Before this gentleman goes into hibernation until next year`s festive period, I thought I would ask him to stick around to wish you...

.....with all good wishes to you, your friends and family for what I hope will be a happy, peaceful and enjoyable year....

A DESERVED HONOUR...

I have long been a bit cynical as far as the normally discredited honours system is concerned but today an MBE has been awarded to Southampton legend Francis Benali, not for his prowess as a destructive full back in days gone by but for his achievement in raising over £1 million for Cancer Research in performing a quite outstanding series of daunting physical and mental challenges by running to all 20 Premier League grounds in a matter of three weeks - the equivalent of running two marathons a day. 

So, congratulations to Frannie on a well deserved honour. 

As for me, I have a couple of routines that I like to follow.  The first is to buy the local newspaper each week and I turn to the obituary column;  if my name doesn`t appear, then I just carry on for another week.  The second is that each time the `honours` are announced I look to see if my name appears there as well;  so far it hasn`t, much to my relief as I would hate to have to dress up and go to the Palace to receive a gong - far too much pretension and trouble for me.  Although years ago, to be fair, Mrs. Snopper and I were invited to a Queen`s Garden Party at the Palace but we declined as gracefully as we could we simply because we really didn`t want to go - too much pretension and trouble for us.

So I look back on my life in a desperate search to see if I can claim any `honourable mentions` and the best I can come up with goes back to my National Service days, all of sixty years ago now.   Us enforced conscripts were not supposed to like or conform to the ways of the regular army and so we spent a lot of time complaining, much of the time soto voce amongst ourselves, adopting the art of `ticking` - as such complaining was known as.  

We became so practised at the art that we formed our own association - the  Tenth Hussars National Service Ticking Association (THNSTA,) which required a certain amount of ticking to be recorded in order to gain entry to that exclusive club and then be able to add NSTA to any military documents requiring our signature.  A similar `honour` went to those who were admitted to the PA Club, entry to which required the consumption of eight pints (or German equivalent) of the local Paderborner export bier in a fixed amount of time down at Fritz`s nearby hostelry. (I`m sure you don`t need me to explain what PA stands for.)

And so I was able to attach NSTA and PA (and bar) to my signature during the latter stages of my illustrious defence of Queen and Country.   I still consider that to be more of an honour than any gong I am never going to receive from officialdom although I readily accept that Frannie Benali has thoroughly deserved everything that comes his way.

ONE MORE SLEEP...

.....and Father Christmas lands on my roof with a sack full of goodies.   I can`t begin to describe the excitement I feel but, as I have been told for the past eighty years, "You`ll be fine when you grow up."

Now I`ve been doing this blog, on and off, for some years now and at the last count it has been read by well over 400,000 people.  There`s a gizmo that tells me where these visitors have come from and even in more recent times I see that, among others, there have been over 50,000 `views` from here in the UK;  over 31,000 from the USA;  18,000 from Russia;  5,000 from Germany; and over 3,000 from each of France, Canada and Ukraine.

And as this is the 1954th `post` I have published on this blog, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have viewed my ramblings and rantings which I hope have been of interest but most importantly at this `most wonderful time of the year` I would simply like to say........

.....and all good wishes to you, your neighbours, friends and family in the hope that the world is as kind to you as it is for me.  Back after the festivities have subsided a bit.

Today`s the day.  The day that sad old people like me who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) have looked forward to for weeks if not months.  Now it`s finally here, I feel a sense of relief and the ability at last to look forward to the days lengthening and things looking up.   OK, the weather today here in deepest Kent hasn`t been great - there are warnings of heavy rain and probable flooding and I know that there is some time to go before the return of more daylight and warming sunshine - but the corner is being turned and I`m grateful for that.

The day has been blessed with visits from family, by the Saints winning a must win six pointer away at Aston Villa to climb out of the relegation zone and my neighbour`s heroes, the Gills of Gillingham, also claiming a 3-1 victory.   Maybe it just needed the right date to bring about these minor miracles? 

One of the more intriguing things to emerge from last week`s General Election was the way in which the Labour Party is responding to the drumming it received at the hands of countless disenchanted former Labour voters especially in the Midlands and the north of the country.  And predictably their most pressing concern is who to succeed Oh Jeremy Corbyn as party leader and, more importantly, Leader of Her Majesty`s Loyal Opposition.

