Your New Year's Wish!

Doesn't seem like a year has passed since I last sat down and wondered where the hell all that time had copped off to. And now another one's just gone and done the same thing! But wherever this one went to, it also left a few things to be thankful for; a few to be sad about; and even a few things to bring hope into the future. Some personal highs and lows in 2015, in no particular order, included:

• My one, and one only, sub 50 10K of the year!
• Reaching my target of reading 75 books for the year - at the expense of watching any form of TV that wasn't late-nite on The Comedy Channel or Dave! 
• Saying goodbye to my old, old friends, PF and GC, who've gone off to forge new pastures in worlds unknown. I miss them both dearly. May they rest well and in peace.
• My new guitar.
• Standing on a hill in a park in Porto back in June, chewing the fat with two ole buddies of mine, half-listening to Antony and the Johnsons below, and realising that it's the things that you have that count for the most in this life.
• Looking at my mega opus 'alone and palely loitering' in the drawer to my left here and wondering will this thing ever see the light of day. 
• And did I mention my new guitar!?

On a New Year's Eve, it's one thing to remember the past but I suppose you also have to consider the future and your plans for it. For the year to come then, mine remain as ambitious as ever, and include: getting a decent cover to adorn the aforementioned thing in the drawer; selling the rights to a song or two to some major movie company and then, loaded with loot, heading for ... eh ... the Canaries; winning Wimbledon for the second time in my mind; and finally switching this blog over to Word Press! Well, wild ambitions and piped dreams can be one and the same thing every so oftenl!

Anyhow, that's the last post of another fallen year. Nothing beside remains but for me to wish you all the very best for the next one, to thank you for stopping by the blog this year and to add my shoulder to the wheel of your own hopes and dreams for 2016. Or as T.S. Eliot might still have it:

“... last year's words belong to last year's language 

And next year's words await another voice.”

Best get singin' then!

Happy New Year!

Amusing Pic of the Day!

Well, I thought it was funny! (Taken in Hodges Figges last Sunday Dec 27th.)

Falls to the floor in hysterics!

My Crimbo Lyrics!

I've been writing Christmas songs for many years now but I've never got anywhere with them and thus my dream of having a number one hit that allows me to retire off the royalties remains a piped one. I don't know what the exact problem is. The melodies are all catchy, and the production values on each song are all second to none. Part of me, however, suspects that my lyrics may be - well - just a little complex. I've printed a few lines from three of my best songs below. Perhaps you could help me simplify them a little or point me in the direction of other songs from where I might draw influence!

No 1, No 1: "It was the day before Christmas, sweetheart. I was detained in a police facility commonly used to accommodate people who are heavily intoxicated. While there, a senior citizen remarked to me that, in his view, it was unlikely that he would still be alive a year from now. He then broke into a song, the subject of which concerned a type of precipitation that is not often found on steep hills. I wasn't interested in the tune so I looked away and fell into a reverie that had you as its subject."

I feel this one needs just a slight tweak.

No. 1, No. 2: "I express a strong hope that it would be possible for Christmas to become a quotidian affair, one where the children begin to utter a series of words or sounds in musical tones, and defined combinations of musicians commence their respective performances. Oh-oh-oh-oh."

Catchy I know, but to make it timeless, maybe one more edit.

No 1, No 3: "Fruit from the genus of deciduous tree and/or shrub species entitled, Castanea, are currently cooking via a prolonged exposure to heat above a source that is not wholly enclosed by a stove or furnace."

I can't think of any easier way of getting the idea across. Help!

Meantime, may the forthcoming annual Christian festival celebrating Christ's birth provide you all with feelings of pleasure or contentment. And may subsequent ones be the same. :)

More soon.

Have a good one!

Know Your Literary Onions? - Take the Test!

As y'all well know, we try to cater for all tastes on this 'ere blog so it's about time we gave you high-brow types the chance to strut your stuff on our (cyber) world stage! And to bring you on board we've created a special Quotations Quiz to test your wits and see how yizzers all fare out.

So brainboxes, can you tell your literary swedes from your comical turnips - or maybe that should be your switerary leeds from your tomical curnips - by matching the correct quote to the genius who wrote it? Was it, either, 20th century literary colossus, James Joyce, or was it the worthy heir to his lofty throne, the inimitable ... Ronnie Barker?

Onnnn yer marks, set get ...

Whose Line is it Anyway!?

1. "How about chickens? Darles Chickens. One of our most nipping grovelists."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
2. "... and mick your modest mock pie out of humbles up your end."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
3. "I'm stequently made a laughing frock."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
4. "So post that to your pape and smarket."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
5. "How about the complete shirks of Wakespeare. Or a book of poetry by Kelly or Sheets?"
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
6. "Well, of course, it's awful angelous. Still I don't feel it's so dangelous."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
7. "... worse when your weirds get all muxed up and come out in wuck a say, that you dick kock what you're thugging abing."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
8. "Singing the top line why it suits me mickey fine."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
9. "... this is Barke, this is Starn, this is Swhipt, this is Wiles, this is Pshaw."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce
10. "When the shun is signing and the twirds are bittering, how wonderful it is to rip out and pick a few noses."
Ronnie Barker James Joyce

One point for a right answer. Highest score (self-assessed, of course!) wins the usual prize - the chance to drink a discount-priced pint of Tuborg with yours truly down the Beggars - at a time of my choosing. Meantime, good luck and look good, brainboxes! (offer ends 31/1/2016).

More soon ...

Reft to light: Boyce and Jarker, maybe down the Beggars!