Reminder

Months and years roll by and our world seems increasingly troubled. However, one thing remains solid and enduring like a well-built lighthouse upon some rocky islet on the edge of The Atlantic Ocean. We are talking about The Laughing Horse Blogging Awards.

I am sure that bloggers and blog visitors from across the planet are now counting down the days until 2023 ends with the announcement of the annual Laughing Horse Awards sponsored this year by Sir Richard Branson who of course leads the Virgin organisation - including Virgin Airlines.

Possibly because of staring at screens for hours on end, many blog enthusiasts suffer from memory loss and for that reason the organising committee have instructed me to remind everybody about past winners of the coveted main "Blogger of the Year" award.

Here's the list...

The Roll of Honour...

2008 – Arthur Clewley for “Arthur Clewley”

2009 – Daphne Franks for “My Dad’s a Communist”

2010 – John Gray for “Going Gently”

2011 – Ian Rhodes for “Shooting Parrots”

2012 – Kate Steeds for "The Last Visible Dog"

2013 – Tom Gowans for “A Hippo on the Lawn”

2014 – Meike Riley for “From My Mental Library”

2015 – Lee George for “Kitchen Connection”

2016 – Steve Reed for “Shadows and Light”

2017 - Keith Kline for "Hiawatha House"

2018 - Mary Moon for "Bless Our Hearts"

2019 - Jenny O'Hara for "Procrastinating Donkey"

2020 - Cro Magnon for "Magnon's Meanderings"

2021 - Andrew de Melbourne for "High Riser" (Now "From The High Rise")

2022 -  Bob Slatten for "I Should Be Laughing"

Very soon, another blogger will join this illustrious list as Mr Slatten relinquishes his crown. 2024 will then roll on by like a Japanese bullet train . The war in Ukraine will cease just as the annihilation of Gaza comes to a sublime halt and the climate change tragedy will be turned around like an ocean liner heading home. Well, we can still dream can't we?  

Leftovers

The cafe in Endcliffe Park November 2017

Boxing Day here in Sheffield. It was dry, quite mild and quite sunny so in the early afternoon we set off down to our local park with Frances, Stew, Phoebe and Margot. It is called Endcliffe Park and it's much loved by residents of the S11 postal district.

There were plenty of people around - at the cafe, by the duck ponds and in the children's play area. I guess they had all had the same idea - to get outside while they could after the excesses of Christmas Day feasting.

Phoebe is now a connoisseur of children's play areas and enjoyed this visit as much as all the previous ones even though she has recently been a bit under the weather.

Walking back past the cafe, we bumped into John and Irene - two friends from way back. They were sitting at one of the outdoor tables cradling hot coffees. I have known John since 1978 - over 45 years. It was I believe in that very year that I rode on the back of his motorbike all the way down to Earl's Court in London to watch Bob Dylan in concert.

Whenever I meet him and his wife Irene who I have known for over 40 years, we natter away like there's no tomorrow - as if the conversation had just been paused. Before parting our ways again, John said he was going home to make  "bubble and squeak" from yesterday's leftovers and admitted that he usually enjoyed the Boxing Day dinner more than the Christmas Day feast. I laughed because I was going back to Frances and Stew's house to do just the same.

If you don't know what "bubble and squeak" is, I will tell you... Put all of the uneaten Christmas Day vegetables in a large bowl and mash up. Ideally there will be some mashed potato there. Roasted potatoes, parsnips, carrots etc may require some extra chopping with a knife or crinkle cutter.

Then put all the mixture into a baking dish and flatten down. A couple of knobs of butter on top and perhaps seal the dish with kitchen foil for half the oven time. Bake for approximately 45 minutes at 200C - depending of course on the volume of your leftovers.

We ate ours with cold turkey, gravy from Christmas Day, leftover stuffing and garden peas. Waste not, want not as they say - but very tasty too.

Dylan at Earl's Court June 1978

Singalong

Near Monyash, Derbyshire - December 2017

Reaching the end of my 71st Christmas Day, I wish to share my favourite carol with you. With words by Christina Rossetti and music by Gustav Holst, it is the timeless and forever poignant, "In The Bleak Midwinter".

I have chosen a piano version with lyrics provided especially for you to sing along to with the aid of whichever device you are currently using.

Please don't be shy. Just sing along to the best of your ability. Sing out loud and proud and if others around mock you or beg you to shut up, just ignore them and motor on through. You may need a couple of rehearsals before delivering your best version. What have you got to lose?

Offspring

Fulham, London December 23rd 2023

Frances and Ian with Zach, Margot and Phoebe

Christmas Eve. For the first time in forever it was just the two of us.

I had booked a table at "The Wildcard" for six thirty. Neither of us had been in there since, in its old life, it was "Napoleon's" Casino. We didn't know what to expect - especially on a Christmas Eve when things can go a little crazy.

However, we needn't have worried. The place was fairly busy but not oppressively so and the music was not so loud. Shirley had tacos with pulled pork but I had a "Slam-Dunk Deluxe Burger" with smoked bacon and cheese sauce plus chips (American: fries). And scrumptious it was too - the best burger meal I have had this side of the pandemic.

We walked back along Ecclesall Road to "The Dark Horse" bar for one extra drink before heading home. Gone are the days when Christmas Eve was a booze fest though it probably still is for many younger citizens of this fair city.

