dolores666's photos with the keyword: Friends&Family

Things seem to be going from bad to worse to bloody ghastly. Now, don’t get me wrong, I never cared half a rotten fig for Roald Dahl. He was a mean little man and his stories were nasty, banal and predictable. But, as Voltaire never really said, I would go to the barricades to defend his right to say wherever he pleased, including writing about fat women or witches with wigs. And the rot is expanding, like a vulgar universe. It would seem that Prevent has a section, possibly called The Holier-Than-Thou Anglo-Saxon Inquisition, that is giving hints that Shakespeare, Orwell and, yes, you heard it right, poor old Huxley (Aldous, that is) should be either expurgated or actually altogether excised from schools curricula in case they might “radicalize” students. And I’m not even getting started with the one about the C. of E. considering changing the Lord’s Prayer pronouns! (What it’ll be, then? Our Parent, who might or might not be in A Very Safe Place...etc.?) The mind boggles. So, rather than lose the will to live, I’m taking my big fat bloody foreigner’s female ass to have tea with the Ultra Hippo and his pal the Graphically Modified Clipart Teddy. I don’t much care for tea but they are very kind and they always have coffee at the ready for yours truly. That’s what I call true tolerance. Have a spiffing week.

Never say die! Friends old and new have dropped in, defying the “distancing” diktat and two-fingering the engineered paranoia, to celebrate the fact that I’m still around, alive -if not well, and pretty much as they left me last year; that is unrepentant and obnoxious. They have brought me the usual gifts. You know: flowers (or flehs, as Primus calls them), Godivas by the boxful, mock pearls, and so on. Also, the new little Black Poppet*, the vessel that contains what I most need in these trying and tiring days: Infinite Patience. The ineffable Black Goat of the Woods with Far Too Many Riotous Churumbeles, has attended again. And, lo! She’s smiling!!! Admittedly, it is a wicked smile but all the same, it’s astonishing. I suspect she’s beginning to develop a sense of fun. Really, I don’t know what the Final Void is coming to. A bonus this year has been that as well as receiving gifts, I have had the chance to make one present. A much wanted one, too. There, all is fluffy. Have the customary un po’ di mu’ and stay awkward, stay silly and stay sane. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzZqeWNpe3U *The little Black (Voodoo) Poppet has a White Twin who will make her debut soon. El que avisa no es traidor

There’s a first for everything, obviously. Never done this sort of “for the Family Album” thingumybob collage stuff before. So here it is, a tribute to some people who have not only amused, inspired, moved me and made me think (the bastard…), but somehow have strengthened not only my resolve to live one more day (one at the time, easy does it) but to live it as if I was going to live forever. And as I was cobbling together this Rogues Gallery, sodden with the images and thoughts that each character brought back from the bottom of my erratic memory, I kept on humming bits from The Mikado, especially the one that starts with: There is beauty in extreme old age….. And goes on to ask: Are you old enough to marry, do you think? Won’t you wait till you are eighty in the shade? There’s a fascination frantic In ruin that’s romantic. Do you think you are sufficiently decayed? And today’s deep mystical question is: Can Gilbert and Sullivan be classed as a guilty pleasure? Answers on an e-postcard, please