Yes, Friends, do YOU just hate having to move tables in restaurant, especially after you've started eating?? It's the pits, isn't it!!!!
You may have believed those times were over! But it happened recently to local man Derek Watney, according to the local Onion News for East Hampshire, at least - see page 94 !!!
But I've heard, "on the grapevine", that local man Watney received lots of sympathetic texts and phone calls after the story broke regionally, and then, both nationally and internationally after the story got picked up by "the nationals" (Times, Telegraph etc!) and then featured as the lead in the BBC World Service's early morning bulletins, which was nice!
Kudos, Watney old man, fame at last haha!!!!
15:30 Lois and I finally go upstairs for a much-delayed afternoon in bed. After the shared lunch we're feeling pleasantly full, not to say totally "stuffed" (!) - we won't need to have a proper meal tonight, so all the pressure's off, which is a nice feeling, to put it mildly!
Lots of surprises come out for Lois and me during this interview shown tonight on BBC4, to celebrate Elaine's 60 years on the stage, both on the London stage, and on Broadway.
And tonight, Elaine recalls the slightly chaotic, and very informal, atmosphere in the theatre during the show's five years on the London stage. "The audience would come in and we'd sit on their laps and chat to them before the performance, and during the intervals.", she remembers.
Amen to that haha!!!!
However, reading Watney's story in our Onion News print edition this morning, here in the rural, semi-leafy paradise that IS Liphook, Hampshire (!), my wife Lois and I find ourselves having to wipe a sympathetic tear from our respective eyes, which is heart-warming!
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
Usually accustomed to dining quietly together ourselves, we know we're in for a special treat at the Village Hall today, because it's Lois's church's monthly "shared lunch", where all members bring a dish or two to "throw into the mix" after the service is finished, which is nice! And Lois will be unveiling her acclaimed 'apple and mincemeat tart' which is sure to become a firm favourite with the assembled church crowd - yum yum!
What a bunch of "old codgers" we are, aren't we, or most of us, anyway!!!! And Yours Truly, who turned 80 this past week, would you believe (!), manages to keep secret his "significant birthday" long enough to prevent Chief Elder Richard from making an announcement about it - I'm essentially a very private person, as you know!
Plus, I believe it's church policy not to announce attendees' birthdays till they're at least 90, so fair do's anyway haha!!!!
14:00 Lois and I drive home in time for a quick zoom call with our accountant daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia. Sarah started a new job over there last week, while still doing her old job in Evesham UK.
Lois and I call her "Two Jobs Sarah".
our daughter Sarah (left): she's 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia,
but on the laptop zoom screen it looks like we're just 2 feet away from her, which is nice!
When we talked to her last week on our weekly catch-up call, we knew she'd had a bad first week at her new workplace, so it's nice this week to see her looking a lot more relaxed, and we can tell that she's finally "settling in" with her new Aussie 'team', which is nice.
(left) Sarah, second from right, with colleagues in Evesham UK,
and (right) leaving work at her Perth office in Australia
19:00 We finally get to relax on the couch with musical theatre star Elaine Paige - not in person (!), just "on the telly" being interviewed by BBC radio DJ, Zoe Ball. Elaine has starred in many hit musicals, but is perhaps best known for playing Argentinian First Lady, Eva Peron, in "Evita".
Surprise number one is that the sweet, diminutive, seemingly prim and proper Elaine has a really dirty laugh - she makes a perfectly innocent but amusing remark and then breaks into this dirty little "gurgle", which makes you think she's said something really disgusting, which is nice!
Surprise number two is that Lois and I suddenly realise we've both seen Elaine naked, which is a bit of a shock, to put it mildly!
During the early months of mine and Lois's "courtship", we went to a performance of the musical "Hair" at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, where the multiple cast-members for a brief moment appeared without their clothes.
flashback to the late 1960's: Lois and me in the Oxfordshire
countryside in the early days of our courtship
It was total madness, that performance of 'Hair', but that was what the world was like in those crazy, far-off days, 56 years or so ago! We'd never heard of Elaine back then - she was a comparative unknown at the time, but she must have been there, right in front of us, "baring her all", as we cowered in our seats!
What madness!!!
And funny to recall that the show's first performance on stage in 1968 was temporarily delayed a few weeks, while the company waited for Parliament to abolish the Theatres Act of 1737: the law which had given the Queen's Lord Chamberlain the power to censor plays for sexual content, and which had outlawed nudity on stage.
What a crazy country we live in !!!! But what a time it was, back in the 1960's.....!!!!
And tonight, Elaine recalls the slightly chaotic, and very informal, atmosphere in the theatre during the show's five years on the London stage. "The audience would come in and we'd sit on their laps and chat to them before the performance, and during the intervals.", she remembers.
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!
