The Frumplingtons

Somewhere recently, I might have mentioned logic puzzles. Don’t know about you, but I hate ‘em. Especially those that are in the People’s Friend. Oh, hold on though; they’re knitting patterns, aren’t they? (No wonder I used to have trouble solving them.)

But if you are keen on testing your mental agility, have a shot at this braintwister. And remember, the scenario I am about to describe is purely theoretical.

It is New Year’s Eve in the Year of Our Lord 2006. The Frumplingtons are having breakfast. Through the window they see a Council roadsweeping vehicle go past, cleaning the pavement along Monks Road. 20 minutes later, the roadsweeper goes past in the opposite direction, presumably cleaning the sidewalk on the other side of the road.

Shortly afterwards, the Frumplingtons go out for a bottle of milk and a wholemeal Nimble.

Question: Why, after the roadsweeper has been along cleaning the pavement, do the Frumplingtons still have to dodge, swerve and sidestep numerous patches of dogs hit as they make their way to the shops?

Errata:

a) The above poser may prove impossible to solve, due to the accidental insertion of a space before the word ‘hit’ in the previous sentence.

b) The word ‘dogs’ should read ‘dog’

That should keep you going for a while…

Chris

Informational overload:

Clean up after your dog.

(Yeah, I know. Sounds like the booby prize in a celebrity blogging competition, doesn’t it?)

“How can I eat my cereal without a spoon?”

No, it’s not one of those logic puzzles. It’s another episode in our familiar ’slice of life’ style. (The Frumplingtons: Britain’s best-loved kitchen sink drama.)

Quite simply, Shana had prepared her breakfast (ie, poured it out of the box) and, in her eagerness to start eating it, had forgotten her spoon. No further analysis required.

While on the subject of breakfast, I had fried eggs on toast this morning. Clearly, I am incorrigibly working class.

Footnote:

Shana came back to the kitchen for a spoon shortly after realising she had forgotten it. Her cereal of choice this morning was Luxury Maple and Pecan Clut Nusters.

Keen observers will have noticed that I included a spoonerism in that last sentence.

Anyone out there feel like we’re just going round in circles here?

Chris

It’s been a bit quiet online over the festive period.

A quick look at our stats shows that only one person visited this blog on Christmas Day.

Well, it’s better than nothing, we thought.

However, on closer inspection we were not quite so sure.

Because our visitor was from Spain. And he (or she?) arrived via a Google search for…

Torture instruments!

What a strange thing to search for.

I wonder why.

Maybe our visitor didn’t get the Christmas presents they’d been hoping for. Well, don’t worry about it: Aunt Mabel will probably get you some torture instruments for next Christmas.

Why do they want these things though?

Not thinking of relaunching the Spanish Inquisition, are they?

Well in that case, Feliz bloomin’ Navidad to you too, hombre!

Chris

And no, I’m not making it up.

I wasn’t going to mention The Ashes. After all, it was several days ago (maybe even as much as a week) that it was finally confirmed that Australia had regained the trophy, so it’s not exactly fresh news. And, to be perfectly honest, England’s defeat was not entirely unexpected either, at least not by seasoned cynics like us: even though England won The Ashes last year, one of the matches (Trent Bridge, wasn’t it?) was won by a mere two runs. So we knew they had to do more than just be lucky if they wanted to retain the title this winter.

So, thus far, no news and no surprises either.

Except for a story which I found on Rogue Semiotics the other day. Anyone who may have been making disparaging comments about England’s performance during the current Ashes series, and suggesting that a team of blind men could have done better, should of course be thoroughly ashamed of such politically incorrect, not to mention unpatriotic, sentiment. However, a blind team really has done better: England beat Australia on December 6th; the winning margin was 5 wickets. No scraping home by a measly two runs, you will notice.

So, how come this wasn’t all over the news? Search me. Except that this particular match was part of the Blind World Cup, which was, I believe, organized by the World Blind Cricket Council. We do get coverage of paralympic sports from time to time, including blind runners, but I have heard not a whisper about blind cricket yet.

I think it is high time Blind Cricket got more publicity.

Blind or sighted, I don’t mind. At least these guys know how to play!

Chris

We were in a queue at one of Lincoln’s discount hairspray emporiums this morning when suddenly in walked what appeared to be a 7-foot tall giant of a man. He approached the other till, which had just opened, and said, pointing at the shelf behind the checkout desk, “Can I have a Dulcie and Gabanner, please?”

