It is the festive season, The time December sees in And that’s our very reason, To grant each day for you Something that’s old or new Perhaps a gift or two!
TODAY’S DELIGHT – Granny Advises on how to do Christmas!
The Christmas Cake
Conventional wisdom will tell you that you should have baked a fruit cake of the size and consistency of a breeze block sometime last January and that you should have been feeding it brandy weekly ever since. That you should have handcrafted marzipan from ground almonds and other ingredients too numerous to mention. That you should have spent many hours making Holly Leaves and Christmas Roses from sugar paste. And that your icing should be as smooth and hard as a frozen pond.
Pfft, I say. And again pfft.
Number one. Nobody eats Christmas Cake. Number two. If they did it’s fattening. Number three. Whatever…
But:
If you must make a cake, just chuck together whatever is your usual fruit cake recipe and shove a quarter bottle of rum in the mix. Buy a slab of ready rolled marzipan, ditto icing. Shove on cake. Sprinkle Maltesers, chocolate raisins, and dark chocolate buttons. Job done. If you can be arsed.
More sensibly, pop along to Waitrose and buy a (insert name of famous chef here) thing. It will taste like shite but the neighbours will be impressed….
It is the festive season, The time December sees in And that’s our very reason, To grant each day for you Something that’s old or new Perhaps a gift or two!
TODAY’S DELIGHT – A Classic song for the festive season, cheerfully and irreverently reimagined for you by the Working Title Blog!
(To be sung cheerily and heartily to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells‘)
Dashing through the snow In a very dangerous way Oe’r the road I go, sliding all the way Horns in cars all sound Give me such a fright Oh why did I come out to do My Christmas shop tonight?
Oh bloody hell, shopping smells And the town’s gone mad It’s no fun to try and run When there’s no gifts to be had. (Repeat)
First I tried for toys, Gifts for girls and boys, All were too expensive And made a lot of noise So I thought of treats Stuff them up with sweets But then I past the dentists And thought about their teeth.
Oh bloody hell, shopping smells And the town’s gone mad It’s no fun to try and run When there’s no gifts to be had. (Repeat)
So what can I get In the slush and wet? Tonight is my last try To find some gifts to buy Oh, I’m giving up This is just too hard They can all have gift tokens Shoved in a stoopid card!
Oh bloody hell, shopping smells And the town’s gone mad It’s no fun to try and run When there’s no gifts to be had. (Repeat)
It is the festive season, The time December sees in And that’s our very reason, To grant each day for you Something that’s old or new Perhaps a gift or two!
TODAY’S DELIGHT – A lucky Limmerick!
As I polished a genie appeared With three wishes to shine up your year May you journey in style Avoid crocodiles And never run out of cold beer!
It is the festive season, The time December sees in And that’s our very reason, To grant each day for you Something that’s old or new Perhaps a gift or two!
TODAY’S DELIGHT – A Giveaway!
Winter was the bejewelling of Temsevar, its crystalline magnificence turning even the most sordid and mean peasant’s wooden hovel into a glittering palace of diamond. The snows softened the harshness, smoothing all into a glorious billowed largesse of white. From every branch and twig, every roof and casement, every eave and doorway, came the glitter of silver icicles, their growth arrested every night and scarcely allowed under the scant warmth of the red sun each narrow day. Every ugliness was made mild by the glory of a shimmering white crown, every roughness made smooth and the uneven made plain. The winter was levelling, but it levelled in a way that paid vast tribute to the might of the elements. Rich and poor alike were equal before the onslaught, for both could share in the splendour which outshone the most regal opulence of the greatest noble. To watch the sunrise, blood red over the virgin white and silver landscape, washing it with a mystical ruby glow, was to be awed and left with wonder. To trace the pearlescent shimmer of the twin moons over the snow, where the whiteness caught and reflected back to the darkened sky the moist brilliance, until even the night might seem to dazzle, was to feel one had walked, waking, in a dreamscape or broken through to some celestial realm of deity. But the beauty, if free, was also lethal. The cold wore down the resistance of the weak and made them prey to illness or starvation and the frozen ground would not open to bury the dead, who were burned in high pyres on the ice, in batches like cakes. Here the rich and the poor parted company, for the wealthy had portals against death in the cold. They had piles of wood to burn, stores of bottled, dried and salted food, they had flour to bake with and flesh to cook. Not for them the privations of starvation in the snow-stricken land. A house could be counted wealthy by the fire that burned in its hearth, driving back the demons of cold and darkness. Even the meanest hovel that could light a fire all day was accounted rich when the chilling shroud of snow and ice descended. It was in the winter that those who were free-born and poverty-stricken would envy the enslaved. For, worth money and offering labour, even the most meanly treated slave could expect to be kept warm and fed through the White