Happy New Warhammer

Er hello, it's Boy 1 here, I am doing a post for Mummy as she is very fried tried tired after Christmas, she is asleep on the sofar with lots of rappers wrappers from After Eight choc mints and bits of tinsel in her hair.

Every few minutes she half wakes up and shouts "Does anyone want a mince pie?" Daddy says she has Post Christmas Hostess syndrome..

Most important is I got some Warhammer for Christmas.  It looks like this.

You buy the figures.

Then you spend ages painting them with special paint with cool names like Goblin Green, Devlan Mud and Skull White and oooh, Bleached Bone. Nice.

And then you play complicated battles with them, there is a long rule book and you have rulers and stuff to measure the distance that your weapons can fire. 

Mummy got quite interested in my Ork figures, I showed her all the paints they needed and explained at length their weapons and armour and boots and stuff..

When she saw all the paints, Mummy stomped off muttering that she could not believe that an Ork has more nail polish and paints and accessories than she has..
Mummy is back on the sofa now...

"No Mummy, I don't want a mince pie.."

Christmas Almost Here And Other Worries

Dahlings, finally we are getting a bit Christmassy at Blighty HQ.

Here is an action shot of Boy 1 decorating the tree (Boy 2 had already bunked off, bored with this interior decoration nonsense cutting into his Wii football game time).

You know how dear Faux Fuchsia holds that "Nothing says legal advice like pink tinsel" which is the most beautiful and profound statement ever to grace the internet, in my humble opinion...

Well, to me, "Nothing says Christmas like a sozzled fairy lashed to a Christmas tree": meet Esmeralda, fairy, former good time girl (I can't confirm or deny those rumours that she at one time dated Warren Beatty) and moderate dipsomaniac (sherry mainly).  She is a family character and as old as .....oh never mind..

Here are some more tree shots.  The decoration by Boys 1 and 2 was initially enthusiastic then a bit slapdash....small boys don't bother with the hooks and loops to hang stuff from branches, they basically throw items at the tree and see what sticks...

In other news my Maternal Bosom (junior size) swelleth with pride.  The other night at supper Grandma Whacker (again in residence for Christmas riot control) mentioned that according to the Daily Mail (right wing rag which regularly froths at the mouth over political correctness gone mad) children were now banned from making the star shape with their hands when singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little B list Celebrity" as the star shape in signing for the hearing impaired means lady er parts..

Quick as a flash Boy 1 starts doing some very authentic looking signing...where has he learnt this?  What a talented child!

Boy 2 is laughing like an unblocked drain.

In fact, Boy 2 is laughing just a bit too much.

"What does that mean? Is that real signing?" I ask.

Through fits of giggles Boy 2 explains that Boy 1 has just spelt out "Go Forth and Multiply!"
"You see, Mummy,  X (name of adorable, shy, butter wouldn't melt little friend ) showed us how to do it ages ago."

Cue Maternal Bosom deflation.

In another worrying development, I was very taken with a most pleasant Christmas song I heard on the car radio yesterday - you know the type of thing, some one's nuts roasting over an open fire etc..what a very nice voice that chap has, I thought to myself....

THE HORROR! It was none other than Justin Bieber!
AAAAAAAGH!
I am now a Belieber, the oldest Belieber in the world...

Please don't tell anyone....

Last Week

Not Linda in Chile but Caroline of Brunswick, wife of a King George; she was so badly behaved romping around the Continent in a "bawdy manner" she got herself tried for adultery...note to self: probably NOT suitable role model but do have some Euros left over from last hols...

Dahlings, last week was both lovely and exciting, as Linda in Chile was in London town and I got to meet her in Real Life.  Linda is a loyal and eloquent commenter on Faux Fuchsia's blog, and when I started this blogging malarkey, Linda kindly followed my blog too.

Mr Blighty is also a big fan of Linda, as he approves of her erudite, balanced and beautifully written comments:

• these are the qualities for which Mr B as a parliamentary draftsman, looks in a woman; I am feeling a bit insecure right now:  
• can you:

guess  discern?

