Grace Under Pressure 2

  This is my ear worm of the moment. So here are two versions; the original studio recording and then a live version of Come On My Soul from Rend Collective. Hopefully it encourages you to take a leap of faith in 2023    

Almost a New Year but not quite. A chance before I start to look forward to pause and look back. Look back with my favourite song at this time of year. This is Counting Crows with A Long December; the original and then my favourite cover version  

  Renowned astronomer, Ivor Telescope, has revealed that all the planets in the solar system should be visible with the naked eye tonight.  Star gazers can expect to see Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune but it has been advised you’ll need a certain degree of flexibility and / or a mirror if you hope to see Uranus.

  Santa's little helper fails to meet Elf and Safety standards

Former footballing fatties are up in arms today over the decision taken by Manchester City to only pick players who are fit enough and thin enough, claiming that the club is now being run by a bunch of woke leftie liberals out to ruin the beautiful game.  This follows the decision of City supremo Pep Guardiloa not to pick rolly poly Kalvin Phillips after he returned from World Cup duty looking as if he had spent the entire tournament eating for Eng-er-land rather than playing football for Eng-er-land. Speaking in a full fat interview to Grace Under Pressure, former frontman Paul 'The Paunch' Parkinson explained, "Back in the day the burger van did most of its trade during the half time break. Not with custom from the crowd but from the order coming from the home dressing room."  "I mean if the gaffer wants me to throw my weight about up front then it helped to have a bit of extra ballast. Nowadays if you're a couple of stones overweight and are panting for br...

So this morning under a cloudless blue sky I took part in the annual Totley Two Turtle Doves race, a Boxing Day bash to blow away those Christmas cobwebs. It's a race that I have done on a couple of previous occasions managing to get progressively slower with each attempt. Would it be third time lucky was the question racing through my mind?  The answer, which rang loudly in my head after an initial jolly around the cricket field and a short but very sharp climb at the start of the race was a very definite NO. I was not sure whether all the extra running I have been doing recently would he a help or a hinderance, in the end it was neither. I still plodded and powerwalked far more than I would have liked to have done but que sera sera and because we had been told there were changes to the route towards the end of the course due to 'issues' with the National Trust, I wasn't sure how comparable timings would be with previous years. In the end it transpires that although w...

  A 42 year old woman from the small Nottinghamshire town of Hucknall has had her entire festive period ruined after being handed a Christmas present by a so called friend at 5.55pm on Christmas Eve. Barbara Bauble received the uunexpected (and it must be said unwanted) gift shortly after hearing the doorbell ring and assumed it was simply her 18th Amazon Prime delivery of the day or her husband Baryy unable to get his key in the front door after 'a couple' down the local pub. Opening her front door she discovered it was something much much worse. It was her so called friend Tamara Tinsle who had just popped round to drop off 'a little something' for Christmas. Clearly overcome with the stress Barbara Bauble spoke to Grace Under Pressure, "She just stood there, in her perfect outfit, with her perfect Turkish teeth smile and wished me a very Merry Christmas before thrusting a present into my arms. Just a little something she said. Yeah a little last minute something...

And a group from Ravenshead Runners gathered for a festive frolick in the local woods. A 9am start meant I had time for an energy inducing bacon bap at TOM'S (well that was my reasoning anyway) before meeting the rest of the gang, comprising 10 runners and 5 dogs at our designated starting point.   And on a beautiful clear winter's morning with the sun streaming through the trees we were off. It was leafy. It was muddy. It was sedate. It was undulating. It was chatty. It was steam inducing. It was dificult dodging dogs (rather than doggers). It was a chance to meet new people. It was a new route. It was more miles under the belt (6 to be precise.) It was concluded with mulled wine, chocolate cake, coffee and conversation. It was all in all a fabulous start to the day. Bonus points if you can spot the elf on the shelf!!! 

 

On a day when Health Secretary Steve Barclay attempted to wrap the entire population of the UK up in cotton wool by telling people 'do not' do anything that could be considered dangerous, this dashing daredevil defied the advice and 'did' I boiled water. Sat in the house with only three layers of clothing on. Drove my car. Hosted a study group. Crossed a picket line. Went to a hospital and care home. Fought over the last bag of chocolate coins in Poundland. Used various electrical appliances. Did a trolley dash round Aldi. Ran in the woods. In the dark. With dogs. And a fading headtorch. And I survived.

