View From The Window

Beautiful morning yet again, we are thoroughly spoiled up here at the moment, London is miserable according to my son and France and Germany are under water, this latter was a shock to me the other night as once again I am not sitting looking at the news when the shop closes. A lot of interruptions in the village this week of a morning, not only have the usual bus jams being going on but Claire and John up the road a little have been getting concrete delivered for their house project. The trucks have been arriving early and causing havoc with the early morning traffic, it doesn't help when their neighbours move the cones to park at night so there is no space for the lorry apart from on the pavement, but parking is at a premium here. James' roof is finished and very nice it is too. As far as I know Live Ale went well and the weather was fine for it, although they did clash with the long standing music bash at another local pub, The Nib, which used to put on Nibworth (geddit?), but which is now Nibfest.

Muhammad Ali is dead and already we are being deluged with praise for the man and my particular favourite "the world has stopped", no, it really hasn't. I am not interested in sport in any shape or form apart from the odd England/Scotland match which despite everything to the contrary I thought we might win now and again, this hoped for repeat of Bannockburn usually turned into Culloden within the first ten minutes and I retreated back to the real world. My only memories of Ali was when he was Cassius Clay with a big mouth and a high opinion of himself, I do remember watching him fight Sonny Liston and Liston throwing the match, well that's what it looked like to me, no doubt I missed the finer points of two men bashing each other. None of these people have had any impact on my life, Ali, Bowie, Prince or others, it's a shame but it's also a shame for Mrs Smith up the road to die.

You have to hand it to the Japanese, one set of parents leave their kid at the side of the road to teach him a lesson instead of half beating him to death, and off he trots into the jungle for a week, how inconsiderate of the little monster. I watched the father on the news the other night and not a tear showed on his face as he gave his apology, not even a false one, watch it and convince me he is sorry. One thing will come out of all this, family trips in the car will be a lot quieter in future.

I managed to catch Angela Merkel's warning to the country if we deign to leave the EU and I went all Little Britain, out went reason and considered debate and in flooded a rant. This is a woman whose country stamped on Denmark because they wanted Schleswig-Holstien, fought amongst themselves to force unification, who crushed France in 1870, took Europe to Armegeddon twice in two world wars and now has the gall to threaten us with consequences if we leave. The irony of it all is that all they needed to do was buy Europe. The historians among you will already be heading for your keyboards to remind me that France had a slight hiccup with the Napoleonic Wars, fair enough, but you get the idea.

Is Peter Kay running Germany?

How would you like to be sitting enjoying a pint or a coffee with your mates bad mouthing someone who wasn't there or who had peaked your interest and suddenly a note is delivered to you admonishing you for your behaviour by someone you had never met or were ever likely to meet. Not too chuffed I would think. But in America a self-righteous, self appointed 'parenting expert' did just that to three girls enjoying a drink because she couldn't stand them being mean. She could simply have confronted them face to face but she took the time to buy a card, write it out, photograph if for her Facebook page and then get someone else to deliver it. Who hasn't been mean at some point, which one of us hasn't voiced our discontent with someone else, it is not a perfect world and none of us are perfect. If she sat in our local on a Wednesday afternoon and took umbrage with things she did not agree with she would need to have a Hallmark store next door. Oh, and guess who has become a minor celeb on the back of the card incident, yeah, you guessed.

Just when I think I have seen it all, did you see the programme a week or so ago about the men who dress up in doggie suits, leather or latex usually and become 'dogs' for the night or weekend or whatever, thankfully I only saw the trailer and was totally sickened by it. I know there are wierdo's out there, and I know we are not meant to call them that these days but sitting on the couch towering over your girlfriend pretending to be the 102nd Dalmatian, well words fail me.

You gotta laugh?