³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Christmas is coming

Comments

1. At 10:14 AM on 09 Nov 2007, Big Sister wrote:

   Bring it on, Eddie! But, a small suggestion, just to tickle our creativity a little further, why not ask people to send in pictures themed around the 12 days of Christmas? The original lyrics stipulate:

   Twelve drummers drumming,
   Eleven pipers piping,
   Ten lords a-leaping,
   Nine ladies dancing,
   Eight maids a-milking,
   Seven swans a-swimming,
   Six geese a-laying,
   Five golden rings,
   Four calling birds,
   Three French hens,
   Two turtle doves,
   And a partridge in a pear tree

   However, we could perhaps substitute these items for other items, based though around numbers.

   Advent, I realise, is a little longer than 12 days - four weeks to be precise - i.e. 28 days. So, people could submit photos for any numbers between one and 28.

   Maybe it's too complex, but it could be fun ....

2. At 10:22 AM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

   Well how funny - I was just thinking about that yesterday. Oh yes please Eddie - a nice run up to Christmas.

   It seems that the iPM photo's didn't take off quite as well as WOYW - perhaps as the push was not as great from you and the team?

   Perhaps I should remind people that they can still contribute their photo's - there is a link called iPM in the categories section. So far there have been 300+ contributions.

3. At 10:30 AM on 09 Nov 2007, Val P wrote:

   Great idea!

4. At 10:33 AM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

   Well, I can't guarantee the same high level of Christmas decorations as last year from our office, but I'll try! :)

5. At 10:37 AM on 09 Nov 2007, Stewart M wrote:

   Mmmm Must post my ipm photo.

6. At 11:49 AM on 09 Nov 2007, Richard Summers wrote:

   Dear Eddie

   Why is Brown having so much trouble in deciding to remove Sir Ian Blair and I'm noy saying he should or needs to go, , after all what's another Blair to be got rid of when you've had so much practice?

   Perhaps they need dinner together in Islington?

7. At 12:24 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Perky wrote:

   Yes please! I've acquired a digital camera since then, so I'll be able to send in a proper photo rather than a blurry mobile phone one!

8. At 12:29 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

   I think that sounds a smashing idea!!

9. At 12:30 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

   Big Sister, good idea, especially the substitution, too - bring things up to date, for example:

   Twelve drummers coking,
   Eleven WAGs a-puking
   Ten lords a-denying they a-paid cash for honours...

   Gah - there went the scansion, but you get the idea.

   ... two Lib Dems,
   and a Darling up a gum tree

10. At 01:12 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

    Never mind Christmas is coming -- the Commonwealth Games is coming to Glasgow!!!!
    Wehhay!

11. At 01:43 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

    Bah ! !

    xx
    ed

    My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot replace it."
    -- Erich Maria Remarque
    

12. At 02:12 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

    UTT (10) Do you want the Olympics as well? I'd happily move them away from London, thereby saving a lot of unneccessary costs to the country....

13. At 02:35 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

    Christmas is coming,
    And I am getting fat,
    Far too much junk food,
    Means a podgy Cat,
    I need to start to diet,
    And eat less crisps and chocs,
    So that come December twenty-fifth,
    I can scoff the selection box!

    BTW Upthetrossachs (10):
    Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

    See my furrowed brow posts for why I think that's a disaster. (Or at the very least a scandalous waste of money.)

14. At 02:44 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

    Fearless - sure, why not? We'll pay for the Olympics with a wee bit of additional subsidy from South of the Border ;¬)

15. At 03:23 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Blue Peter Staff wrote:

    Eddie

    In the spirit of the forthcoming Christmas season, we're wondering if PM could give the few of us left here a job. Quickly

    "Blue Peter in new fake scandal over 'viewers'

    By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
    Last Updated: 1:28pm GMT 09/11/2007

    Blue Peter is at the centre of another fakery row after it admitted that two competition winners who appeared on the show were in fact child actors...

    ...The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s long-running children’s programme used the actors from a local drama group in an effort to make the show more lively and entertaining...

