Nearly The 10ties

 Happy New Year to one and all!

I thought it was a suitable picture to cheer us out of this cold start.

Minus 2 in Cheltenham , but racing goes ahead here.

I feel that I have been in this year for quite a time , what with the dire predictions regarding the ' credit crunch ' , loss of jobs and falling house prices ;'o9 seems a bundle of laughs already.

The other week I was looking at some biscuits on the supermarket shelves and thought them to be an out of date product ; until another customer pointed out that the date was  August '09 ! -I'm clearly bored with this year, don't like odd numbers,  anyways there is the Apple keynote from 'Frisco next Tuesday morning ; so after that ,  we don't need to bother with the rest of the year , do we ?

Prediction time: Football - Liverpool win Premier League , just from Man. Utd. Chelsea take third spot from Arsenal , who come with a late run.

Horse  Racing : Binocular to win Champion Hurdle ; Alan King's selected to win Grand National.

Finally here is a short New Year story:

"  Dean strode purposely into the  staff canteen . His hair , though long , was shiny bright with sculptured curls kissing the nape of his neck. His weasel eyes looked sharp and focused ; sobriety  never seemed so cool.

Raising his hands upwards , he addressed the motley bunch, in a suitably charged voice ;

'Wot's doing then Gang '

The immediate silence was deafening ; palms covered ears , heads slumped on tables; emerging groans gradually reached his hearing; finally Casper said  , in a shallow vocal utterance ,

' Well we can tell that you had a good night yesterday .'

' Yeah great , apart from one small matter ' said Dean , dangling the bait.

Tom , bless him , looked up and caught the line ' Go on then  tell us your troubles '

' Well , thing is , everything was dandy , until around midnight some bastards , started shouting , lit some fireworks and woke me up. It took me an hour to get back to sleep ." Dean smiled , having waited a whole year to deliver that retort; it was , you see , New Year's Day. "

Ciao4now

Ck.