Sock it to me !

Posted on March 7, 2021 by john graham

Socks have featured several times in my blogging years.   (Six times in fact, you can see my earlier posts by clicking on “ Clutter” in the TagCloud)       So I wonder why are socks so often on my mind, not on my feet?

At work I just had black socks which were not difficult to get mixed up.   You could even put a right sock on a left foot or a left sock on a right foot, it didn’t seem to matter.   At weekends it was more complicated, because as well as black socks, I had gardening socks, rugby socks and walking socks …. and a lot of coloured socks.    Choosing which to wear became a five minute early morning challenge.    Still, somehow I coped by always putting my best foot forward and I got through my working years.

Then I came to my retirement years, when  you have more time on your hands …. and feet.    The 5 days a week black socks are now reserved for funerals.   Your feet play a more prominent part in your life.    Socks can set the path for the day.

Socks also become the “old mans” Christmas present.   Who doesn’t need more socks?   They are a most welcome change from wearing the same boring black socks every day,
But now I have a different sartorial challenge.   Do I choose the polar bear socks …. or the snowflake ones.    Or perhaps the spotty ones or the ones with horizontal multi- coloured stripes.    Maybe even the Leicester Tiger logo 100th anniversary ones.    This could add fifteen minutes to my getting dressed time every day !

I could adopt a more radical solution and just take any two socks out of my overflowing sock drawer each day.  That way I would save a lot of time and set a new odd-sock trend.      Of course there is a slight danger the I might be assumed to have dementia and get carried of to to funny farm.

Also, because I have so many, I would not need to wash any socks for probably at least six months !

Once again I can see I am becoming a fashion style icon,   I probably should set up my own YouTube channel.

Since I will never run out of them socks will become part of my LEGacy.

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MP’s Gravy Train !

Posted on February 28, 2021 by john graham

It only seems like yesterday that our Honourable Members of Parliament were under fire for fiddling their expenses.   In fact it was several years ago and since then the rules have been tightened and an “Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority “ has been set up.   Their latest annual review has just been published and you can clearly see how they have clamped down on MP’s cleaning out their moats; buying designer furnishings for their second homes; staying in luxury hotels;  using endless first class travel and employing most of their family as  secretary’s, office managers or researchers.

Now they are practically living on the breadline with barely a crumb to sustain them in their arduous work on our behalf.     The average cost of our MP’s is a miserly £240,000 a year and this has to cover their salary and expenses.   How on earth do they get bye?    It is difficult to imagine how they hard they must struggle on such a pittance, especially when they have to live in central London and have a second home in their constituency.     Don’t forget the long hours having to sit around all day.

It is only a matter of time before we will see some of them begging on the street out side the Houses of Parliament.

We should probably send them a supply of free Marcus Rashford happy meals as well as a second hand lap top computer.     Indeed it is quite possible that with some creative accounting some may qualify for welfare benefits 😀

Posted in GRUMBLES, SMILES | 4 Comments

More Junk Mail Please.

Posted on February 21, 2021 by john graham

I have written a lot of posts grumbling about junk mail since I started this blog.       ( You can see my earlier posts by clicking on “GrumbleSmiles Post” in the TagCloud).
Now in the drawn out days of Coronapop  I take it all back.   I have never found junk mail so interesting.     I long for the moment when when the outside world  reconnects with the inside shielding me.     Better still a larger unrequested catalogue of unwanted gifts or gadgets that won’t fit through the letter box.   Then you get the bonus of a knock on the door and a human face.   Shame about the mask and the muffled explanation from across a socially distanced street.

Still, I have something to do for an hour or two in the morning.    Reading about things I didn’t know I wanted.   Forget about the Amazon rain forest that is rapidly disappearing and think about the unique extended reach toenail clippers  that you need now you can’t get down to the floor any more.     Or would I have ever known about the luxury, 6star, all-inclusive Mediterranean cruises that I can book now before it is too late, but may not be able to go on for a year or two …… or ever again.

Perhaps I should buy some stylish wide fitting shoes with 20% off, just in case I can go out again.    Or how about some all new, powerful, non-toxic, all- natural home cleaner that never ever scratches; no home should be without some in these days where germs lurk around every corner.

Without junk mail I have been missing out on all these wondrous products, all because of my negative attitudes towards junk mail.      In the lockdown isolating  Coronapop world, junk mail is becoming a blessing.    GP’s should order it on prescription.     Bodj should make a new rule that everyone should have at least one piece of junk mail a day.

