This is my pal Mike’s account of his Christmas Day. See more of Mike at his webpage: http://www.fellwalk.co.uk/
By the way, for those who might not know, Gordon Ramsay is a famous UK chef who uses the F word continuously. Therefore, insert that wherever Mike uses his name.
Twas Christmas day in the season of good cheer.
We arrived at mother in laws and got the three bird roast on in the
oven and thought “time for one,” got the gin out of the fridge and
thought “why is this gin like a cup of tea?” “I hear you all say “why
*is* this gin like a cup of tea?” “I’ll tell you, shall I?”
Because the fridge readout is saying +30C.
“Mother in law, why is the fridge saying +30C?”
“Its been like that for two days, I’ve taken a note of the
temperatures, I’ve got it written down here, this morning it was +18,
last night it was…….”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
“Is something wrong?”
“WHY DIDNT YOU TELL US, WHY DIDNT YOU DO SOMETHING”
“Didnt want to bother you with all the christmas stuff to get ready”
“BUT ALL THE GORDONRAMSAYING FOODS RUINED”
“Oh is it, I’ve noted all the temperature down here and I’ve got the
instruction book for you to look at”
>half a bottle of gin later>
“AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH”
sits back and calmly considers situation….”AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH”
empties freezer into back garden, puts least risky food and drink in freezer.
Well, we thought, sod it, and cooked most of the stuff, binned the
melton mowbray, contreau cream, bacon and the black truffle
sausages. Still alive.
Didn’t know a fridge could actually get hot, but it can. How does that work?
Got to dessert, remembered wine in freezer, all the corks have come
out of the frozen bottles, £30 half bottle of barsac lolly. Chablis
lolly, you get the idea. Thank god for champagne bottles.
Now completely pissed, gave 12 year old godson vodka and russian, so what?
I was definitely GordonRamsaying towards the end.
Fell out of bed, woke the whole house up, oh well.
Friends brought thier bloody ratdog, it escaped twice, good riddance I
thought. They wanted to call the gordonramsaying police, had to raid
all the neighbours, very nice bloke, got all the kids out to search
back gardens, found the bloody thing.
Why has the PC turned into a Brian Rix farce? The CD drawers keep
opening and closing for no reason ever since I installed iTunes, is
that Steve Jobs trying to sabotage PC land? Carol left the bloody
minute iPod at MILs. At least the ratdog didn’t swallow it.
December 26th, 2006
When I talked to my daughter the day before Christmas, she said, “I am having second thoughts about what I bought for you. You said you wanted it, but just because you say you want it, it doesn’t mean I should get it for you. I think I may have made a mistake.”
So yesterday I opened the gifts and although I could barely remember having said I wanted it, I did want it. I couldn’t figure out why she thought it could be a mistake. I was excited about it.
It is a Nintendo ds, which is the version that can be used anywhere in the world, and “Brain Age” which is based on research by a Japanese scientist and consists of exercises that help reduce the age of your brain. If I had asked for a breast lift and left the rest of me alone, then I think that would be silly and she could have her doubts about the gift and about me. But who doesn’t want a lively brain that can get to all the things stored away, and not forget what that is called in English?
It has to be that her misgivings are about giving me something that says maybe I am getting old. I am getting old. It’s pretty much age or die, isn’t it? I have innumerable friends who have had plastic surgery to varying degrees of success, but they are still getting old.
I don’t feel like I am getting fuddy duddy kind of old, although my aversion to the over-liberal use of the F word gets my leg pulled now and again. Search for a video called “Pulp Fiction the F***ing Short Version” (do not open this at work unless you have headphones!) and it illustrates my point. I wish someone would hire me to edit these scripts and insert really dangerous language in the place of 95% of the F words. Imagine Clark Gable leaving Vivian Leigh at the door of Tara and saying, “Frankly, my dear. I don’t give a f***.”
I will admit to having some well-honed attitudes about politeness – importance thereof, judgment, kindness, honesty and art. Would you expect me to reach sixty without having a single clue? Would you expect if you met me to find Paris Hilton?
Ok, so now my friends will come out and say that I am not really old, that it is a state of mind, that I am remarkably modern still. Huh? Come on, folks. I live in this world. I am a modern woman. Lots of women my age or older are doing breakthrough scientific research, writing important novels (Annie Proulx: The Shipping News), serving in Parliaments and Senates around the world. As far as I know there has never been a thirty-year-old President or Prime Minister of any country. Correct me if I am wrong—I haven’t actually researched that. I consider women serving in the arts, science and government to be THE modern woman. Why would I settle for being less in my small way?
So, what’s wrong with getting old? The only thing I see wrong with it is the tendency for society not to respect age. I turned on the radio the other day and all the female singers sounded like children. Why? If someone grownup writes a grownup love song, they don’t sound believable singing it. The result is a bunch of immature songs about boringly puerile sex. It appears that all the big movie stars are not only young, but also skinny to the point of seeming undeveloped. So who will play important female parts, like Queen Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great or Marie Curie? The answer is, of course, we don’t get many movies like that anymore.
Christmas Eve I watched “Love, Actually” mostly to get scenes from “24” out of my head so I could sleep in peace. Who do I remember from that movie? Emma Thompson. When she is on scene, no one else exists. She is not young. If you watch “Sense and Sensibility” which Thompson also wrote, you will remember the scene in which she finds out her lover loves her and not the other girl everyone said he would marry. I really don’t see Keira Knightley convincingly carrying off the near disintegration into snuffly, ugly tears as she struggles to mend the hole in her heart. Knightley had her chance in “Pride and Prejudice” and came off smug instead.
When I hear people asking what kinds of aids they need and plans they should make in order to travel to Italy with their sixty-year-old parents, I just want to smack them. Old isn’t crippled. Crippled is crippled. If their parents are handicapped, then arrange for a trip for handicapped people. I will do anything to help them figure that out because I want everybody to enjoy Italy. For crying out loud, get out of your self-imposed ignorant mindset that people of sixty or seventy are frail. The weakness that I see here is in the mind that thinks that.
Another peeve for me is the allowance that there are some handsome old people, like Sofia Loren. Which of you looks like Sofia Loren at any of her ages? And isn’t it time she stopped insisting she has never had plastic surgery? Or else the referral to some few exercised to a standard reached by Olympians. If an aging person feels strongly about staying super-fit and toned, great. But please let’s don’t set that bar so high for the rest of us! Would you rather have had Albert Einstein buff or brilliant? Would Pavarotti still have his old voice if he had liposuction? Do you want to spend six hours a day in the gym when you are 60?
I like some old people and I don’t like others. I like some young people and I don’t like others. At least I make it my business to know both. Old people shouldn’t try to stay young, in my opinion, any more than young people should try to be old. Old people should strive, I think, to stay relevant. Maybe “Brain Age” will help.
December 26th, 2006