    ...The latest incident failed to emerge during an internal ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ investigation ordered by the director general earlier this year following the wrongly edited footage of the Queen."

16. At 04:06 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

    Happy Christmas !!!!

    More at namelink

    lalalalalalala
    ed

    Mmmmmm-MMMMMM!! A plate of STEAMING PIECES of a PIG mixed with the
    shreds of SEVERAL CHICKENS!! ... Oh BOY!! I'm about to swallow a
    TORN-OFF section of a COW'S LEFT LEG soaked in COTTONSEED OIL and
    SUGAR!! ... Let's see ... Next, I'll have the GROUND-UP flesh of CUTE,
    BABY LAMBS fried in the MELTED, FATTY TISSUES from a warm-blooded
    animal someone once PETTED!! ... YUM!! That was GOOD!! For DESSERT,
    I'll have a TOFU BURGER with BEAN SPROUTS on a stone-ground, WHOLE
    WHEAT BUN!!

17. At 04:47 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Stewart M wrote:

    Blue ptere staff you need to bring back Valery Singleton. And perhaps you need more sticky back plastic to hold the cracks together!

18. At 05:11 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Aperitif wrote:

    My my Ed (16), Why extra exciteable today??

19. At 05:32 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Squirrel wrote:

    
    Sis (@1) - 28 days advent? Does the Xmas season really need help being extended? It's always been 24 days on my advent caledar..
    
    

20. At 05:59 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Big Sister wrote:

    Advent begins on the fourth Sundays before Christmas, so its length is technically variable. Advent calendars take their cue from the first day of December, hence the 24 windows.

    Double checking my calendar just now, I see we'll actually have 29 days in the Advent season this year - so we were both wrong! ;o)

21. At 06:16 PM on 09 Nov 2007, wrote:

    Appy,

    "Though I can see no way to defend the economy, I recogniize the need to be concerned for the suffering that would be produced by its failure. But I ask if it is necessary for it to fail in order to change: I am assuming that if it does not change it must sooner or later fail, and that a great deal that is more valuable will fail with it. As a deity the economy is a sort of egotistical French monarch, for it apparently can see no alternative to itself except chaos, and perhaps that is its chief weakness. For, of course, chaos is not the only alternative to it. A better alternative is a better economy. But we will not conceive the possibility of a better economy, and therefore will not begin to change, until we quit deifying the present one." -- in "A Continuous Harmony"

    The sooner this leaky bucket sinks, the easier the swim to shore, but there'll be a lot of drowning, no matter when.

    ;-(((
    ed

    I'm EMOTIONAL now because I have MERCHANDISING CLOUT!!
    

22. At 06:33 PM on 09 Nov 2007, jacques wrote:

    SSC @ 13

    The poem is fine, but see my comments on Friday's Glass Box re. Plural Nouns.

23. At 06:41 PM on 09 Nov 2007, Squirrel wrote:

    
    LOL

    Good answer Big Sister (20) I knew there would be one..

    Does that mean I can have five more pieces of chocolate this year?

    & have to find twenty-nine of something for someone who sees me as their "true love"..

24. At 12:33 AM on 10 Nov 2007, Frances O wrote:

    FF, hear, hear, do let's send the oLIMPics to Glasgow. Save a lot of money to have both on the same site, and since the people of Glasgow seem happy to have their sporting event, why not?

    btw, my comment on the stadium was read out in a (most attractive) Scottish voice. Coincidence? I think not.

    And if Blue Peter is only involved in a 'fake scandal', well, at least it's not another real one.

25. At 01:23 AM on 10 Nov 2007, james whitehead wrote:

    eddie I have just given up trying to get anything onto your new IPM website and I have to say that I am more than a little dissapointed to see that the name of the only permitted subscriber at 01 30 on saturday the tenth is Nethsingha. this is not a british name. I have tried for three and a half hours to access your site, totaly without success and so I have to conclude that there is some underlying agenda

26. At 11:45 AM on 10 Nov 2007, Chris Ghoti wrote:

    James Whitehead @ 25, congratulations! You have managed to send a comment to a blog that clearly isn't working: yours is the most recent comment that I can find, and went up ten hours ago or more. You didn't really think that everyone on the blog slept this late, did you?

