Thursday, 5 December 2024

Wednesday December 4th 2024 "Got your Christmas knitting done yet haha?!!!"

Well, dear Friends, you've worked hard on answering my daily questions this year, and I'm going to give you an easy one today....

Here it is...coming up...right now!!!  Have you finished knitting your this year's Christmas knitted characters for your this year's display? I hope none of you answered "No" or "Not quite, Colin" to that one, because it's already December 4th as you know, and so if you DID say no, better get those knitting needles "clit-clattering" away, before it's too late, to put it mildly !!!!

this young lady has been busy with her needles, making this iconic 
knitted frog-hat for Christmas. But have you finished yours yet haha?!!!

Veteran Daytime TV presenter Harry Hill, the spiritual leader of Britain's thousands of knitted-character knitters, must be long retired, now, I'm guessing, but for me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, Harry will always be the master in this particular field of knitting - and that's a "cert" (!).

TV's Harry Hill, spiritual leader of Britain's thousands of
"knitted character"-knitters, seen here with TV's Anthea Turner

Yes, who can forget Harry's trademark knitted-character, who won fame as Harry's "guest co-presenter", especially at Christmas time?!!

Daytime TV's Harry Hill, with co-presenter "Knitted Character"

Knitted-Character's TV career was certainly given a kick-start from its exposure during Harry Hill's classic daytime series, "Harry Hill's TV Burp", wasn't it, and at one stage, it looked as if "KC's" acting career also was really "taking off", when it landed a part in popular long-running TV soap "Emmerdale Farm".

Remember this iconic scene from "Emmerdale", the rural Yorkshire soap, where "KC" gets trapped in the local church just as a fire breaks out, sadly perishing in company with several of the cast of BBC Radio's other long-running everyday drama series about country folk, "The Archers"?

the classic scene from TV soap "Emmerdale Farm": 'Knitted Character'
becomes trapped in the village church when a fire breaks out,
sadly perishing, together with the cast of BBC Radio's "The Archers"

And there remain several unanswered questions, don't there, about the fire in the church episode, mysteries that, to this day, have never been fully explained. 

Was the BBC trying to offload several of its higher-paid soap actors, both from TV and Radio, so that the corporation could hire Gary Lineker to present its flagship sports programme, Match of the Day?

I think we should be told, don't you?

flashback to 2021 and the BBC's "league table" of 10 top salary-earners, 
nine of them not yet "disgraced" (!), with Knitted Character in at No.10 
- but what a madness it all was!

Be that as it may, memories of knitted characters from our 'golden years' give my wife Lois and me plenty to laugh about when we drop into our local Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop for our first mince-pie of the pre-Christmas season, after a punishing 4000-step 30-minute "squelch" through the soaking long grass of Poolbrook Common this morning (!).

our punishing 4000-step "squelch" through the long grass of Poolbrook Common
this morning, followed by coffee and our first mince pie of the season at the nearby Coffee Shop

And did the more eagle-eyed amongst you spot the window display in that picture of Lois (above, centre)? Yes, a bunch of "Christmas knitted characters in search of a stable" - and we're guessing that these little woolly figures are looking out of the window, hoping for the shop's outsourced "knitted-character-knitter" to arrive with her knitted stable? And long overdue, surely!!!

the coffee-shop's iconic window display of "ten knitted characters
in search of a stable". And it's already December 4th - what madness !!!!

And when we stop laughing, there's plenty more to talk about over our mince pie, that's for sure. 

However, I'm choosing not to tell Lois yet the bad news that a 4000-step walk just doesn't "cut it" in today's madcap world. Steve, our American brother-in-law, emails us today with this bombshell report that Lois and I, as two fully-paid-up "old codgers", need to take at least 6000 steps a day each to qualify for a proper "squelch with benefits".

And Steve points out that Lois and I obviously need to "step up" our game, to put it mildly!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!

It's all a bit of a puzzle too, because Caroline, Lois's online personal trainer, who dishes out diet advice through the iconic "leva" app, has "okayed" a target of 4000 steps a day for Lois. My theory is that Caroline saw our picture in the local press last week, the ones where we were compared unfavourably, and unfairly in my view, with another pair of local old codgers. 

