Christmas cheer?

What should I do?
Customary round robin - although it's not customary for me.
Send lots of paper cards - stopped really doing that a number of years ago; and it's environmentally challenging.
Blast an email or post on facebook wishing all and sundry the same simplistic Yuletide Yahoos?

Well, I have plumped for a slightly less impersonal but easier to disseminate blog update.

Now that I've established the medium, what about the content?

Should I rant on about what a wondrous year it's been?
Reel off ad nauseum the number cities and other places I've set a tick against this year?
Tell the readers to distraction how lucky I am to be who I am and where I am and what I am doing?

No, no, no.

That would be tiresome enough for me to type, let alone for you to plough your way through.  I think I'll make myself a cup of tea and hope for inspiration.

***

I'm back, having spilled the demerara sugar all over the work counter. 

I have had a "problem" with ants all year long and only recently managed to keep them at bay with more thorough washing down of my work surfaces, using the dishwasher more and keeping a tight lid on sugar and honey containers.

Then I go and advertise my sucrose abundance for all sugar-loving insects to wiggle their antennae at.  Sigh.

Well it's cleaned up now & hopefully my mince pies will remain vermin-free.

What did I go to the kitchen for?

Ah, yes inspiration.

Not sure I found that - but the perspiration definitely started.

And this on top of leaving the flat without my keys this morning, verbal fisticuffs with my bank about verifying my identity, wine being delivered to the wrong place, and a thumping headache from indulgence the night before.

I ought to be humming Deck the Halls or something but find myself rendering Gloria Gaynor miffed hoping I Will Survive.

Now the man below has started drilling.  DRILLING on Christmas Eve - what the eff is he drilling for!?  Installing a coat hook for Santa's gown?  Putting up a hook to dangle his devilish pentacle on?  Oh, honestly I give up.

Bah humbug....I'm a Christian, get me out of here.

***

Let's start again.

I *have* had a good year.  There have been the usual tribulations and a few zeniths to counterpoint a sprinkling of nadirs.  Let's see if I can get a calendar filled:

January saw a fab New Year at Forlino's with friends and a fleeting romance.  Then a cold birthday in Montreal and New York.

February had me rush back to Maryport to visit my grandmother in hospital.

March took me back to say goodbye to her - and remember her wicked sense of humour and the love she showed me.

April roared with beasts on safari in Kruger, South Africa, we slurped wine in Franschoek, gobbled down zebra in Cape Town and basked in the wonderful sunshine of Camps Bay.

May turned pink in Singapore and I had the worst ever reaction to cat fur...yuk!

June led me to a bar and a man.

July allowed me, thanks to subsiding ash clouds, to zip to Reykjavik with a good friend: rocks, raw nature, thermal springs and a reindeer pelt.

August opened up Manila in a whole new way for me - a surprising realisation of a city with more to offer than you might initially think.

September saw birthday coffee and cake, a Filipino wedding, and a volcano through the mist in Tagaytay.

October had my parents visit Singapore - yes, the entire month - but they're so low maintenance it's unreal.  Also, managed a *weekend* in London - yes a weekend ;-)

November bestowed a work trip to Bali on me - how cool is that?!

December took me to Hong Kong and my heart on a new journey.  Christmas in Singapore, New Year planned for Sydney and spending lots of time with friends and several glasses of plonk.

Well, I've done what I set out NOT to do.  Round robin it is....!

Hope you enjoyed the 2010 - as much as I did.

Here's hoping that 2011 will be tremendous.

A few pics below (also 12 of them) which almost match the events above.

D

Wishing you a splendid Yuletide filled with love and peace.

Of puppets & boot polish

I've been holed up over the last couple of days with a relatively mild bout of flu.

And while (naturally) I've been convalescing, there is always energy to type a few search mnemonics to keep the mind occupied.

I was thus tempted and ultimately intrigued to find some delightful memories of my teenage years and before on YouTube.  Do you remember Spitting Image?  I was once again engrossed in the lampooning of everyone from Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock and Emelda Marcos, to some of the perhaps less offensive faces from the 80s, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Desmond Tutu.

I smiled to hear the Chicken Song and equally nostalgic about I've Never Met a Nice South African.  They were great skits indeed.



Another childhood memory was stirred by The Black and White Minstrels.
This was a classic BBC masterpiece that ironically had white men black themselves up and then serenade white women.  All kinds of dancing and singing had white girls fawning and ultimately (symbolically of course) fornicating with the boot-polish clad young white/black men. 

Forget the PC-vomiting middle classes' views on this - I find it great forward-ahead-of-its-time support for inter-racial relationships - or am I being a tad myopically revisionist?!  No replies needed on that - my tongue if firmly wedged in my cheek.

Will leave you with a single link and you can YouTube search the rest.  This link combines the above two memories with a splendid rendition of the Black and White Minstrels as the South African Apartheid government of PW Botha and nicely-done white on white mocking of the regime back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_eSUQgLZXg

And remember only a few days left til Christmas...mine certainly won't be white - but I'm hoping it won't be too black either.  Keeping my chin up.

Keep yours up too.