Moons, where their free-born cousins could hope no more than that this winter might be light and their meagre stores of food and fuel might not be gone before the thaw. What value was freedom when the cost was one’s life or the lives of one’s children? So winter was the glory of Temsevar and its greatest influence. Without it, perhaps the slave economy might have evolved and changed, but with it – and the utter dependence it brought of the weak upon the strong – the frozen arms of ice which embraced Temsevar for two-thirds of the year, also embraced the culture and values of its people, freezing them into patterns as cold and merciless as the brutal winter itself. The ice cracked the marrow from the bone of the planet, riving rock and stripping life from the land, animal and vegetable. The rivers froze solid and the seas slowed as if sleeping and then surrendered to the embrace of ice. Only the hardiest in nature could survive and most of the larger animals only lived by entering the deep sleep of hibernation through the worst of the cold moons. You would not see tizarts playing in the snow or find therloons leaving ice-tracks under the twin moons. Most people dreaded the onset of winter as much as they dreaded the onset of old age. For the annual revisiting of the Great White was a similar experience – the pace of life became slow and painful, cold and bleak. In the great Halls, poets would pass the wine, mulled with the herbs and berries of the autumn and sing with lysigal of the great deeds that had been done that summer and would be contemplated the next. But elsewhere, it was as though the planet slept and its people dreamed beneath the alluring counterpane of snow, fringed with its tassels of ice and embroidered with frost.
Aeva allowed herself to be herded, giving ground steadily and carefully until her opponent thought her defeated. Then, as a cruel grin stretched the draca’s lipless mouth, she dropped her pose of helplessness and moved towards her tormentor. Before the draca could compute what was happening, Aeva was behind her again and had taken a leap onto her shoulders. With a wordless cry of rage, the draca began to stab and slash at the creature who stood on her shoulders, but it is extremely difficult to stab somebody who is all but on your head without also stabbing yourself. Draca had succeeded only in cutting her own shoulder when Aeva’s obsidian dagger sliced across her throat. Aeva jumped to the ground and danced back out of reach as the draca dropped her weapons and her hands went unbidden to the pumping gash that was spraying her lifeblood onto the sand. She sank to her knees and then onto her side. As the last light of life was fading from her eyes, Aeva saluted with her sword blade across her face. “Rest peacefully. It wasn’t a bad fight.” Something like a smile slipped over the draca’s face as she died. Athena lifted her hands and was about to dismiss the magical barriers around the fight when there was the sound of an unmusical fanfare and a cloaked and hooded figure appeared beside the dead half-dragon. Unfortunately for the new arrival, magic knows no social status and it was immediately outlined in blue crackling light and the smell of charred wool filled the air. Athena was quick enough to stop the person being wholly consumed by fire, but the cloak and boots were still smouldering when the visitor threw back her hood. The face beneath the wool was as white as bleached bone, with the only colour coming from a pair of lightless black eyes and a mouth like a slash of scarlet. “Morgana,” Lucifer breathed and the pale beauty laughed. She looked at Aeva with the kind of loathing that is as corrosive as acid. “We meet at last, abomination. I knew you would make a mistake one day,” she jeered. “And so you have.” She flexed her fingers admiring the pointed talons that decorated each digit. “Now it will be my pleasure to imprison you and kill your lover very slowly while you watch.” Aeva stared at her from a face grown as white as that of the creature who faced her. “Who are you?” Morgana laughed. “I am your worst nightmare demon spawn. Come with the weight of the law on my side.” “How can this be?” “You are an Invigilator, are you not?” Aeva nodded. “Then you are sworn to celibacy. A blood oath.” She hooked a finger as if expecting Aeva to come to her, but the small figure didn’t move. “Come and meet your fate, demon bastard. You may not defy me.” Tears rolled down Aeva’s face but still she didn’t move. Adamo spoke from the station he had taken up against Aeva’s back. “It would appear that you have miscalculated somewhat,” he said mildly enough, but his voice had quite the martial note of a hunting horn. “Can you think how that might be?” Morgana sneered and hooked her finger again. This time at Adamo who remained as still as Aeva. Before the situation had chance to get any uglier, there was the sound of another musical note but this was as if the harps of a thousand angels filled the sky. This time the figure that appeared was robed in cloudy grey. When she put back her hood the face that was revealed was as ordinary and as old as the dirt on which Aeva stood. She held up a wrinkled old hand and Morgana seemed to shrink into the folds of her black cloak. “My daughter,” she said gently, “it behoves even the agent of Hades to check her facts before seeking to use the law to bludgeon the innocent.” Morgana drew herself up to her full height. “What facts would