So we are in to the quiet season now, pub quizzes on hold, no KBDG meetings and Chuffer off to Malta for three weeks (or is it four?).

Well I did have a little mini-break in Stratford-upon-Avon last week, the nearest thing to doing anything theatrical of late, and very nice it was too. We did live in Stratford for a short period in the seventies and I’m ashamed to say the only production I have ever seen at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is Peter Pan.

We did come near to going again to the said theatre some years ago on a Drama Group weekend away but the weekend we picked there was nothing on so that was that.

So as another year rumbles to a close I wish you, dear reader, a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Next year will hopefully improve matters drastically as if there is any justice in the world Gordon Brown and his incompetent team will be cast into oblivion and we can get on with re-building this once great isle.

Final word on drama for this year, our first production for 2010 is to be The Female of the Species by Joanna Murray-Smith. The synopsis is as follows.

Margot Mason is a feminist writer suffering from writer’s block; she can not meet the deadlines for her next book. Molly Rivers, a deranged former student of Margot’s, arrives unexpectedly at her country home with a gun and handcuffs Mason to her desk. Molly blames Margot for warping her mother’s mind with her hit book The Cerebral Vagina. Following Margot’s advice, Molly’s mother gave Molly away as a baby so that she wouldn’t be enslaved by motherhood and then killed herself. Molly has had herself sterilized to preserve her creativity, only to be told by Margot that she has no talent.

Margot’s daughter Tess arrives, exhausted from her house full of children. Margot has accused Tess of throwing her life away to embrace the role of housewife. Tess agrees that her mother should be shot. Tess’s sensitive stockbroker husband, Bryan also arrives to debate the virtues of Margot’s best-sellers, her inconsistent philosophy, and her inability to “mother”. Even a macho taxi driver (Frank) and her flamboyantly gay publisher (Theo) comment on Margot’s feminist failings.

My job is done.

Finally a catholic friend of mine was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, 'Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!'

Miraculously, a parking place appeared. He looked up again and said, 'Never mind, I found one.'