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Pangolin WHO?

Posted on February 14, 2021 by john graham

It is just a few days away from the 10th World Pangolin Day, but should we be celebrating ?
Pangolins had a lot of bad press last year when it was rumoured that they might be the super-spreaders of Coronapop.

This fake news all started in the wet markets of Wuhan last year to divert attention away from the Chinese laboratories which were researching new viruses.     It was a terrible slur on pangolins from which they may never recover.
The WHO are looking into it, although quite why an ageing pop group should be bothered I am not sure.     I suppose they have taken an interest in health issues as they got older and became even more fearful of dying.    Remember that when they were young they were already singing  “I hope I die before I get old”.
Another lyric said “ I’m not trying to cause a big sensation “.   Well they certainly did that alright.  These Coronapop groups have a lot to answer for.

           HAPPY BIRTHDAY PANGOLINS EVERYWHERE !

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If The Cap Fits.

Posted on February 7, 2021 by john graham

The sports pages lately have been full of stories about football players at risk of getting dementia from heading balls.   Almost half of the 1966 World Cup team have suffered from this dreadful disease.
At the same time the rugby community has increasingly been concerned about head injuries.   Rugby quite rightly has gone further than football by introducing protocols on assessments and time-outs.   Nobody in there right mind would wish to reverse this caution, but in future it maybe going too far.

In cricket batsmen have worn helmets for quite a few years now, but they must have been mad in the first place to stand in front of someone throwing a hard ball at you at 90 miles an hour !

Looking back, I think my forgetfulness first started with my school cap.   It was grey with a yellow ring and a peak at the front.   Wearing it backwards was never a possibility!  I hated wearing that cap and as often as I could get away with it, I accidentally left it at home.   That usually ended up with 100 lines ——-  “ I must wear my  cap every day”.       Persistent offences lead to detention and a letter to my parents.
I think that slapping that cap on several times a day, every school day for twelve years could well be the cause of my forgetfulness.   I may have a case against Hereford Road School for cruelty to children.

Posted in SMILES | Tagged | 5 Comments

Geronimo !

Posted on February 3, 2021 by john graham

What’s the password ?

That used to be a key question in my childhood days.   It gained you special access to a secret den  or a select group of friends.    Not everyone new the password,  that was the whole idea.    But most people could guess it, because the answer was always “Geronimo !”.    Still, childhood days and innocent ways were great fun.

Now in the grown up world and more thefty days, things have become darker and there are passwords for just about everything.     Neither can you guess “Geronimo” it doesn’t work anymore.

For your bank card you only need to remember four numbers, which doesn’t sound too difficult and now you have contactless cards you don’t even need a number too often.   Therein lies a problem, because, if you don’t use it you lose it.   That’s how passwords are forgotten.    You can have a try at remembering, but three try’s and your money is locked up in a vault that even the great train robbers cannot get into.   Bring back “Geronimo”.

Getting a new password is not quite so easy either.    You have to ring up your bank and answer some security questions to prove that you are you.    The questions you gave them three years ago and have long since forgotten.    They really don’t want to give you your money back in case you are trying to rob yourself.

But passwords don’t stop at bank doors.   We now have passwords for many more things and “Geronimo” doesn’t work for them either.   Log onto a website to buy some plants from a nursery and you have to have a six digit code to register your interest.    “Geroni” should work until they tell you you need to include a number.    “Geron7” ought to do the job.   But it doesn’t because you also have to use a ? or a ! or even an &.     So how about “Ger&r7”.     Nobody is going to guess that!    Nor will you ever remember it.

Posted in SMILES | 3 Comments

LOCK OUT !

Posted on January 31, 2021 by john graham

Last weeks post saw the Last Laugh Looney Party proposing to lock every one in the UK in their houses, to combat the spread of Coronapop.   Now because the R number is not coming down fast enough there is a new change to the rules to stop any more pesky variants of the virus being brought in from abroad.     Which is where it came from in the first place .


The LLLP proposes that from midnight tonight everyone arriving in the UK without a lorry load of vaccine is sent back to where they came from.   They then have to stay away until there is no “R.” in the month, because we have got too much  “R” already.

Celebrities going to their second homes in Monaco or the Caribbean can leave on their private jets whenever they like, but they won’t be allowed back until they have  tested negative ten times; been scrubbed down with disinfectant; been sealed in a anti-virus suit and finally, they will be required to bring back vaccines for 1,000 people and lap top computers for 100 children.     Oh!  And not forgetting PPE for the NHS.    They must then isolate on a remote Scottish island for six months and be lectured to by the always right Ms Sturgen at 9 am each day.

