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The Gonzo Daily - Boxing Day

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We had a lovely, quiet family Christmas Day. I spoke to Karl Shuker in the afternoon, and he asked me what my plans were for the rest of the day. I answered: "I have the new Frederick Forsyth novel, and three bottles of bourbon as Christmas presents. You guess." But I was being facetious. My days of downing multiple bottles of anything on Christmas Day are thankfully long gone. So we pottered, played with the dogs and watched TV including the rather disappointing Dr Who Christmas special. (So the Time Lords just GAVE him another cycle of regenerations. You cannae change the laws of physics, Captain. Not unless you are a Time Lord or a BBC executive wanting to carry on a lucrative franchise).

But this morning was something else. My greatest hero; the late, great Gerald Durrell; once wrote (I think in Menagerie Manor) that animals always choose the most inconvenient and expensive times to become ill. Ever since we have had her Prudence has had a large and completely benign dangling wart on her inner front leg. It is completely harmless so we have ignored it. However, in bed last night, she managed to scratch it, and when I awoke this morning our bedroom looked as if the Manson Family had been playing Musical Chairs in it. Pru (although apparently in no discomfort whatsoever) had bled copiously and then rolled in it, so the bed and the dog were both covered in blood, which was continuing to drip enthusiastically from the wart.

Luckily my stepdaughter is a vet (and a bloody good one) and she talked Graham through the procedure of tying off the wart with a ligature, which slowed the bleeding down but didn't stop it. So we telephoned the emergency vet, and bundled Pru into Graham's car and took her down to Stratton (outside Bude) to the emergency surgery. The vet complimented Graham on his handiwork, augmented it with a ligature that wasn't using Corinna's embroidery silk, patted Pru on the head and charged me £108. The joys of animal ownership, eh?

Happy Boxing Day.

Another visit to our old friend Thom the World Poet
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_26.html

Today's Track of the Day is by Chris Thompson
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-gonzo-holiday-track-of-day-chris.html

REVIEW: YES - THE STUDIO ALBUMS: 1969-1987
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/review-yes-studio-albums-1969-1987.html

Review: Roy Wood, Symphony Hall, Birmingham
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/review-roy-wood-symphony-hall-birmingham.html

Grace Slick's art doesn't have to speak for itself
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/12/grace-slicks-art-doesnt-have-to-speak.html

*  The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

*  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

* We should probably mention here that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

*  Jon Downes, the editor of all these ventures (and several others), is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon, which he shares with various fish and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus... did we mention the orange cat?