And already candidates waiting in the wings are beginning to emerge from beneath assorted stones and various woodwork and it will be interesting to see what qualities will be looked for in the impending competition.  Now, not being a member of the Labour Party or any other political organisation, I`m hardly in a position to comment but there seem to be three choices open to the National Executive and the wider party membership.

The first - and perhaps the least likely - is that they might choose a candidate steeped in the Corbynista tradition, to pursue those policies, hopes and dreams of the now discredited Jezza - not to be recommended I would have thought;  the second might therefore be someone who has got the message from the election, in that for the party to carry on as usual simply will not do and that a root and branch revision of the whole point of the Labour party is what is necessary. Not sure that seems very likely either.

But lastly there is the up to date, modern, politically correct option.  This might already be off the ground as there seems to be an imperative to appoint a woman as leader just because she is a woman. But in order to be attractive to the majority of urban based, middle class, educated party members, she should ideally be either lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender, come from an ethnic minority background, come from somewhere oop north, be state educated, be a devotee of Greta Thunberg, not be in possession of even a scrap of plastic, not be prepared to go to war with anyone for whatever reason, be determined to scrap the country`s nuclear deterrent, be committed to a vegan diet and cycle to work and back each day.

Shouldn`t be too difficult.

Well, that`s how it feels right now.  Last evening I watched Southampton lose to West Ham 1-0 in what for both teams might well have been a must win six pointer.  Sadly for me, the three points on offer went to the visitors to St. Mary`s and left the Saints still (just) in the relegation zone of the Premier League.   So next week`s away fixture against Aston Villa is even more crucial, as the Villa are one place above the Saints thanks to a superior goal difference.

Now, some of my very good friends are West Ham supporters and they have been conspicuous by their silence following last night`s events.  They may be keeping quiet out of respect for the feelings of an octogenarian Saints fan but they need not be concerned - Southampton were awful and West Ham deserved to win.

But that is the sixth time in the last nine games that the Saints have lost at home and despite a recent mini revival, it really does seem that there are severe problems surrounding the club, its Oriental owner, its eclectic collection of coaching staff and the distinct lack of quality and character amongst the playing squad.  So it may be just a matter of time before the walls come tumbling down.

So I need to look elsewhere for some solace after this disappointment and I see that Truro City continue to top the league in the Vanarama National League South Division following yet another away win at Hayes and Yeading;  Gillingham cemented their place in mid table of League One with a creditable 1-1 draw away at Fleetwood and Wimbledon managed a 2-1 win against Doncaster, despite the enforced absence through injury of Captain Scott Wagstaff;   Maidstone United conjured up a late defeat against Concord Rangers (neither have I) in the FA Trophy and Forest Green Rovers slipped again in a 1-0 defeat away at Northampton.   Mercifully Fort William`s game was called off due to bad weather.

Forest Green`s decline over the last couple of weeks has seen them slip from the top of the League Two table but their current problems are as nothing compared to those down at St. Mary`s.   The eternal lot of the dedicated Saints fan shows no sign of changing any time soon but the faith will be kept, the loyalty will remain and life in the Championship might not be so bad after all?

ALL ABOARD.....

You know what it`s like.   You wake up one morning and face an increasingly weird and unreal world and you wonder whether you have woken up in Alice`s wonderland.  Well, I woke up this morning (thank goodness - at my age I`m truly grateful for that) and I look out and it`s cold, frosty, dark and pretty miserable.  I turn on the television and I am immediately assaulted by a kind of trial by media which shouts at me, argues all the time and seems a million miles away from Lord Reith and his three commandments about informing, educating and entertaining.

And then I realise that it`s election day and I face the prospect (some might call it a civic duty) to toddle up the road to the village hall and cast my vote one way or another.   Now here in our deepest Kent enclave, they don`t bother to count the votes, they just weigh them, as it has been a conservative stronghold ever since elections first began, so whichever way I might vote it won`t make the slightest difference to the outcome here.