those be?” she managed half a sneer. “The female is sworn to celibacy. Therefore she is my lawful prey.” “Was Aeva Darkstar an oath breaker then she would, indeed, be yours to torment as your diseased soul sees fit. But she is not. She has sworn no oath. Her blood does not stain the stones of the High Altar. Now. Begone lest I lose patience with you.” Morgana spat on the ground and the spittle boiled and foamed but did no more than that. “It seems that you speak truth, old mother. But my day will come. I will have the demon’s bastard in my dungeon yet.” And she disappeared. The old one sighed. “She does love a bit of drama does that one.” She turned her seamed old face to Aeva and Adamo. “Be blessed children.” And she faded too. Aeva felt herself sag and had seldom been as glad of anything as she was of Adamo’s strength. Around them there was much to-ing and fro-ing as Lord Draco dealt with his children and the berserkers got back their errant prince. But to Aeva nothing had any substance except Adamo’s arms and she could do nothing except look into his face and wonder at the miracle of his love. When she came back to herself the desert was all but empty, only the Guardians, Adamo’s Fighters, and two berserkers remained. The older of the two was speaking. “You lot have to do something for Aeva Darkstar. Didn’t she just stop a mortals versus monsters war that would have felled your children like wheat?” The second berserker, who Aeva realised was Gudrun, broke in urgently. “It isn’t right. It’s not enough that the draca and that nasty bastard Loki will be after her blood, now we know Morgana wants her too. You have to stop looking at your hands and do something.” Thor groaned. “But what? Even if I took her to Valhalla…” “She wouldn’t leave her lover.” Athena spoke flatly. “And that means we have nowhere.” Unusually Gabriel and Lucifer had their heads together and it was Gabriel who spoke out. “Come forward Adamo and Aeva.” They walked forwards hand in hand and both looked up into the matchless purity of his features. Lucifer moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother and it came to Aeva that she was looking at two sides of the same coin. Lucifer offered her a twisted smile. “Precisely. But now I have a question for you. Would you be satisfied to spend your eternity with this male?” Aeva couldn’t speak round the lump of hope in her throat so she nodded. Lucifer looked into Adamo’s dark face. “And you. Would you leave your fighters and live only with Aeva Darkstar.” “I would, dread lord, with all of my being.” Gabriel took up the theme. “There is,” he said, “a garden. It is a place outside of time and subject only to the law of The Creator. It can be your home if you so will.” “We do so will.” Aeva and Adamo spoke as one. As the words left their lips a portal opened and the smell of greenness filled the air. Adamo and Aeva joined hands, and, naked as babies, walked into the Garden.
Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…
Somewhere in the deep and distant past (during the time I was too busy raising a hopeful brood of contumacious little buggers to take notice of fashion) somebody sneaked something eggy onto the shelf behind the bar. Having made this dreadful mistake they looked at it for a decade before deciding that mixing it with lemonade and shoving a cocktail cherry in it made it a palatable drink. They then persuaded a whole generation of non-drinking aunties and cousins it was both ladylike and delicious.
It’s not. It has the texture of snot and the smell of egg.
I don’t feel myself qualified to comment on Thanksgiving. It’s a noble sentiment – eat until you almost explode to give thanks for staying alive for another year – and one I applaud.
Is it like British Bank Holidays? Slightly outmoded by the number of days people get off work now? Or does it retain real meaning?
I don’t pretend to know. And neither can I pretend to like pumpkin pie.
In the spirit of friendship I’ll see your Thanksgiving and raise you British Boxing Day, wherein one lays about groaning and recovering from the Xmas excess.
Happy Thanksgiving and may your turkey be succulent….
Poems of puppy Fozzie Jago as he is exploring and experiencing the world!
There is a something a horrid surprise It’s behind me wherever I goes And I cannot outrun it however I tries And it sticks very close to my toes It’s long and it’s creepy and scares me a bit As I watches it out of of mine eye And if I could catch I’d be biting of it To make the bad follower cry I will be creeping though long that will take To catch and to punish the thing I catches and bites but I thinks it’s as snake Coz I bit it and it did me sting There is a something it’s black and it’s thin And the look of it makes me feel pale Hoodad he laughs all over his chin And says Fozzie that snake is your tail!
A darkling drabble offers a shiver of horror in a hundred words…
The squire’s daughter had few friends, and many enemies. But, friend or foe, they were appalled when her father gave her in marriage to the bony octogenarian who was the king’s tax collector.
Next year, a much younger man came to collect the taxes. When asked where his predecessor was he laughed a cold sort of a laugh.
“My father is no longer with us. It is often thus when a foolish old man takes a bride young enough to be his daughter. The woman? She lies at his side as a good wife should. I cut her throat myself.”
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