rashbre south

Off tomorrow to rashbre south for a few days, across in Weston Hills, Clermont, Florida, close to Disney. We'll be seeing the big cheese and visiting a reasonable number of the attractions. I hope the tree is still in the garage and we can make the lights work. Quite a few neighbours do elaborate lighting displays, so its fun walking around the neighbourhood. And we'll probably head over to Celebration, where the main street has regular snow falls just like a cold place. A surreal experience.

So bags packed this evening, and London Gatwick for the BA flight in the morning. Touchdown Orlando around 16:40, then drive to rashbre south, unpack bags and then across to Publix on the 192 for the first big grocery shop.

I suspect rashbre central will be off the air until I return to the UK.

New Year's Greetings to all - back around the 6th January.

season's greetings

tracking rudolph's nose

Trust NORAD to find a way to track Santa's flightpath. Rudolph's nose gives off an infrared signature, created, I envisage, by the sheer friction of high speed travel. This means satellites can detect Rudolph's bright red nose with practically no problem. With so many years of experience, NORAD has become good at tracking aircraft ot other vehicles entering North America, hence the ability to track the progress of Santa, thanks to Rudolph. The NORAD video trailer is here

The tracking is kindly made available to us all as a web tracking site.

I drove past the outside of Buckingham Palace during the early evening, on my way from Knightsbridge to Essex, and managed to get this small footage on my cameraphone, along with some disruption to my navigation system.

look behind you

Today I watched the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, which is a typical Christmas season event. Pantomimes are mainly British and have a few important conventions, which usually include:

• The principal boy ls played by a young woman;
• An older woman (dame or widow) is played by a man in women's clothing;
• There is lots of risqué double entendre, making innuendo out of perfectly innocent phrases;
• There is a great deal of audience participation, including calls of "look behind you", and "oh yes it is" or "oh no it isn't";
• There should be a song where the audience is divided at least into left and right halves, or ideally, men, women, children and usually insultingly 'poor people at the back', 'posh people upstairs' etc.
• The pantomime horse or cow is played by two actors in a single costume – one as the head and front legs, the other as the body and back legs.

Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he 'live, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

beware of the warning signs

Dave Asquith and Alex Normanton decided to get their own back on normal Briitish signage, with a few specials which they have been inserting into British life, particularly on railway trains between Brighton and London. The signs look real enough, but have some slightly unusual wordings.

Here's one of my favourites.


Thank you green fairy for showing me the way to this one.

Thursday Thirteen (V6.0)

13 instant things (V6.0) about rashbre

1. Christmas tree acquired {Check};
2. Lights retrieved from last years boxes {Check};
3. Lights tested and ready for use {Nerp};
4. New lights bought from local garden centre {Check};
5. List for Santa prepared and placed in chimney {Check};
6. Initial present buying expedition completed {Check};
7. Outdoor lights in place and flashing {Check};
8. Wrapping paper and little tags ready for wrapping frenzy {Check};
9. Food shopping list prepared for the last minute dash {Check};
10. Party music identified and loaded to iTunes {Check};
11. Beverages assembled ready for consumption {Check};
12. Cards written and posted (Check);
13. Time set aside to pause for sensible reflection {Check};

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Leanne's Thirteen!
2. Ivory Frog's Thirteen!
3. Running 2k's Thirteen!
4. Uisce's Thirteen
5. Chickadee's Thirteen!
6. Judy's Thirteen!
7. Raehan's Thirteen!

X. (leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)


Get Leanne's Thursday Thirteen code here!



The purpose is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Why not do this too? Then leave me a link as a comment or trackback and I will update my entry a link to yours, and you can continue the chain!

Tag: Thursday Thirteen

my best score is 1502

A struggling author put me on to this.

time to wear a silly hat

This morning I was being filmed for something that happens in January. Later, I headed over to the Crown for a festive lunch with a Santa hats for each of us. Yet more Crackers and bad jokes and then by late afternoon it was time to move to meet Nick for a drink and a second appearance of the silly hat.

its working

Bizarrely, the JCB song I mentioned as a long shot was number one in Virgin Records today. The power of buzz marketing. And according to their enthusiastic fan forum its number one on the BBC?

Here's my link to the original post. And here is the video.

bugged out

r
I am attempting to repel something like the above at present. Honey, lemon, paracetamol, eucalyptus all play a part.

all that jazz

To Windsor to meet Ron and Lizzy and then the others in the entrance to our Jazzy evening. We strolled into what could have been a 1930s scene and found a bar, whilst listening to a singer accompanied on piano.

After a drink we moved to the main street where dancers jived under the street lights and another band were playing, comprising double bass, drums, guitar, trombone and singer.

Later we dined, interspersed with dancers showing us a good time and the band rocking the joint. Then later we found the main dance floor where we bopped until the wee small hours.

cork

Across to Cork, Ireland where I was met by Tony, in preparation for an evening with a few friends. We drove first to the Clarion, which is a new hotel in the centre of the ever changing city. Cork seems really 'European' now, with the extra building, style of new cafes and bars and the quite cosmopolitan mix of people.

Tony and I first went to the Clarion's bar before heading on to the Long Room, where we met the others. Catherine seemed to be in charge and Mark was already experimenting with port and brandy cocktails. I decide to start more gently. Seamus is there, along with Mick, Colm and Ronan and after saying "Hi" all around we get ready to move on to the Ambassadors for dinner. By the time we arrive, Angela has already got the table arranged and we all sit together to enjoy a Chinese meal and catchup on gossip.

Much later, we leave the restaurant and rejoin the busy late night streets of Cork, in our case on the way to the tiny Hi-B bar, upstairs near to a hairdressers and hardly announced except for a well worn mosaic floor square at the entrance. The bar is packed, we start off standing and eventually squish ourselves together around a tiny table to finish the evening. In the morning, I will be on the first plane back to London; in just a few hours.