But as I gaze through the looking glass at the broader picture, the national scene, it confirms that I might be in that fabled wonderland after all.  There seems to be a choice nationally between the fat controller or a mischievous imp with Alice herself bringing up the rear, waiting in the wings to see if she can, after all, pull the strings and fashion the country`s future in her image.   There are, of course, other minor characters to flesh out the cast list - there`s a mad hatter, a queen bee, a monster raving loony and so on.   But whatever the outcome of this election, it is likely to perpetuate the notion that we are living in  some kind of parallel universe where nothing is what it seems, where nothing is true anymore and where despair - or at least resignation - are near neighbours.

So I`ll toddle up the road, cast my vote and sit back and wait to see what happens, although I suspect that once again my senses will be assaulted by the baying media and by politicians who will either be over the moon or sick as parrots.  It`s not a happy prospect.

And all that comes after some truly sad news in recent days - the passing of Bob Willis, Marie Fredriksson and David Bellamy.  Those untimely losses coupled with the beatification of Greta Thunberg as `Person of the Year` just add to the sense of unreality

Beam me up Scotty..............................

COUNTING THE DAYS...

Around sixty years ago I was doing my National Service, having been yanked away from `normal` life to surrender myself to 731 days in the army for Queen and country.  There was no choice but to do it and get on with it, which makes me wonder how the snowflakes of today would cope with something as traumatic as that.  (I suspect the age of `social media` would see mass refusal to have anything to do with it?)

Anyway, one thing that kept me on the right side of sanity was to do a demob chart which consisted on 731 numbers written out on assorted sheets of paper so that each day I could cross one off.  The last sheet had about 100 numbers left and they were arranged in ever decreasing circles, eventually to disappear in the centre as my freedom was restored.

These days no such issues, of course, but instead I find that there are events to which I look forward with doubtful enthusiasm and whilst I have no desire to wish my life away there are certain things at this time of the year that I really hope might pass quickly.

In the next few weeks firstly we have the General Election, of which I am already bored witless and I cannot wait for next Thursday to come and go so that all the  sound and fury, the lies, the shouting, the ranting and all  the false dawns and promises are finally done with and life, whoever wins, can attempt at least to recapture a semblance of normality.

Then it`s Christmas and the New Year,  supposedly the `most wonderful time of the year` but as is now so common with other `events` it becomes little more than an excuse for excess.  As Bart Simpson reminded us, Christmas is the time when we remember the true meaning of Santa`s birthday.   It doesn`t help having it at the dog end of the year when the weather is miserable, the days are short and I`m a bit annoyed with God as to why He or She chose 25th December for the virgin birth.  Ah well, at least the kiddies will enjoy the fairy tales at Christmas time.

I guess the good news in all of this is that there are only another fifteen days before the shortest day of the year.  It can`t come soon enough for me and I can then stop counting the days  and consign another countdown to the refuse bin.

So, as it is the season of goodwill, I hope you have a nice day.  

YOU MAY NOT LIKE THIS...

Well, maybe you will.  It depends.  

I see that Greta Thunberg has been named as Waterstones Author of the Year for her book  "No One is Too Small to make a Difference," which the bookselling chain has described as an "urgent message" as her book consists of the collection of the 16-year old activist`s speeches.  Now normally Waterstones choose a Book of the Year but this year has added the accolade of Author of the Year.

Which says a lot really and sums up the basis for my comments here.  Firstly, it is quite an astonishing decision to grant this award ahead of towering pinnacles of authorship such as John le Carre who this year produced another masterpiece with his latest work, "Agent Running in the Field."   But the Waterstones decision looks very much like another example of bandwagon jumping in order to be associated with Ms. Thunberg and all her works.  

It`s not just Waterstones who have fallen into this beguiling trap, of course;  so-called celebrities, assorted politicians and even the royal family, represented by Prince Harry`s approval, have joined those who may simply feel it fashionable to be associated with this young Swedish `activist,` for whom life will never be the same and certainly not `normal.`

As for me, I don`t know why I should but I feel rather sorry for this young lady.  I`m sure she means well but I fear she has missed out on those things that 16 - year - olds are supposed to be doing at that age.  She doesn`t look happy - too intense, too angry about things - as if she is taking all the troubles of the world on her young shoulders.  She really ought to be allowed to get a life before it`s too late and let those who worship at her feet grow up a bit.