Joke 764

Children Liquidation (Photo credit: Magna Designs)

Rachel was out walking with Jackie, her four-year-old daughter.  Jackie picked something up off the ground and started to put it in her mouth.  Rachel asked her not to do that.

‘Why Mummy?’ asked Jackie.

‘Because it’s been lying outside and is dirty and probably has germs,’ said Rachel.

Jackie looked at her mother in admiration and asked, ‘Wow, Mummy, how do you know stuff like that?’

‘Oh…everyone knows this stuff.  Um, it’s in the Mummy Test. You have to know it, or they won’t let you be a Mummy.’

‘Oh…’  Jackie seemed confused.  Mother and daughter strolled along in silence for some minutes, as Jackie pondered this new information.

‘I get it,’ Jackie’s face beamed with realisation. ‘Then if you flunk the test, you have to be the Daddy.’

From Will & Guy.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wrong

It is wrong for a son to make fun of his father.  

 

This has never stopped my sons.

‘Dad’ by T. Boy. Medium: Drill on MDF

Portrait of the artist as a cheeky boy.

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H Is For ‘Harry’

Harry was my Dad.  His name wasn’t Harry; it was George.  His middle name was Harry; everyone called him Harry.  I never knew why, if his name was George, everyone called him Harry.  His father’s name was Harry, but no one called his father George.

The Bailey Brothers in It’s A Wonderful Life were George and Harry Bailey.  My Dad wasn’t like either of them: no Buildings & Loan to dip into (too working class); no war hero (too young; and he was excused National Service because of a perforated ear drum).  He was more like Uncle Billy Bailey – sweet and well-meaning, but a bit dopey. 

Actually, he wasn’t even sweet: he was too acerbic for that.  When he felt guests had stayed too long, he told them so.  Always in a joke, so he’d laugh them out the door, with my mother saying in an hysterical aside to us kids, ‘They think he’s joking but he means it’, frantic that no one should be offended.  As far as I know, they never were.

My Dad liked to laugh and eat chocolates.  He used to steal from the sweet drawer Mum kept for the grandchildren and more than once she would say, ‘Let’s see what Grandma’s got for you here’ and find herself with an empty drawer and a skriking toddler.  In the end, she had to give him his own drawer.

My Dad loved the Wild West: movies, books, history, country and western music.  Because of my Dad’s love of C&W, I was probably the first child in the UK to know what a lady mule skinner is.

He had a double album of The Grand Ole Opry with a piece of the original curtain attached.  I expected to inherit it and I was furious when he came back to the UK and left his C&W albums in South Africa. 

It’s because of my Dad and his love for all things western that I know, if I am ever caught in a desert in a thunderstorm, to lie down flat on the ground.  Otherwise I will be the tallest point and the lightning will be gunning for me.  I read that in a Louis L’Amour novel, loaned to me by my Dad.

When we emigrated to South Africa in 1982, we had no money (one of the reasons for emigrating in the first place).  Dad was working for Sasol, a huge corporation that turned coal into petrol.  To help our miniscule grocery budget, my father the usually honest would come off shift with a toilet roll taken from the men’s loos.  One day, he heard from a colleague that the company was cracking down on staff pilfering – stationery, equipment, and so on – and he went home in a panic and he and Mum spent an entire night ripping up a hundred half-used toilet rolls and flushing them down the toilet.  What really made me laugh was that it was unmarked paper; and I doubt the company could have come in to the house asking to see it, anyway.  The price of a guilty conscience, I guess: a huge water bill.

He used to keep us kids up on school nights, playing cards.  Avoiding Mum, usually.  They were unhappily married for over thirty years.  One Christmas Eve, before letting them in the house I had to warn them to behave i.e. not have an almighty ding-dong and ruin Christmas for everyone as usual.  For the first twenty years of my life with the Hub, the minute we had a row I was leaving him, because I’m not ending up like my Mum and Dad!

I have told this story before but it’s worth repeating:  I remember one particular row that went on for months.  Every Sunday we had a traditional roast dinner and my Dad  – who loved his food and particularly his roast dinners, so he might have just been spoiling for a fight – complained that he was sick of roasts every Sunday and why couldn’t we have something else?  Mum never said a word but took his plate away and scraped it into the bin, and cooked him bacon and egg there and then.  Next Sunday we had a roast dinner, as usual…except for Dad, who was served bacon and egg without a word from Mum.  And the next; and the next; and the next Sunday after that…for six solid months, until Dad finally caved first and asked in his best little boy voice if he could please have a roast like the rest of us this Sunday?  Without a word from Mum, he got one.

