Blaming the prince of the fools !

Couldn't have said it better myself ... Great quote.
Too bad we don't know who wrote it ....*
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the "vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince".
The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.” --
Author Unknown*

Now, can anyone see a leader on this side of the Pond with a "vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince" that we couldn't say exactly the same for ?
Tory Doctors excepted of course Bones !!

A very strange question ?

I'm golfing last week with my big buddy of many years when he suddenly asks me .,.,,
Have you ever had heartburn or indigestion ?
Eh, says I ,,, Yeah, hasn't everyone ? I've been a sufferer for more years than I care to remember .,., why ?
Well I've never had indigestion or heartburn before .,.,., he says !
Eh , what ! in your whole life ??
Uhuh, in my entire life I've never had this before he says ,, will you describe it for me ,, I think I might have it now !!
This from a guy who eats & drinks as much as anyone I know .,.,
How could he possibly have escaped it for all these years ?? ( that's 60+ btw !! )
I'm so envious .,., I'm gonna see my Quack to ask why I've always suffered from this ailment & this guy seemingly never has ?
But I'm also stumped ,, I find very quickly that I really can't describe these attacks any way simply or accurately at all ? It's a difficult description to come up with, even after 50 + years of suffering !
It's a pain here in the high chest area I tell him ,, well no, not exactly a pain ,, more a discomfort ,, it's a ,,, och ah don't know ,, just chew a lot of Rennies, Bisodol, whatever and it'll go away .,.,., unless of course it's a pending heart attack ,, !!
That cheered him up a lot !
Ha, that'll teach him to never have had chronic heartburn in the middle of the night !
Hell slap it into him to make up for lost time !!
:-)

Regrets I have a few !

There's a part of me that has become quite sentimental of late ... I guess it must be auld age tugging at my old heart strings or something ?

I don't suppose many of you will know this ,, perhaps not even my own children ? .,., but I was, once upon a time ,, many, many years ago ,, in a different life in fact ,, considered to be something of a "budding concert pianist" .,., ( that was a direct quote from the music teachers & examination boards I attended btw )

Yeah, I was ,, honest ! I actually played piano from the age of about 6 or 7 'till I was well into my teenage years ,,, Sat all sorts of piano forté exams, both theory and playing ,, reached a fairly high degree of competence and then .,.,.,.,., I don't know, found girls, golf, footie ,, something distracted me and I stopped going to my music teacher, stopped studying, and eventually stopped playing all together ! What an absolutely criminal waste.

In the past, maybe 10-years or so ,,, since my son also became quite an accomplished musician himself ( self taught guitar, sax, trumpet,) I have thought .,., time to take it up again !

I installed a "multi voiced, double keyboard organ" upstairs in our little spare bedroom where I also have my other computer etc ,,, the idea being that I WOULD get back to it .,., eventually !

Alas ,, I haven't ,,, YET !

This all hit me tonight again ,,,

a) when I watched the BBC Young Musician 2010 ( won incidentally by a brilliant young female pianist ) and then, later,,,

b) a televised Stevie Wonder concert ( I'm a long time fan ) and this concert was just sensational.

The whole episode started me remembering too, that my Dad ( a "heavy handed piano player" himself ) longed all his life to be an Orchestra Conductor ,, of all things !

He toiled most of his working life doing long, weary, dirty hard shifts as an engineer in the old Beardmore's Parkhead Forge in the days long before it became a shopping mall ! So to have such a dream seemed somehow incongruous to me .,., but now I think I'm beginning to finally understand. I once dreamt that I had won the Lotto and one of the first things I did with the cash was to arrange for him to conduct a full symphony orchestra ,,, sadly however neither of us got to fullfill that ambition .,.,

I wonder if it's a family failing or just the fear/ knowledge of the hours of practice that would be necessary .,.,., will I ever return to the keyboard ?

A Message from the dark side there is !

Hey, I survived ! .,., It's finished ,,
I managed to outwit the perils of the long ladder ,,
But absolutely, never again !! That was a scary couple of days.
However, the hall now looks like new ! Brownie points being collected !
So now it's on to the big bedroom :-(
Not long now 'til I collect my "Grampant" reward :-)
Woop-de-dooooo .....

or as they say in La Belle France ,,

Hey, j'ai survécu! .., C'est fini,
J'ai réussi à déjouer les périls de la longue échelle,
Mais absolument, plus jamais! C'était un couple effrayant de jours.
Toutefois, la salle ressemble maintenant à nouveau!
Alors maintenant, c'est sur la grande chambre :-(
Pas longtemps jusqu'à ce que je me recueillir "Grampant" récompense :-)
Woop-de-dooooo .....

or even in the Viking lands up Denmark way ....

Hey, jeg overlevede! .., Er det færdigt,
Jeg formåede at overliste farerne ved den lange stige,
Men absolut, aldrig igen! Det var en skræmmende par dage.
Men hallen ser nu som ny!
Så nu er det på de store soveværelse :-(
Ikke længe nu 'til samler jeg min "Grampant" belønning :-)
Woop-de-dooooo .....

I just know I'll get comments on this Blog from both the multi lingual daughter & mega lingual son-in-law !!
Bring it on guys ,,, I tried !!

At first I thought ,,

She just doesn't care ,,, sitting there with her kids, somehow oblivious to the fact that this could well be her old Dad's last day on earth ! Chatting away as if there was no danger ... even bringing her kids to see this possible gruesome catastrophe ? She watched closely enough ,, even asking questions ( while said Dad was 10-feet up a ladder on the precariously steep stairwell ???? )
Is she just that callus ?
Then, in a flash it dawned on me ,,, she's really still my liitle girl, the one who believes her Daddy can do anything and is somehow invincible, nay immortal !
Thanks pet, you probably don't even realise it, but that calmed me down and now the difficult, life threatening bits are all done !
Phew ,,, that is positively the last time this hall is being decorated.
( in my lifetime ! )

I now rest my case !

