Merry Crimbo

Make-A-Flake

Old dictators don't die..

..the gold on their statues just tarnishes



I'm heartbroken. Turkmenistan's president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who I blogged about here, has died.



Music and beard lovers are said to be "rejoicing". No, not really. Or at least not in public.

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Ah, the good old Lib Dems know how to keep the public amused...

Stereotypes-a-go-go

You'll never guess what - according to someone who vaguely knew him, as just shown on Channel 4 News, the guy arrested today for the Suffolk murders "kept himself to himself".

And the chap already arrested, as reported in The Guardian, was a quiet fellow too:

"He was an ordinary tenant," said Stuart Kantor, the estate manager. "He never held parties, he was never noisy. We are all amazed that anyone like that could be arrested."

Meanwhile, on the victims of crime/early deaths side of things, West Yorkshire's acting chief constable said of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, "People talked about her lively, bubbly personality".

Why, the caretaker/fairground owner/etc would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you pesky kids...

Not Waving But Drowning
Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

message to self

Nasty scumbag dies, world celebrates

Good riddance

No Christmas Cheer This Year

As the more observant and long-standing reader may have worked out, unlike last year, I'm not doing a Christmas links countdown this time.
There are several reasons for this -

• I can't be arsed
• I probably exhausted the topic last time
• I'm decidedly less than full of the festive spirit
• I really, really can't be arsed

Last year, Little Miss Grumpy here managed to ruin the big day for the family, so I'm keeping more detached from it this time round. I might make some food if I'm feeling ambitious, but that's about it (I just acquired my Mum's old cooker and bid a thankful farewell to The Oven From Hell - a hideous beast with a dodgy thermostat which burnt everything that entered it - so I'm enjoying the novelty of having a contraption which actually works properly)

It's going to be a cash-strapped Christmas too (sounds like a C&W song...). I shall be indulging in some gift recycling I reckon, and if I'm very clever, I'll even manage to avoid giving someone back some of the useless crap they gave me the previous year...

On a poor at Christmas theme, the thing which has amazed me the most about the whole Farepak to-do is the amount of money people throw at one day of the year. Maybe I'm just a Scrooge (okay, no maybe about it), but it's all a bit of a waste. And just as I was wondering what sort of idiot trusts a private company with no financial protection scheme in place with all their dosh, it turns out my thick-as-pigshit sister got stung. Well whaddaya know...