I was horrified. I felt like grabbing him by the lapels (except I would have been a tad too short to reach; and besides, he might have hit me for my impertinence) and remonstrating with him: “It’s not pronounced ‘Dulcie’, you oik!” Even though I know hardly a word of Spanish (!) I know it’s meant to be pronounced ‘Doll-chay’. One should roll those consonants around in the mouth, like an expensive wine; not slurp them like a cup of Kwik Brew. To be honest, when I first heard him, I thought the man was referring to the actress, playwright and author, Dulcie Gray. (No, I’ve never seen any of her films either, but that’s beside the point.)

And I’m sure Gabbana isn’t supposed to sound quite so similar to ’spanner’ either.

By this time, however, the shop assistant had found the Dolce and Gabbana perfume that Mr Giant had asked for. “That’ll be £18.99, please,” she said. I forgot all about tall men’s lapels at that point; I was too busy choking and spluttering at the thought of what we could have got for a mere 19 quid.

Well, it’s the thought that counts, I guess. And I’m sure D and G’s smellies are worth every penny. But it’s not really our kind of thing. You can’t beat the great smell of Raid, that’s what I always say.

Half an hour later, we were back at home with a luxury purchase of our own. Visitors to Frump Central shortly before lunchtime would have seen our little faces lighted up with glee, and me all covered in washing up liquid drips. And why? Well, we had bought a twin pack of bubbles from Boyes, the haberdaberdashery shop. And we were busy blowing them all round the living room, just like a pair of demented 5-year-olds.

Are we daft, or are we daft?

Not sure about that, but we know how to have fun, that’s for certain.

Chris

We spotted someone playing a game of Buckaroo during this evening’s Nigella’s Christmas Kitchen. A good tip, if you want to make Buckaroo even more exciting than it already is (and let’s face it, it can really get the adrenalin going) is to modify it by remounting it on tough car or — even better — lorry springs. That should make those little plastic frying pans and shovels fly for miles! (Health and Safety warning: this totally stoopid idea is not endorsed by the makers of Buckaroo etc etc. Don’t blame us if it all goes pear shaped, OK?)

Talking of Nigella, we both enjoyed the series immensely, which fact could be easily ascertained by a cursory inspection of the amount of drool on our respective sides of the sofa after the programme finished. Anyone listening at our door during Nigella… would also have heard lots of Homeresque slurps (”mmmm…chocolate…mmmmm….“).

But we were back to our shouting-at-the-telly best when Nigella introduced her gingerbread (no, Nigella, it really is ginger cake) stuffing; which, moreover, used not one, but two Jamaican Ginger Cakes. Now, to be fair, we did make some chocolate and chilli brownies once, and they were surprisingly tasty. So we’re not scared of being adventurous. But for Chrimbo, I think we’ll stick to sage and onion or something equally traditional. I mean, call us boring old far…oh, you already have. Well, Season’s Greetings to you too then.

Chris

We received a Christmas card the other day. From my brother in Norfolkland. And a most excellent card it was, too.

The card had a simple design on the front: the shape of a Christmas tree in the form of various words for ‘Peace’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Joy’ in lots of different languages.

Inside, along with the usual greetings, bro had continued the multilingual theme with what, at first glance, looked like gibberish. “What’s this say?” Shana asked. “It looks like ‘Frolic in the Winter Garden’.”

I took the card from Shana. Immediately, I recognized the language not as gibberish, but German. “It’s German gibberish!” I exclaimed. “It says ‘Fröliche Weihnachten‘.”

“What does that mean?” asked Shana.

“Happy Christmas,” I explained, patiently.

“Ah!” said Shana, revealing her newly enlightened state,.”It all makes perfect sense when you put it like that.”

Chris

I had too much to drink last night; not alcohol but strong tea. Actually, it was probably not so much the amount (one cup) as the lateness of the hour (11 p.m.) that was to blame for subsequent events. Anyhow, as a result, I was forced from my slumbers by the Bladder from Hell at around 4 o’clock this morning, needing to pay an urgent visit to the bathroom.

(I suppose I shouldn’t complain though. As one gets older, there is a natural tendency to require more frequent bathroom visits: 5 to 7 times a night is apparently quite common for those poor unfortunates who are afflicted with ‘plumbing problems’.)

There is a recognizable four-stage process to these late night awakenings (not so much soirées as pissoirées). I have given it the acronym DAMN:

D. Denial (Turn over. Try to sleep.)
A. Acceptance. (When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go.)
M. Micturition. (If you’re not sure, look it up.)
N. No sleep for the rest of the night. (Or ‘Nsomnia.)

