Yes, Friends, take a look inside YOUR wardrobe, and say hello to the old friends 'closeted' therein (no pun intended!!!), and do it now haha!
And take a leaf out of this local man's book, whose face was 'plastered' all over the local papers - and even some of the nationals (!) - this morning. Here's the Onion News "take" on the story, which my wife Lois and I were reading with interest a few hours ago, at our home in rural, semi-professional Liphook, Hampshire, to put it mildly!!!!
It's so easy, isn't it, to cast off your "clout", like an old "squeeze", especially when May is out!!!
And although Joan didn't see a problem, it wasn't the sort of life that Turing wanted, as he then makes plain to her....
And Jacobi confesses, that at the time - 1997 - when he was playing the role, he himself hadn't really thought through is homosexuality, and that playing the role of Turing helped him to explore his own deepest feelings.
And it's especially interesting for me personally to see Joan, Turing's girlfriend, being portrayed, at the time a young woman, and also the only female member of Bletchley's senior team, a highly respected code-breaker, who worked on cracking the German Naval Enigma machine.
By the way, the old proverb "Ne'er cast a clout till May is out" neatly divides our nation, doesn't it, with some folks insisting that "May" refers to the month, and other 'sticklers' and pedants linking it to the blossoming of the may tree, or the common hawthorn. And I'm running an informal poll amongst my readers this month, so we can decide this issue for all time, closing date February 19th - postcards only please haha!!!!
a typical member of my "straw poll electorate" preparing to cast her vote
If you miss the close of this poll, not to worry, because, as a heads-up, there'll be another of my popular straw polls next month, this time all about whether the correct form of words is "till May is out" or "till May be out", so start weighing the pros and cons now, and watch this space!!!!
And expect to see some of mine and Lois's new clothes "in action" in future pics of mine and Lois's daily walks - we could certainly do with some new "clobber", what with this year's cold, wet winter weather - brrrrr !!!!
Health warning: there's a little bit of maths to cope with in this programme, but not very much, thankfully! And Jacobi says that the big challenge for him, playing the part of Turing, was to make it seem natural that all this clever stuff was coming out of the Jacobi head!
flashback to us, earlier today, taking our daily walk over Old Man Lowsley's Farm,
braving the mud, and the puddles, trying to look cheerful (!), and fighting
the icy wind, in clothes that frankly have seen much better days - brrrrr!!!!!
What madness, isn't it !!!!
I sometimes try to work out how long I've had some of my awful old coats and hats, for example, by looking through our old photos. I'll spare you some of the "numbers" on this one - it's not a pretty story, in more ways than one! And we'll certainly both of us have to try to look "decent" tomorrow, when we go to the opera, if you please (!), in nearby Godalming, just over the county line in Surrey, but more of that later - watch this space!!!!
It's no secret that Lois and I have been retired for almost 20 years - our 20-year anniversary of being "gentleman and gentlewoman of leisure" (haha!) is next month, March. And I say "haha", because you'll know that in fact, since retiring we've both, in fact, been busier than ever, and, frankly, not 100% sure how we ever managed to squeeze in 7.5 hours of work every day. Since our retirement in March 2006, these last 20 years have been total madness, but also fun at the same time, just from trying to squeeze it all in!
[I'd like to see some evidence of that, Colin! - Ed]
flashback to March 2006, my 60th birthday, and
also the date both Lois and I retired
This evening, however, I'm transported back to those old working days in a delightful programme on BBC4, "Derek Jacobi Remembers.. Breaking the Code", in which the actor recalls playing the part of wartime code-breaker Alan Turing in the BBC drama of that name, from way back in 1997.
In this scene, Turing, played by Jacobi, is being introduced to an actual German Enigma machine for the first time after starting work at the Government's wartime codebreaking unit at Bletchley Park.
Well, no, obviously !!!!!
But there was another aspect of Turing's character that Jacobi says he found it much easier to replicate. Like Turing, Jacobi was, and is, a homosexual.
In this scene from the play, Turing is having a heart-to-heart with his co-worker and would-be girlfriend, Joan. When Turing comes clean about his sexuality, Joan tells him that she knows all about that already, but that it wouldn't stop her loving him, and needn't stop him loving her.
This is because, back in the 1970's Joan was a well-respected member of the office that I myself was employed in, in the days when I worked for a living (!). At the time I knew her, Joan was a very kindly and quiet, unassuming member of the office, who was approaching retirement. But Bletchley's role in the war hadn't yet been declassified, so I had no idea of Joan's past until much later, and so I never got the chance to talk to her about it.
Happy days !!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