    Regarding your complaint that someone with a 'non-British' surname was posting to the blog, point [a] why shouldn't they? the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is not for WASPs only that I know of, and point [b] how do you know it is not a British name? Nethsingha may have been born here of British parents, in which case the name that he or she holds *is* a British name. This would make it the same as Cohen, or Lehmann, or indeed Ghoti, all of which names of non-British origin are held by people who are British born and bred. In any case, if you look at the blog you will see that a large number of people who post here have a sensible view of internet security, and don't make their full names a gift to the spammers: see eg 'mac', 'Aperitif', 'The Intermittant Horse', and so on. I don't know what race or sex these people may be, and I really don't see what their race or sex has to do with their posting to the blog. Perhaps you can tell me why it does, and if it does, in what way it does?
    

27. At 12:16 PM on 10 Nov 2007, Chris Ghoti wrote:

    James Whitehead @ 25, congratulations! You have managed to send a comment to a blog that clearly isn't working: yours is the most recent comment that I can find, and went up ten hours ago or more. You didn't really think that everyone on the blog slept this late, did you?

    Regarding your complaint that someone with a 'non-British' surname was posting to the blog, point [a] why shouldn't they? the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is not for WASPs only that I know of, and point [b] how do you know it is not a British name? Nethsingha may have been born here of British parents, in which case the name that he or she holds *is* a British name. This would make it the same as Cohen, or Lehmann, or indeed Ghoti, all of which names of non-British origin are held by people who are British born and bred. In any case, if you look at the blog you will see that a large number of people who post here have a sensible view of internet security, and don't make their full names a gift to the spammers: see eg 'mac', 'Aperitif', 'The Intermittant Horse', and so on. I don't know what race or sex these people may be, and I really don't see what their race or sex has to do with their posting to the blog. Perhaps you can tell me why it does, and if it does, in what way it does?

    Sent to blog 11.28 or so; 502 at 11.34; machine stalled; returned to 'Glass Box on Friday', a different thread. Start again... (Never assume conspiracy is responsible for what can readily be attributed to simple human or machine failure!)
    Sent to blog 11.45; stalled; nothing happened until 11.48; 502 at 11.49; machine stalled; refused to return to blog at all. Close down web browser, clear cache, start again...
    Sent to blog 12.02;
    

28. At 08:01 PM on 10 Nov 2007, Chris Ghoti wrote:

    For the record, that wasn't all.

    +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
    Sent to blog 11.28 or so; 502 at 11.34; machine stalled; returned to 'Glass Box on Friday', a different thread. Start again... (Never assume conspiracy is responsible for what can readily be attributed to simple human or machine failure!)
    Sent to blog 11.45; stalled; nothing happened until 11.48; 502 at 11.49; machine stalled; refused to return to blog at all. Close down web browser, clear cache, start again...
    Sent to blog 12.02; machine stalled; nothing until 12.06, give up and head for the froggers' refuge... Agenda? There's no blasted agenda here, just a lousy system using bad tech. I wish they'd admit it, though. The 'agenda' is merely a refusal to come out and say 'it is not working right' just in case someone might be blamed.
    Close web-browser, clear cache, and try again.
    Sent to blog 12.22; nothing until 12.30; 502 at 12.31; shut web-browser down again, empty cache.
    Sent to blog 12.something, 502 at 12.52, and I shall now abandon this and try again after doing the things real Life had planned for the afternoon, like lunch, and shopping for food. I may be some time.
    +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

    This is being sent at 19.57

29. At 03:02 PM on 12 Nov 2007, Aperitif wrote:

    Ed (21) I see. I love the Berry quotation, and it does make perfect sense. Unfortunately, until all of those who have even a relatively small stake in the present economic system agree with it, I fear we are stuck with what we have. But I enjoyed your excitement :-)