Happy Bard-day to you...

As well as St George, St Phil (my brother) and countless other important luminaries, today is the lesser known William Shakespeare's birthday. Wiki says they don't know his birthday, only the day of his baptism. But, hey ho, this'll do. It's also the day he died, and four hundred years to the month that his first book of sonnets were sold for sixpence. Apparently.
Anyway. Here's my tribute. I read it at Poetry Cafe at the Bluecoats tonight. They didn't seem to mind that I was teasing slightly.
Mind you, I didn't dare attempt to tell them that St George was probably Turkish o_O x


No Longer Eighteen

Shall I compare thee to a wet weekend?
The ruthless winds have stripped our orchards bare
The lease is up, and yet we still pretend
sweet temperance? Or do we just not care?

In time, most mortal flesh begins to sag.
In Shakespeare's day they died at fifty one.
Who wants to live forever? let death brag.
At least the shade will keep us out the sun.

And so you raise the volume on the box.
Deaf as a post, but still with eyes that see-
In widescreen watch as Britney shakes her locks
Long gone the times you looked like that at me.

But trade you in? My darling, don't dismay-
I'll hang on, so the life insurance pays.

Genius

Two reports for you today. Spot the connection.

A couple of weekends ago, my brother's wife's sister (stay with me) got married.
Her father is the vicar of in Holy Trinity in Idle, Diocese of Bradford, and so he performed the ceremony, and the reception was held at a nearby venue.

As my sister in law and her father have been involved in firework displays on and off for years, at the previous two siblings weddings the evening had been rounded off by a spectacular light show of some sort. True to tradition, they decided, as a surprise gift for the bride and groom, to launch some paper lanterns, lit inside, creating a beautiful display.




The day was a success, and the lanterns rounded things off beautifully.







The second is a report which appeared a few days ago in the Telegraph and Argus, a local Bradford newspaper. The report is by Marcus Meneaud, and the full text can be found here.

The headling states "UFO sightings are no joke for Denise", and the article goes on to describe

"...reports of up to five red or orange orbs hovering silently in the night sky before quickly disappearing."

The 'Denise' in the headline is Denise Wilson, who 'saw them circling above her home in Moorside, Daisy Hill, Bradford, when she took her dog for a night-time stroll.'

“There were four round red or orange glowing lights flying in formation,cruising towards me. ... They weren’t flying very high, not as high as planes and then they disappeared above the trees.
... I don’t care what people think of me, I know what I saw and it wasn’t normal and it wasn’t man-made. It was very, very strange, like some-thing out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind!”

A further couple of residents had spotted the same UFO's, although one described similar lanterns he had seen in China.

Coincidence?!
the truth is out there.....

Do you think they should confess?! :-)

Hitting the Bottle

Hitting the Bottle
Originally uploaded by smont

My nephew seems to have developed a love of drinking directly from the bottle.
It would seem he's transfered this skill to bottles of wine.

I would like to point out that it isn't my hand holding the bottle, I was taking the photograph. Honestly.

Bless x