bluebottle

The tenor of The Stationmaster's observation chimed with a couple of lines in a Brian Aldiss story I'd been reading shortly beforehand. Those lines he gave to a character who was returning with companions from a party and "With tipsy solemnity he sang to himself:- "There was a young man in December, who sighed, "Oh I hardly remember, How the girls in July used to kiss me and tie----- " Aldiss, I seem to remember, was rather fond of introducing the topic of Free Love into his stories ...

Very disciplined of you!

Thanks, Q. Helen and Richard (and Richard's mother, a registered child minder) will be watching Emily and the new girl like a kettle of hawks, so she'll be in good hands.

Big sister practice! Emily's just been told to expect a baby sister some time in March, so she's embarked with some enthusiasm on her training in preparation for her promotion to Big sister.

My MIL's gone to the East Indies. Jakarta? No, she flew with Singapore Airlines.

Well, I tried, out of politeness, to think of something, but decided that I couldn't give a fart and went to bed instead...

Make mine a large one please! (The Joels are at Abersoch with the Firbeck Sailing Club)

According to my Sunday school teacher, Manna comes from Heaven, certainly not Stralia!!

I couldn't get my bedside lamp to work until my next door neighbour, an electrician, pointed out that I had to put a lamp in it.

A common dilemma in the days before all-seating footie stadiums. A classic exchange was: "Well, do it in the coat pocket of the bloke on the other side of you." "But he'll notice!" "Maybe not - you didn't!"

Phone call from brother Norrie... "Are you watching the England game?" Me: "No, I'd forgotten about it." Norrie (gleefully): "I've just switched on - Panama's winning 1-0! Oh - hang on... (disappointedly) As you were...England's winning 6-1... Damn. I need to get new glasses."

When the late Tony Capstick was booked for a gig down south, the club organisers made the faux pas of booking him into a local hotel without a bar. Sober but ill-tempered, he became irritated by a prosperous-looking German man who was dominating the conversation in the lounge, and broke into the man's monologue... "You're German, are you? "Yes, that is so." "My father used to go over to Germany on business." "Oh, what business was he in? "He was a bomb-aimer in a lancaster."