When they are not eating ants
And there is not much to do,
Pangolins are just like
me and you.
They have no thumbs
to twiddle.
They can’t think up
a riddle like “Hey diddle diddle”.
So Pangolins just hang about
and that’s why you often see,
if you look very carefully,
high up in every tree,
Pangolins dangling.
Another rainy day.
A day indoors with nothing to do.
An opportunity for de-cluttering ?
But you have to be in the right frame of mind.
If the rain was torrential and flooded your home,
you would move the valued things upstairs.
The rest left downstairs would instantly
be redefined as clutter.
If a house fire,
was your heart’s desire,
then all your clutter would go up in smoke.
But that’s no joke.
Or if there was a plague of mice.
They would eat you out of house and home.
All your clutter problems solved,
with just one infestation.
Perhaps you could profit from your surplus stuff.
Ebay everything in a one day sale.
Price it at a pound
and wait for the bids to roll in.
This is the tail and trial of my annual Christmas shopping adventure. Not my most popular thing to do, so I set out to get it over with as quickly as possible. I left home at 11 o’clock to go to Milton Keynes where the shopping centre is an enclosed mall with plenty of car parking. A one stop shop, hopefully!
My first task when I arrive is to find a space in the usual outdoor location, which is nearest to the entrance to Debenhams. The car park is full, but after only a few laps around, I find someone pulling out and in I go. Now I need to locate a Pay and Display meter. Where on earth could they have put them ? There is a sign with an arrow, but I still can’t see a meter. All I can find are a lot of strange red poles with nowhere to put your money. It just says cashless parking, pay by phone, which is all very well if you have brought your phone with you 😤
Looks like my shopping expedition is over before it’s started. There are cameras everywhere to stop people escaping without paying, so I will probably get a fine for not managing to park there.
So I am back on the cris-cross grid of duel carriageways around the Shopping Centre, which is now full of cars, doing a few more laps, when I spot a multi-story car park at the Debenhams shop. Only problem is I am just beyond the entrance …. so I do a few more laps to get back to the entrance again. Finally, a friendly lady in a high-vis jacket, who is guarding the entrance, tells my I can pay cash once I am inside.
I drive up to the first floor entrance barrier, but it won’t give me a ticket, so I figure I must have to put some money in. Only problem is there is nowhere to put your cash and I drop my pound coin trying to put it in any kind of slot that will take cash. Then a ticket pops out and the barrier lifts up, so I realise you have to pay on the way out !!!
So I have broken into the first floor car park, only problem is that after a few more laps I discover they are all reserved for disabled people. I consider breaking an arm or a leg, but decide that’s a bit drastic just to get a car park space😀
S I venture up to the second floor. At first all the spaces appear to be taken. I do a few more laps and low and behold I find six empty spaces all together. Magic! I pull in, turn off the car and then just as I am ready to go shopping, a man in a high-vis jacket knocks on my window and asks if I want my car washed. I explained I was only going shopping and he explained “You can’t park here it is reserved for car washing”.
So now I am off to the roof top car park. It is pretty full with all the people who are not disabled and don’t want their car washed, but eventually after a few more laps, I find an empty space. After all this circling around, I have completely lost my sense of direction, so I wander through the car park looking for an exit to the shops, carefully leaving a paper trail behind me so I can find my way back to my car.
Eventually I find a secret door which leads via a host of escalators down to the shops. PHEW !
SHOPPING OVER IN MINUTES I RETRACE MY STEPS BACK UP TWENTY ESCALATORS.
At the top of the escalators there is the cash machine, that takes real cash. I put in my ticket and it says I have been there for over an hour, which I can hardly believe, so I have to pay £2.90 for two hours. Since you can’t argue with a machine I reluctantly cough up the dough. Having paid the machine it tells me I have ten minutes to get out.
I follow my paper trail and discover my car, now all I have to do is find my way out. It should be no problem, there are signs everywhere. Arrows on the floor, signs to the left, signs to the right, in fact far too many signs ! I set off following the arrows on the floor, then after one complete circuit, I am back where I started. I decide to follow the arrows on the signs saying exit and do a few more laps, but I am still on the roof! They obviously don’t want you to get out.
I try a new escape plan and follow some arrows with a picture of a car and after a few twists and turns I come to the EXIT BARRIER. Just one problem…… there’s a car in front of me and he appears to be parked at the barrier ? I wait for a while as other escapee cars queue up behind me. The man in the car in front seems to be having an argument with the machine. After a further five minutes or so another driver goes over and asks what’s happening only to be told “ the barrier won’t operate and they are re-setting the system”. This might take a while, apparently it happens quite often.
At last a man in a high-vis jacket comes to the rescue, no red cross parcels, but he does know another way out 😀 He puts a big red cone in front of my car, which is a bit annoying, then he helps the car in front to back up and squeeze though a gap between a lamppost and a parked car. Then he tells me to “ follow that car down the tunnel to the second floor” . That would’ve been fine if I didn’t have such a big car with sticky out wing mirrors, but by the time I manoeuvred past the lamppost the car in front was long gone and the escape tunnel was nowhere to be seen.
So I did a few more laps of the rooftop car park, only to find myself at the back of the slow-moving queue that I had just come out of. After just another twenty minutes I get back to the exit barrier. This time I am at the front, so I put my ticket in and the machine says …. “timed out”. There is nowhere to put extra money in, so I wait and eventually the man in the high-vis jacket reappears and tells me “ the system is broken and I will have to go down to the second floor. He directs the car behind me to go through the narrow gap beside the lamppost, puts the big red traffic cone in front of the car two cars behind me and backs me up so I can follow the other car. This time I take off like Lewis Hamilton on the Monaco starting grid. I am not going to lose that car in front, he obviously knows the way to the secret tunnel out. After only a few more laps around the second floor we reach the alternative exit barrier and there is the helpful lady in another high-vis jacket, who I met at the start of my car park adventure. She lets me escape without paying anymore cash for over staying my time in their lovely car park by just another hour or so.