Dad never complained about his meals again.

My Dad was narky and didn’t suffer fools gladly; intelligent and daft by turns; childish often; adored his three children, always.  He wasn’t perfect but it doesn’t matter: I loved him; he was my Dad.

Joke 391

Thanks to Granny1947 for this one.

A lad comes home from school and excitedly tells his dad that he has a part in the school play, playing a man who has been married for 25 years.

The dad says, “Never mind son, maybe next year you’ll get a speaking part.”

Weekly Photo Challenge: Family

I’m way behind on the photo prompts and the end of the year is almost upon us, so expect lots of random pics with tenuous links to the prompts (same old, same old).

The combination of Family and Christmas gives me the opportunity to post some photos of my beloved dear old dead Dad.  He died on Christmas Eve 2000, which was not great, but now our visit to the cemetery at lunch time every Christmas Eve is a signal for the festivities to begin.  Dad would have loved that joke. 

All About Me

Image via Wikipedia

List the 5 most important books you’ve ever read.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John & When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

The first four taught me about love and the last one about the effects of hate.

What does love mean to you?

Never having to share my Maltesers.  If they love me, they’ll leave me to feast alone.

What’s one “luxury” you refuse to live without?

Earl Grey teabags.  No joke.  I never joke about tea.

If you could spend a day doing anything you wanted, what would you do?

Blogging, of course.  Whilst eating Maltesers and drinking Earl Grey tea.

Who was the first person who believed in you?

My Dad.  When I was put in his arms he said to my Mum, ‘Doesn’t she look intelligent?’

You can fool some of the people all of the time…

Explain the name of your blog and why you chose it.

I’m a housewife.  I laugh (you know what they say will happen if you don’t laugh).

I hope you laugh, too.  It doesn’t have to be at me.

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I just read this and I have to share it; it is originally from Twitter, but I read it on Manchester Meanders:

Twitter: @Harrietgregory: Quote from Waterstone’s employee on the news: “We’ll stay open, if they steal some books they might learn something” #londonriots

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Of Lettuces And Kings

Image via Wikipedia

Last night I watched The King’s Speech and loved it.

All the way through, a quote that I once read played at the back of my mind; and I was pleased when I heard it used in the film.  Attributed to George V, it is something like this:

My father was afraid of his father; I was afraid of my father; and I’ll make damn sure my children are afraid of me.

These days, of course, it is the parents who are afraid of the children.

I always remember that quote in conjunction with an amusing story I once read about George VI as a child.  The Royal Family were eating lunch.  GV was talking and little Bertie interrupted, ‘Father, Father.’  Daddy G was furious and told Bertie to pipe down, not interrupt, and speak when he was spoken to. Little Bertie subsided, abashed.

Once lunch was over, King George said sternly to the little prince, ‘Now you may speak.  What is it?’

Bertie replied, ‘I wanted to warn you that you were about to eat a caterpillar with your lettuce.’

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That reminds me of something I once read in Reader’s Digest:

A religious and stern father insisted that his children arrived promptly at the breakfast table each day.  One morning, his daughter was late.  As she sat down he said to her, ‘Child of the devil!’

‘Good morning, Father,’ she replied.

*

I sat down to write this post and then noticed the date: today, the fourth of August, is the Queen Mother’s birthday.  The same Queen Mother who married the Bertie who became George VI.

It is well-known that she liked a tipple (and a flutter – she had the race commentary piped into her house on racing days) and she liked her first tipple at the same time everyday.  It is also well-known that many of her staff were gay.

One day, tipple time arrived, but no beverage.  The QM waited a bit and finally phoned down to the staff: ‘When you old queens have finished chatting, this old Queen would like her G&T!’

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He’s Got A Nose For It

Sidey’s weekend theme is unusual angles.

When I was pregnant with Spud, we went for our first scan.  All I could see on the screen was a blob, but the Hub exclaimed, ‘It’s got my nose!’

And he has:

Happy Father’s Day To A Great Dad

The Hub is a little confused: he seems to think Father’s Day is all about him.  He doesn’t understand why he’s not allowed to moan at Spud today.  When he complained that he should be allowed to have his own way on one day a year, once I’d stopped laughing I explained that, even after twenty-one years, he hadn’t quite grasped the concept that a father’s place is always in the wrong.

