ALL OVER THE PLACE/NOT BORN YESTERDAY

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So we say goodbye then, 2008. Although we hated you at the time, after a few months of 2009, your absence will make our hearts grow ever-fonder.

We also say farewell to All Over the Place. As from January 1st, this column will be renamed

'THE FLOG'

More details in due course

30th December 2008

HARRY'S GILDED CAGE

Harry...behind bars (Head middle left)

Our eldest dog Harry's mind works in mysterious ways. That it does so is intrinsically remarkable, for it has three speeds - forward, dead stop and back - and two beliefs therein: Me Harry, You everything else.

You wouldn't think that could make for too much mystery, but you don't know our Harry. Twelve years he's been with us, and he still can't work out what's going on and what number he is. Even Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner knew he was Number Four. For Mr H, he could be anything from two to six, if you include the Christmas tree.

The one thing he's clear about is that Mrs Ward heap powerful medicine, on account of her serving up at the NAAFI. Everything else is a confusion of hypotheses - a puzzle made all the more insoluble by the arrival of a second Dishwasher raider:

However, as part of the 'keep your area clean' campaign to teach new recruit Tiggs the correct and incorrect placement of poos, she now spends each night in a cage - and gets to eat her supper undisturbed by other marauders. The following equation has therefore hatched in Harry's head:

Cage Good. Cage Safe. Me Get in Cage, go to Happy Hunting Ground.

So that's where he spends most of his time at the moment. And no, I'm not the one who gets him out. I'm happy with my hands exactly where they are.

THE ANSWER: CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY

There seems to be a misguided rumour doing the rounds that the answer to world gloom is money, and credit therefrom. I wish to challenge this accepted view.

So far the Save the Banks Fund is up there at $8.4 trillion - and counting. Never mind trillion, never mind billion....how much do you reckon it would cost to get every dealer, banker, finance minister and estate agent in the world stoned and legless for twelve days with the very best in feelgood entertainment laid on and all the Satanic sluts/Chippendales they could eat? A hundred million? A hundred and fifty? OK then, including Gordon Brown - two hundred million? Yup, that's what I figured too.

I only ask this not entirely academic question because what happened over the last dozen revolutions of the planet was roughly that: parties, good wine, family toasts, great parties, taxis home at 3am with new best friends and so forth. And guess what? The markets have moved barely half a per cent in either direction - and (following a few rosey articles in the ST, FT and NYT) quite a few decent volumes of stock bargain-hunters were in evidence between Christmas and the New Year. The FTSE and Dow enjoyed their best rallies of the year; not spectacular, but spectacular has a bad track record: it was steady, and in these bowel-wrenching times, steady is good.

Altered reality is what these people get off on, so altered reality it is from now on fellas. My remedy for the global toxic crunching credit default swap sub-prime brain crisis is therefore as follows:

* Immediate deal with Colombia: we'll take all the funny stuff you can give us, in return for none of it reaching the streets. Name your price: we'll take all of it.

* Bailout deal for Milwaukee: Fed Reserve guarantees to buy 100% of all output.

* Goodwill deal with France: All your unsold fizz, Chateau Latour, Lafitte, and Irma La Douces at full premium price in return for capping the price of the Euro.

*For Italy, every Gigolo gets free passage to the US and a Green Card thrown in. All we require in return is free takeaway pizzas for all financial workers in perpetuity.

And the next question please....

28th December 2008

GIVE US THIS DAY

Having discovered in late middle age that I have a degree of wheat intolerance, I've begun exploring other ways to make bread without the use of either this crop, or the yeast required to make it rise. Actually, it isn't that hard to make bread from other things: potato flour, rice flour, oats and either baking powder or bicarbonate of soda can be employed as required, in various combinations and quotients.

The difficult bit is producing something that tastes OK.

My first attempt used too much sugar, and was judged by the unfortunate recipients to be like 'a cross between Mothers Pride and Form IIb's first attempt at sponge cake'. Undeterred, I had a shot at soda bread. Mrs W declared it 'more sofa bed than soda bread'. O, cruel world.

I think however that I may at last have cracked it. A lot less sugar, a bit more salt, some more milk, another teaspoon of bicarb, and wholemeal rather than white flour base got this review from future son-in-law: 'A bit crusty, but I bet it tastes great with butter on it'.

The trouble with that - positive as it was - is snails taste good with butter on them. Either way, the search for a new mass-market loaf continues.

 

27th December 2008

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

I have just been given the piece of medical advice about which every bloke fantasises: 'Put your feet up'.

If only it were the command to rest completely, and be waited upon by olive-skinned Caribbean girls rolling cigars and hash-joints on their inner thighs. Sadly, the advice is to put my feet vertically against a wall for half an hour every day.

This is the considered opinion of my GP, a new one of feminine gender whom I have grown to like because she tells the truth, viz: pretty much anything I get of a serious nature from now on is unlikely to be anything for which medical science has the cure - or even the will to try.

This is so much the way with contemporary medicine, I find. The number of cures available for those aged 12-30 are almost infinite, tailing off from there on towards 60, and reducing to zero from the age of 61 onwards. The symptom from which I suffer is numb toes and balls of the feet. A few cheapo tests have ascertained that it isn't a thyroid problem and it isn't either diabetes or heart-pump stuff. Here's how the conversation went when I pitched up chez GP to get the gen:

Me: What is it then?

GP: We don't know - but let's look at the possibilities. If it's motor neurone disease, nothing we can do. If it's MS, nothing we can do. If it's just slowly hardening arteries causing crap circulation, nothing we can do. My own view is that the serious foot damage you sustained jumping from a house-fire at the age of 23 has caused bruising and poor vein distribution. So to give it a better chance, put your feet up.

Me: Put my feet up in what way? The chimney? For mayor?

GP: Ha-ha, very droll. After your gym session, but your feet up against the wall-bars for half an hour.

Me: Will that do any good?

GP: It certainly won't do any harm.

Me: Right. And will this be progressive?

GP: Hard to tell. Best to monitor it and see what happens.

Me: What if it gets worse?

GP: Come and see us again.

Me: What will you be able to do?

GP: It depends what happens.

Me: What's likely to happen then?

GP: I've no idea.