And a very Happy Christmas to you all! Don’t worry – it will be over before you know it!
Christmas at our household started as it often does – we were invaded by an infestation of carol singers on Tuesday evening. About a dozen or so of our lovely neighbours rang the doorbell and serenaded us with a topical tune. I was all in favour of switching the lights off and hiding behind the sofa but Penny wasn’t having any of that sort of behaviour. In any event, she had prepared mulled wine and a platterful of very tasty nibbles with which to fortify the singers. In my view this was a very poor strategy as they all piled into our kitchen and then felt obliged to give us another tune. Soon, though (after the wine had disappeared and all the nibbles been consumed) they set off around the rest of the top end of the village similarly harassing other households. For some reason, Penny decided to join them. She rolled home several hours later having been wined and dined at a number of other households. Apparently, they finished with hot chocolate laced with brandy – after that they weren’t in a fit state to do any more damage. Oh well, it does come round only once a year. Apart, that is, from the Carols on the Green tonight. Can I get away with turning all the lights off this time?
I had the pleasure of another visit to the Pie Pub on Wednesday with a good friend from our former acquaintance with the gym. It was he who introduced me to it some weeks ago and there are still twenty or so pies I need to try. This time I had the BBQ beef, Bacon and Cheese pie which was excellent! I will certainly try some more on future occasions but the Roast Chicken, Honey, Roast Parsnips & Fresh Sage one will definitely not be dirtying my plate.
Friday, of course, was my birthday – many thanks to all of you who shared good wishes – I really do appreciate it. Penny had been cooking for the better part of two days preparing a birthday feast which will probably take us at least a week to get through. Thankfully, Nick, Lucy & Annabelle and Adam, Ava, Jessie and Julieta came over to help me get through some of the food and wine and we all had a most excellent evening. Jessie brought her guitar and, for the after-dinner entertainment, she and I performed a couple of rousing duets. She is really getting very good – I think we’ll be performing publicly soon.
As it’s Christmas I probably shouldn’t include a “You Could Not Make It Up.”
But the latest in the Michelle Mone saga is simply too good to pass up. Final rant of the year?
You may remember, Michelle Mone is a Baroness, made a member of the House of Lords by David Cameron for, presumably, services to lingerie. (She made a name for herself by founding a successful lingerie firm). You may also remember that, during the early days of the pandemic, she offered to supply PPE “through her team in Hong Kong.” The government ministers whom she lobbied quickly put her into the VIP procurement lane and she ended up winning contracts to supply PPE for something in the region of £200 million. Of course, the government has always insisted, all contracts for PPE during the pandemic were subject to rigorous vetting.
The funny thing is – the company she was promoting, PPE Medpro, did not even exist when she first made her pitch to government ministers. It was incorporated a few days afterwards and had no assets, no employees and no history. Nevertheless, it was given contracts worth about £200 million on which it made profits of around £60 million.
When it was first suggested she might have personally benefitted from these contracts she (a) took a leave of absence from the House of Lords to “clear her name,” (b) denied that she or her husband had any connection with the company and (c) threatened legal action via her lawyers against anyone who suggested that she was connected in any way with the company or that she and her husband personally benefitted from the contracts.
Now, in an interview with the BBC, she has admitted that she lied. She was connected with the company and she and her husband did indeed personally benefit to the tune of £60 million. Apparently, she only lied to protect her family from media intrusion and insisted that lying was not a crime and that she wasn’t trying to “pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.” Hmm, I rather thought that was the point of lying – to deceive someone or, in other words, to pull the wool over their eyes.
You will undoubtedly be surprised to learn that she has form in this area.
- It turns out she embellished her CV with a number of qualifications to get one of her first jobs as Head of Marketing at Labatt brewery in Scotland.
- a former operations director for MJM (the lingerie company she founded) won a claim for unfair dismissal after discovering that Mone had authorised electronic bugging of his office.
- She threatened to sue her critics when it was revealed that her company had paid a substantial sum of money into a controversial tax avoidance scheme which was later deemed to be illegal. Naturally, she said she had not done anything wrong.
- She promoted a weight loss pill [without revealing that she owned a 50% stake in the company] by claiming that the efficacy of the product had been proven in clinical trials. However, when questioned further, she said that approximately 60 users had completed a questionnaire but she was then unable, for some reason, to produce the results.
As it happens, the PPE which Medpro supplied was rejected as unfit for purpose and the government is taking the company to court to try and recover the lost millions.
You could not make this shit up. But when it comes to the Tories, it seems you can make up almost anything.
And finally, most of you should, by now, have received our Christmas newsletter either electronically or through the post. If not, consider yourself fortunate. However, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can access this year’s “crass and vulgar” newsletter here. Sorry.
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, keep exercising, be good, be careful, and keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg