Wednesday October 16th 2024 "Do YOU live in Bell End, or in its 'sphere of influence'?"

Dear reader, do you live in the lovely Worcestershire village of Bell End? 

A lot of us do, don't we, although my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I can't make that proud claim, sadly!!! We do live in the village's cultural "footprint", however - it's only a few miles up the road from our new-build home here in Malvern, so we take a keen interest in your news, "Bell Enders"!

Daisy-May Fisher (19), winner of this year's "Miss Bell Ender" competition

"Bell Enders" by the way, is the official "demonym" for residents of the parish, and "demonym" doesn't in any way mean that the name is intended to "demonise" you, you'll be grateful to know! "Demos" in Greek simply means "the people", hence the word 'democracy'. And the word 'demonym' comes from the same 'stable', and simply means the name for the people living in a particular place.

Bell Enders are generally lovely people, Lois and I have found, so it's a pity that they've been getting some "stick" recently for being money-mad, a charge from which Lois and I have always vigorously defended them - and I've got the recordings to prove it (!). People are inclined to be so litigious these days that I've taken to recording all my conversations, even those I have in bed with Lois, just to be on the safe side - call me "risk-adverse" if you like!!!!

some typical "Bell Enders", to give them their official "demonym" (!),

pictured relaxing here at local 'watering-hole' the Plough and Harrow

However, it doesn't help us "friends of Bell End" or "Bellendophiles" to give us our official name (!), to see stories like this one in the local Onion News print edition for West Worcestershire (see page 94 if you don't believe me!). Just saying (!).

And that awful story has come hot on the heels of other such stories about this popular Bell End "local" - remember this "doozy" that I reported in my blog post of last September, causing a bit of a "stink" here locally, as I recall !

flashback to September 19th 2023: the "DanskColin" blogpost that started the furore !

I keep trying to defend the wonderful people of that lovely Worcestershire village, but let's be honest, Bell Enders, you're not really doing yourselves any favours, with all these stories coming out, are you. Be honest !!!!

[Get on with it! - Ed]

If you're in the Plough and Harrow, Bell End, for an evening out, by the way, Lois and I don't really recommend the spotted dick, we've had it there a few times - and it's not really "spotted" enough in our humble opinion(s), although don't  quote me on that. Pub landlord Kevin Whiteley is a bit on the litigious side, to put it mildly, and villagers say he spends more time in the County Court at Worcester than he does at the pub - allegedly !!!!  Just saying!!!

landlord Kevin Whiteley's 'specials' board at the Plough and Harrow, 

Bell End, where his "spotted dick" (ringed) has become a regular 'staple'

Speaking personally, however, our days of having a large-to-extra-large portion of "spotted dick" are over now, for Lois and me, anyway. Well, we are 78 !!!!

And it's quite sugar-heavy too, at least, as it tends to get made "in these here parts", as people say "in these here parts" (!). 

Lois and me, pictured here at a local café - "spotted dick" is on the menu

but we choose to ignore it (politely!)  - it's kind of "off limits"

plus, well, we are 78 now you know haha!

You see, Lois and I have been on this almighty "low-sugar diet jag" for what must be - like - a billion years, it feels like. In reality it's only a week, but time is relative as Einstein discovered not a hundred years ago (!).

[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]

And dieting gives us plenty to talk about this morning while we're shopping in Shoezone and then later, after a walk on the common, relaxing with a coffee and toasted tea-cake at Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop. 

We've got to find some good rubber boots for Lois because we like to walk through the long grass on Poolbrook Common, but we keep coming home with soddin' ["sodden" surely? - Ed] wet socks (me) and tights (Lois). I've ordered some wide-to-extra-wide wellies online, which should be arriving in a day or two, so fingers crossed on that one.

we find some wellies in Shoezone to keep Lois's tights dry

on our 'perambulations' in the long grass (!) ....

...followed by a walk through the soddin' long grass, 

then coffee and a shared toasted tea-cake 

in the Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop (ringed)

I don't know if you can see in the above photo, but I'm having jam on my half of the toasted tea-cake, but Lois is having it "neat" with just a scraping of butter on hers. Well, we are supposed to be on a diet, after all.

And later, in the afternoon, Lois has a good old "chin-wag" on the phone with one of her fellow-church-members, Christine, who gives her some further tips on cutting down on sugar intake, like eating your potatoes cold. It also helps gut health generally, she says, because cold potatoes contain "resistant starch" which feeds good bacteria in the gut, a process known as 'retrogradation'.

Yes, who knew that cold potatoes are much better than hot ones for slowing down your sugar intake? Not only that, but cold pasta is the same, with the added advantage that you can re-heat the pasta without any reduction in the slowing of the sugar-intake? 

Another of Christine's tips is to have a salad starter, like they do a lot of times at restaurants in the States, as we discovered when we lived over there, from 1982 to 1985. We thought it was weird at the time, but now it's starting to make a crazy kind of sense. This also slows down the intake of sugar, apparently.

