Eggs on the lawn at dawn?

It's a Lancashire New Years Eve/Day tradition, probably replicated elsewhere in the country. Following the excesses of New Years Eve, breakfast on the New Year Dawn is welcome to many.

It's 23rd November and if I hear one more in-store Christmas song, hymn or other ditty, I might just fail to resist the temptation to turn these items into a suppository! The television and radio obsess with unrepeatable deals (until next time) and "must-have" items for all.

We don't get this nonsense for Diwali, Ramadan or any other "faith" group celebration. I use the terms "faith group" advisedly, not to insult anyone. Christmas is a Christian festival to commemorate the birth of the Christ, if that's what you believe in. I can't quite figure out where the excesses of finance, gluttony, alcohol, spending money people don't have, on things the recipients don't want, let alone to consider the so called "entertainment" on television? Get me out of here, I've had enough already.

As the good Mr Ebeneezer Scrooge said, "Celebrate Christmas in your way, and leave me to celebrate it in mine".

So in the true spirit of the Season of Goodwill to All Men (are women excluded?- my life will be even more miserable at Christmas if so!) Easter 2011 will fall on Sunday 24th April 2011. A Happy Easter to all, and please note that in the New Year you will be able to order on-line from our new on-line sweet shop. It was going to be called "Get Stuffed with chocolate", but we had a rethink, as it sounded a little aggressive. I reckon we're the first to get in with Easter next year. Beaten Marks & Sparks, anyway. This isn't just Easter, this is NPS Easter.

By the way, even though these events come around every year, why is it that so many companies seem caught out and struggle to cover the dates around Christmas and Easter, let alone summer holidays? Saving money? Don't think so. Book it now, have done with it and enjoy a mortar and pestle shaped "morsel" from our portfolio.

Happy Halloween to you all - it's in the pipeline! Only 300 and something days to go. Get your trick or treats ready now, at special unrepeatable prices.

Inciting terrorism?

On all the news channels, newspapers and media, it seems that we in England at least have sunk to a new low! A plot is uncovered to strike at the heart of our democracy, religious zealots hijacking the cause of religion to turn the mainstream majority into a frenzy of hatred. We are at the highest state of alert, with all the forces of national security and state machinery being turned against the suspected perpetrators of such an awful plot.

Sounds familiar, it could be any day since 9/11 or 7/7.

Worse, there are many who celebrate! They party, they commemorate that the thought of this potential outrage, this terrorist atrocity, this audacious attempt to set citizen against citizen, to fuel racial and religious hatred the world over. It is truly a scandal. And yet there is the potential for these horrible people to be remembered long after the meaning of what they believed in, that which led them to believe in their hearts that the ends justified the means, to enter into the collective memory and be celebrated, to be glorified, not vilified. The people of New York, of Mumbai, or Darfour, will remember crucial dates for ever, the dates etched into their hearts with sadness, with memories of innocent loved ones lost in ultimately pointless acts of evil. Time heals these wounds, it appears. Let us hope so.

London and Britain remember too, what could have been the greatest terrorist atrocity of all on these shores, had it succeeded. 5/11.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. Are we guilty as charged?