Every village and town boasts little old teashops with waitresses in black uniforms and white aprons who carry little notepads and pencils and serve the tea from trays. Yet is possible to forget the tradition of afternoon tea for months or years.

However, once in a while, after a walk, or on holiday you can suddenly find yourself sipping hot tea and eating cucumber sandwiches, and while you do so you always vow that it is so nice that you will do it regularly.

A bone china tea service sits on a pure white tablecloth. The tea is piping hot and strong and there are cucumber sandwiches, scones with strawberry jam and cream and a selection of cakes and biscuits. The experience is artistic, gentle, relaxing and sociable.

Maybe the answer to our binge drinking culture is to close pubs early and encourage tea shops to stay open 24 hours.

Fox hunting is banned while intensive farming of chicken and pigs continues.

Two top chefs campaign against intensively farmed chickens while battery farming in which the chickens are kept in even worse conditions, is not mentioned.

The Government has a plan to extend the school day while promoting the work-life balance which encourages families to spend more time together.

Surveillance cameras everywhere help the police to bring criminals to justice.  Unfortunately there are not enough prisons to house them.

People can be prosecuted for creating a disturbance, or being noisy; but not if it is shops using the mosquito device to target youngsters.

Doctors, health professionals and youth workers give condoms to young people under the age of sixteen although the legal age of consent is sixteen.

The Government is trying to discourage our binge drinking culture a couple of years after changing licensing laws to allow pubs and clubs to stay open for 24 hours.

You can go to hospital to get well, and finish up more ill than you were in the first place.

Those that claim benefits unlawfully can be prosecuted but MP Derek Conway can use his parliamentary allowance to pay two of his sons thousands of pounds for checking emails and stuffing envelopes ‘apparently.’

We have a national obesity problem among children and young people, yet McDonalds has been approved to develop courses up to the equivalent of an A-level.

My litte Rover Metro has finally decided to call it a day and hang up his number plates after chugging me around town, on trips to Devon and Cornwall, days out in London and faithfully ferrrying me to work in other Sussex towns.

Now he (well you wouldn’t have a girl Rover now would you?) is leaking oil in great drips which make him seem as though he is bleeding, which a mechanic said was due to a cracked oil tank. Then there is the radiator which will soon need attention and is only currently held with some radiator leak stopping stuff (you can tell I’m mechanically minded can’t you?) His suspension is so low that I have to come to a halt and inch over sleeping policemen who stilll often graze his bottom. Then there are other problems like rust on the bodywork and high mileage which I have been warned about. The car itself cost less than half of what it will cost to put right and as an M reg I’ve been advised to let it go to the car burial ground (scrap heap.)

I will have to do without a car for the time being and keep trying to encourage myself with green thoughts, but it’s easier said than done when I often lug play equipment and junk around for children’s workshops, and live in a village.

Having had other bangers who have had to be scrapped, I know that there will be that wrench, as though the car were a real friend, when it first gets taken away followed by the feeling that I have forgotten something every time I go outside, and then suddenly realise I am now carless (I shouldn’t car-a-less, but I do!)

I’ve just watched some innovative, funny creative television that is NOT reality TV, a talent show or stars competing in a skill that they have no training for, such as ice skating or singing.

‘Thank God You’re Here’ relies on actors and comedians to think on their feet and react to whatever situation is thrown at them. Its concept is slightly similar to old favourite ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway,’ I can honestly say it is the first programme I have really enjoyed for a long time.

We have humour, creative actors and comedians, great writers and a culture that lends itself to comedy so why we have so much crap TV is a mystery.

Let’s hope that the tide is turning, the wicked witch of reality and sub standard TV is dead and novel, exciting, interesting entertaining programmes will herald television Spring.

Some people prefer margarine and others prefer butter. I dislike margarine because its texture and colour is supposed to emulate butter and yet it is nothing like butter. The ‘buttery taste’ copies are not butter like, they are just a smudge nearer than ordinary margarine.

Vegetarian bacon, burgers or sausages should not really exist at all because there is no such thing. They also taste nothing like the meat they are emulating but vegetarians have no basis for comparison.

Fakes never match the original whether it is food, a painting or the latest offering of TV’s huge bucket of competitive star, wannabe, talent or skill programmes, ‘The One and Only.’ I have never understood why anyone would want to create a tribute act or band rather than something original. Even less do I understand the reasoning behind a programme where the winner; having been voted through each week and gone through all the highs and lows of the performances; only gets to be a copy of someone famous, something they were doing already.