It’s just like being a husband.

Happy Birthday, Dad

My Dad would have been 75 today.  I miss him.

Congratulations Tory Boy: You Survived Me

 

My little boy is twenty-one today.  I’m amazed he made it; I was such a nervous mother.  Also a boring one: I’m going to repeat some of his favourite criticisms of me, which I think I have mentioned before.  Indulge me.

I took him for his first check up at ten days old.  The midwife told me off for overdoing it a little on the clothing:

• all-in-one vest
• socks
• disposable nappy
• rubbers
• babygrow
• cardigan
• all-in-one coat thing
• hat
• mittens
• blanket

In a South African winter, when all we needed was a sweater for cool days.  I don’t know how he didn’t spontaneously combust.

Did you notice the disposable nappy and rubbers, by the way?  I used terry nappies but had disposables for trips out.  I wasn’t sure if he needed the rubbers but decided to err on the side of having the midwife in stitches on the floor.

Daddy, Mummy and Visiting Uncle decided to take a walk with Baby.  Baby’s pram wasn’t in the mood, hitting a rock and pitching Baby out onto the gravel.  Mummy wet herself laughing (nervous condition, I swear) when Baby hit the gravel face-first.  Daddy gathered up Baby, comforting him while cursing laughing Mummy and made sure to grass Mummy up to Baby as soon as cognition set in.  Baby has never let me forget it.

First time on a school trip: I made him wear bright orange raincoat, rain pants, and wellies.  Everyone laughed at him. 

First time on a scooter: I insisted he wear helmet, elbow and shin pads to wheel twenty yards outside the house.

First day of high school: I walked him to the bus stop.

First hint of Saddam unleashing his WMDs on us: I told him to keep his mobile on so I could call him at school if nuclear war broke out.

If that boy doesn’t emigrate to get away from me at the first opportunity, I have done my job well.

Happy birthday darling.  I’m sorry for being your mother.

Some More, As You Seam To Like Them

The Hub got a bit carried away making an Easter Bonnet

 

For King and Classroom

 

A teenager who didn't get a lie-in

VE Day 1945

 

You’re gunna like this one

A Lost Boy

Sew What? He Can’t Spell Like I Can

Spud as Grabber Dan (top, second right).

 

Halloween.

Sikh and ye shall find.

Ironically, one of the Hub’s favourites of all the costumes he’s made over the years.

You know who...

O, be one…

I’ve got more but I don’t want to spoil you.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Abundance

This is how I remember my Dad.  He was always joking and laughing and making the rest of us laugh.  If you have an abundance of laughter in your life, you can cope with almost anything.  It doesn’t make things better, but it can make things bearable.

Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been?

Image by linniekin via Flickr

Describe the best road trip you’ve ever taken.

What follows is not the best road trip I’ve ever taken (most of it being by rail, for starters), but it was good fun.

To continue our nursery rhyme theme…which reminds me: well done, dear readers, on your excellent modern nursery rhymes.  Way to make me feel inadequate as both poet and social commentator.  My only comfort was that none of you noticed I used all of your favourite words in one post.  If this blog had a tongue, it would be blowing raspberries right now and I would have to issue a stern warning because it’s necessary to be nice to people if you want them to come back.  Kisses, dear, dear readers.

The theme:

Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to look at the Tweenies.

I won a competition back in 2003.  The BBC phoned me one Thursday morning – not the whole corporation, just two incompetents – to tell me I had won an exclusive, all-expenses paid trip to London that weekend, to watch the premiere of the Tweenies new video/dvd, Night-time Magic, featuring Eddie the Dream Genie. 

The Tweenies is/was a children’s programme involving people dressed in felt costumes, and a lot of singing.  I once set up my ironing board in front of the tv and found I had done twenty minutes’ worth while singing along to them without realising.  While I’m at it, I might as well confess that I also have the ‘Goodbye’ song from Bear In The Big Blue House on my playlist.

The first BBC person to phone wanted to confirm that I could accept the prize, as it was such short notice, and promised a second person would phone to give me details of travel, etc.

Nobody phoned.

On Friday morning I phoned them to see what was happening: the first person thought the second person had phoned me and the second person thought the first person had phoned me, to tell me that the train tickets would be with me by twelve o’clock that day.

They weren’t.

