For those with a warped sense of humour WARNING- no punches pulled here

Thank goodness for Bernard the St Bernard and brandy can't remember half of what's been said but that could be the copious amounts of brandy.

The very best of everything for Ems and all that's coming up.

Hilary made me laugh with the take on Wig Wam Bam which brought back memories of nights out with work colleagues. One colleague always got on the dance floor when this came on and did a very embaracing version of the dance so when it came on we all ran to hide in the toilets and disowned her.

Odin translations I use the google translator or my daughters phrase book they are planning a trip to Sweden at some point they have been to Norway and Berlin both in winter which I think is mad give me sunshine every time.

Tim hope the speech goes well and you can bring us all into it.

LM Louise has said it all PLEASE LISTEN you will need your strength for the op.

As for nobhead never ever trust a crocodile by its' smile his halo should be strangling him by now and if it is just him and his wife that cause trouble then should be funny watching him defend you against her.

Bin is at the ready and raring to go think I may need a crash helmet though not done any driving for over 20 years or so and I am sure I will get road rage.Do you think I will need tax and insurance? and I am not sure if I have to apply to the council for planning permission for change of use.

As for builders oh the mess you will be eating dust for days even if you cover everything and shut doors also watch the cats don't try to climb up the chimney fat cat I mean big boned cat might get stuck this happened with one of my  friends cats you know how curious they can be.

Clair de lune my guess is they will paint the windowless room the worse colour you can think of as that's what usually happens so good luck

come on Bernard more brandy hic hic

Cruton xxxxx

Well, when LM said she was knackered, I thought we would have just a few lines! I see you're off to Tunbridge Wells, don't become disgusted!

Louise is right LM, it's one thing to get yourself fit for the operation, but it's another to wear yourself out! Relax and enjoy life. (I think you do anyway!)

Give Ems big hugs from all of us and tell her not to forget we have an experienced escape committee, which is well armed and experienced with one successful mission under our belt.

Good luck with the Devon adventure, I hope the weather's fine and not too cold. Perhaps you could borrow Hils tights as she's not wearing them, or has she lent them out to some jogger?

A wood burner sounds like hard work, let alone the three days to put it in. But they are beautifully warm, shouldn't you have put it in during the summer?

Yes I saw the cat on the pitch at Anfield, it should have won the man of the match award.

Cruton,OAFW,  what are you thinking of! Does an army pay tax and insurance? And as for change of use, we can motorise your recycle bin, because this mission is really about recycling LM back to sanity ... or should that be insanity. Oh and since you are coming from England, bring some free plastic bags with you because we have to pay for ours here.

Where's Bernard, come here boy good dog - THIS BRANDY FLASK IS EMPTY, WAS THAT YOU CRUTON!!!

Claire, everything is crossed for Tom's scans!

As for Mum, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, other than all the other stuff you both have to worry about. As we get older we sometimes say things twice say things twice.

I don't need to say enjoy seeing your niece - of course you will.

Love hugs krams and cwtches to one and all,

Odin xxx

LM has asked me to share this with the class because, she says, she has parents to lie to. From the Grauniad, 26 August 1999 - so if you've seen it before, you'll have long forgotten it:

28 ways to make meetings more interesting

1. Discreetly clasp hold of someone's hand and whisper: "can you feel it?" from the corner of your mouth.

2. Draw enormous genitalia on your notepad and discreetly show it to the person next to you for their approval.

3. When refreshments are presented, immediately distribute one biscuit to each of the attendees, then systematically smash each one with your fist in front of them.

4. Chew tobacco.

5. Wear a hands free phone headset throughout, once in a while drift off into an unrelated conversation, such as: "I don't care if there are no dwarfs, just get the show done!"

6. Write the words 'he fancies you' on your pad and show it to the person next to you while indicating with your pen.

7. Respond to a serious question with: "I don't know what to say, obviously I'm flattered, but it's all happened so fast".

8. Use 'Nam style jargon such as "what's the ETA?", "who's on recon?" and "Charlie don't surf".

9. Reconstruct the meeting in front of you using action figures and when anyone moves re-arrange the figures accordingly.

10. Shave one of your forearms.

11. Draw a chalk circle around one of the chairs, then avoid sitting on it when the meeting starts. When someone does eventually sit in it, cover your mouth and gasp.

12. Turn your back on the meeting and sit facing the window with your legs stretched out. Announce that you "love this dirty town".

