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All posts by Malcolm Toogood

Lockdown 3 – Attack of the Mutants

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on January 5, 2021
Posted in: Latest Blog, Laughs in the Lockdown.

Like all trilogy franchises, the first one was quite successful but the follow-up was hopeless; meaning the third has come-along quite quickly.  So welcome to Lockdown 3 – Attack of the Mutants!

Adversity always brings out the best in people, and regular readers will know that during the first two lockdowns, I shared some of their humour with you to brighten the long days in isolation.  However, my other passion is music, so this time I have decided to try some of that to lift spirits through what could be a long winter.  So, taking the cue from my favourite DJs Radcliffe & Maconie, I started a Lockdown Chain on my Facebook page – every day a track with a tenuous link to the previous day until we are finally free again to go to real live gigs.   You can also follow this over on my Music Blog autodiscography.co.uk.

 

Laughs of Lockdown 2 – Return to House Arrest

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on November 6, 2020
Posted in: Laughs in the Lockdown.

 Adversity always brings out the best in people, and I am lucky in having a lot of friends with a good sense of humour.  After we went into the first lockdown in March, I shared some of that humour with you – some light, some a bit dark, and some just plain daft.  But it all brightened the long days in isolation.

So, now that we are back to the future, so to speak, it is time for episode two.  It will run until this latest aberration is supposed to end in four weeks’ time, or whenever it finally extends to.  Regardless, let’s hope it’s the last episode!
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Come on Cancelled – Here Boy!!

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on July 18, 2020
Posted in: Flake News, Latest Blog.

cancelled

So, when the time comes to sidle off this mortal coil, the very least any living being might hope for is a small plaque physically-fixed somewhere on their home planet to mark that they actually existed for a relatively-fleeting moment of its history – and that they meant something to the someone who took the time to mark their memory for posterity.

But what if, sometime in the future, someone else completely unconnected with either party, decides that the very name that being was known by, the essence of their identity, has become offensive to future sensibilities?  Will that being’s plaque simply be removed from existence, thus cancelling them forever?  Well, that is what has just happened to the dog who was the wartime mascot of the RAF’s famous 617 Squadron – The Dambusters. Continue Reading

Laughs in the Lockdown

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on May 31, 2020
Posted in: Latest Blog, Laughs in the Lockdown.

 They say that adversity brings the best out in people.  Well, I guess I am lucky in having a lot of friends, both long-standing and online, who have a sense of humour.  So after we went into lockdown on March 23rd 2020, many of them started sharing that humour with me.  Some of it is light, some a bit dark, and some just plain daft.  But it all brightens the long days in isolation.

I started sharing the best one or two every day, and was rewarded with a load of shares back.  Then, whilst clearing-out a cupboard, I came across a set of old books I have had since the ‘sixties, containing omnibus collections of random jokes. They provided the inspiration for starting this blog, compiled from a contemporary selection of the best from every day’s input from my friends during this lockdown.  It will run for as long as we need it.
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VE Day Time Capsule

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on May 8, 2020
Posted in: Latest Blog, Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

Today is the 75th anniversary of VE Day, and there will be many recollections published I’m sure.  I wasn’t born then, so I can only defer to my parents’ recollections, which were few – their generation did a good job of shielding us from the horrors they experienced.  However, the odd ‘time capsule’ still emerges.

A few months ago while sorting through some old papers left behind by my father-in-law, we found an envelope with some letters in that were not his.  The note on the outside read: letters found down the backs of chairs.  He was an upholsterer, and obviously used to find all manner of stuff that way which he gave back to the owners. But these must have come from jobs for antique dealers who had no use for them.  One was a small envelope stamped Bath, May 1945.  Inside was a four page letter sent to Harold and signed ‘Madam’.  It reads as follows: Continue Reading