At this time of the year it is important to spend time with family and friends.   We have a quiet Christmas planned…. to be followed by a less quiet New Year celebrating the Fisherman’s birthday down in Cornwall.

I’ve been somewhat slack in posting over the last week (don’t ask, but suffice to say I need a holiday!) but did want to write a holiday message.   As usual, plagiarism came to the rescue and Shivs sent this over from Gordon in Hong Kong…..

I wanted to send some sort of end-of-the-year holiday greetings to my friends and colleagues, but it is so difficult in today’s world to know exactly what to say without offending someone.

So I met with my lawyer yesterday and, on his advice, I wish to say the following:-

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practised with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society both varied and interesting, and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting these greetings, you are accepting these terms:

This message of greetings is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

This was sent to me from old pal David ex of Hong Kong and soon to be navigator extraordinaire on the Winter Trial…..    The Washington Post’s Style Invitational asked readers to take any work from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and suppy a new definitions.

Here are some of the best entries:

1.  Bozone (n.)   The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.   The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

2.  Cashtration (n.)   The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

3.  Giraffiti (n.)   Vandalism spray painted very, very high.

4.  Sarchasm (n.)  The gulf between auther of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

More tomorrow!

The motorist remains a soft and lucrative target for those seeking to raise more and more revenue… petrol was increased by 1.25p per litre last week by Greedy Gordy.

Safety Camera Partnerships (can you think of a more repugnant oxymoron?) do raise money, although not as much as you would think.   In 2004 they raised £112Million against an operating cost of £92Million, making a profit of just £20Million.

Many of the cameras are operated by third party companies and not by the police.

So someone is making a good living out of turning ordinary folks into criminals…… more on this one soon….

According to an article in Metro (quite good London freebie daily rag) research has shown than left handed people tend to think quicker and be better at sport than righties.   The study proves they are better at doing complex jobs like flying jet fighters for example.

The research was carried out by a Dr. Nick Cherbuin – who is right handed.

Of course he is.

We lefties could have saved him the bother of researching – all he had to do was ask.