While walking down the street one day a Member of Parliament is tragically hit by a truck and dies.
His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.
'Welcome to heaven,' says St. Peter.
'Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you.'
'No problem, just let me in,' says the man.
'Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.'
'Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,' says the MP.
'I'm sorry, but we have our rules.'
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down into hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.
Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. (Oh yeah !!)
They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.
Also present is the Devil, who really is a very friendly & nice guy who joins them in having a good time, dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a great night that before he realizes it, it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises....
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.
'Now it's time to visit heaven.'
So, 24 hours pass with the MP joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
'Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.'
The MP reflects for a minute, then he answers: 'Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.'
So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage.
He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.
The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.
'I don't understand,' stammers the MP.
'Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable.

What happened?
The devil looks at him, smiles and says,
'Yesterday we were campaigning.. ...
Today you voted.

All jokes have their origins in TRUTH don't they ?!

We're at it again !

So it's started !
The re-decoration of the hall is now under way.
Yesterday we borrowed TWO of the daughter's steamers. ( believe it or not ,, she has THREE ! but not a decorator's bone in her or her man's bodies ! ,,, )
This turned out to be a wee bit of a mistake however.,.,the power consumption to run two of these wonderfully helpful machines seems to have resulted in melting the cable on our extension reel ,,, ( now in the bin ! ) Mmmmm, so finishing off the removal of the old wallpaper today will be a simple full steam ahead, if you like, but with just the one old steamer ( that'll be eh, ME ! )
Ahhh have now sussed ,, One of said machines is faulty ,, plugging it in it actually blows all my downstairs sockets !! Thanks Phyl ! Thought we'd had another NM power cut !!
This hall has always worried me somewhat as an amateur decorator ( or as some might say, as a miserable old sod ! ), in fact so much so that last time we had a painter decorator in to do it ! ( and may again ! ) for it is indeed proving to be more than a little problematic .,., it has these very high walls on one side necessitating the need for one of those special all purpose multi positional ladders ,, to be borrowed from my wee pal across the road hopefully .,., every strip of paper will need to be hung working at a jaunty angle from halfway up the stairs ,,, and I've always had this un-natural fear of death by falling downstairs :-)
Naturally,after a lifetime of perfecting this job experience I have all the necessary decorator's tools, pasting brush, smoothing brush, plumb line ( an old screw dangling on a piece of string ! ) a duster to keep my pasty hands off the paper, Oh and even the wee tottie roller for smoothing out the joins ( never use that though ) and a sponge to clean the pasting table ,, did I mention I have a pasting table too, albeit in need of replacing ?
But naw, you're right, I really have nothing in the way of proper tools for this job ,, just all this wonderful expertise :-$
The bottom landing in our hall has in the past suffered from water ingress !,, a leaky porch roof resulted in flowing water coming down the inside wall,leaving, not surprisingly, great water marks on the paper! We fixed the porch and as a stop-gap measure (some 5 or 6 years ago!) we artexed the bottom part of the hall on top of the water marked paper and re painted .,., It looked ok'ish and we separated it off from the upstairs paper by the simple addition of a wooden frame.,.,The artex being on top of the paper, we reasoned, would facilitate it coming off easily with the old paper when the time came to re decorate!! Well that seemed to be working ok yesterday until we got to the old wet area.,.,when the artex, paper and great chunks of the original plasterboard came off too!! Easy as pie !!
Oh well, the best laid plans as they say ,,, so we need to do a little fill-in plaster job too ,,,
We've now completed two days of sweat shop steaming and scraping ( not as young or fit as we once were so we now work shorter hours ! ) and still have the difficult final phase to perform ,, that's the one up the ladder !! Oh Jings, Crivens ( and apologies to Al ) .,., Help !!
The actual papering I expect will be much quicker when we get to it ,, with me hanging & my trusty paster pasting .,., At this job we are truly a TOP-TEAM !
But of course it all depends on my wee pal's ladder & me conquering my fear of dying by falling !
I'll let you know if I survive this test !
And if I do what's the reward I mused ,, rampant sex on the carpet ( I'd hoped ) ? Nope ,, ( she says ... )

It's in the bedroom .,.,, Oh, Yo ,,,,

But don't get too hot under the collar .,., it's just the next decorating job awaiting the TEAM !
Oh well mibbie a wee reward after that ??

Ha, she sniggered in bed last night .,., " Don't you mean GRAMPant sex !! :-(

Some women can deflate a worker's ego with a single wee snigger you know !

Yawn, yawn, yawn,,,,, Zzzzzzzz

Yeah it's election day ,, again ,, Can anything be more boring ?!
So, I've decided to take my good lady out for the day ,, we're off down the coast 'till it's all over .,., well to miss most of it anyway.
In all my years I don't think I've ever seen a more incompetent bunch of politicos .,., strikes me they couldn't blow their own bloody nose without help. ( and bloody noses is what they all deserve ) So, after much thought, NONE of them will get my vote ,,, first time in 50 years I've done that .,., but I WILL visit the Polling station and register my utter disgust & contempt for them. After all they should be told how the voters think ?
I used to believe that voting was something you absolutely MUST do ,, people had fought & died to ensure we all had this right ,,, BUT did they ever consider that there would come a day when there wasn't a single honest, worthy, wannabee politician in the land ?
No, neither did I ,,, sad isn't it ?