What a great experience Christmas shopping in Milton Keynes is and now for another year I am ……
FREE AT LAST.
Pangolin wrangling is not with cattle,
that would be too much of a battle.
Pangolins prefer to wrangle with ants,
rather than have them in your pants.
They round them up
with their flapping tail
and huddle them into a wooden pail.
Sometimes Pangolins can spend all day,
chasing the ants that get away.
They see it as a matter of pride,
to find the ants wherever they hide.
Then they can eat them
at their leisure,
which gives them hours and hours of pleasure.
Christmas is rapidly approaching and our politicians have sent out all their cards — although they call them manifestos. They are full of New Year resolutions which they will drop after a week or so. They have also promised loads of presents for everyone, which will turn out to be empty boxes when you unwrap them. I hasten to add that all these presents are being bought with our own money.
So just before you vote, consider these promises by the Last Laugh Looney Party if we are elected we promise :-
Sooner or later the the election party will be over. Being showered with pre-Christmas presents will end in tears, whoever gets into power. Because the reality is none of them have the big ideas, the power or the consensus amongst themselves to change things for the better. SPEND, SPEND, SPEND is the only the answer for a clueless bunch of MP’s.
It is our hard earned money they are using ! Better that we spend it ourselves to solve the problems as they affect us. Not selfishly, but with regard to our immediate and future needs, and those of our neighbours and friends.
BUMP number 1 – CLIMATE CHANGE.
The LLLP recommend that you – Move to high ground, reduce energy consumption as much as possible. Wrap up warm in winter. Tie everything down, the winds of climate change are coming.
Meanwhile the LLLP will send all MP’s during their summer recess to the seaside to sit at high tide and let us know if sea levels are rising 🤡
BUMP number 2 – GROWING NUMBERS OF OLDER PEOPLE.
The LLLP recommend that you – Accept that the NHS will not be there for you except in the case of dire emergency. Exercise and eat well to stay healthy. Liquidate assets to pay for future care needs and don’t assume the State will look after you, because it won’t, unless your destitute. Downsize if you can.
Meanwhile the LLLP will send all MP’s for one week every month to do work experience in residential care homes, until they agree on a consensus solution to social care 🤡
BUMP number 3 – ESCALATING CRIME.
The LLLP recommend that you – Be alert to scams. They are frequently aimed at older people. The unwanted phone calls, the stranger at your door, even the small print in too good to be true offers from “trusted” companies. Stick to people and places you know.
Meanwhile the LLLP will require all MP’s to do home visits to everyone of their constituents who has been scammed and tell them what they are going to do about it …. and personally compensate them from their MP’s salary 🤡
THIS IS NOT THE KIND OF WORLD MOST PEOPLE WISH TO LIVE IN, BUT, IT WILL BECOME MORE AND MORE LIKE THIS UNLESS WE TAKE CONTROL OF OUR OWN LIVES RATHER THAN RELYING ON POLITICIANS TO RESOLVE OUR PROBLEMS.
SO WHY IS THIS A BLOG ABOUT BUMPS ????
BLOODY USELESS MP’S.
We have dug a big hole for ourselves.
We might have been going in the wrong direction with Europe.
But now we have swapped it for no direction at all.
Our politicians have all been found out.
Their answer is to spend more money.
When we need to spend less.
Climate change we can’t control.
Values we don’t live up to.
Laws broken with no redress
WHAT A MESS !
The good news is most of us are living well.
It’s the news that creates the living hell.
So turn off the tele, stop the papers.
Unplug your phone, disable your computer.
NOW WE ARE GETTING SOMEWHERE 😀
Say hello to someone new.
Find something new to do.
But if you live like a hermit,
you probably need a permit.
The Last Laugh Looney Party 🥳 will defend everyone’s rites, especially the rite to be STUPID. They are pleased to see that all the other parties are learning from them and doing stupid things too.
Here is a few fings what we want :-
I could become a writer,
a wordsmith fighter.
Or a puffed-up politician,
with views blowing with the wind.
Throw a pebble in a pond
and watch the waves goodbye.
Or greet the Daily news,
with just another sigh.
I ought to be an asteroid,
powerfully coming from afar.
An idea shaped in heaven
landing like a star.
A new elderly superhero
“ASTROMAN”
Not satisfied with just becoming King and Queen of America and All Europe, King Bodj now turned his attention eastwards. In Bodj’s muddled historical mind, he reveered the images of Hannibal challenging the Roman Empire, because he liked the idea of charging forth on a herd of elephants, which he thought would fit his new image. This had little to do with expanding his empire and he vaguely remembered that Hannibal was defeated in the end. So he thought he would rather be Genghis Khan and add the Mongol Empire to his collection. Or maybe it was Marco Polo that he wished to emulate and travel the Silk Road to China. Bodj often found himself in two minds 🤡
Whichever way he went, King Bodj saw new territories to be conquered and he very much liked the idea of Bodjland becoming a new Global Empire linking America, Europe and China into the New Bodj Empire.
HAIL EMPEROR BODJ AND EMPRESS IVANKA
P.S. Of course, this may all come crashing down, if Bodj fails to win the UK General Election on 12th December, or even if he just loses his seat as an MP for the Constituency of Hayes and Harlington.
GrumbleSmiles 