yeah..this is funn article..

    ....

Seriously, though.... Dozy, you are too funny!  You made laugh (despite my normal resolve not to laugh at others' misfortunes) at the vision of you with your genuine white-beard and silly red suit desperately clinging on to the poor animal, who was probably more frightened of you than you of him (come to think of it, more likely her) and smelled your fear 10 feet away! 

Daniel has been talking about the latest politically correct nonsense in Australia where a lot of "nice" people want to stop store Santas saying "Ho Ho Ho" because some American TV shows use the word as slang for whore.  (One store Santa lost his job last week because he insisted on using the traditional words.  He was in his 70s and had been a Santa for years.)

Daniel, I've been Santa Clause on a number of occasions and always said those dreaded Ho's and the only time anybody got frightened it was me.

Somebody asked me to ride a horse at a Blue Mountains Christmas party where, every year, they close off the street to traffic and everybody joins in.  I don't ride horses but everything went well until I tried to climb aboard.  Her (it was a mare) eyes were flaring and she was rearing away but I got aboard anyway.  I realised later she had never carried anybody in a bright red Santa suit before.

I can't say I dismounted.  The third time she put all four feet on the ground I dived.  Off went the horse, pig-rooting around the yard, then saw me still lying on the ground and came back to finish me off.  Somebody dragged me clear.

It took half an hour to get all the twigs and leaves out of my fur and I did the Santa bit on foot.

But through all the commotion, with everybody (including me) panicking, there was one cool head and she had my unsullied admiration.  It was my daughter-in-law.  Instead of running around like a mad thing she stood close by, camera held firmly to her eye, snapping away like mad.  I think she probably thought the pictures would be useful at the inquest.

I'd post one here to show you if they'd been any good but, unfortunately, that horse was bucking faster than she could pan the camera and she cut my head off in all of them.

So don't you talk to me about Santas frightening children.  Sometimes we need to spare a thought for Santa, too. 

It's probably best if you change the title of this blog entry to "Ha! Ha! Ha!" or "He! He! He!" because you might scare or intimidate the children.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22738300-2,00.html

I must tell justwrightin about this...

Speaking of the devil, here's another yarn where he plays a role.  This is not original (I must have read it in a chess book eons ago) and I've embellished some bits to make the story more credible and flow better.  I'm happy to credit whoever who wrote it, if someone can tell me who that is.  Anyway, here goes:

It was World War II and the devil was prowling the cities in search of souls when he came across young Justin.  He was a law clerk and a keen chess player with a prodigious memory that proved handy in both work and leisure.  One day, while Justin was hard at work, Lucifer appeared and told him that his time was up.

After getting over the shock and the smell of sulphur, Justin searched the folds of his grey matter for a way out.  Knowing that the devil likes to gamble, he finally offered him a bet: "If you can prove that your memory is better than mine, you can have my soul."

Not one to turn down a challenge and knowing that we are often most vulnerable when we seem to be invincible (in life, as in chess), Lucifer agreed.  So he asked "Do you like eggs?".  Wondering what that had to do with anything, Justin nodded his head.  The devil then disappeared as quickly as he had come.

Shaken, Justin continued working and then went home early, not sure how he escaped ... or indeed if he did escape. Well, the years passed, Justin became a fully-fledged lawyer and a family man, and the war finally ended.

One day, just when his eerie encounter seemed like a distant dream, Justin heard a knock on his door, whereupon the devil popped his head in the doorway and asked "How?"  Although Lucifer took pains to disguise himself, the smell of sulphur was unmistakable.  Wasting no time, Justin replied "Scrambled", and won the bet of his life! 

Yea, the santa clause gambit. ^^ I will make sure to try and use that when the position calls for it.