Who knew? [I expect a lot of people did - including, it seems, most of the USA's current population of 350 million almost! - Ed]

flashback to 1983: me with our two daughters Sarah (5) and Alison (7)

after a salad-based starter and meal at the iconic

Wetherburn pub in Williamsburg, Virginia  - happy days!!!

And don't the findings from these recent gastronomic studies shed new light on the Jerome Kern classic "A Fine Romance"?

I wonder.....!

21:00 We go to bed on the first half-hour of a Channel Four retrospective on the beloved 2010s sitcom "Friday Night Dinner".

This was one of mine and Lois's favourite sitcoms, all about a North London Jewish family, the Goodmans - mum and dad and their 2 teenage sons -  constantly fighting and hitting each other, but coming together every Friday evening for a "family meal".

In this scene, Jonny's new American wife, Lisa, discovers for the first time mid-Friday-night-dinner as to why the family has got so many candles in the room.

Yes the Goodmans "identify" as Jewish, although they're not 'observers'. And of course they use a bunch of Jewish words now and again - that kind of malarkey.

In all, thirty-seven episodes of the sitcom were broadcast, and for each episode the cast would have to spend days eating plate upon plate of chicken and roast vegetables, and mum Jackie's famous "crimble crumble", doing the same scene over and over again as the show's writer, Robert Popper, explains:

And all this time the cast has to be filmed eating food, so they've learned how not to really eat the food.

Some of the guest actors who appear in a few episodes only haven't mastered this skill, however, as actress Tamsin Greig, who plays long-suffering mum Mrs Goodman, explains in this interview:

Yes, step forward Anglo-American actress Skye Bennett, who plays young Jonny's new American wife. 

Time to "fess up", Skye!

Poor Skye !!!!

And I've got to put my hand up here too, because many's the time in the past that Yours Truly has eaten a load of roast potatoes at one sitting. And I'm talking like a whole billion of the buggers, literally, and not the mere "million" that Skye manages to "shove in" every episode (!).

Seriously, though, there's perhaps a message here from the show for Lois and me to take on board. Could we lose the excess weight off our tummies by just cutting up the food and moving it around the plate?

I wonder.....!

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!! 

Tuesday October 15th 2024 "Oh dearie me, Lois and I have lost the instructions to our bedroom smart-door!"

Here's a question-and-a-half for you, "My Special Friends" if I've earned the right to call you that (!!). 

Do you have trouble keeping track of the instructions for all your domestic "gadgets" ? It's quite an issue nowadays, because so many of them that used to be looked down on as purely "mechanical" and "utilitarian", have now been replaced by so-called "smart" ones, haven't they, which can be a real pain, to put it mildly!

a typical couple delightedly experimenting 

with their shiny-new "smart" bedroom door

My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I recently found out that our bedroom in our new-build home in Malvern, Worcestershire, has "conveniently" (I don't think!!!) been fitted with a "smart" door to our bedroom, which "logs" so-called "important information"  - we have no idea in any detail about what that information data is, or how to access that data (!). And now, having lost the instructions, we're scared to close the door, in case we find we can't open it again and we get trapped inside, or outside, which are both one as bad as the other in our view. 

It's just one of the "pains" of everyday modern life, isn't it!

These are the so-called "benefits" of having a smart door to your bedroom, by the way (see below). Obviously it's the last one that "sells" the product - no question - the ability to see who, or what (!), has been using our bedroom while we've been away.

a typical couple chuckling over the app's data on who's been 

using their bedroom while they've been away on holiday

Lois and I used to keep all our instructions in one place in our old house in Cheltenham, but having 2 years ago downsized to this new-build home in Malvern, loads of instructions - like - a billion (!) - have gone missing, and will probably never be seen again. Just saying!

typical so-called "easy" instructions for operating

a bedroom "smart door" - blimey, you need a PhD

to work it, if you ask me !!!!

So if you're one of the many who have lost vital instructions, however, I can now exclusively reveal that help is at hand, finally (!), as this local resident from the lovely Worcestershire village of East Leake, discovered recently. Onion News (local) has more....

It makes you think, doesn't it! And it's a reminder of how the West's security services have had to "smarten up" (!) to cope with their more technically-savvy "targets", men, or women, who may have invested in various "smart" products that weren't even dreamed about in years gone by,and not so long ago either.

Yes it must have been much simpler working for MI5 in the old days, or even for America's CIA, just working a standard 9 to 5 day, "bugging" a few flats. or putting working-hours "tails" on their suspects, and then going home to the wife and a pleasant evening watching a typical "dumb" TV (!).

flashback to the good old days of counter-espionage: 

an MI5 agent in British-style flat cap and raincoat, and carrying his official 

E ii R briefcase "on her Majesty's medium-to-secret service" 

seem here, unobtrusively "tailing" a suspected Chinese spy

Yes, the good old days of counter-espionage - will they ever return?

