The Frumplingtons

An idea popped into my head this morning (never a good sign, that).

“I’ve just thought of a really funny nom de plume and a book title to go with it,” I announced gleefully. “‘How to keep fit, by Jimmy Quipment’. Get it? Jimmy…Quipment…Gym equipment.”

Shana was speechless, presumably due to admiration.

“It’s brilliant, isn’t it?” I said, blowing my own trumpet for all I was worth and finding someone had stuffed a towel down the loud end.

“Of course,” I added, realising a little humility might not go amiss, “someone somewhere must have already had the idea of ‘Jimmy Quipment’, so I suppose you could say I’m a bit like Isaac Newton.”

“Why?” asked Shana. “Did an apple fall on your head?”

“No,” I said. “But it’s like when Newton invented calculus. Some say he came up with the idea first; others say it was his German oppo, Leibniz. But in the end it didn’t really matter, because they both thought of it independently.”

A quick search of the Internet revealed that, as expected, only two Leibnizes had gotten there before me. And one of those was on m-y-s-p-a-c-e, so it doesn’t really count. Are the Frumplingtons comic geniuses or what?

For firm proof that some people just don’t get all that rap and hippity-hop music, here’s what Shana recently asked me:

“What, exactly, is a ‘Gangsta’s Pair o’ Dice’?”

Aw shucks! I’ve no idea. Sorry.

The Scottish nanny state government has come up with an ingenious way to stop people smoking. (And before you ask, no, it’s not the old fire extinguisher trick.) They are going to take cigarettes off display in shops and they are going to hide them underneath the counter.

Displays of cigarettes in shops are set to become a thing of the past as part of the Scottish Government’s continuing drive to stop smoking and make Scotland healthier.

source: Scottish government press release.

What a brilliant idea! So simple, yet so effective. Don’t you wish you’d thought of it yourself?

When you think about it, that must be why Britain (and Scotland in particular) doesn’t have a chronic problem with drugs and drug-related crime: because drugs are not on display in the local newsagent’s.

Compare the Scottish idyll with what’s going on in England and you’ll see where we’re going wrong. In England it’s booze that’s the cause of all our woes:

Hospital admissions linked to alcohol use have more than doubled in England since 1995, an NHS report shows. Alcohol was the main or secondary cause of 207,800 NHS admissions in 2006/7, compared to 93,500 in 1995/96.

There has also been a 20% rise in the number of GP prescriptions for treating alcohol dependency in the past four years, the NHS Information Centre said.

source: BBC News (Hospital alcohol admissions soar)

So, why not cure our ills with the Scottish solution? Simply take all alcohol off public display. Mind you, Bargain Boooooze and Teskbury’s off-licence section are going to look a bit empty, aren’t they? But who cares? If it works, let’s do it.

While we’re about it, let’s cut knife crime (get it? ‘Cut’. ‘Knife’. Aw, please yourself…) by taking all the cutlery off all High Street department store shelves.

In fact, we could go one better than Johnny Scotsman. A lot of English pubs use plastic glasses instead of, well, glass glasses. So why not make everyone get rid of their knifey knives and switch over to rubber ones instead? That would also reduce the number of accidents in the kitchen, so it’s good news all round, isn’t it?

What other problems does Britain have? Football hooliganism? Easy solution: hide all the footballs.

Next!

Obesity epidemic? We could solve that one overnight. Just hide all the food.

Yes, as you can probably tell, we are experts on daftity and we sure as dafty heck know a daft idea when we hear one. In fact, that could be our motto: “The Frumplingtons: tough on daftness, tough on the causes of daftness”.

And the Scots’ idea of hiding the ciggies is about as daft as they come, hoots mon!

Shana’s latest attempt to rewrite the dictionary and explore the human condition was as follows:

“If someone is afraid to go out in public wearing a fluffy sweater, does that mean they suffer from angoraphobia?”

Ever seen one of those mystery thrillers on telly, where someone, a spy for instance, is ransacking an apartment or rifling through someone’s drawers? Suddenly, they hear footsteps and have to find somewhere to hide in a hurry. They often choose to hide behind the full-height curtains. What then gives them away is the tips of their shoes sticking out from underneath.

Well, that’s sort of what happened to us this morning, only with one or two differences: our curtains don’t reach the floor and there was no actual intruder. Apart from that, though, the scenario was exactly the same. You can only imagine how unnerving it was to see Snodgrass’s feet protruding from behind one of our sofa cushions. Gonna have to keep a close eye on him from now on, I think.

We started a new jigsaw puzzle today. Two of the pieces were damaged so I put them on seperate pieces of sellotape awaiting repair. I carefully placed the pieces on top of the scanner, I thought they’d be safe there.

When I sat down this evening to check the mail, one of the pieces was missing. I called to Chris, “one of the jigsaw pieces has gone awol”. He came into the room “yes I found one on the floor, don’t know where the other one is” I had a quick look around, couldn’t see the other one.

Then Chris noticed something in his hair…the missing jigsaw piece was well and truly stuck in the ends!! I promptly accused him of trying to scan his hair, why I do not know, but he denied the accusation!

So both pieces are now safely back on top of the scanner…until Chris starts flicking his hair about again!!

For the record, Chris has very long hair, it won’t be long before he can sit on it!

The second of Shana’s deep ‘n’ meaningful questions in as many days was as follows:

If someone doesn’t drive, does that mean they keep making carless mistakes?

Maybe we should publish a slim vol. of Pithy Sayings by Shana. Start saving up now for the faux leather-bound version.

Here’s one of Shana’s totally spontaneous questions from yesterday. It might sound daft, but, as a former schoolteacher of mine once said, if you don’t ask questions, you don’t learn anything. What Shana hoped to learn with this, though, is anyone’s guess.

Is Jolene related to Windolene?

There, that’s it. What C&W songs have to do with household beautification products I’ll never know. Perhaps one of our readers can help.

When we moved here, about a year ago, we thought it would be a good idea to grow lots of indoor plants. The pretty colours, the foliage and the pleasant fragrances would make our house a delightful place to be, we thought.

Eventually, we had to get rid of the houseplants. The plants themselves were nice enough; we just couldn’t stand the little gnats that seemed to like hovering around them (and the rest of the house).

One thing we did keep, though, was a rustic frog. He’s green and wears a checked shirt, a straw hat and a goofy expression. He’s attached to a pointed stick and was, for a time, planted into the soil alongside one of our spider plants. He now lives in a pot with a faux floral decoration on the kitchen windowsill. Somehow, this afternoon, the light caught him just right (quite an achievement, considering he lives on a north-facing sill) and cast this shadow over the kitchen door.

The position he is standing in, seems to be the semaphore sign for the letter ‘L’. You have to wonder if the frog is trying to communicate with the outside world; if so, what the ‘L’ is he trying to say?

On the other hand, maybe there’s a simpler explanation: perhaps he just fancies himself as some kind of batrachian version of Saturday Night Fever-era John Travolta. Altogether now: “ah-ah-ah-ah-stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, ah-ah-ah-ah, rivet rivet rivet…”

Spotted earlier today on a comment form somewhere on the Web, this is one frame from an animated advert for one of those ‘find lost friends’ sites. And no, I won’t embarrass them by naming them; they might send some of their budies round to get me.