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===  Laird-Watson Gazette ===

(Formerly The Watson-Laird Gazelle)

Christmas 2004 Erudition

UK Reg’d as an Irritating Christmas Newsletter

Now even cheaper than ever!!!

Usually takes a year, but rushed through in just three days

Bah! Humbug!

Firstly, Merry Christmas to every one whom we haven’t seen since this time last year.

INSIDE: Free Gifts…

PLUS!!!  How to:

Recycle Unwanted Presents...

Get Christmas for Free…

Reuse old calendars…

…and other lies

Back Issues: See www.ebay.co.uk

The Laird-Watson Gazette is set in 12pt Times They Are A Roman’. All copy is © 2004 The Editors.

…and new this year –

Readers’ stories about pretending to be out when guests visit.

Editorial

What does the man in the street think of Xmas newsletters? See inside.  Find out what we think…

Page Three Bared – Page 3!

SPORT RESULTS - in sport injuries!!

FREE Inside!! The inside pages!!!

Xmas Scandal!!!

Have you ever recycled one of last year’s cards by sending it to someone with the same name???

Entertainment

Helen, 9, daughter of the sister of Martin’s girlfriend caused a sensation in her acting debut as a chorus girl in the Webber-Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Education

Christpher, 10, son of the sister of Martin’s girlfriend, (and brother of Helen, 9, daughter of the sister of Martin’s girlfriend) had his life turned upside down when he changed school, apparently a regular occurrence for boys of his age.  Mother and son are both doing well.

Child Care

Esther,  1.9, polyglot, daughter of yet another of Alice’s relatives, and his wife Celine, spoke her first words, “Maman, where’s my Eng-Fre, Fre-Eng dictionary, s’il tu plâit?

Government Roundup

Alice, pushing 40, was reported earlier this year as having been given an acting promotion.  While we here at the Gazette thought that that meant she was to be the new Teletubby, we later heard that she was successfully reinterviewed for the position and we offer our commiserations, and wish her well on her unchartered course.  (There was a librarian joke there somewhere.)

Editorial

The increasing increase in the number off so-called Round Robin letters is, once again, on the increase this year.  We look at ours in detail...

Who are these people?

Why are they telling me this?

OK, so they can use a Desk Top Publishing package.

Don’t they know how to hold a pen?

Aren’t we worth first-hand material?

Isn’t that something they should keep to themselves?

They must have money to burn!!

Do we still know THEM?!

Isn’t that an awful typeface?

It’s a boast by post!!

I bet they microwave the pudding!

Last Year’s Reviews

Can we have it more often? – Kat

I don’t normally like them but yours is so good. - HRH Prince Philip

I never knew there was so much in it! – Radio Times

A great roller-coaster of a novel packed with sizzling gypsies – Sir Edmund Blackadder

I don’t like Jeffrey Archer. – Mary Archer

Shropshire

Those game young rabbits Martin & Alice became Bunnies at Easter when they visited Shropshire. Martin, temporarily A Shropshire Lad (Groan, groan) visited car boot sales, junk shops, and bars while his erstwhile companion, Alice, temperature 98.6, enjoyed a more down to earth holiday.

Corsica

After several summer holidays in the mechanical puzzle havens of the world, Alice, hat size 7, put her foot down and chose this idyllic Mediterranean island as the holiday resort of the poor and unknown. One of Martin’s latest intriguing designs represented him at this year’s Puzzle Party in Tokyo.

It was also reported that Martin, English tourist, made a total fool of himself, and nearly got arrested.  After mistakenly pointing out a new holiday friend to Alice, he claims that the following day he turned to her, in a shop, caressed her bare shoulder, and said, “That’s the lady I got confused about last night.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t Alice’s shoulder. The 60 year-old shoulder’s owner dashed wildly from the shop.

Christchurch

This unassuming Hampshire town was visited by local real ale connoisseur Martin in July. His partner Alice, blonde, took him there as part of a birthday surprise.  Unassuming ocal residents were surprised.  After several yards of real ale, Martin was heard to say, “Christchurch has three sets of Ch in it.” He was then escorted home.

Page Three Bird

.This lovely flighty young thing is Robin.  She hails from a garden near you, and is proud to preen for you in her skimpy winter feathersShe likes picking up worms, holidays in S. Africa, doing charity work and having her breast admired.  She dislikes cats and modelling for Xmas cards.

Financial News

Local IT nerd, webmaster, entrepreneur, raconteur, and bon viveur Martin has announced plans to start his own IT business, SafetyOnTheInternet, with the aim of providing Internet safety advice to worried parents. Speaking from his den, Martin, still only in his mid-forties, said, “It came to me in a flash over several days while I was in hosptal earlier this year.  (See separate article elsewhere.) People had been telling me to get a proper job, and it all just started there. I am on a business start-up course and the only place to start is at the beginning.” We wish the young fellow well. See the ad in the classified section. – ED.

Medical News

Martin, size 9 shoes, confounded medical experts early in 2004 by successfully surviving a Laparoscopic Cholystectomy, an operation in which he donated his gall-stones, and the little bag they came in.  His entourage of Filipino nurses said. “He had a very nice back, and we were pleased to see it.”

Computer News

If you haven’t updated your computer virus checker THIS WEEK, please don’t send us an electronic Christmas card. Also, see below.   Our website now gets over 300 unique visitors a day, one in the eye for those bigshots at Microsoft.

(For advertising rates please contact the Press Office.)   AGB circulation figures exceed 25¾  .

Cracker Humour –

There’s these two atoms walking down the street. One trips (it must be those Teddington pavements!) and says, “I think I just dropped an electron.”  His friend says, “Are you sure?”, to which the first replies, “Yes, I’m POSITIVE.”

A goose is a silly bird -- too much for one and too little for two. - Tesco

Well, that’s about it for 2004, if we haven’t managed to offend you, sorry, maybe next year. Right now we’re off to winter at our homestead in the hills, the old Bar Humbug ranch, unless Alice meets David Blunkett in the Home Office lift.

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