13. Walk directly up to a colleague and stand nose to nose with him for one minute.

14. Mount the desk and walk along its length before taking your seat.

15. Reflect sunlight into everyone's eyes off your watch face.

16. Gargle with water.

17. Repeat every idea they express in a baby voice while moving your hand like a chattering mouth.

18. Gradually push yourself closer and closer to the door on your chair.

19. Hum throughout the meeting.

20. Pull out a large roll of bank notes and count them demonstratively.

21. Bend momentarily under the table then emerge wearing contact lenses that white out your eyes.

22. Drop meaningless and confusing management speak into conversations such as:
"What's the margin, Marvin?"
"When's this turkey going to get basted?"
"If we don't get this brook babbling we're all going to end up looking like doe-eyed labradors".

23. Produce a hamster from your pocket and suggest throwing it to one another as a means of idea-exchange.

24. Use a large hunting knife to point at your visual aids.

25. Announce that you've run off some copies of the meeting agenda. Then hand out pieces of paper that read: My secret agenda
1 Trample the weak
2 Triumph alone
3 Invade Poland
Re-collect them sheepishly and ask everyone to pretend they haven't seen them.

26. Attempt to hypnotise the entire room using a pocket watch.

27. When referring to someone in the room always call them your "homey" or "dog".

28. Leave long pauses in your speech at random moments. When someone is prompted to interject shout: "I AM NOT FINISHED".

Ah Hilary, you've done it again, you've made me honk with laughter.  I've seen variations on this and it never fails to make me laugh.

As a person who has to take minutes at VERY important meetings....I can appreciate every suggestion. Sometimes I've been known to make the minutes up because I can't for the life of me remember what everyone was waffling on about....no one reads them anyway.

My particular favourite though is to look at one of the more 'naughty' managers during a very boring monologue, stare at them and mouth 'b*llocks'.....obviously I don't do this with the head of department.

Have you ever heard of meeting Bingo?  There are ruder names for it but I won't go there.  We think of the most over used stupid phrases that the boss will use and score a point for every one we hear.  There's usually a chocolate bar riding on it.

My colleague and I usually scrawl messages to each other during meetings....normally whilst my immediate manager is regaling us with her extensive achievements (yup, the bacon sarnie, track suit wearing manager).....we have her rumbled....shame no one else does.

I shall try to hypnotise the room next time we have a meeting. Or failing this, I'll take my hamster in.

I'll let you know how I get on.

xxx Sarah xxxxx

Thanks for doing that for me Hilary... xxxxx Now, if you could find me a job that doesn't involve parents moaning at you and nobheads, that would be great.

Tired and grumpy so will say hi tomorrow before I go on meeting weekend. Oh god help me. Scary woman is applying for headmasters job (the one who made us express ourselves with crayons and colours) she is also going on the weekend and wants to talk to me about some project we are doing in the car. I was hoping to feign sleep.

Rev up the bin, Cruton I am going to be screaming by Friday night!

Theyd better have wifi there.

Knackerd so off to sleep

Night all... xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Good warpy morning to all and goodness me it's been busy on here since I pooped in oops popped in for a quickie last Saturday.

I've been pretty preoccupied with my mum who isn't coping well at all with her grief. She's becoming angry at me and my siblings and I can't seem to do right, but hey ho just gotta get on with the process. I'm sure things will get better along the way.

Maybe you have some good tips for our biggest problem. Mum kand Dad had a 3 year old dog. My dad was the master and frankly spoilt it completely. Fussed and played with it all day long and took it for 3 walks a day, he adored the mutt. It used to get on my mums nerves and she was actually jealous of it saying it had more attention than she did. Now my dad's gone, the poorl thing is lost. He barks for attention all day and my mum has no control over it. The barking and scratching at peoples legs when they visit is endless and drives mum crazy. Any suggestions appreciated, even warpy ones haha.

Right pass that St Bernard this way slurp, slurp, it's took me a while to catch up on your busy weeks events, now lets try to remember hmmmmmmmmm.

First, I hope respect got through Monday OK and I send you huge hugs and my condolences.

Best wishes to Lesley with her trials and Ems who has tons of busy treatments going on this week, And Toms Ct scan. Good luck to you all and hope I haven't forgot anyone who has treatments.

LM You'll be off to Tunbridge Wells soon, I think cruton has her wheelie bin at the ready, so just sent an SOS and the rescue will proceed. NH, needs to decide which side he's on, I can't be doing with turncoats, not to be trusted eh. Hope you have a good time with Max next week, there's nothing like a nice bit of mum n son time. Big hugs to you 'cos you have such a lot on your plate at the minute, a bit too much i fear!!!

Hils, I hope Judy is over her cold and you are feeling less gloomy than at the beginning of the week. I think perhaps a complete change of direction is what's needed for you when Mr. Crab's been zapped to hell. We all think you'd make a wonderful author, and perhaps you could put your experiences into print. I'd be in the queue for a signed copy.

