She used to call Dad a miserable old sod, and tickle him to try to make him laugh.
But, rather than schadenfreude towards a miserable Old World, most commentators and spectators like Lessa seem to feel a mixture of sympathy, respect and even admiration for London – emotions that appear to have been amplified by Danny Boyle's opening ceremony.
"I'm a miserable old sod, just as miserable and difficult as I was before.
But all the best Christmas fiction is about family, and features at least one of the following: a lonely or isolated character (preferably an orphan, abandoned child or a miserable old man); a happy resolution where hearth and home are discovered or regained; and last, but definitely not least, appetising descriptions of food.
"Growing up in a miserable, old stone house in Scotland where the winters are dark and dreary and it gets dark by 4 in the afternoon, I was immediately taken with this house because of the massive windows that let in all this wonderful light, even during winter," said Mr. Paterson, president of the Wingate Association.
I thought he was a miserable old thing.
He stirred up a miserable old pot of weak soup into a maelstrom of exciting minestrone," Mr Clarke said.
Tichon: Although everyone says you are a miserable old cow, I think you are the best, O my Mummy.
But the fear of being marked down as a "miserable old tosser" had been greater than any threat to my dignity.
The Qurʿān states: "Some will die early, while others are made to live to a miserable old age, when all that they once knew they shall know no more (22 5; i.e., sūrah [chapter] 22, verse 5).
But it's a miserable old world if you don't celebrate achievements that are part of the past, part of the present, and part of journalism's own tomorrowland.
