Read the small print when you've read the large print with care

NESCAFE ORIGINAL 3in1

Did you notice that they didn't use the word coffee?

That's because there is less coffee in this drink than there is salt and there is 10% instant coffee (and though it tells you what is in the whitener, it does not tell you what is in the instant coffee).

Apparently this Monday is the most depressing of the year

The week started with attitudes to women
Jack Straw saying Asian men thought white women were easy - this is my memory from the end of the week, it seemed more controversial when he said it; ultra orthodox Jews making women sit at the back of the bus because the sight of them - no matter what their age or appearance - caused impure thoughts.  There was a third thing too which led me to remember that in my life time in the rural north east in this country women wore hats to church, sleeveless dresses were thought inappropriate for work and women who went out in the evening on their own - ie without a male escort - were thought to be advertising their availability.  So maybe we shouldn't say Asian men, or white women, just selfish men and independent women.
In between I had an afternoon looking through old photos with Mum and found some I either didn't know existed or have forgotten of Dad as a boy with Nancy.  He would have been 17 when she died and just 18 when his dad died less than 2 months later. Mum enjoyed the browse through memories and nearly all the photos have got notes on now.
Here are 2 documents about Dad his school leaving certificate at 14:

and his pay slip at 36:

Angel had to go for a hair cut:

before

afterIt would have cost my dad 5 weeks of his 1950's wages

Why are the contents of my under-sink cupboard on the floor?

Because my washing machine is broken, and, oh dear, it is not the motor.

So the week ends on the question: Why do things always break when I am saving up for a treat?

Is it because I am unlucky and not meant to get treats or is it because I am lucky and things break when I have some savings to pay for their repair/replacement?

Venus on a rock bun

Where does it come from?  I don't know but that is how my mum described this pose:

I love all the different textures in this, as well as the pose.

I hope I grow old as gracefully - thirty years to go.  Angel curls up happily when Mum has her doze and Mum loves having her close so it's a win-win settee.

This is the result of a new year's resolution - a post a week!



Don't call me dahlin

Me: I'm not interested, thankyou.
A cold caller yesterday: What aren't you interested in, dahlin?
Me: Please don't call me dahlin, you don't know me.
Cold caller:  I was only being polite.
Me: No, calling me dahlin is not being polite.
Phone down
'In what universe' would have been snappier. 'At best over familiar, at worst patronising' more accurate.  I could have told her that I thought she was the hospice phoning about Mum or I wouldn't have picked the phone up in the day but I didn't know her that well.
Now, love, flower, petal, meduck would have got past me, made me smile even; but whatever English region 'dahlin' is a normal end to a sentence, I've never come across it before.
And now for something completely different:

Not grumpy, grateful

And this is the bridle path in Eckington in July:

Grumpy still

And now for Tony Blair, who with typical self obsessed lack of regard for the party he professes to love, has just published his memoirs - Radio 4 is full of it and it does no-one any credit to acknowledge his rant but I'm going to, briefly.
1: ( Are my rants typically subdivided like this or is it just today?) His increased drinking - an aperitif and half a bottle of wine for dinner - just the weekends or did he then go to the house, sign away our lives etc.  Since when have public servants been allowed to work when over the legal alcohol limit?  And if it is just the weekends then why is he telling us?  Am I supposed to be impressed that he can afford it / get up the next morning without a hangover, or feel sorry that he had to share the bottle / has a social life so pathetic that he was counting his drinks?
2: How is it to his credit that he supported Gordon Brown when he thought he wasn't up to the job of leader?
3: Hasn't turning catholic taught him that confessions are meant to be between him and God via the privacy of the confessional, not via the media?

Grumpy, old

I tried "Grumpy old women" but it seemed to be complaining about being an old woman rather than complaining about the world like "Grumpy old men" does.  Not that I can stand more than a topic and a half in Grumpy old men, the one that is sticking at the moment every time I cross the road with Angel, practising perfecting the sit, is that they seem to think that pedestrians should be grateful, or at least thank them personally for not running them down when they are on a crossing!
The one with the grating accent (that seems put on) and the circular glasses, "I waive my hand to show they can cross, would it hurt them to raise a hand in thanks?"
1: the law obliges a driver to stop at a crossing, you are not doing the road crossing pedestrian a favour.
2: when drivers stop at traffic lights at cross roads, if it is polite to express gratitude why isn't it a flutter of hands all round and the subsequent pile up?
Nah, what they mean is that pedestrians - ie mainly female, young, elderly, poor, should be eternally grateful that they are not invisible.  After all the hand wave is a truncated doffing of the cap and tug of the forelock.
So maybe they would prefer a curtsy instead
Bah.  That's that out of my system.