Hello to all my multi-wotsit, multi-doodah chums.

First off, let’s have a rant, so put the kettle on and have a cuppa and chocolate hob-nob while you let me splutter away like colonel blimp.

I don’t know when the TV advertisers became the guardians of our morals and how we should fit into society or if its just a sign of them doing too much acid back in the 70’s coupled with upper-class guilt.

Lets face it’ these TV land advert families look nothing like the majority of families in the UK and that is all of the same type, whether they be Asian, Caucasian or what. It seems that most adverts nowadays look like the cast of the Disney channel, we’ve even had adverts with blokes kissing each other.  

I would also say change over the term “Virtue-Signalling” to “Arse-Creeping” for a better description. I also think its demeaning for the actors who are parachuted in for these “token” roles.

And talking about TV, what a pile of crap. Lack of imagination or what? “Let’s make another remake of the Three Musketeers” or “Whisky Galore”. It seems suspiciously like we get programmes that would appeal to the old queens – Cooking, Dancing, Gardening and Antiques. Alternatively, “let’s do another Dickensian period piece and put a Venusian in it” that should make all the art teachers and social workers squeal with delight.

And another thing, there must be hundreds if not thousands of people go into the acting profession each year. Are they all so piss-poor that we only ever see the same old faces on TV? You would have thought that production companies would have realised that overexposure makes an audience lose interest.

Another thing that niggles me is TV advertising on a paid-for platform! Why should I pay for a channel and then have to watch adverts that are supposed to pay for the channel? That means you are paying to watch adverts! What a con that is.

And then we have the begging adverts; “Can you give £20 a month to support a cuckoo/whale/aardvark” talk about charity-fatigue. My fear is that if they keep it up we will all become hardened to good causes and not give anything at all.   

Until smaller groups start to produce TV over the internet it will remain crap for some time now. I would love to see amateur dramatic groups switch over to delivering content on Youtube. We might also get advertising that simply sells a product and not tells us what our family should look like.

Ah, that’s better, does you good to vent your spleen. If you don’t you’ll get spots.

Anyway, I did have rather a nice Christmas with all the traditional stuff apart from not being able to get to church and bloody annoyed that we couldn’t have the usual family gathering.

I do think though that Christmas is a time of mixed emotions and can be quite poignant anyway when we think of all those we have lost along the way and think of empty chairs around our tables, but we gain hope from seeing our children and grandchildren growing and making us proud.

With regard to electrical engineering I am about to get into electric vehicle charging points as a qualification. I have been involved in this field for some time now and have worked with companies developing smart charging points so this is something I have been involved with for a few years and can see a considerable demand for training, so watch this space.

Getting back to Christmas Day, I must confess I am not a Royalist. I support our Queen and think she has done a fantastic job but I never watch “The Queens Speech”. However, when they make me a knight of the realm, I will probably adjust my view a little.

If I was doing “The Ted’s Speech” it might go something like this:

“This year was one that was particularly unpleasant, I hope we can get this blasted virus behind us and get back to normality as soon as possible. Spare a thought for all the Sparkies on site in the freezing bleeding cold or those scrabbling about trying to line up the sprockets on a ten-ton motor. Bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea don’t come cheap so try to slide a few tenners into the pocket of the next electrician you see. Failing that, don’t send your family fortune to that nice man in Nigeria, but send a donation to Tedsvillainspain.com and I will send you a model of my villa (chalk model house from St Giles Fair rifle range) along with a T Shirt bearing an image of me in a deckchair and a monthly report bound to get lost in the post.”

Remember, this is my blog and I can be as nutty as I want.

Speaking of which I received another text from Ted voice 2 on his wind-up Motorola just a few days ago where he has informed me that unfortunately, he didn’t find that lost city of gold in the Amazon but has undergone some form of marriage ceremony with a member of a tribe of head-hunters. This was apparently under some duress after been caught in-flagrante with the chief’s daughter. I’m hoping I won’t see him for some time now, but he usually manages to reappear smelling of roses.

Oh well, time to ride off into the sunset of 2020 now.

Happy trails folks.