To prevent people from finding their way back illegally in little inflatable boats, the Home Secretary -Pretty Awful – has started to  erect a defensive wall on all the south and east coast beaches which will be patrolled by a  Daily Mail force of Track and Trace volunteers.     She has cunningly code named the wall “Flood defences “ to hide its real purpose of keeping out illegal immigrants.

The Health Secretary – Matt Cockup – has declared the Isle of White as a new  Nightingale Hospital / Detention Camp to be used for anyone who breakers the Covid rules.   Dominic Cummings is appointed as it’s first Chief Executive/ detainee / patient.
The Education Secretary- Gavin-a-bad-day Williamson – will join them on the island to re-educate the in-mates before they become out-mates.

Prime Minister Bodj said the is a ground-breaking, world-beating, moonshot of an idea and he anticipates sending some more of the Cabinet to help soon, no later than the 15th of February, or maybe early Spring, or late Spring, or definitely the Summer probably.

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£1,000 Lock Inn !

Posted on January 24, 2021 by john graham

Coronapop is still raging around the country, in spite of the Governments second lockdown and Bodj’s Churchillian exhortations on TV to “ Fight the virus on the beaches”.    The trouble seems to be that infected people are still going out and not doing as they are instructed by the Test-Track-&-Tracers to “STAY IN”.
The Stay Home Secretary- Pretty Aweful is intending to fine all the law breakers.   That is provided the police can catch them.  Let’s hope they are better at it than their record with other criminals.

In the meantime the Ill-Health Secretary – Matt Cock-up is considering offering people who test positive a £500 bribe to stop in, but he is not clear how this will be enforced.

The Last Laugh Looney Party has a bolder idea.   Now that money is no object, why not make it a bonus prize of £1,000 tax free per week until they test positive again.    Hoards of people will be running to see their GP to get tested and it will only cost a piddling £ billion a week.   Of course there would have to be a guarantee of compliance.     This could be easily achieved by learning from the Chinese and boarding up the houses of infected people after throwing in two weeks supply of Markus Rashford food parcels.   That should get the R number down to Q or even P, in no time at all.

Problem solved !     Everybody tested and after two weeks you have your “Dead or Alive “ answer.    It seemed to work in Wuhan 🤡

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Lost !

Posted on January 17, 2021 by john graham

I am lost in a WordPress fog. As if Coronapop wasn’t bad enough.

What used to be simple yesterday seems to be complicated by an ” upgrade”.

It must be something to do with that horrible little symbol that appeared from nowhere. Origin uncertain rather like Coronapop. Perhaps I need to do “Test, Track and Trace.”

Is there a treatment for or do I need to wait for a vaccine ?

Strange times.

6 Comments

Alok gets hot seat.

Posted on January 13, 2021 by john graham

My new old friend Alok Sharma is in the news again.     I haven’t heard from him since November last year.  . ( You can see our exchange in the Archive. ).   He was doing sterling work at the Department of Buisness, Work and Energy,  where he did so well at closing down business and eliminating work,  that we didn’t need so much energy.

   As a result of his great success, particularly with energy conservation,  prime Minister Bodj promoted him to a new role leading the way on climate change.   Britain is to host a world conference on climate change in  November this year and Alok has been charged with championing the UK’s leadership role in showing the rest of the world how to do it.  His new official title is President of COP26, so it sounds like he will be putting in a few shifts for the Metropolitan Police from time to time.


So far he is off to a good start, with a little help from Coronapop.

  • No fuel is required for aeroplanes now the sky’s are shut down.
  • Domestic travel is also severely curtailed during the lock down.
  • Cross-border travel has ground to a standstill due to the extra paperwork and the need to test drivers repeatedly.
  • Domestic heating is unnecessary now that windows have to be open 24/7 to ventilate homes.

Alok has another idea too :-

Bodj electric cars will be offered free to the world.

This will revolutionise travel everywhere, especially now that the car has been modified  by Sir James Dyson to run on 4 triple A batteries.   Of course this does limit its range to 550 yards, so you will need to carry some spares until you can get to a corner shop.
A complimentary armoured one is being given to President Biden to cement our ‘special relationship’ with the United States.     Ones are also being offered to all European leaders provided the learn to drive on the right side of the road.

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