Jim Webster's Blog, page 58

After the first three thousand years we’ve about got it right.

It’s winter, it isn’t raining, and I’ve been laying a hedge again. (Actually round here we call them dykes, but if I write about laying dikes I’d probably crash google in the USA.) But no, I’ve just finished laying a hedge that my grandfather never got round to. The weather has been atrocious, at times …

The offside rule; in German.

A mate of mine’s wife left him. A couple of days later gales struck town and his Sky dish got blown well out of alignment. He now only got two channels, both in German. One was porn and one was football. When he told this story he’d pause at this point and then comment, “Now …

Creeping calmly towards Christmas.

You know it’s a bad sign when normally sensible young women go shopping wearing Santa Hats. If they’ve got some poor bloke in tow as well then things are doubtless about to get stressful. I walked into town today, not really to buy anything but just to shunt money about and make sure various other …

River of gold

Get yourself some easy money, come on, fill your boots, there’s plenty for everybody. Roll up, roll up and get rich quick. Too good to be true? Nonsense, get your nose in the trough before the other beggars hog it all.   I came across one of the best money making schemes I’ve ever seen …

Free Nelson Mandela

 Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;   Listening to some of the comments on the radio about Nelson Mandela those that interested me most were those from the people …

Small town sex scandal

I decided I ought to write something a bit cheerful. After all I’m supposed to write fantasy and SF and it’s a bit counter-intuitive if I then go off on rants about all sorts of political rubbish. I wonder if it’s a sign that I’m getting older that I let all this political stuff bother …

Get a life, just make sure it’s your own

It’s strange really. I read a fair bit, I listen to the radio, mainly in the car, and it always seems to be women telling other women how to live. We don’t get men telling men how to live quite so much. I suppose the twentieth century rather put a damper on that. Dulce et …

Who wants sexy check-out girls anyway?

‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint. (The owner does not respond.) ‘Ello, Miss? Owner: What do you mean “miss”? I’m sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint! Yes, I wish to register a complaint. Someone out there is taking the micky. It’s like this. You’ll probably have worked out by …

“The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.”

Funny old world, I remember my mother using that phrase, and now, perhaps thirty years later I discover it was written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Perhaps it’s an appropriate expression to be brought to mind when I’ve just read that China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Algeria, and Cuba have won seats on the UN Human …

Fabulous free holiday

Excursion, n ; An expedition of so disagreeable a character that steamboat and railroad fares are compassionately mitigated to the miserable sufferers. (Ambrose Bierce.) Everyone needs a gimmick and to sell a book I decided on a fabulous holiday competition. Other people give away bookmarks or free copies of the book or even signed free …