Hmm...this here song it ain't so bad The cutest little song you ever had And those of you who will not sing You must be playing with your own Ding-a-ling. Chuck Berry

Village life does not hold the same cut and thrust that we lived 24 - 7 down south and consequently when some nutter comes up with the idea that every person in every City, Town and Village (that's us) across the Country should ring a bell, any bell at 08:12hrs to announce the coming of the Olympics then that gives us much excitement. Once the people around here come to terms as to what exactly a City is then we manage to move on to the planning stage. A slip of paper drops through the rusty old letter box asking all to join in by meeting down at the war memorial with a bell, or bike bell or anything at all bell like. As we were about to make enough noise to wake the dead it felt wrong that we should be next to the war memorial.

There was an option to stand at your door and ring bells but as our door is directly underneath the guest accommodation it seemed a cruel awakening for our holiday makers. Then there was the family in the Cottage. Would they choose to participate and in so doing wake the B&B guests too?

There was no alternative I would have to explain to the B and B guess so they were forewarned and find a way to take the Family in the cottage down to the war memorial. I disappeared off to the garage to work on my own Ding a ling. Having salvaged a couple of bells that we had accrued over the years and despite lending my mother our best School hand bell, I created the best Ding a ling in town and I was keen to show everyone my Ding a ling.

There were two really sweet kids in the cottage and so we invited them all down to the War Memorial, with my Ding-a-ling to join in the cacophony that was due to kick off soon.

Then at twelve minutes past eight (a time I still do not understand although Alison says it is because they are in August in 2012  or 8 2012, a tenuous link at best. Yet if they had agreed to do it at 20:12hrs then it would have tied in with the opening ceremony AND ALL the volunteer Church Bell ringers who would have been on their way to work in the morning could have rung ALL the church bells. The guy that thought up the idea was apparently a 'performance Artist' so living off grants and without a clue as to how normal people live. I do love a good rant, honest, as any of my family will tell you... oh and don't ask me for my thoughts on the opening ceremony, apparently I am in the minority or so I'm told).
Of course you could gristle me groins by mentioning the 2012 logo and I could rant on as to why they even paid anyone to come up with such a naff (yes my children, I still use the word naff, which I understand is naff in its self) logo. ALL they had to do was have a competition and open it to the thousands of art students across the Country who would definitely have come up with something better. Every time I look at it I cringe as it just looks like the number 20 with a letter 'R' beneath it. I thought Sebastian Coe wanted the youth of Britain to be included and the prize would have been far cheaper than he paid the consultancy company that produced the twisted colon of a logo.
Then there is the Torch fiasco with 8,000 being produced. EIGHT THOUSAND! Why? So the bearers can keep one if they want to sell it on Ebay. Surely just being asked to run with the torch was reward enough and a nice photo to show the great grandkids of the future.
BUT NO . We have spent £4m on them when we could easily have got away with twenty torches at the most.
4 MILLION POUNDS, utter, utter madness. Imagine putting £1 million into Judo, Tennis, Rowing or shooting (where our guy had to go ask an Arab Sheik to fund him because we cut his funding), and how that would have made a tangible difference.

Any way, there we were all stood, at the war memorial, including our  B and B guest. About 25 to 30 people some with bells some had their bikes (with bells) and some had lids oF pots and a wooden spoon and we had my Ding-a-ling. The signal to start was given and for three minutes there was an unexpected harmony in this strange collection of brick-a-brack metal make do instruments and my heart softened a little as the 5 year old girl and her 3 year old brother rung our bells with all their hearts. The Mum and Dad seemed to really love the fact that we had gone out of our way to include them in this maddness.It was mad and it made no sense at all, but oh what fun we had........

So here is a photo of Mike's Ding-a-ling...........

Once I was climbing the garden wall,
I slipped and had a terrible fall
I fell so hard, I heard bells ring,
But held on to My ding-a-ling

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