Odin, Have a wonderful time in Bath, it's a lovely city. I think Tim is challenging you to a bowls match!! He mentioned skittles, but I thought you ate those.

Oh, Hi Tim, Hope your wife is over her lurgy and not passed it to you 'cos you're busy writing speeches. Did you get you suit sorted? Hope the ball goes well and lots of cash is raised.

clair cat lady, What colour scheme was it in the end and was a window painted or smashed into the wall hehe.

OOOh Louise you do hang out at posh places. Good for you, a nice pamper is very theraputic. You certainly know your food and wine so i'll keep quiet as i'm rather a slob myself and a little ignorant. If it's tasty then yummy if it has alcohol then I drink. Ooh dear I really do sound like a slob don't I, i've not done myself any justice or favours there have I? Those survival rates are a thing I try to ignore but they tormented me at the start. Well, you show that it's just a number on a page and we are all individuals so our journeys are all different and i'm so glad yours turned out positive, you're an amazing lady.

Right, i'm off to play with my granson now. I have him for the day 'cos he's broken up from school and mum and dad are busy. Off for childlike fun hurray. Winnie the pooh first i think.

Take care all and have a nice weekend

Love and hugs

Jan xxxxxxxxxxxx

Sarah02 made me laugh, I can remember sitting in so may meeting and writing poems to meself on how I wanted to slit my throat there and then. Also the stuff about writing minutes... I've writtn loads and it's quite true you have to make them up at some point, because you can't read your own writng and it's so cryptic you don't know what it meant even if you could read it!

The workst one was with a group who did everything on Quaker lines and I had toread back everything I had written so everyone could agree if was correct...OMG it would take hours and then when I'd typed ot all up and sent it out they still came back wnating alterations. I only did it twice and that was two times to many.

4 hours in a car with one man singing to himself trying in vain to get us to join in and annyoing woman talking to me and saying how excited she is about this weekend and how much she was looking forward to being away with us and chatting and catching up etc etc. I pretended to go to sleep when he started singing.

But, we arrived and the man said Oh its steak for dinner and would you like a glass of wine or beer while you wait? Things were looking up... yummy3 course  dinner with choice of puddings etc. The other woman is an old colleague from about 15 years ago and good fun so I chatted to her and escaped annoying woman. Nice double bed in own ensuite room, just a shame we have to work. the woman wants to check our files of which mine is rather empty so better go and do that in a minute...

The man gave us a 'joke' sheet to fill in over the weekend called three letter acromym bingo. Oh Beelzebub you have surpassed yourself this time in your cruelty... you know, things like qts I could think of quite a few rude answers but restrained myself. I did say could there be a prize for the funniest one we could think of which he liked, but I think smeowknrteamotb  (stab my eyes out with knitting needles rather than endure another minute of this bollocks is a bit long and might not win somehow....

He did that ghastly thing of saying that speak of no I in team type stuff.... I'm not interested in teaching and teaching you how to be teachers (hoorah can we go home then??) Oh no, I am interested in learning......

Its going to be a long weekend.... Cruton rev up that bin or I may end up in prison....

I'm a warpity get me out of here!

Little My xxxxx

Oh oh ohhhhh!!!!!! I just got a message from annette... remember her?????? Barry fan!?

She said she had biopsies for lumps which were clear but she found another lump.... a baby lump! She's pregnant!!

Now, there is some good news to cheer you all up... !

xxxxx

Cruton, things are getting desperate! we need to activate Operation GLMOOT imm ediately. I hope you're not snowed in; has LM given you the coordinates for your satnav (Can't lend you mine it's broken).

In the meantime LM, gather as much information about these different types as possible, it might come in useful for dealing with fellow patients when you are in hospital.

Was it really Kumbaya? It will be American Pie on the way home if we don't deal with this now.

We won't rescue you before dinner (just typed donner, but you're not having kebabs) but probably after dark when everyone is sleeping and we only have the guards and the machine gun turrets to deal with. We can attack the turrets with portable circular saws, if we cut one leg off they should topple over ( the turrets or the guards). I know the noise of the circular saws will rouse the whole camp, but would you attack a man with a circular saw? ... thought not! We will need four extension leads about 100 metres long, can you plug them in and dangle them out of your window.

Stay in your room until you hear the signal to leave - an owl hooting; there shouldn't be any owls in Tunbridge Wells, so we shouldn't have a false alarm. You can abseil down one of the extension leads and make your way swiftly to the getaway bin.

In the meantime let's all keep our spirits up by raising a glass to Annette or better still two glasses, one for being all clear and one for baby Annette ( or Antonio). Thankyou for sharing such great news!

Best welsh cwtches and stor kram,

Odin xxx

PS, well there had to be one didn't there, An owl hoot is like hoots of laughter but more serious.