Talking of pantomimes, my theatre company periodically mulls over the idea of performing one. Ideally it would be tailor made for our small underground theatre and some of the characters in our group of amateur thespians.

So I have decided to write one.   I have a hefty task before me, because in order to aim for a pantomime for this December, or January 09 I need to have it written, rewritten and ready to roll by May, when we start choosing our winter production.   I will also want to direct it which will be novel as I have not directed before.

Anyway my plan is to try and complete it by then and to post the odd excerpt here on Crazy Brits, in the hope that some of you will be kind enough to post some comments and give me some feedback.

Writing a pantomime fits in quite well with ‘Crazy Brits’ or at least this Crazy Brit, and hopefully you’ll enjoy getting glimpses of it along the way.

I have chosen ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ The Emperor is vain, obviously, but ultimately a ‘goodie’ with an evil brother….BOOO!   I may not be able to talk any of my am dram friends into appearing nude so it may have to be some lary shorts or something…ideas please.

With regard to this, it is the month, and not the country.  January everwhere is dreary whether it’s hot dry and dreary,  windy, wintery and dreary, blisteringly, baking and dreary, or snowy, freezing and dreary.  I know we are cold wet and dreary but hey, we brighten it all up with pantomimes which is more than can be said for anywhere else!

I read this:-‘I have achieved my long held dream of sleeping till I wake up for nine whole months,’ and realized I could do this even if I had to be somewhere at the crack of dawn, provided of course that I go to bed early enough.

I’m normally an owl, happy to stay up until the wee hours but sluggish and dozy in the mornings even if I have had a good and early night. In these dark winter nights it is easy to want to go to bed early, but it won’t turn me into a lark.

Actually when it continues the saga i’ve already had so far this month then yes there bloody is!

I try to avoid making New Year’s resolutions but Christmas consumerism condensed my hatred of shopping into thoughts of action and I’ve decided to do a monthly basics (loo rolls, dog food, tins and pasta etc) shop online so it gets delivered. If I run out I’ll try to do without unless they sell it at my little post office-cum-newsagents which sells a few grocery staples.

Then every week I’ll get an organic box delivered - i’ve discovered a very ethical farm who does this less than a mile from me - they also do organic free range eggs.

Finally i’m getting milk, in a glass bottle, delivered to my doorstep. Now this is a wonderful British tradition. Little milk floats chunkering down the streets and the sound of a cheerful whistle and the clink of bottles on the doorstep. I’m sure milk tastes better out of glass rather than plastic!

Mission will hopefully be accomplished as shops are avoided as much as possible, certainly the big stores.   I’m using local providers, which may be more expensive but I figure avoiding shops and trips to supermarkets to get things will save a fortune in getting sidetracked by special offers, hunger pangs etc.  I’ll also avoid the stress of coping with the huge choice of products, the heaving masses and  endless queues.

But today I’m not firing on all cylinders and still feel weak as a kitten with hopeless coordination. After phoning the milk company to find that they mistook my message and left my milk two doors down, I took Heek for a walk and picked up the 2 pints on my return, hoping that nobody thought I was stealing it.

I put it the milk on a window ledge while I tried to get the key in the door, grappling with the Heek who decided he wasnt’t ready to end his walk.

SMASH! A pinta falls over on the wall and smashes.  Milk pours onto the pavement.  Dog tries to start drinking it.  I grab dog away from glass and take him in and up to flat, find dusban, brush and newspaper go down to clear mess, realise finger is leaking blood, as milk starts turning pink.  I clear the glass, wrap and put it in the bin, go up, wrap my bleeding finger in tissue and get a bowl of water to slosh onto the milky mess.

SMASH! I don’t believe it. I rush down to find bottle two has fallen to ground. Go up get dustban brush repeat first series of actions.

Why didn’t I move second bottle to ground? I DON’T KNOW!

I can understand how staff might feel silly being forced to dress up and get in the ‘festive mood’ by dressing as fairies, elves and Santas, especially if they don’t feel like entering into the spirit of things, (see sub-standard Santas) but if they act in a nasty unhelpful, unChristmassy mood that doesn’t suit their costume it brings everybody down, better they wear the usual ugly store uniform and be done with it.