Many years ago when I used to take my daughter to see Father Christmas, I was always a little embarrassed when she would ask for a boy’s toy, for she was not big on dolls and the like, so she usually walked away with a toy pistol or rifle. I was reminded of this when I read this “Only in America” story. 

I also read that, in this country, if anyone wants a job as a Santa in a store or mall this Christmas they will have to be vetted in case they have a record for child molesting. Well I can’t see them including it on their ‘CV’ can you ?

OK, I know that paedophilia is a serious subject, but I have to smile a little when I see it reported that children can no longer sit on Santa’s knee just in case some pervert has slipped through the security net, and is intent on doing a bit of groping in the grotto.

Personally I think that ‘nonces’ should be recruited as Santas, and then be packed off to Arizona, where I’m sure the parents at Scottsdale’s gun club could use a few live moving targets.

Blimey! No wonder the bloke in the red suit and long white beard in the gun club photos…

… is looking so nervous ! 

Don’t you just hate it when you pick up the mail and find one of those thick brown government envelopes ?

Well, last week I received one. … Oh ! shit … I thought, I bet the tax man thinks that I have some extra cash stashed away somewhere (which of course I don’t) and wants his share, or else he wants a bit more of the pension I slaved and sweated .. grafted .. worked .. pissed about for all my life.

Here we go ! … I thought as I opened the envelope and discovered several pages. I expected to find the usual questionaire about what I had earned since the days of pounds, shillings and pence and what I had spent on travel in the days before motorways and parking meters.

Then I noticed that the covering letter was not from ‘Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’, but from ‘The Pensions Service’. The enclosed documents contained bewildering sets of figures regarding the various amounts deducted from my pay over the years as contributions towards my state pension, and the details of how much I had been paid each week since I retired.

OK ! … I said to myself … So how much do they want me to pay back ?  …. and then …

BINGO ! … I suddenly noticed the following … “We will make a payment of £1,616 (approx. $2,500) into your account. This is the money we owe you“.  Yes, the buggers had been under-paying me by about four quid a week since I put my feet up back in 2004.

Now that is not the end of the story, because today I received another brown envelope from the same people informing me that I would receive a further payment of £173 (approx. $250) ..”to cover any loss of use of this money”.

So a good result so far, but I can’t see the blood suckers at Her good old Maj’s Revenue and Customs Dept. letting me get away with it, and that the next brown envelope will probably herald that …

… “the tax man cometh” !

I know that I often refer to stories in the press as being … “a load of old bollocks” … Well here is one that most certainly falls into that category !

“It must have been excruciatingly painful.” said the judge.  I bet it was ! .. Testicles and teeth coming together doesn’t bear thinking about; but what I can’t understand is how, during a drunken brawl, did Martin Douglas come to expose his ‘meat and two veg’ to the shark like teeth of a very mad Maria ? It must have been a very peculiar punch-up indeed.

During such a fracas one might expect to receive a black eye, a thick ear or even a kick in the cobblers, but not a set of knashers round the nuts !

Perhaps Martin is a member of some ‘fighting flasher’ martial arts cult, who push their ‘crown jewels’ into their opponent’s face as they pin them to the ground; and if that is the case then Maria was a very brave lady for facing up to this dangerous willy waving warrior, and …

… “biting off more than she could chew” !    🙂