901

HAPPY NEW YEAR
by ABBA

No more champagne,
And the fireworks are through,
Here we are me and you,
Feeling lost and feeling blue;
It's the end of the party,
And the morning seems so grey,
So unlike yesterday,
Now's the time for us to say ...

Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then,
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend,
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes our will to try,
If we don't we might as well lay down and die,
You and I.

Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives,
And I see how it thrives,
In the ashes of our lives;
Oh yes, man is a fool,
And he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay,
Never knowing he's astray,
Keeps on going anyway ...

(Chorus)
Happy New Year
Happy New Year ...

Seems to me now,
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor;
It's the end of a decade,
In another ten year's time,
Who can say what we'll find,
What lies waiting down the line,
In the end of eighty-nine ...

Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then,
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend;
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try,
If we don't we might as well lay down and die,
You and I.

THE UNHAPPY NEW YEAR?
A Naysayer (Anonymous)

Hold the champagne,
Celebrations aren't yet due,
Do we leave the EU?
Do you have a point of view?
It's the end of a sad year,
Many dead: Glenn Frey; Ali;
Bowie; Prince; Michael; Vee;
Wogan; Wilder; Harper Lee.

Happy New Year,
Happy New Year,
If we survive with Trump as President,
Might that loony fogey make the world lament?
Happy New Year,
Happy New Year,
Will the 'Remoaners' have their wish fulfilled?
And keep Britain in a waning EU still?
Maybe they will.

Gosh, now I hear
Tony Blair may re-emerge,
Does he feel a vain urge
To go for a power surge?
Ooh, but he's a known liar,
And we have to douse his fire,
Hey, don't be fooled, he'll aspire
To land his nation in the mire.

Happy New Year
Happy New Year...

I wonder why,
This sad world is full of doom,
Why the hate, why the gloom?
Why does danger always loom?
It's the end of an odd year,
One that has not been serene,
Who knows what waits unseen?
Does the grass look far more green
Now, in twenty-seventeen?

Iffy New Year,
Iffy New Year,
Who'll we see invading who and why?
In a world where death is raining from the sky,
Happy New Year,
Happy New Year,
How many innocents may go to graves,
Afraid, abandoned in a Syrian enclave?
Who's to say.

902

Arriving home, a husband was met at the door by his sobbing wife.

Tearfully she explained, "It's the pharmacist. He insulted me terribly this morning on the phone, and I'd already had to call several times before he even answered it."

Immediately, the outraged husband drove off to see the man and demand an apology.

Before he could utter more than a word or two, the chemist said, "Just a minute, please hear my side of the story.

"This morning my alarm clock didn’t go off, so I was pretty late getting up.

"I went without breakfast and rushed out to my car, only to find I had locked my house with both house and car keys inside, so I had to break a window to retrieve my keys.

"Then, driving a little too fast, I got a speeding ticket. Then, about two miles from the store, I had a flat tyre.

"When I finally got to work late, a crowd of people were waiting for me to open up. I got the store opened and started serving them. All the time the darned phone was ringing.

"Then I had to break open a roll of ten-cent coins against the cash register drawer and they spilled out all over the floor. I had to get down on my hands and knees and pick them all up and the phone was still ringing.

“When I came up I cracked my head on the open cash drawer, which made me stagger back against a display stand with about fifty bottles of perfume on it. Half of them hit the floor and smashed.

"Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing without let up, and when I finally got to answer it, it was your wife. She wanted to know how to use a rectal thermometer.

"And believe me mister, as God is my witness, all I did was tell her.”

Mitch and his good pal Walt decided go on a skiing trip, so they stacked up Mitch's van and headed north.

After travelling for some hours, they got caught in a raging snowstorm, so they pulled into a nearby farm and asked the attractive blonde woman who answered the door if they could shelter there for the night.

'Well,' said the woman, 'I realise that the weather is terrible out there and I happen to have this big house all to myself, but I am recently widowed. All the neighbours will talk if I let you stay in my house.'

'No problem,' Mitch said. 'We'll be happy to bunk down in the barn, and if the bad weather clears up, we'll be gone in the morning.'

The woman agreed, so the men went to the barn and settled in for the night.

Come morning, the weather had cleared and the two companions set off for a fantastic weekend's skiing.

Some nine months later, Mitch got an unexpected letter from a legal firm. It took him a few moments to work it out, but he finally realised it was from the lawyers of the attractive widow they'd met on the skiing trip.

Later that morning, he called at Walt's house and asked, 'Do you recall that fine-looking widow from the farm we stopped at on that skiing trip nine months ago?'

'Yes, I do,' replied Walt.

'Er... did you happen to disappear in the night and go up to the house to pay her a visit?'

'Well... yes,' Walt said, now feeling a bit embarrassed. 'I have to confess, I did.'

'And did you also happen to give her my name instead of yours?'

Walt's face turned as red as a beetroot. 'Gee, I'm so sorry Mitch; I'm afraid I did. Er... why do you ask?'

'Seems she's just died and left me everything.'

902

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

--Cecil Frances Alexander

A Dreadful Matter

With all resources exhausting,
All the birds endangered,
All glacial lands melting,
We must act on behalf of all grandchildren.