Saturday, 1 December 2012

The great turkey adventure


The open fire's lit...

...and I've ordered the turkey from the butchers. Must be December.


Collecting the turkey

Euphemisms, Audrey. This involves queuing, for a long time. Adrian trusts the keys to no-one, so he has to open up, and he's rubbish at getting out of bed. Watching him set up shop is comical. He stands tweaking the starters on the fluorescent light fittings for ages because he's too tight to fork out for new ones. Then he finds the float, hidden somewhere resembling the bank in the Harry Potter films. Well. You can't take chances with that five quid in change, can you? The turkey queue is wonderful for gallows humour, taking the mickey out of Adrian (he gets his own back, have you seen the price of those turkeys?), and awful at moving quickly.

Early is good for getting to the head of a shorter queue, but the shuffle forwards is slow because they have to look through so many birds to find yours. Later in the day the queue is longer, but moves faster as they get a better idea of who's name is on which bag. It's an absolute necessity to go the newsagents first, and, unless you're a slow reader, make it a broadsheet.


The bad thing about the turkey queue...

...is that being a bloke, the time required eats into valuable last-minute present wrapping time.


The good things are...

...the gallows humour, taking the mick out of Adrian, and the realisation that there's a few precious days off heading your way, to be spent with the best company available.


A bad prediction

About 12:30, kitchen.

ME: I'm worried about the Arsenal game today.

BLISS: (Feigning (and failing) interest) why's that?

ME: Because Swansea're a good side and Wenger will be arrogant as usual and rest our best players and we'll get beat at home.

We duly got deservedly beaten 0 – 2, and I think it's time for Wenger to go. If for no other reason, then because he's costing the club a huge wage, more than the best paid players. One argument is the “who's going to make things better?” line, and if they don't, they don't. Without a change you'll never know, and hell, we can save a few quid if the replacement is equally disappointing. On paper we have a decent squad. The embarrassments that rolled around on the floor when we were a goal down or pushing for a winner, running the clock down on the opposition's behalf (you know who you are, Eboue) have largely gone, even when things are not going well they don't hide. However, they seem to play with one eye on their successful pass stats, and we need someone more willing to risk losing possession and play a faster, riskier game. We also need to exorcise the ghost of Hleb and lose the too many touches before conceding possession in any case idea.

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