{"id":221,"date":"2004-12-19T14:13:18","date_gmt":"2004-12-19T14:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/?p=221"},"modified":"2004-12-19T14:13:18","modified_gmt":"2004-12-19T14:13:18","slug":"a-festive-season-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/?p=221","title":{"rendered":"A festive season present"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;re allowed a little fantasy in mid-winter, I think, all those long dark nights and peering into the flickering flames, so enjoy this one from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/12\/19\/opinion\/19dowd.html?oref=login&amp;hp\">New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A Not So Wonderful Life<br \/>\nBy MAUREEN DOWD<br \/>\nPublished: December 19, 2004<\/p>\n<p>EXTERIOR BRIDGE OVER POTOMAC RIVER &#8211; NIGHT<\/p>\n<p>CLOSE SHOT &#8211; Rummy is standing by the railing, staring morosely into the water. The snow is falling hard. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he wheels around and wrestles an old man with wings into a headlock.<\/p>\n<p>OLD MAN: Ouch! Tut, tut. When will you learn that force doesn&#8217;t solve everything?<\/p>\n<p>RUMMY: Who the dickens are you?<\/p>\n<p>OLD MAN: Clarence, Angel First Class. I&#8217;ve been sent down to help you.<\/p>\n<p>RUMMY, squinting: You&#8217;re off your nut, you old fruitcake. You can&#8217;t help me. I was a matinee idol in this town, a studmuffin. Now everyone&#8217;s turned on me &#8211; Trent Lott, Chuck Hagel and that dadburn McCain.<\/p>\n<p>CLARENCE: No more self-pity, son. I&#8217;m going to show you what the world would have been like if you&#8217;d never been born &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;re allowed a little fantasy in mid-winter, I think, all those long dark nights and peering into the flickering flames, so enjoy this one from the New York Times. A Not So Wonderful Life By MAUREEN DOWD Published: December 19, 2004 EXTERIOR BRIDGE OVER POTOMAC RIVER &#8211; NIGHT CLOSE SHOT &#8211; Rummy is standing by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","author-natalie-bennett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}