Tomorrow, Frances, Stew and their little girls will be driving back up north from London. Hopefully, soon after they arrive home they will be tucking into a nice Christmas dinner that Shirley and I have agreed to prepare in their house. This is so they don't have to uproot themselves and the two little ones again after a four hour car journey and Phoebe can open her gifts in her own time in her own home.

On Christmas Eve, many of us think of Christmases past and the nostalgia may ache like mental arthritis. I look at the joyous meeting at the top and feel pangs of sorrow that my parents never got to see it, nor Shirley's parents, nor my brothers Paul and Simon. Life goes on. You are on the bus or you are off it.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

Crackers

 

Across this kingdom, countless families will settle down for their Christmas dinners on Monday afternoon. On almost every table there will be a Christmas cracker by every place setting.

Inside each cracker there will be  a paper hat, a small novelty gift and a little piece of paper with a joke printed upon it.

There is a long tradition in Great Britain that Christmas cracker jokes should be very corny. They are not meant to elicit belly laughs. Instead they are supposed to make listeners groan or titter politely. Yes Christmas cracker jokes are rubbish and deliberately so.

Here are some more examples:-

• What do Santa’s little helpers learn at school? The elf-abet!

• What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney? Claustrophobia!

• What do you get if you cross Santa with a detective? Santa Clues!

• What do you get if you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite!

• What happened to the thief who stole an advent calendar? He got 25 days!

• What does a snowman eat for breakfast? Snowflakes!

Surely such "jokes" cannot be terribly hard to make up can they? Anyway, I put my thinking cap on and came up with these three fresh Christmas cracker jokes...

• What do Eminem and Fifty Cent like best at Christmas time?  Rapping paper!

• What is the source of our Christmas traditions?  Cranberry!

• Why did eleven pipers piping arrive on the eleventh day of Christmas?  To fix the plumbing after a heavy frost.

I am proud of the groanworthiness of these new jokes but I must warn any Christmas cracker manufacturers reading this blogpost that my jokes are copyrighted and may only be used following the payment of a large fee.

Please share a Christmas cracker joke you recall or better still - make one up!  Note that they must be clean without lewd reference to snowballs, stuffing or Santa's sack.

Demonym

When it comes to the English language, there's always going to be something new to learn. It is impossible to know an entire dictionary and besides, with each passing year, new words enter the language and adaptations are made. In relation to usage, established words rise or fall.  English is forever evolving.

I can't remember why this happened but the other day, I wondered if there was a cover-all term that might explain the names that are given to inhabitants of particular places. You know what I mean. In The Netherlands we find The Dutch, people from London are known as Londoners and people from Los Angeles are called Angelinos. "The Dutch", "Londoners" and "Angelinos" are all good examples of demonyms.

The word came into being in English in around 1860 being used mostly in academic circles where it had a certain niche popularity for about twenty years before falling into virtual disuse. Then in the mid nineteen-eighties its use began to rise again.

We find the prefix "demo" in "demographics" and we find the suffix "nym" in, for example "pseudonym", "synonym" and "antonym". "Demo" is to do with population and "nym" or "onym" concerns names or words.

Residents of Sheffield are known as Sheffielders while people from Hull are called Hullensians.  Folk from Leeds are Loiners or Leodensians and those from Birmingham are called Brummies.

Blogger Andrew who creates "From the High Rise" in south eastern Australia is a Melburnian while Elsie (River) in South Australia is an Adelaidean.

It seems that not all settlements have demonyms attached to them. This is, I think, mostly true of villages.

Which demonyms might be accurately attached to you?

Showtime

 

Fortunately, Sheffield is home to two of England's best regional theatres. They sit next to each other in Tudor Square. Frequently, months can go by without me visiting either The Crucible or The Lyceum but this week I have visited both.

On Wednesday night, Shirley had great seats for the evening performance of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" in The Crucible. It was slick and endearing  in all regards - a great combination of singing, dancing and  spoken dialogue without a single error that I  could detect. There was also plenty of skilful stagecraft to admire. It's wonderful when a gang of humans can work together  to produce  really magical theatre. And of course most of Irving Berlin's songs are familiar even when you can't pin down exactly when you first heard them. 

"White Christmas" at The Crucible & below - poster for "Beauty and The Beast"

Then today Shirley I attended The Lyceum with Frances, Phoebe and Baby Margot for a matinee performance of the annual pantomime which this year is "Beauty and the Beast". We were up on the balcony, high above the stage.

Phoebe clung to me for security for she is not fond of loud noises but she was never visibly upset and seemed to enjoy the entire show - as far as a small girl can do just before her third birthday.

I hadn't seen a pantomime in years. Throughout the country, pantos are very popular at this time of year. It is a tradition that goes right back to the eighteenth century. They provide light-hearted family entertainment built around  simple and predictable plots but laced with popular songs, corny jokes and topical references. There's never anything very serious about a panto and maybe that's why ordinary families are quite fond of them. Often major parts are taken by pretty well-known celebrities.

Afterwards we went back to Frances and Stewart's house for a curry and to be around with the children while they packed stuff up ready for a long drive down to London tomorrow morning. They won't be returning to Sheffield until Christmas Day.