Maybe Caroline has concluded that Lois and I are not sufficiently "jacked" to go for a 6000-step day, or at least not just yet. But we'll see!

flashback to last week: the iconic pictures in the Onion News West Worcestershire
comparing Lois and me (right), unfairly in my view, with local neighbour couple, 
the Richardsons (left) - see page 94 of the print edition

Steve also in his email updates Lois and me with the current Top Ten of Christmas Cracker jokes, as voted for by readers.

flashback to December 2023: two friends laughing over 
a top joke from one of last year's Christmas crackers:
but this year's best look like topping them - spoiler alert !!!!

And here's "Colin's pick of the puns" for Christmas 2024 - just feast your eyes (and stimulate your "funny bones" (!)) on these "doozies":

(1) Question: Why will Father Christmas find going down chimneys easier this year? Answer: Because he’s on Ho Ho Hozempic. 

and (2) Question: What’s this year's Thames Water advent calendar like? Answer: It’s full of number 2s.

Hahaha! But wait, there's more, and here's the full list - look away now if you don't want any "spoilers" for this year's crop of crackers (!)...

Better than ever this year, aren't they, and that's for sure!!!

And luckily, there's some other happy news for Lois and me to discuss over our mince pie this morning. 


Yes, more happy news! A glance at Instagram this morning, reveals that the eldest of our 5 grandchildren, Josie, was at a swanky Mayfair nightclub one night this week in London's West End, attending an 18th birthday party for 3 of her classmates, three young women who just happen to be triplets (!).

Our granddaughter Josie turned 18 herself a couple of months ago. And Lois and I always say, "You know you must be really ancient when your grandchildren are old enough to vote"

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

18th birthday party for these triplets (centre) at a swanky Mayfair nightclub
in London's West End: our granddaughter Josie is in the rightmost picture, sitting between 2 friends

Awwww !!! Josie, our first grandchild, now old enough to vote - imagine that! And it's kind of a marker also for Lois and me, because it was the very day we both retired, back in 2006, that we got the call from our daughter Alison, to tell us that she was pregnant, 

flashback to September 2006: Alison with little Josie on the day she 
was born, at Guildford Hospital, Surrey

Awwwwwww (again) !!!!!

And awwww (again) for those 3 birthday girls, those triplets, all turning 18 together !!! Now able to vote themselves, they'll prove a redoubtable block of voters for local election candidates to try to win over next time around. Could these women hold the balance of power in the Guildford parliamentary constituency in the palms of their six hands?

I wonder.....!!!!

And multiple births are very much "en vogue" at the moment, aren't they, or as the French say, "très en vogue en ce moment".

Did you happen to see this story in that same copy of Onion News as carried those embarrassing pictures of Lois and me in our current "unjacked" (!) state? 

Yes, Lois and I gave a little cheer over this "doozy" of a story (see bottom left, above) at the coffee shop this morning, because yes, yet another local couple, the Stringfellows from the lovely Worcestershire village of Nob End, have at last "zeroed in" on what is surely the common-sense answer to their gynaecological problem, a problem that has been talked about a lot here locally during "coffee mornings", in recent weeks and months. Am I right? Or am I right (!). [Get on with it, Colin! - Ed]

All very well for the Stringfellows, but there's a bigger question here too, isn't there. The Stringfellow brood of (at least) 25 - and counting (!) - will be a powerful voting block in the normally safe Conservatives constituency of West Worcestershire in, say, 20 years' time or so. 

Within this "safe" constituency, however, the parish of Nob End has traditionally been regarded as a "swing parish", due to its volatile mix of multiple births and slightly weird people who seem to move there because it's got a funny name. 


some of the parishes of the (normally) Conservative stronghold of the 
West Worcestershire Parliamentary Constituency, showing 
the traditional "swing parish" of Nob End on the western "fringe";
dates shown refer to year of first parish register

I myself wouldn't care to predict the political consequences of this particular "brood", set to come off Caroline Stringfellow's "production line" (!), in 20 years' time, would you?

One for the pundits perhaps?

I wonder......!

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!

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