The N stage was particularly annoying last night, because it was aggravated by the sudden appearance of another of those tunes that get stuck in your head and won’t go away. Last night’s Hot Hit was Turn the Music Up, by the Players Association. Now, I have neither seen nor owned a copy of this record (a late Seventies dancefloor filler, I believe). Nor have I never heard it in the intervening years on any of those Classic Gold pop stations. I vaguely recall it being a Radio Luxembourg Powerplay (every hour on the hour). The fact is though, that it has always remained in my head. It is a lively enough tune with a good rhythm, and the lyrics are so easy that even I can remember them:

Turn the music up (da-da-dah d-d-d-d-d-da-da dah)
Turn it up — and party down (da-da-dah d-d-dah d-d-d-d-d-dah)
(Yeah!)
Turn the music up (da-da-dah d-d-d-d-d-da-da dah)
Turn it up — and party down (da-da-dah d-d-dah d-d-d-d-d-dah)

It gets better:

You gotta turn the music up
(Turn it up!)
Party dow-own
(Party dow-own)

And then it’s back to the main subject matter once again:

Turn the music up (da-da-dah d-d-d-d-d-da-da dah) etc etc etc

I think there’s a 12″ version too. In fact, that might have been the one playing in my head this morning. And if I ever have a frontal lobotomy (by the way, try pronouncing that with long O’s; or is it just me who thinks it sounds more fun that way?) it may very well prove impossible to excise this tune, fused as it seems to be, with virtually every available synapse in my swede.

It could have been worse though. It could have been that overplayed, overrated festive Slade record (yes, that one). And yet, despite having heard it hundreds of times over the years, and also liking the rest of Slade’s output, Merry Xmas Everybody has simply refused to become implanted in the fecund soil of my brain.

Ain’t I the lucky one?

Chris

Over the past few days I have attempted to leave comments on a few blogs; blogs hosted by Blogger.com, to be specific.

And it has not been easy.

Despite the fact that we do actually have a profile for The Frumplingtons on Blogger, it almost felt as if the Blogspot comments forms thought I was trying to post an anonymous comment. ‘Could not log you in‘, was one of the things that appeared on screen during one fruitless commenting attempt.

Just for the record, I don’t leave anonymous comments. I mean, how on earth can you have a dialogue or any sort of interaction with another blogger by leaving anonymous comments? And if you don’t want to interact with your fellow writers (or at least say ‘Hi!’) why would you be leaving a comment in the first place? (Yes, I know there are a few zealous individuals trying to sell quack nostrums and aphrodisiacs to us all, but I’m talking about ‘proper’ bloggers who write ‘real’ blogs, rather than about online salesmen, just so we’re clear about that.)

I eventually did manage to leave some of my comments only after disabling Javascript in my browser and trying again. It was for me, on one particular occasion, third time lucky. But of course, not everyone knows about Javascript and how to disable it, and not everyone is so persistent, so some would-be commenters would simply have given up.

The problem, as far as I can see, may have something to do with Google and/or Blogger implementing its new beta service. Teething troubles perhaps.

But if your blog is hosted by Blogger and you feel as if nobody is reading or, more to the point, reacting to your posts, well, us readers are still out here and no doubt everything will get sort out eventually. Meanwhile, just keep those entries coming.

Chris

Our walk to town this morning took us along Lincoln’s downtrodden, litter-strewn and grimy Monks Road. We noticed several isolated, seemingly abandoned personal items along the way:

1. A lime green child’s wellington boot was lying on the pavement opposite Lincoln College. (I should explain here that it was the boot that was lime green, not the child; we didn’t even see the child.)

2. A broken umbrella, turned completely inside out (presumably by one of the strong gusts that Lincoln is famous for). This was outside St Hugh’s Roman Carbolic church, not far from the junction of Monks Road and Broadgate.

3. And finally, on the wall of the Green Dragon pub car park, was a black corsage — or maybe it was part of the decoration of a fancy woman’s hat. (Oh dear, this is all getting very confusing isn’t it? Maybe the fancy woman was the lime green child’s mother. Your guess is as good as mine.)

Having spotted these items, we couldn’t resist trying to compose some kind of mental photofit picture of the person who had owned them and how they had come to lose their possessions. We were convinced that they had all been owned by one person though, rather than by two or three. What a strange character they must have been; you can only imagine the conversation that might have ensued when they arrived home:

“Look at the state of you! Where’s your brolly? And what’s happened to your fancy hat? And why on earth is little Harriet only wearing one gumboot? Where’s the other one, hmm? And is that alcohol I can smell, eh? Well, is it?”

On our return from town everything, except the corsage/hat ornament, had gone. Lincoln’s Merrie Bande of litter pickers (or, as we like to call them, ‘litter pillocks’) had been along and carted everything away while we were busy shopping.

So, if your child is missing one of its boots or your hat is looking a bit tatty and you can’t remember how it all happened (probably because you had a skinful last Friday) maybe this post will be of some help to you when you come to try and recollect events and piece it all together. A word of advice though:

Perhaps you ought to lay off the sauce for a while.

Chris