Evening all.  Sorry for the delay in posting, but then I am not sure who is reading this at the moment.

First of all, I did not have swine flu.  It was just a tummy bug which I shared with the family.  They were not appreciative.  Do not know why though.  My balls ache from my snip, but otherwise, I am well.

The weekend was spent being ill.  But today, I have had time with the kids again.  We took them to the park, which they loved, as well as shopping.  It is magical watching them laugh.  That and watching them play together.  My daughter went through a patch of being naughty today, but she is so good normally, a naughty patch for her is nothing really too bad.  And of course, I get to spend time with my wife whom I also love and miss. Anyway, take care, and I hope you like the joke...   

At the height of the arms race, the Western World and Russians realised that, if they continued, they would someday end up destroying the world. So they sat down and decided to settle the whole dispute with a dogfight.

The negotiators agreed that each country would take five years to develop the best fighting dog they could. The dog that won the fight would earn its country the right to rule the world. The losing side would have to lay down its arms.

The Russians found the biggest, meanest Dobermen and Rottweilers in the world. They bred them together and then crossed their offspring with the meanest Siberian Wolves. They selected only the biggest, strongest puppy from each litter, killed all the other puppies and fed the lone dog all of the milk. They used steroids and trainers in their quest for the perfect killing machine, until, after the five years were up, they had a dog that needed iron prison bars on his cage. Only the trainers could handle this beast.

When the day of the big fight arrived, the British showed up with a strange animal: It was a nine-foot-long Dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for us. No one else thought this weird animal stood a chance against the growling beast in the Russian camp. The bookies predicted the Russians would win in less than a minute.

The cages were opened. The Dachshund waddled toward the centre of the ring. The Russian dog leapt from his cage and charged the giant sausage-dog. As he got to within an inch of the Brits dog, the Dachshund opened its jaws and swallowed the Russian beast in one bite. There was nothing left but a small bit of fur from the killer dog's tail.

The Russians approached the British trainers, shaking their heads in disbelief. "We do not understand. Our top scientists and breeders worked for five years with the meanest, biggest Doberman and Rottweiler's. They developed a killing machine."

"Really?" the Brits replied. "We had our top plastic surgeons working solidly for five years to make an alligator look like a Dachshund...."