And this thought is very much on the minds of Lois and me this morning, because today we've chosen to take our daily walk through the grounds of prestigious local private boarding-school, Malvern College.

flashback to this morning: Lois and me taking our walk

today through the grounds of prestigious local private boarding-school

Malvern College, and checking out the school's rugby pitch (behind us)

As we pass by the College's rugby pitch, we remember how one of the CIA's top guys, James Angleton, head of US Counter-Intelligence for an incredible 21 years - from 1954 to 1975, was a boarder here back in the 1930's. Angleton, who died in 1987 at the age of 69, has been called "the dominant counter-intelligence figure in the non-Communist world" during his time at the CIA.

James Angleton, later CIA Counter-Intelligence chief, 

seen here as a young man: he boarded at Malvern College

as a boy in the 1930's

Other famous alumni of Malvern College include CS Lewis, author of "The Chronicles of Narnia", also Jeremy Paxman, former host of TV's "University Challenge", BBC's student quiz. Also Monty Don, TV's "Mr Gardening", and Baron Bernard Wetherill, Speaker of the House of Commons, no less, from 1983 to 1992.

And what a pity, Lois and I say, during our walk around the school this morning, that while the school itself looks as "smart" as ever (in the non-digital sense (!)), some of the surroundings of this prestigious educational establishment shows the most glaring signs of neglect - members of Malvern Hills District Council please note!!!!

Just saying !!!!

sadly Lois and I see many signs of neglect surrounding

the prestigious school's premises: like the disgraceful state of

this ridiculous, allegedly "compulsory", walkway - what madness !!!!

Lois has to turn her head away, seeing the

laughably ill-managed hedges and shrubbery

surrounding this prestigious private boarding school

- what madness (again) !!!

Malvern District Councillors, please note !!!!!

Just saying!!!! [You've 'just said' 'just saying' already, Colin. Get a grip, please! - Ed]

16:00 After an afternoon in bed once more disturbed by local window-cleaner Martin's long-to-extra-long pole at the window [memo to self: why not install smart window-blinds that will detect Martin's arrival and give us a bleeping warning, for goodness sakes?] Lois and I come downstairs and relax with a cup of decaf Earl Grey tea and a slice of wholemeal bread and home-made jam (me) and a couple of spelt-and-fig crackers with a bit of hummus on (Lois). 

Yes, we're on the most almighty diet and health-food "jag", just at the moment, most of us, but especially Lois (!), as you can tell !!!!

my "tongue-in-cheek" 'imagine' of how a cinema advert 

might look for a horror film featuring local 

window-cleaner Martin's long-to-extra-long pole 

21:00 We go to bed on the first of a new series of art programmes by art critic Waldemar Januszcsak.

Art critic Waldemar Janaszczak (crazy name, crazy guy) is one of mine and Lois's favourite TV presenters. Brash, but shabbily dressed in an old raincoat, a bit like TV detective "Columbo", Waldemar moves about in a curiously "lumbering" way, and alternately whispering and then shouting at the viewer as if he was having an argument with them or trying to pick a fight. 

TV art critic Waldemar Januszczak - "moves about in a curiously 

'lumbering' way, shabbily dressed in an old raincoat,

shouting at the viewer, as if he's trying to pick a fight.

What madness !!!!!

Tonight Waldemar is talking about German artist Albrecht Durer, and his mysterious 1514 engraving "Melencolia".

But what's it all about with its crazy pair of gloomy angels, (one big and the other just a small-to-medium one) - a bit like TV duo "Little and Large"; a misshapen block of stone (why?); a set of janitor-style keys round one of the angels' waist; a selection of discarded tools; some crazy objects pinned to the wall - a scales, an hourglass and a bell; two puzzling sets of numbers; a cage with a millstone, a ladder; a dog looking 'moody', and other random objects. 

Yes, why, Albricht, exactly haha ???????!!! 

It turns out it's all biblical stuff about the end of the world, Waldemar explains. 

At the back of the picture there's a flood like Noah's flood and a rainbow illustrating God's promise not to flood the world again, the crazy big block of stone illustrating Jesus's prophecy of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, discarded tools illustrating the pointless rebuilding of the Temple seeing that it's just going to get destroyed again (!), the hour-glass and the bell etc playing as harbingers to the End of Time itself. And the set of keys one of the angels is "sporting" - what else but the keys to the gates of hell. And so it goes on.

Simple really, when you hear the explanation, isn't it! [I wouldn't go that far! - Ed]

the Metropolitan Museum of Art which currently holds the engraving

What's the message of the engraving? Well, simply this: that the New Testament reveals that all of God's angels and even Jesus himself, don't know when the end of the world is going to happen, so the best advice is "Be Prepared" - like every little boy scout and girl guide learns on their first day in "The Movement" (!).

But Lois and I want to know YOUR interpretation. If you're not too busy (!), can you just jot your views down (12 characters maximum, as per usual (!)), on the back of a postcard and pop it in the postbox, addressed to us, at our usual address.

We'll be waiting haha !!!

Will this do? [Oh just go to bed, will you, you 'pair of noggins' ! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!