Either the first or second person phoned me at two to tell me that, actually, the tickets had come back to the office because they were incorrectly addressed but not to worry, because everybody else all over the country had received theirs, so that was alright, then.

I’d be hearing from the BBC.

I didn’t hear from the BBC.

I phoned again.

Can’t you just hear someone from That’s Life saying, ‘This has got nothing to do with us’?

I was promised an e-mail bearing all details including a pin number so that I could collect the tickets from the station just before we left.

No e-mail.

By this time, the Hub and I were convinced that the whole thing was a wind-up. I didn’t bother packing, and I was preparing to tell the kids on Saturday morning, sorry to disappoint you and blight your life but you can blame the sickos playing a joke on us, when the e-mail arrived with all details, including the train time of 12h37.

It was all hands to battle stations, packing, cleaning (can’t leave the house dirty for burglars) and setting the video for the England-South Africa game the Hub was sacrificing for his beloved children to have a weekend jolly (and if you knew how much that man loves his rugby, you would appreciate that it was a HUGE sacrifice on his part).

We were at the station for 11h55, and there was a minor panic when the ticket machine was not located at the end of Platform 2 as the BBC advised us (I know the BBC don’t run the railways, but give it time).  We located it eventually (thirteen miles away at Granada Studios), collected the tickets, and waited for our fabulous weekend to begin.

The train journey was pleasant, if punctuated by sad comments from the Hub: ‘Kick-off will be about now.’  ‘I bet England are ahead now.  ’Must be half-time.’  ‘It’s a shame, but I don’t think South Africa will beat them; they’re not the team they were.’  ’The game must be over now.’  ‘At least I can watch the highlights in the hotel (sigh).’

We arrived at Euston Station knowing the hotel was only two or three minutes away, but not in which direction. The e-mail had promised us a map at the end of it, but after scrolling through four pages of disclaimers and details of what we were not getting from them, you will not be surprised to learn that were was no map. However, my husband is a resourceful man, and he asked somebody for directions, and we arrived at the hotel within the promised two or three minutes.

No problems booking in and our room was what I can only describe as larney – extremely posh, too good for the likes of us, but we don’t care, we enjoyed it anyway. It was bigger than Spud’s then-classroom, as he informed us in awed tones, comfortably fitting a king-sized bed, large single bed, fold-out, thick sprung-mattress sleeper-couch that was more comfortable than our bed at home, table, desk, chairs, luxury bathroom and mini-corridor big enough for Spud to turn cartwheels in.

The Hub was pleased to discover that Man City were winning three-nil when he put the telly on, and ecstatic when they eventually beat Bolton six-two; the rugby highlights were also shown, so he was thrilled/disappointed when England won/South Africa lost – you only know the real meaning of torn loyalties when you are married to a rugby-loving man born in England but raised in South Africa.

The BBC then decided to spoil our weekend by having the latest Tweenies comic delivered to our room; to add insult to injury, they sent two – one each for the boys. You will appreciate our agony if I tell you that a combination of two lively boys and two free plastic guitars ensued – excellence in Children’s Literature was eschewed for excruciating noise and howling parents. 

We went down to dinner at five-thirty. We were seated next to another family there courtesy of the BBC, who had had a similar experience to us, ungrateful wretches that we all were, in discovering what was actually going on.   They had arrived at the station and got into a taxi for the hotel: total journey time – 30 seconds.  They had also been promised a dinner at Planet Hollywood which never materialised, as part of the prize.

The reason I mention them, apart from giving me an excuse to complain as a good licence-payer about the waste of my money on know-nothing staff and weekend jollies to London, is that we all fell in love with their toddler daughter, Ellie-May. She was entrancing; her skin was like the proverbial caramel; her eyes the biggest and brownest I’ve ever seen in a little girl; her dark curly hair had golden tints; she was dressed beautifully; she was high-spirited and mischievous without being naughty, and her entrance was spectacular: she climbed up on the seat behind her mother, opened her mouth, and daintily vomited all over her mum in the middle of the restaurant.

That hiccup not withstanding, we had an enjoyable meal and an early night. The Hub was exhausted and ready for bed, but Spud, Tory Boy (then thirteen and not so much Tory Boy as Boy) and I struggled to sleep, talked in booming whispers so as not to disturb the Hub, eventually all dozed off and left him wide-awake from our efforts not to wake him. 

