So it's over for another year. My turkey remains are already a glorious soup though there was nearly a terrible mix up with the hound which I only realised when I tried to take a huge poultry carcass for a walk and then noticed the bubbling tureen was yelping. Barkles didn't appreciate his Christmas stocking. Because he's a dog and hasn't got a bloody clue what Christmas is about. Like most of the population.
I have sorted through my cards which gives me a tremendous opportunity to end the decade with a flurry of name dropping. An assortment of cheap folded cardboard correspondence from umbrella bosses and MPs plus one from Gordon and Sarah (no surname needed here surely) who included me on their mass mailout of 25,000 pre-printed cards. Much better than an impersonal email sent to all and sundry that people seem to go in for these days. Gordon and Sarah's card was in support of one of my favourite charities, for obvious reasons, Water Aid.
Since you're not asking, I don't like to talk about my charity giving, usually. It is a private matter, between me and my blog. I support various umbrella charities but in my position I can't be seen to favour one member over another so I wouldn't do anything as crass as to list the ones I give cash to lest I upset the others. I also give to my old Oxford college, St Boloc's, naturally, as it hasn't got nearly enough money as it is and that's how the system works.
I can't do with all of this season's greetings diplomatic political correctness gone mad. It is offensive to suggest that we can't say Merry Christmas as if we aren't celebrating the festival of mass commercialism and I bet you don't get Muslims going round buying shit they don't need by the trollyload and gorging themselves senselessly (after sundown) during Ramadan.
There were some interesting shouts in the New Year's honours pat-on-the-back smugfest. As you may know, I sit on the committee that allocates gongs in the umbrella sector but God knows who they get to divvy up the medals in the main event. I certainly wasn't happy to see one of the opponents of our plans to run prisons, Glenys Phelonn, get an OBE . She is ceo of the Bloke Who Used To Be In The Halifax Adverts League of Brolly Reform. But if I had been on the appointments committee I wouldn't have voted for her getting anything.
On the positive side it was good to see one of my fabulous members, Karen Truckle, ceo of Gamp Action for Children (rebranding ceaselessly for the last 140 years), become a Dame. She can be seen in Aladdin at the Bromsgrove Empire til the end of January.
It was also fantastic to see those three chord rock Gods, Parfitt and Rossi get their due. Surely this was merely the establishment maintaining the class based status quo and they richly deserve those Status QuOBEs. If you can be honoured for something as trivial as not changing the bleeding record for a prolonged period of time, I will surely qualify myself sooner rather than later.
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