113. A cute picture and a few words

A-A-A-H!
Our friend Jan Bennett forwarded us this Picture of The Year.
Don't know who first sent it or to whom.
And I'm not much of a believer.
But it's a gem, ain't it.

NOVEMBER AGAIN.
Yep! November again. The little front garden and the rear courtyard full of holy leaves from the nearby church, educated leaves from the school opposite and neighbourly leaves from further along the terrace.
Me sweeping, cursing, roundly objecting that I have no trees and fully aware that I am back to my autumn (US: fall) Groundhog Day.
Ah well, there are plently of poor old devils who cannot walk around their garden unaided, let alone sweep it.
I count myself lucky.

MAGIC FOR 75p.
My Leader came across it quite by chance.
It was hanging alone on a peg at the end of a sale line in M & S.
It was a Spiderman helmet/mask which had apparently lost its outfit and it was priced at 75 pence (which I think is currently 1.11 USD).
It was presented to Grandson Ellis (3) who is obtaining wicked enjoyment from it.
We now have Spiderman leaping from behind doors; crawling on his belly across floors which have imaginatively been transformed into the walls of skyscrapers; firing web strands at us from between the first and little fingers of each hand and happily answering to the name Peter Parker.
He has the full outfit - the pyjamas too - but never mind that: best of all he has what he cheerfully refers to as "My hat."
Oh, every now and then he pulls it off to reveal a beaming face and tell us, like LeClair in Allo Allo, "It's me!"
We look suitably surprised. Gosh! It's not Peter Parker!
75 pence worth of magic.

I MISS THIS SOFTLY SPOKEN ASSASSIN.
Some time ago Stephen Fry, who presumably only appeared for the money, explained why he disliked critics and persuaded Paul Merton to consign the outspoken critic and poet Tom Paulin to Room 101.
Even if he heard about it (and doubtless some unwell wisher will have told him) I cannot imagine that Dr.Paulin was unduly concerned.
He has faced far worse.
Since then, though, I have seen him but once on Newsnight Review (BBC2).
I wonder why.
Is he too busy at Oxford?
Has he felt that he must slow down?
Has he been declared persona non grata by some pillock in power at the BBC?
Whatever.
I miss this softly spoken assassin's amiable appearance at eleven o'clock of a Friday night.
His fellow critic Germaine Greer is seldom seen now, either.
Pity.
They could so be relied upon to disagree.

TWO SPECIAL SCORPIOS.
Last week my Leader reached the age of 65 and became entitled to monotonously moan about everybody and everything: forever.
Today our granddaughter Jess is thirteen and entitled to sulk for England for the next six years.
Neither of 'em will do any such thing of course.
Not in our house they won't.

THINGS PEOPLE SEND.
Jokes, pictures and trivia still arrive in my email as the above picture shows.
Most of it is amusing, some of it touching, a little of it irksome.
I am seldom shocked and quite often intrigued.
Try this if you have not already seen it:

Click Here:

Unusual Puzzle

And as the comedian Jimmy Wheeler used to say, "Aye aye, that's your lot!"