Danskcolin: Thursday December 12th 2024 "West Worcestershire

So! Another local news story, from right here in supposedly "quiet" West Worcestershire, has gone viral, hasn't it!

Did you see it? It was in the Daily Mail, yes, but it wasn't a "Mail Exclusive", by any means - that honour goes to the hard-working local journalists on Onion News, and this was the story they published this week that sparked all the furore. I'm sure you saw it, didn't you!

But wait - there's more!

There's also even a story currently doing the rounds locally today, all about me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois - a story that's due to come out in tomorrow's print edition, I can now exclusively (!) reveal(!). The guys at Onion News West Worcestershire have sent us the article's "rushes" for our approval, so watch out for this "doozy" in tomorrow (Friday's) print edition (provisionally planned to appear on the paper's flagship page, Page 94 (!).

Yes, believe it or not - that's ana actual picture of Lois and me today, lunchtime Thursday December 12th, formally introducing the new stylish dish "smashed avocado toast" to the county! And the story is fully "on board" with the new "Pilled/Scene" epoch that's the current "vibe" - Steve, our American brother-in-law has alerted us to the time-line that forms the back-story to this particular vibe. Do you remember these old vibes, that today seem "so yesterday" ? (!)

timeline of "vibes" as documented by pop culture commentator

Sean Monahan; sadly a lot of people here in West Worcestershire

have until now been totally unaware of the arrival of "pilled/scene"

and are still living in the old Hypebeast epoch, would you believe!

And the guys at Onion News Local often ring Lois and me up on a "slow news day" for the county and ask us if we've "got anything for them", and luckily today I've got the perfect story (above!) and I could send them that smashed avocado snippet, together with Lois's twist on the traditional recipe, adding scrambled egg and tomato - quite a "doozy" of a story, isn't it, even if I say so myself (!).

Onion News have latched onto Lois and me as a dependable source of "fashion news items" on "slow news days" here in rural West Worcestershire. They had had word a couple of years ago that a "Big City Couple", i.e. Yours Truly and Lois, had moved to Malvern from nearby Cheltenham, bringing with us a lot of new ideas and "Big City" fashions, and not just in the field of cuisine, I don't mind telling you!

Yes, these days we're no strangers to the headlines hereabouts, that's for sure!

Remember this other "doozy" from March?

I expect you remember the rough outline of "shed story 2024" - Lois and I had a new shed erected at the bottom of our garden, which initially seemed ideal, and fully in keeping with the ideals of the new Pilled/Scene epoch. But we were later to find our dreams shattered by a faulty bolt on the shed door. Quite a furore wasn't there - remember? (!).

Health warning: the couple in the picture (above) aren't us (!). In those crazy days, the guys at Onion News thought that Lois and I weren't "glamorous" enough, and they actually paid 2 local actors of the type you see in TV ads, to "recreate" the scene in our bed, not knowing that mine and Lois's "look" was actually the new "now" look for the recently inaugurated Pilled/Scene Epoch - which they'd never even heard of hereabouts in those far-off crazy days (!). They know better now, needless to say!!!

flashback to February: (left) our shiny new shed being erected

in our back garden, and (right) the faulty bolt on the shed-door

that caused the furore, the scandal that was later dubbed "Shedgate"

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

Apart from our game-changing introduction of Big City-style smashed avocado toast to the county, it's an otherwise quietish day for Lois and me, although big things are "bubbling under". We plan to move from Malvern in the next couple of months to a house 130 miles south east of us, a house in Liphook, Hampshire. This is so we can be closer to our daughter Alison and family, who live in nearby Headley.

flashback to October 30th: we view the house we want in Liphook, Hampshire,

in the company of our elder daughter Alison, who lives with her family in nearby Headley

A guy from a removal company visits us this morning, and quotes us a price of £3000 to move all our stuff - yikes! And, later, contract papers arrive from our solicitors to sign but not to date them - the date for exchange of contracts and completion is awaiting input from the sellers. But it could be as early as next week - yikes (again) !!!!

There's, like, a billion, probably more (!), pages of contracts etc for us to print off and sign this morning. And true to form, the printer starts eating the paper half way through the job. Printers always know when you've got something really important or urgent to print off, and they tend to break down at such times, for maximum annoyance. Have you noticed?

Me sporting the trendy new "Pilled/Scene" look, retrieving several

billion pieces of torn and mangled paper from our printer,

which has suddenly begun eating everything I put in the tray -

it's lunchtime, I know, but that's no excuse is it haha(!!!)

Soon, I have two very inky hands, from trying to get the mangled papers out of the printer. I haven't got a manual for it, so I just keeping turning it off and on again, which I find by experience, makes it "regurgitate" about half an inch of paper each time, until I can reach into the "works" and retrieve the whole thing.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

20:00 After a stressful day for both of us, not being able to go out of the house even, because of the removal guy's visit and then the arrival of all the contract "bumph" from our solicitors, Lois and I decide to wind down with an old episode of the 1980's World War Two sitcom on the Drama TV channel: "'Allo 'Allo", based on the adventures of French café-owner René during the German occupation.

In tonight's episode, René's wife Edith has been invited to go for an idyllic riverside picnic with the village undertaker, Monsieur Alphonse.

This exchange starts to give Monsieur Alphonse ideas, however.

Yes, but when Monsieur Alphonse talks about something "rising", he's referring to the trout in the river, as eventually becomes clear. And the "flies" that he's threatening to open turn out to be in a box in the hearse that the two lovebirds have arrived at the river in.