Let me tell you about my morning. In this city, if you wish to display posters for a show, albeit a Free Admission, Donations Encouraged show for a charity, you are obliged to get the official stamp of the Town Hall on every poster. For this you are charged 4 Euro (that's nearly 6 bucks to you, buddies) per poster or, if you can claim Not For Profit, the amount is halved. The office that collects this iniquitous tax goes under the acronym C.I.M.P.
For those of you who don't speak Italian, let me tell you that C is 'soft' before an I, which gives this name a satisfyingly appropriate sound to anyone who feels the way I do about bureaucrats.

So I turned up at C.I.M.P as soon as they opened, took a ticket from the machine and then waited half an hour to see the only clerk who appeared to be doing any work. I'm not convinced the guy at Window 3 was even breathing. We proceeded with our business. I gave her the particulars of the charity, showed her the posters. She worked out what it was going to cost at the 2 Euro rate. Fine. It grieved me to give the city money that should have gone to our orphans but I know when I'm beaten. Then, just before the deed was done, she grabbed back the posters.
'Hold on,' she said, 'You can't have the preferential rate. You've got the names of your sponsors on this poster.'
I said, 'That was the deal. They gave us money to help finance the production. The very least they expect is to see their names on the poster.'
'Well,' she said, 'that's advertising. So that'll be 4 Euro per poster, thank you very much.'

And that folks, is why I'm never again going to stage a charity show in this den of thieves. I mean, why bother? Easier just to write a check and cut out the Municipal Monkeys.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just did my final trawl for goodies. Signor Bassich had a breathtaking display on his stall including some beautiful little midnight blue lobsters that waved their claws at me. But we're out tonight, eating with friends, and I really don't want to commit lobstercide on Christmas Day. It would kind of hang over me all evening.

The Eve of Pascha is my favourite but Christmas Eve runs it a close second. It was the day my father, who usually worked every daylight hour and then some, came home at midday with my mother's predictable box of Milk Tray chocolates tucked inside his jacket. He made Christmas Eve special without having the least idea he was doing it. First, he disappeared into the back of the pantry and hauled out last year's empty bottles. Then he'd load them into a shopping bag and he and I would walk two miles to the nearest off-licence to replenish stocks. Brown ale for himself and my grandmother, lemonade for me, egg flip and ruby port for the ladies. When we got home he'd light a fire, break out his annual box of cigars and reach for my copy of A Christmas Carol.
He'd read aloud from it, just the first fifty pages or so, and then when I was older it became my job to read it to him.
Marley was dead to begin with.

It was the only book I ever saw him open from one year's end to the next. And now it's sitting on my desk. I may read it to Mr F when he comes home. Right now he's doing what all red-blooded men do on Christmas Eve: wandering the streets hoping some affordable little gift for a wife jumps out and bites them. What can a wife say?
'Don't worry dear heart, I don't need a gift'? Or, 'If you're going to get me something please don't agonise over it out loud'?
Whatever I say might sound testy, so I'm going to hush up. It's Christmas Eve and nothing is going to take the shine off it.

Happy Christmas y'all.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 04:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well young Conor Timothy arrived, for one thing. Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes. He needed a bit of coaxing but now he's here he likes the food and the folks he's going to live with. We haven't met him yet but I'll bet he's heard all about us.
'And then there's Grandpa F. You'll know him the minute you see him. First thing he does when he walks in is turn off your TV.'

I'm also thankful that my middle daughter's chest pains have gone away and that my youngest daughter is marrying the most good-natured, easy-going guy in the world. Nothing ruffles him. Not even a panic-stricken phone call in the middle of the working day because the gold border on the invitation reply cards doesn't match the trim on the harpist's waistcoat. Or something like that. I should really pay closer attention.

I'm thankful there was time last week to hear my granddaughter sing 'Trot, Trot, Trot, Little Donkey' and to play chess with my grandson, the finagling little varmint. He's pretty good. He just needs to learn that when somebody takes your bishop it's not good practice to roll on the floor and demand a recount.

I just dressed the tree, feeling sad that my mother won't see it this year but also relieved that I won't have to listen to her sighs every time I hit a bum note playing 'Silent Night '. We have some scrummy oranges from Sicily, some smoked salmon from Scotland and a panettone from down the street. Tomorrow I might make a sour cherry confit to go with Tuesday's duck. Or I might not. That's the kind of devil-may-care mood I'm in this Christmas.
But right now I'm going to a carol service where the Anglicans have kindly invited me to be a Token Orthodox Presence and read the First Lesson. Then Grandpa F will finish work for the year and come home to rest his poor flat feet. And I expect we'll pop a cork. Thanks be to God

Posted by Laurie Graham at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yes. This reluctant traveler is on the road again. I'm off to England tomorrow, to help my daughter choose her wedding shoes, to have lunch with my son, to see how tall my grandbabies have grown. Really a trip to look forward to, but without Mr F I'll feel like a duck in the Sahara. He has to stay home and perform Mr F-type duties such as buying a Christmas tree, finishing painting the sets for our show and, erm, what is it... oh yes, going to work.

