Invitation

I'm having a little party on this blog. It's a kind of bring and buy, but without the money. All you have to do is bring a drink and a snack of your choice, and one unwanted Christmas gift from this last Christmas. Obviously tact is required, since the gift can't really come from someone who might read this blog (unlikely, but sod's law is always on the lookout). If you fancy anything anyone else has brought, then feel free to take it home with you. You may also share their snacks.

So, to start the party off, I'm going to bring a barrel of Old Timer bitter (Wadsworths brewery only bring it out at Christmas, and it's wonderful), pork scratchings, and for the gift, a beige candle in a tin. The candle smells strongly of dirty feet, so it might appeal to fetishists? Also, some liquorice-flavoured Thorntons Special Toffee.

Come on. Don't be shy.

Christmas shopping? Look no further...

...for that special gift, for I have the solution  right here in a catalogue*: clockwork salt and pepper pots, shaped like penguins. You "just fill the pots with salt and pepper, wind them up, and let them go...shooting across the table to whoever needs them". Apparently "passing the salt and pepper has never been so much fun".

Passing the salt and pepper fun? Really?

Oh, what have I been missing all these years...

What will they think up next? Wind-up vegetable dishes? Motorised knives and forks? When you think about it, the possibilities for fun at the dinner table are endless.

*One of those catalogues full of things nobody needs to give to people who don't want them; the last resort of the desperate shopper.

"Gifts". A brief guide.

I've come to the conculsion that anything labeled "gift" is a definite no-no, especially if it comes from a Gift Department. "Gifts" are things that are bought by the desperate for the ungrateful. They are things that you don't need. If you needed them, you would (probably) already have them. If they smell, then it won't be the smell you like. If they're confectionary, you don't want them because they'll make you fat or they're the wrong sort. And if they're culinary-related (lie those extraordinary bottles of oil with what look like trees growing in them) they won't fit in with what you cook.

Here are a few of the things not to give:

FOR MEN
Silly ties. They won't wear them. In fact, avoid silly anything.
Anything smelly. Ditto.
Socks (nuff said).
Hankies. Most of them use tissues.

FOR WOMEN
Anything smelly (they know what they like, and you probably don't).
ANYTHING  for the kitchen (how could you even think of it?).
Aprons (ditto).
Tea towels (DITTO!).
Diaries (they've already bought one).
Calendars (yes. You can have too many calendars).
Poinsettias (they're horrible. Plus, they always die).

I hope this helps?

(PS If any of my family read this, I'd LOVE a leather head collar for my lovely new horse. Just thought I'd mention it.)

Of unwanted gifts and Booker prizes

One of my fondest (and earliest) memories of my childhood Christmases was my mother opening presents addressed to herself as soon as they'd arrived, and re-wrapping them as presents for other people. We were very short of money, and so this must have seemed a good solution (although my mum would have given you the coat off her back if you'd admired it).

I was reminded of this a couple of days ago, when I ran out of reading material and the library was closed. We'd been given a book-shaped present, so I thought I'd probably be able to read that.

Except that I couldn't, because it was the Coronation Street Quiz Book. Hmmm. We are Corrie fans, but we are also grown-ups, so some lucky customer of the Oxfam shop will get it instead (I took it straight there). A lot of my Christmas presents end up in the Oxfam shop, so maybe it would be better to open them all so that they can be bought before Christmas while people still have enough money. (I'm not hard to please; I just don't need too many smelly candles, diaries and strange dangly pendants.)

But the second book-shaped parcel I opened was Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending (Booker prize winner) which I'd asked for, so I'm reading that. It's very slim, beautifully written, and quite good, but I never cease to be amazed at the Booker Prize. While lesser mortals like me are told they must write at least 70,000 words, and preferably quite a lot more, literary prize winners get away with far less. Think John Banville's The Sea. And Chesil Beach.

Perhaps I shall write a very short, brilliant book in 2012, and then you'll all be proud to know me (well, a woman can dream...). And - who knows? - I might even get up to 60 followers.

Win a tea towel!

As an apology for the very dull post about tea towels (below), I thought the least I could do would be to provide this golden opportunity to win one (a nice one).

All you have to do (all, she says...) is write a limerick on the subject of dull presents/unwanted gifts/that kind of thing, and post it on the comments here, and the winner will receive this magnificent prize in about a week's time. I'm away triplet-minding from tomorrow afternoon until Monday, so I hope there will be some brilliant limericks to read (and there certainly were, the last time I did this) when I get back...

On the other hand, if no-one enters, I shan't have to buy the tea towel.