View From The Window

I am getting later and later recently, albeit I was up and peering through the window at about 3am this morning as the torrential rain battering the window had woken me up, not again I thought as I turned the alarm off and stumbled to the back door in order to check the drains were coping as a quick look out the front had revealed a veritable river flowing down Main Street. Now of course the sun is out, it is dry and only a mild wind stirs. The missus is down south baby-sitting and will stay there until I brave the seasonal traffic on Thursday driving down with the presents, so I have taken an uncharacteristicly long lie this morning, enjoyed a nice but small fry up, finished off the end of a rubbish movie (A Walk in the Woods) with a cup of tea, washed up and cleared the decks for a day of drawing and painting interspersed with a movie and the odd cider/wine.

I stuck the telly on last night as I prepared to sit and watch Strictly Come Dancing and caught the end of 'Celebrity' Pointless, the two guys in front of me had made it to the final and I had no idea who they were, one was obviously playing up for the audience and needed to control himself, but their celebrity status had escaped me, why were they famous? I find myself out of the loop with all these Celebrity specials on the box, out of ten people I might possibly guess at one or two, the rest will have had no impact on my life whatsoever and will remain unknown to me as soon as I reach for the remote.

Having given the impression I hate Celebrity culture why was I watching Strictly after having dumped it several years ago, the above holds by the way half of them I hadn't a clue about. I have to be brutal here, I wanted to see Daniel O'Donnel crash and burn, the guy cannot sing, he has no rhythm yet has more money in his pocket than I have in the bank and swarms of old dears turning up at his house for a cup of tea, I can live without the latter part of this of course. I don't get it, I have seen pieces of wood with more character and pond life more interesting. But in waiting for Mr. O'Donnel to get knocked out I watched some fantastic dancers, well, about six of them really but they were so good they were a joy to watch. I did watch most of it on iPlayer so as to fast forward the more sugary elements. I doubt however I will be watching next year, Dan won't be asked back. I hate to say it but fair play to the man he did try, he was very trying, I just can't stop.

Before I leave this subject, why did the Prime Minister have the finalists over to No.10, doesn't he have more pressing matters to deal with?

On the back of all this why do people turn up to participate in a show or interview looking like they have just crawled out of bed and threw on yesterday's clothes and left the house without looking in the mirror or brushing their hair? I take it they inform the make up lady not to bother or do they turn up immaculate and tell her to give them some street cred by saying "make me look like a bag of s**t." The political version of this is of course the MP without a tie and his shirt sleeves rolled up. I hate taking the missus out for a nice meal where we both make an effort to look good, easier for her you might be thinking but I have my moments, and in comes half the membership of Shell Suits R Us, complete with matching fluorescent trainers coming soon to a table near you! And I am not talking MacD's or KFC here. Make an effort or put a mirror on your Christmas list, out with the grubby T-shirts, the skin tight leggings on tree trunk legs, the tent poncho's, the torn up jeans, the man bun and face fuzz, they are not cool.

It came to light recently that in a local by-election here there were some 7,000 postal votes, yes 7,000, would you bet money that only one party benefited overwhelmingly from all these votes, I would. Now on a voting day in the UK you are usually never more than probably 20 minutes walk from a polling station which remains open enough hours to ensure anyone who can vote can make the effort. Postal voting has proved corrupt from its inception, and even though complaints are made every time it is used here nothing is done, mainly due to the fact that this happens only in certain parts of the country. Unless you are out of the country if you cannot spend 20-30 minutes of your time once every five years or so to ensure your vote counts you should not be able to pass it on by Royal Mail.

Did you see that Coca Cola had to withdraw an ad they had on Mexican television where a bunch of smiling, beautiful, perfect white people took what can only be described as aid stuff along with a couple of lorries filled with Coca Cola to some rural Mexicans in order to empower them or something just as stupid. It was withdrawn as it was deemed demeaning to the Mexicans, I think it was just as demeaning to the rest of us, all these perfect smiley people who don't seem to have jobs, illnesses, mortgages or anything approaching real life issues all desperately trying to get us to drink their happy juice. Yuch.

 Right that's it for 2015 from the View, I am away for Christmas as I said at the beginning, but will be back in time to start moaning through 2016. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, despite what your local council's might call it.