That was also the night we invented our family cat.  Before settling to sleep we told age-appropriate ghost stories (I find them too frightening otherwise).  Mine was a shaggy dog story – unbelievable, I know – with a creaking door.  When I creaked menacingly, they all laughed and demanded to know where the cat came from.  He’s been a fixture ever since.

Breakfast next morning was ample and included a complimentary admirer for Boy – a Spanish waitress who told him he looked absolutely lovely….

We were all packed up and checked out by 11h15, waiting in the lobby for the BBC to collect us. Here, Corporation incompetence came into its own: two minibuses, meant to carry sixteen people each, arrived to carry sixty people to the premiere.  Each driver thought he was collecting one family.  You should have seen us all crammed in: Ellie-May’s father must have thought his luck was in, the way he and the Hub were cuddled up together. Can you imagine if we’d had an accident? Night-time Magic, Daytime Nightmare…why spend what we calculate was about a £1000 per family for the weekend, apart from the beanfeast itself, if you are going to risk it all? As it happened, nothing happened (shame – can you imagine the extensive media coverage for the new Tweenies dvd if we had all been maimed and/or killed? You can’t buy that kind of publicity), and we all arrived safely, once the first driver had been told by his passengers where we were going.

Things looked up after that. We went into a very exclusive place called The Rex Club, in Piccadilly Circus. To be honest, it looked exclusively seedy, but apparently cost the Beeb a fortune to hire, and was sited next door to Planet Hollywood, who provided the catering, so Ellie-May had the opportunity to throw-up their food after all. She screamed loud and long, poor little mite, at the site of a real, live Doodles, and refused to go anywhere near him. She spent most of the time playing with Boy, as she really took a shine to him. He didn’t mind being showered with many mini Doodles.

The room had been decorated with all things Tweenies, and we were free to take home as many of the aforementioned mini Doodles and yoyos as we wished (clearly the worst-selling toys) and to drink as much tea, coffee and cool drink (it was a children’s day, so no alcohol) as required. Those children not terrified by him had their pictures taken with the real Doodles, then we trooped into a very plush screening room (reclining seats, no less; I can’t help wondering what other films the Rex Club hosts…) to watch, da-da! the premiere of the Tweenies’ new video/dvd, Night-time Magic, featuring Eddie the Dream Genie.  I must have mentioned it enough times now to have paid for the weekend.

Once they got the projector working properly – only a fifteen minute delay with a room full of eager, excited and very hungry children - we settled down to watch it.

Yes, well.

I am still confused as to why, exactly, the BBC felt the need to bring sixty people from all over the country to watch a very ordinary fifty-minute video.  It seemed like a colossal waste of money on something that was bound to be a huge seller, anyway.  The Hub reckons it must have been a tax write-off.

We all trooped out once it had finished, and those children not asleep, too young, too old or too bored were thrilled to meet Eddie the Dream Genie in person. Spud confided in me that he overheard someone saying that Eddie had had trouble getting his head on properly.  Spud seemed to enjoy meeting him and didn’t even mind an elbow in the face from Eddie in all the confusion.

Food followed, supplied by Planet Hollywood, which was extremely edible (the food, not Planet Hollywood – you can’t eat a business, silly, unless you’re Godzilla.  But you won’t be invited back).  Then goodie bags (two videos, wallet, poster, figure, bits and pieces), taxis – one per family this time, baggage collection, and off to the station.

I decided to forgive the BBC for wasting my money on expensive hotels, good food, freebies and generally showing us all a very good time when I took my seat in (because the journey home was almost fully booked, the woman at the Beeb had us bumped up to) First Class.  We got free crisps! And drinks, eccles cakes and gross sandwichews. We were on Richard Branson’s new, tilting Pendolino train – in First Class!! They didn’t tilt, unfortunately, as we only travelled at about 23 miles an hour for half the journey. We didn’t mind, though, because we got free crisps.

I think the highlight of the journey was when I went to the toilet and couldn’t work the tap. Not as daft as it sounds – if you can imagine a machine that operates on the same principle as a hand dryer (no, not a towel), in that you put your hands underneath it and the water automatically comes out.  It didn’t. There I was, with a handful of liquid soap and no water. I had to call the (male) attendant to help me, and I felt very silly, if germ free.  Next time I went to a different toilet (hey, it’s a two-hour journey)and couldn’t get that tap to cease running water. I crossed my legs the rest of the way home.  Those machines are everywhere now but they were state-of-the-art eight years ago.

And that was one of my favourite road trips (apologies for the many parentheses).