So I hotfooted up to town, met Linda at her hotel on the Strand and we toddled off to the cafe called The Crypt under the Church of St Martins in the Fields.   We had so much to talk about - all the big issues like nail polish, shoe buying, husbands v credit cards and how the Chileans speak Spanish without the lisping - the latter was a big shock to me, where's the fun if people around you don't need to pop on raincoats?  I was brought up on Nigel Molesworth who opines that "..you have to lisp when you speke Spanish which make it all very difficult.."

Nigel gives this helpful example:

thene: A hathienda. Enter don jereth de la frontera molesworth.
A thervant: who ith it?
Don Jereth: it ith only me ith ithabel ethpecting me?
A thervant: yeth.
Don J: O thuper!*

Linda and I then gambolled around the National Portrait Gallery, among the Tudors ( "You can say what you like about Henry VIII but in his younger days he had great legs") and then looked at Caroline of Brunswick and some Georges, which shamingly Linda knew much more about that I (I spent my entire secondary school career struggling with  "The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Was Henry just jealous that Cardinal Wolsey looked fab in red?")


We also saw this lady.

But the fun did not stop there!  Mr B and I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with Linda later in the week.  We went to Odin's, which I visited years ago and loved because they have lots of lovely pictures on the walls (though none of Henry VIII).  A good evening was had, (I particularly liked the figs in wine pudding) and we saluted Marylebone High Street and the Malene Birger shop (which is just opposite Odin's) in homage to Faux Fuchsia .

Taken from Odin's/Top Table website

Linda, it was so lovely to meet you.  And don't hold back with the lisping, you know you want to really!



*From How To Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle, quite possibly one of the most important books ever written.

Cyber Sulk?

Well as cyber sullks go, that was quite exceptional. 

Except I wasn't sulking. Honest.

I just seem to have been soooo busy.

So I hired Top Management Consultant Anders Hoch  to review operations at Blighty Inc and make recommendations on how to improve productivity.

Here are excerpts from his report, with my reaction in italics.

Taking Blighty Inc. Forward  Into the 20th Century*

* Anders old chap how much wine did you have at lunch exactly?

Scope of Review

We were asked to review all domestic operations of Blighty Inc.  We observed operations at Blighty HQ and interviewed key personnel in Catering, Procurement, Staff Training, Laundry Services, Hygiene and Health Services, Transport, Policing and Judicial,  Social Activities and Sport (which in this report will be collectively referred to as MUM).
Er, that's  me I think...

We also spoke to the Chief Executive Officer and Finance Director.  So Mr B gets the fancy job title, typical

We had a brief interview with the junior members of the Blighty Inc. team but they were very busy watching telly and were unwilling to fully enter into a dialogue  you mean they ignored you completely as they were watching re-runs of Top Gear on Dave TV


Scope of Activities

The breakdown of MUM activities during a typical working day are:

23%  reading gossip on the Daily Mail website
27% drinking tea, reading fashion blogs
2% furiously carrying out domestic tasks in state of guilt and quiet frenzy
12% looking for reading glasses
5% reading thrillers and detective novels
5% answering cold calls on telephone from insurance companies and acting delightfully dizzy and charming while telling them to get lost
4% ringing Grandma Whacker back and apologising for being so rude under misapprehension that she was selling car insurance and of course you don't mean her to do that with her insurance policy

5% watching X Factor with Mr B and putting on silly Northern accent and exclaiming "oooh Gary has such kind eyes, I really feel he understands me and my journey" and falling off sofa with laughter inventing sob stories for contestants: "It would mean the world to me to win X Factor as I have a conjoined twin who is currently in prison  and a granny confined to a wheelchair by terminal flatulence..."
77% watching junior executives playing rugby in a light drizzle
86% watching junior executives playing football in a light drizzle
34% attending to sports related injuries
36%  sports psychology counselling
7%  cobbling together costumes for school theme days (" I know it's a fitted sheet but well- to- do Romans would definitely have worn fitted sheets, honest!")