In breaking news it has just been announced that the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future have decided that they are not even going to attempt to bother trying to get Jeremy Clarkson to mend his ways this year. Since Victorian times, when ghosts were invented by Charles Dickins, these three phantom presences have traditionally attempted to get the most mean, cruel, ignorant and unpleasant people in the country to change their ways by scaring the living daylights out of them. Ebanezer Scrooge was first on their list followed by a succession of Tory ministers. However with Jeremy Clarkson, they believe that that there is literally 'diddley squat' chance of anything good actually happening. Speaking to Grace Under Pressure very own spectral phenomenon, the Ghost of Christmas Present revealed “Ebenezer Scrooge was the most awful man in London, tight-fisted, cruel, igronant and utterly dreadful to the core. Even before we started we always felt like there was a ch...

   Just a couple of alternative takes of the classic Christmas carol 'In the bleak mid winter' from Kate Rusby and Annie Lennox.  

It seemed such a romantic sentiment at the time but in hindsight seasonal diva Maria Carey is rumoured to be regretting her festive wish that all she wants for Christmas is you.  Being all lovey dovey might seem like a good idea at the time but a string of boyfriends have left Maria bitterly disappointed on Christmas morning when they just turned up without any expensive gifts having taken the singers warbled words literally at face value. Back in 1994 Maria was so unconcerned about discovering any kind of present under the tree that she wasn't even going to write a letter to St Nick. Now in a hastily rerecorded version which is expected to battle Cliff Richard and Ladbaby to be the festive no 1, it transpires that whilst she might just about put up with having 'you' again this year, what Ms Carey would really like for Christmas is a speedboat, a Malibu mansion, a trip into space, a private jet, a gold plated bidet and a ball pool full of 4 week old puppies.

  Novelist. Playwright. Spoken word performer. Poet. Recording artist. Non binary. Genius. This is Kae Tempest and the sublime 'Salt Coast'.

    Out!

  There are no words that I can add which will make this any better than it already is. My favourite hymn from 2021 is still my favourite hymn for 2022. It is utterly utterly divine.  

  An unidentified Hucknall resident, who for the sake of this blog shall be referred to as , 'Titas Anats Chuff, is struggling today to set the temperature in his house to 'Goldilocks' level ie not too cold and not too hot but just right.  Having decided that an indoor temperature of 7.5 degrees was possibily running the risk of his extremities becoming cryogenically frozen, despite his thermal ski saloppettes and 'house hat', having turned his heating on for a couple of hours earlier today (and just imagined £10 notes burning) he has discoved that 13 degrees is sending him almost into a soporific coma.  With his hypothalamus working overtime to try and regulate his internal heat level, Titas Anats Chuff, has already set his sights on visiting his second home later in the week. There he sit in front of the glowing wood stove, nod off in an arm chair to his hearts content, and dream of someone else burning money just to keep him warm.

  On Monday night in postively arctic temperatures I ventured over to Alfreton to take part in the annual Reindeer run. And no before you ask, disappointed in not being able to jangle by jingle bells I have not upgraded by atheltic challenges so that I am now racing against members of the Rangifer genus. No this was something a little more fun and festive rather than frightfull and foolhardy. Every year members of the Alfreton Jog club, and the fact that it is a 'jog' rather than a 'running very fast' club appealed to me,  organise a little saunter around the streets of their town which when viewed from above resembles the outline of a reindeer. Or as it appears to me a Terrier. So alongside 100 or so sartorially seasonal runners and several dogs who seemed to have wrapped themselves in Christmas lights, I ambled around the streets and industrial estates of Alfreton. And it is not an exaggeration to say it was an amble, stopped as we did at various intervals to cross ro...

News just reaching Grace Under Pressure has revealed just how close NASA's Artemis rocket came to disaster as it attempted to renter the earth's atmosphere on Sunday morning. whilst NASA had concerns about whether the heat shileds and thermal tiles encasing the unmaned Orion space capsule would eb able to withstand temperatures expected to be twice as hot as molten lava. Speaking exclusively in a virtually true interview NASA chief boffin Professor Rock Etman revealed, "Having done 1,000 tests over a 15 year period we were confident that there would be no issues upon reentry to the earth's atmosphere. What none of our data predicted was how the Orion capsule would react to being hit by a foreign object during that process. Thankfully for all at mission control, the impact of the ball used by Harry Kane to take that second penalty against France was minimal.

  Tune into Netflix to catch publicity shy 'Atch and Muggan' reveal how a fairytale romance turned into the Nightmare on Elm Street. Directed and produced all by themselves.