Filed under fun stuff, random rants, The Joys of Shopping
My most viewed post of 2010 on John’s Jottings?
As 2010 draws to a close I have been looking back at my Jottings over the last 12 months to see what was popular and what wasn’t so much.
The two clear winners for John’s Jottings are the one on Natural Disasters (Acts of God) and Am I a LibDem, both of which have also had a bit of a resurgence in interest lately, albeit that they were both a bit more topical with regard to the general election. If you missed them first time round please click on the links to have a look.
Anyway, thanks for reading these, and other posts around my blogs. I hope that you all have a peaceful and prosperous 2011.
Unleashing the inner poet
The Berkshire Belle and I have been together for many years now. Twenty one in fact, if my maths are right, and this for what some who knew us said would be a six week wonder.
Maybe you do try harder the second time around, as it is for us two, but somewhere early on in our time together I decided I would do the twelve days of Christmas backwards. Starting on the 13th December I would produce a card and/or a gift on each day as we ran up the the 25th.
That evolved into a card with a short rhyme (I hesitate to call them poetry) and, apart from one year when things at work were really grim, I was working away and I forgot the 13th (you only have to miss one to screw things up) I’ve done it every year since.
Unless I am going to be away I don’t write them in advance. I’ve tried and it doesn’t work for me. Normally I write them in the half hour before I go to bed and, somehow, something will flow from my heart to my hand, through my pen and onto the card.
Some are nonsense, some are topical (I was always inspired by the calypso), some try to copy the style of something well known and now and again I come up with an epic.
The common thread is that they are written with love. Some come on guys, you don’t have to copy my idea of the 12 days, but why not buy your lady a card that’s blank inside and just write her something to say how much she means to you?
The Voice of the Bloke at the Back 