10% watching The Killing, exciting Danish police thriller
45% providing taxi services to Blighty junior executives
42% struggling to help with Maths homework


Key Recommendations

• MUM is a very inefficient member of the Blighty team; her role needs to be more focused, and preferably carried out by someone else with better motivation and better skills re work product delivery do you mean get a cleaner?  Yay!
• MUM to attend management training course and be reprogrammed
• MUM must be denied access to the Internet
• MUM to give up tea and novels
• MUM to stop watching X Factor But Gary is the only man who really understands me
• junior executives to give up rugby and football and instead take up needlework at home
• MUM to accept that never going to get through 100 hours of The Killing so return the DVD the library NOW
• junior executives to learn to drive They are only 9 and 10 so this might be a bit tricky

So there we have it.  I am going to be re-programmed.  I  will be dynamic, efficient and focused. 

Just as soon as I've had a cup of tea and a little sit down.. and a look at the Daily Mail website...

I'll Be Back

Oh dear, have really fallen off the  blogging wagon recently...but in the words of the Terminator*, I'll be back!"

Dahlings, I leave you with a Public Education Announcement.  I know which category I fall into.

* excellent new role model for dealing with obstreperous offspring (and try saying that after a gin and tonic) who are now on holiday from school AGAIN...yep, 2 week half term..

Mrs Blighty, Rock Chick

The other night I went with Mr B to see his old favourite group Echo and the Bunnymen play.

When I mentioned this recently to anyone, they looked a bit blank and then said, " Oh, yes, Echo Beach."

Nooooooo! That was quite different, that was Martha and the Muffins.

The Bunnymen are a rocky, moody, sort of post punk band with a charismatic Liverpudlian lead singer called Ian McCulloch.

Their best known song is "Killing Moon", featured on the soundtrack of  the film " Donnie Darko".


Must admit, prior to the event I was not terribly enthusiastic as I knew Mr B used to go to gigs wearing a greatcoat and pointy shoes and with his hair all spiked up, and it all sounded a bit goth and gloomy to me.

In fact, it was brilliant!

It was a thrill to skip off up to London on a school night and meet up with Mr B.  And the concert was at the London Palladium, a theatre I last visited for my 8th birthday to see Cliff Richard (bless  Grandma W, she organised that for me, what a nice mummy).  So it was great to see the inside of the Palladium again and bang on to Mr B about seeing Cliff and Olivia Newton-John, while Mr B carried on a parallel monologue about last seeing the Bunnymen at the Glasgow Barrowlands in 1984..not quite sure whose anecdote had the most street cred, mmm, tricky one..

The Bunnymen were good, really good -  a very tight band - and Mr McCulloch can really sing.  And what confidence, arrogance, to sing in front of all those people !   He was a real character - he took a lot of liquid refreshment between, even during, songs, we were a long way from the stage but the bets were on Guinness, with whisky chasers... a soothing vitamin drink and mineral water.


Here's them doing The Killing Moon  back in the 80s. They did it brilliantly last night too, they just look a lot less boyish!

And now dahlings, I am off  for a cheeky nap on the sofa - it's very tiring being a rock chick at my age.

Mrs Blighty, Literary Stalker

As I mentioned in my last post, I am completely caught up in the Gus Dury novels of Tony Black - hardboiled Scottish detective novels set in Edinburgh with gritty characters and punchy dialogue.

I dropped old Tone a line, a bit cheeky, telling him how his readership included none other than Grandma Whacker (who quite frankly at her age should be reading The Lady and, maybe for a bit of excitement,  The Radio Times).

Well, look back at the penultimate comment on my last post - the author himself commented! How very nice of him. So impressed he did that.

Here is Mr Black, talking about the latest Gus Dury novel. 

Mmmmm, he's a bit of a dish, isn't he? And that accent! But I am not going to push my luck.  No more cheeky comments.  Otherwise I might get a visit from a couple of heavies...