While I'm gone my blog will lie idle and I suspect my new book won't write itself either. But one job I would like to see completed before I get back is the birth of my step-daughter's baby. Come on out, Number Four. Your time is up.
I know it's cold and I know Jingle Bell Rock is being piped into every shopping centre from here to Tasmania, but you can't stay in there for ever. And it's not so bad, life and everything. Before you know it, it'll be summer. Hey, before you know it you'll be riding your bike without trainer wheels.
We got you a fluffy reindeer and Stars & Moon pyjamas.
C'mon.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is Ed Balls, Schools Secretary in the current UK government. Ed just announced his Ten Year Plan for the country's children, a cornucopia of ideas to tackle anti-social behaviour and barriers to learning. He proposes a streamlined curriculum, fine-tuned testing (when the child is ready and not before) and convenient on-site services. These would include social workers, child psychologists and police officers. The police would be there to provide positive role models so presumably they wouldn't be issued with anything useful, like cuffs or tranquillizer darts.

I don't imagine Ed Balls is a stupid man, and he has three children of his own so we can't blame inexperience. So how can he and his advisors have gotten this so pathetically wrong? Why didn't he call me?

Barriers to learning? Well here are three just to get us started.

1. Low expectations.
2. A ubiquitously dumb, vulgar and pervasive pop culture.
3. A society that derides intellectual achievement.

Ask any speccy-four-eyed kid trying to bury himself in a library.

Shall we move on to anti-social behaviour? Dare we mention the elephant in the room? Do let's.
Children never used to disrupt classrooms, terrorize neighbourhoods and destroy lives because they feared the consequences. Which were,

1. The disapproval of others.
2. A sense of personal shame.
3. A good hiding.

I could almost have laughed at Ed's Ten Year Plan but tears of frustration got the better of me. My grandchildren are aboard his idiotic runaway train. Actually, they may well be sitting on a pile of old reading primers and driving it.
God help us all.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I keep intending to blog more frequently. I know how disappointing it is to revisit a blog and find nothing new has been posted, but then, you know, writing's what I do for a living so when I get five minutes I'll usually choose to do something else. Such as pick wax drippings off the candlesticks. But here I am, on Saturday afternoon. I can't start the next thing on my list because Mr F is blocking my path, painting broom handles. As in, 'broom handles for the comedy Mop Dance '. Basically any creative activity going on in this household over the next four weeks will be pantomime-related. After January 11th we'll both get back to earning a living.

So I just spent two hours dyeing T shirts. I used the preserving pan inherited from my dear departed mother and as I stirred I fell into a reverie about all the stuff she used to make in that pan: jam, pickles, marmalade. Suddenly I smelled hot oranges. And I thought, 'Oh no. It's an olfactory haunting. She's mad at me for using her pan to cook rat costumes.' And then I remembered the cup of green tea with orange that I'd brewed and forgotten to drink. Duh!

The rat suits are a disappointment. I used Elephant Grey dye which seemed in the right colour range if not the right part of the animal kingdom, but now they're drying they look to me more like Royal Airforce blue. Definitely not a natural shade of elephant. I followed the directions so carefully too. How annoying is that?

Little things are annoying me at the moment. The word 'Xmas' is annoying me, and yet it's a reasonable enough abbreviation. My nice hard-working cleaner is annoying me by closing the lid on the piano after she's dusted the keys. She doesn't know that a closed piano is an abomination to me. And tomorrow at least two people will annoy me by allowing their cell phone to ring during Divine Liturgy and, worse yet, they'll look to see who's calling before they switch it off. So actually, maybe not such little things after all.

Blue rats, though. That's really annoying.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm supposed to be devoting only one day a week to preparations for our January spectacle but this week it's been more like three, and they've mainly been fun because things are starting to take shape. Yesterday was a treat. I had to go ask the Principal Nun if my junior rats could rehearse in the school gym. I could hear the angel voices the minute I opened the school door and I thought, 'It's a recording. They're having a music appreciation class.'
But it was no such thing. The entire school was rehearsing a three-part setting of the Hallelujah chorus for their end of term Mass. These children are aged five up to ten. I'd never thought of children so young being able to sing to that standard. Bowled over. And to think, what a dreary blanket of 'Happy Holiday inclusiveness' is spreading across schools in Britain and America. When I rule the world I'll have them all singing 'Hallelujah.'

Tomorrow, by the way, is the feast of St Nicholas, an exemplary bishop who snuck around quietly doing good works. It's also our ninth wedding anniversary. I haven't looked it up but my guess is it's something like the Melamine Anniversary. I haven't yet picked out Mr F's gift.

Another of this week's tasks was to find pale pink socks suitable for those juvenile rats. Which I did. And in searching for pictures of rats' feet, so I could decide whether to doctor the socks to make them look more realistic, I discovered an interesting fact. Rats - real ones, that is, not the kind that can be trained to sing Handel's Messiah - are susceptible to a condition called Bumblefoot. Never mind that veterinarians call it Ulcerative Pododermatitis. Isn't 'Bumblefoot' quite the nicest word you've read today?

The little porcelain choir boy was made by Gillian Nunan.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)