NEVER was the expression ‘You can’t gild a lily’ more appropriately used than against hot cross buns.
We have fallen for the hype, tried the St Clements ones, the chocolate, the apple, the salted caramel and none compares to the bog-standard spicy ones.
We have learned nothing, seeing as we do exactly the same at Christmas pudding time. No doubt next year we’ll do the same, always looking for the holy grail when it is already in our hands.
The recent story about the lady vilified for taking care of cats (boo hiss to the jobsworths) has inspired Royston Animal Welfare in conjunction with Churchfield vets to set up a discounted neutering project until funds last so do get in quick.
The health risks for cats are far reduced by neutering so if it hasn’t been done and you have a Barnsley postcode, then you could save yourself and your cat a lot of heartache for only £30 subject to your cat having had a flea treatment beforehand, which you would do if you cared about it. Give them a ring on Barnsley 733333 to book.
It still makes sobering reading to hear how many problems the council are having with staff being off with ‘mental health problems’.
Modern society has allowed the floodgates to open with over-diagnosis. You only have to abandon one task to complete another and you’ve got ADHD.
I’m not talking about the genuine cases of course, it is a terrible thing to be tortured by one’s own brain. But one playing devil’s advocate, one might ask the question, how many of those workers would still be off ‘sick’ if they were self-employed?
Are you fascinated by the astronauts in space as we are? Are you also rolling your eyes that science had got them up to the moon but the loo broke after 30 minutes?
This kind of thing, as we know from the Covid years and the toilet rolls, is a basic. If the bog situation is okay, we can survive.
One might have thought that of all the eventualities the boffins would have covered, this one would be a biggy. If you look up toilet problems on past missions, it’s all quite fascinating, from chasing floating turds around to odours trapped in the vacuum with nowhere to go, having to poop in bags (and totally missing) and some having to rely on big nappies. I wouldn’t have been much cop though. I daren’t even attempt the ‘she-wee’.
Makes me glad I picked this line of work if I’m honest instead of training for NASA, though it was a close call. And if you believe that, you’ll believe Cadbury’s when they say they haven’t changed the recipe on their chocolate.
If you wake up depressed at what the news of the day might bring, can I suggest a little bit of TV loveliness in the shape of ‘The Other Bennet Sister’, all episodes can be downloaded on BBC iPlayer.
It follows the story of the plain and studious Bennet sister Mary from Pride and Prejudice and is an absolute delight. There are wet white shirts and (subdued and proper) sexual tension, there are baddies getting told what’s what, and there is the sublime happy ending. In a week where a headline on Sky News screams ‘romcoms teach you to be softer and better’ I would add that all of us who write them hope to leave a reader with exactly this feeling in their hearts with stories that are a refreshing change from those about murder, cruelty, war and misery. The world might be a better place if they were given the rightful importance they should have.
