Middle Finger Smart Champagne on TV

I'm starting to wonder whether our 'smart meter' is listening on our conversations. Time to get the tinfoil hat out, methinks.

I heard some sweetie manufacturer on the news talking about a proposed ban on sweetie advertising on TV before a certain time. He said TV advertising depends heavily on sweetie adverts and if they were to be banned it would reduce the number of TV stations as they battled for the reduced advertising revenue. Looking at the utter tripe that's on TV at present, compared to the quality we had when there were only 3 or 4 channels, I can't help feeling that would be no bad thing. More choice has been a disaster for quality of TV programming.

Talking of TV, have you noticed how the commercial channels pad out some of the time after the adverts by reprising the story so far, as if the viewer has the attention span of a gnat? Mind you, for some of these TV stations the viewers must have the brains of gnats.

Apparently English bubbly is the best in the world, according to a blind tasting conducted in Champagne itself, of all places. The oenophiles believe we'll be a major exporter by 2100. Can you imagine Black Country Bubbly ('it's great' - said in a thick, Brummie accent) with a picture of Noddy Holder or Ozzy Osbourne on the label?

When we were driving last weekend, someone in a car coming the opposite direction waited for us to pass an obstruction. On drawing parallel with the other driver, Hay gave the traditional wave of thanks. Once we had passed I put up my middle finger and Hay asked why I'd done that and I recounted a story from my youth. When I was a small kid, my old man was a new driver on British roads, as well as being an immigrant not conversant with UK road etiquette. Anyway, he didn't wait for an oncoming driver when still getting to to grips with driving in the UK, and the other driver gave him the middle finger. Poor old dad thought it was a gesture of thanks, and for a while he indicated his thanks to other driver by giving them the finger too. The more he did it, the more other drivers responded similarly. He was convinced that English drivers were the most polite on the road. He was mortified when he discovered the truth.