It was a pretty amusing Christmas, and I would like to dedicate to the main source of entertainment... my beloved mothership. Yes, the mothership, a force beyond many others to be reckoned with. After a relaxing Christmas day with friends we returned to the homestead to open our presents and to casually get on it, as is traditional across the nation. An extremely pleasant afternoon / evening it was too, and somehow it culminated with my mother sitting on the sofa, glass of wine in hand, listing word she deems as being "common". This is, it would seem, one of her favourite past times, as worryingly when I was regaling this spectacle to some friends the next night in the pub they responded with "oh yeah, we've heard that list. Standard."
I can't remember the exact list - I did make notes at the time but as the casual, socially acceptable drinking continued I think someone burnt them having mistaken them for a log. Easy mistake, could v'e happened to anyone. However, there is one which particularly sticks out in the memory. According to my mum, it is possible to commit social suicide simply by saying, "pleased to meet you". I mean, WTF?!
Unfortunately I was distracted from exposing the horrors of saying "pleased to meet you" as not actually being a perfectly socially acceptable thing to say when you first meet someone as it has been for centuries. Somehow the conversation suddenly bounced onto my Dad being accused of being both homophobic and suppressed because he didn't like Brokeback Mountain. To be fair, Brokeback Mountain is really not my Dad's kind of film. He's old school in his film taste, but he was tricked into going by my mother, who vaguely described it as something to do with cowboys and claimed that it "would probably turn out to be a modern take on a Western". Or not, as the case turned out. Fortunately my Dad did manage to pull through, and is now able to give an accurate and concise summary, as my brother found out when he asked how the film was and was met with the response: "If you want to go and see a film about buggery, well that's the one for you."
Ah, quality family time, you just can't beat it. Roll on next year I say.
