Happy New Year to all my visitors - the world over.

Did you know......

.........that today is the Bowling Ball's 150th Birthday?

The bowling ball was invented on this day

(29 December) in 1862. 

The bowling ball is made from plastic, reactive resin, urethane or a combination of these materials. 

The first bowling balls used in the United States were made of wood, especially oak, and lignum vitae wood.

Naughty Boy Alpacas 
over here "PHOTO BLOG"

HAPPY 27th

Welcome, one and all to the strangest week of the year.. Starts on a Thursday, but nobody really knows what day it is or whether you should even be making that journey or going to work. Your fridge is still bursting with food as indeed you are. You are in reflective mood - well you have to work out who to apologise to for your antics of the year/holiday season before thinking about who will be upset by your New Year resolutions that you know you will not stick to past 12th night!! So Happy 27th!

Happy Thanksgiving in the Solomon Islands/St Stephen's/Family/Good will/Boxing/Wren/Alexandria/1st of Hanzaa/1st of Junkanoo/James the Just/Mummer's/Mauro Hamza DAY*
Oh to hell with it HAPPY DECEMBER 26th!!!!

'Tis the season.....

I didn't notice last year just how busy the shops opposite to where I live actually were on Christmas Eve. One is a general hardware store that sells Christmas decorations and yes of course it's busy but the shop next door is a pet store. So have a guess which one they were queueing to get in at 8.30 this morning and was 'non stop busy' for two hours...... Yes the pet shop! I've come back now and the shop is closed and the window is totally devoid of product! Every seasonal thing imaginable for your every pet has been bought and presumably will be wrapped for the spoilt pets of Neston!!

So I had the pleasure this year of sending two overseas packages from the same on line American retailer to two different American addresses. I guess I should alter that slightly as it is only a pleasure if they arrive at their destination which as of now because of time differences etc. we are not totally sure about! Anyway with the power of the internet I have been able through UPS to track their progress and I have to say, next year I may well package myself, put a bar code on me and send me somewhere with UPS. These parcels both small have had an absolute ball! They have both been to places that I as the #1 Americophile could only dream of! All the destinations and the times have been scanned - right down to the very last minute! Wow one of them was even at Dallas/Fort Worth airport for 4 hours, how cool is that? The other checked out of Columbus, Ohio at 6.47am, that's Christmassy cool too isn't it?

Buses should be larger for Christmas Eve as all the last minuters bags take up seats just for themselves! Yes it was one of those buses!! Guy on the very back seat taking up 2 and a bit seats, not bothered one little bit about how much space he was using, was opening up a box, the cardboard being discarded everywhere. Lots of tut tut tutting! All of a sudden he speaks very loudly... "Does anybody here know whether you have to charge these Macbooks up before you put them on?" Next minute two guys, one of them the biggest tut tut tutter were talking animatedly and there was an impromptu I.T. masterclass between the three people that had only been cruelly thrown together because of travelling on a over crowded Christmas Eve bus!

ROBIN REDBREAST.

There are two popular stories about how the little Robin came to have such a beautiful red breast. Both are based deep in religion and shrouded in myth and mysticism. Both feature Jesus but the one I prefer at this time of year of course is the one that relates to the Christmas Story. Even just this story has some variation but I don't think it's actually necessary to include the part of the story that talks about, the red being where the Robin kept on fanning the fire, all night and was burnt and nearly died. After all if it is to fit in with the Christmas Story then there may be children around!!

Check back around Good Friday for the other story!!

I wanna Rrock!!

Christmas shopping tip - hot off the press!! If you have any Mayan friends the ideal gift would be a calendar, because theirs has just run out!!

"Don't count every day of the week; make every day of the week count." Happy week before Christmas Eve day!!

Senseless tragedy.

Are you happy in the Summer or Winter?

"PEOPLE DON'T NOTICE WHETHER IT'S WINTER OR SUMMER WHEN THEY ARE HAPPY"

Now as you know I don't usually question quotes, just post them and occasionally give credit where it's due.
This one for the record I am questioning! 
Almost every woman and a lot of men that has been in my life, yes including Mothers, Lovers and Sons have, being polite here, felt the cold! I have never found this a problem, but I don't feel the cold in the same way as them and even if we only look at that from a statistical viewpoint then more people feel the cold and adversely like the warmth.
Seasonally here in the Northern segment of this planetary orange, people prefer the warmer seasons!! (Canada being a slight exception to this!! However more Canadians go for 'Winter Sunshine Breaks' than any other nation so that equals it up, I guess!)
Thereby People are happier when it is Summer and yes they do notice whether it is Winter or Summer!! 

The above quote is even less credible when you consider who actually said it, Anton Chekhov!! 
Now I don't mean to be funny but if you come from a country where temperatures range from huge huge minuses in temperature to not very positive at all even in the height of summer temperatures then I don't think you are qualified to relate temperatures or seasons and what they are best known for, to happiness!! 

Geek - time!!

Ok I’m a geek, there’s no way I can or would want to deny it! As a geek my favourite accessory is without doubt Sky Plus. This allows you to be a geek at the time of your choosing! Any fellow geeks will appreciate that this is of course a big part of being a good geek. I really do like trains, not in a taking and collecting numbers kind of way but in a tv programme and photography kind of way. However Thursday night at 9 o clock is without doubt the wrong time to watch Great Train Journeys of Europe, with or without Michael Portillo. Enter Sky Plus and the last one of the series, mentioned above, the same week as Chris Tarrant’s Extreme Railways started its global journey. Fantastic watch them back to back on a Saturday evening with a vodka and Dr Pepper accompaniment timed to avoid the X Factor! Excellent!! Enhanced with Sky Plus. On reflection however I do wish, mainly because of my political stance, that ex Conservative minister, Michael Portillo, was the one stuck in a tunnel in the dark in the Congo and not Chris Tarrant, but hey ho!!!! 

December 8th

Webby stuff

So these days there are so many on line forms asking for a/your date of birth and they are a sure fire way of making you feel even older than they should. If it takes more than half a second to scroll down to the year you were born, then you were born in the fifties – there is no escape!!

Over the years through Wilko News and beyond there has been all sorts of ask… type of sites like askjeeves etc and pseudo sites like ask.. dad/ask.. si etc etc. So I got to thinking how much you could tell about a person based on their Google searches and internet history ……….. Here’s a sample of some recent ‘Wilko News’ searches : Banana Cake ; Spartan sprint ; “On a silver black phantom bike” ; Iris ; Hard Rock Cafes in airports ; Chicago Fire ; Marmaris Imperial ; Virgin Atlantic ; Liverpool Echo ; Wrecking Ball tour and Gatlinburg. 

So what do you think?

Fruit art

For the most amazing fruit art like this US flag 

just click along this line!!

In Mathew Street, Liverpool, birthplace of the Beatles, there are ♫ 8 days a week ♫