Monday October 14th 2024 "Mist - it covers a multitude of sins, even mine and Lois's!"

Mist is a wonderful thing, isn't it, and not just for keeping nosey neighbours' eyes off looking through your windows in the afternoons. And if it's thick enough, it'll even stop your local window-cleaner from doing the same thing. Just saying! 

And now thanks to the new wonder smoke-bombs from Spanx, you can now even hide unsightly blemishes and "bulges" on your face and body, which is something we've all been asking for for years, isn't it, to put it mildly! Onion News has more.....

Is that good news for us "fatties", or is it good news (!). And my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I, 78, have just ordered a medium-to-large size of "Spanx" for our next evening out on the town, here in sleepy Malvern, Worcestershire. We can both feel a "date night" coming up, so watch this space! 

Also, Martin, the window-cleaner is coming tomorrow afternoon to "do us", so it's a timely purchase, no doubt about that!

oh deary me! Another of our afternoon nap-times disturbed by 

local window-cleaner Martin and his long-to-extra-long pole

Mist, whether it's of the commercial Spanx variety or just plain ordinary 'natural' fog and mist can also hide unsightly blemishes on the countryside too. Let me ask you - when was the last time you saw an old crone when driving through the fens of East Anglia? 

Onion News has more on that story.....

the historic fenlands of East Anglia

That's an awful warning, particularly to Lois and me, because we like seeing the occasional crone, not to mention the occasional newt (!).

Sadly, however, we're on exactly the wrong side of England now, here in West Worcestershire, and when, as often on our daily walk, we see the spooky mists come down and cover the tops of our lovely 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills, how we wish for a bog-crone or a fog-crone to "pop up" and speed us on our way with a cheery curse or two. 

Or even just to catch a brief glimpse of one of their genetically-related cousins, the "mist crones", if there's nothing better on offer (!).

Just saying!

the mists coming down during our morning walk over Poolbrook Common, 

covering the tops of our local 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills, 

which are the usual backdrop for our walks. No sign of crones, sadly(!)

Spooky or what! 

But I'm afraid "low-to-very-low probability of crones today" is the headline forecast on West Worcestershire FM's Morning Weather Update, so Lois and I have to "make the best of it" by recalling the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and quoting, in our cod 'silly Scottish' accents, "Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" and other "doozies" from the Bard of Avon's so-called "Scottish play".

"Double double toil and trouble - oh dearie me!" - the famous curse 

of the three Scottish witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth

And as we walk through the Malvern mists today, Lois and I have both got Scotland very much on our minds - being very conscious of the fact that the date for my forthcoming "presentation" on Scots English is coming up fast (Friday week - yikes!!!), and I haven't done much work on it yet, to put it mildly (!).

My so-called "presentation" is going to have to be given to the local U3A "History of English" group, which I - for my sins (!) - am the "leader" of. Yikes !!!!

During our walk, to calm my nerves about this looming occasion, I get Lois to join me in talking in our silly cod-Scottish accents. And the misty air over Poolbrook Common this morning is thick with cries of "Oh dearie me!" and other Scotticisms we've picked up from BBC4 reruns of "The High Life", the old 1990's Scottish sitcom about the two camp flight attendants and their bully of a chief stewardess, and crazy English pilot Captain Duff, on the fictional "Air Scotia" airline. 

flashback to 1997: Oh, dearie me! It's the Scottish sitcom "The High Life", 

with Air Scotia's camp flight attendants Steve and Sebastian, bullying 

Chief Stewardess Shona, and crazy English airline pilot Captain Duff

No, it's confession time again. The truth is that I haven't done much work on my so-called "presentation on Scots English" yet, despite it being only 9 days away (yikes!), but one thing I have noticed already is that Scots is probably the most "Scandi" form of English, which is perhaps surprising at first glance.

This is because "the poor Scots" (!) were hit with a double whammy during the Viking Age. "Illegal immigrant" Norwegian settlers came flooding, without Home Office permission (!), through the then nascent but feeble "customs posts", into north western and north eastern coasts, and the islands of Shetland and Orkney. 

And at the same time the country was being "infiltrated" through Scotland's "soft underbelly" - its southern lowlands - by illegal immigrants from Northern England speaking Anglo-Danish.

What a crazy world it was in those far-off days, that's for sure. 

"Mister So-Called Nigel Farage", please note haha !!!

flashback to earlier this year: Reform Party leader Nigel

Farage taking part in a pre-election interview on BBC News

What madness !!!!!

20:00 Evening falls, and Lois and I settle down on the couch to watch a few old shows from the three-channel days of the 1970's, shows which we contend are better than today's TV with its - like - billions of alternative channels to choose from. Just saying (!). 

Call us old "stick-in-the-muds" if you like haha (!).

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

"Call My Bluff" presenter Robert Robinson, introduces the next

word, "quincesse" for Frank Muir and his team to try and define

Peter Jay, journalist, and later UK Ambassador to the US during the Jimmy Carter era, claims that a "quincesse" is the name of a type of "hand of cards" you can get in the old card-game of piquet: an ace-down-to-ten hand is called a "quint", and a knave-down-to-seven hand is called a "quincesse", apparently, Jay says.

US-born film-star Gayle Hunnicutt, however, claims that a quincesse is an unfortunate sign that you may be suffering from cinchonism, which is caused, she says, by an over-consumption of quinine, and which can cause giddiness.

US-born film-star Gayle Hunnicutt defines quincesse

as a symptom of cinchonism, which causes dizziness

Well, to both Lois and me, Peter's and Gayle's definitions both sound convincing, but it turns out later in the show, however, that both of these are "bluffs" and are completely made-up, and that the true definition is the following one, given here by team-captain Frank Muir.

Frank says, that, just as the word "princess" is, in a certain sense, the female equivalent of a prince, so a quincesse is the female of a quince. And he adds the following hints about how 'fruitologists' can accurately "sex" any examples that come "plopping" through their laboratory letterboxes (!):

So next time you're in Warner's Supermarket in Upton-on-Severn, or wherever your favourite supermarket may be, be sure to ask the "check-out chick", as they call them in Australia, "What sex is it, please Miss?"

That'll "set the cat among the pigeons" to put if mildly (!).

But what a crazy language we speak!!!!!

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Sunday October 13th 2024 "Put our back out again, HAVE we haha!"

Aches and pains - we all get them sometimes, don't we. Especially if you're 78, like me and my medium-to-long-suffering-wife Lois - let me tell YOU!

We realise, however, that we're just paying the price for the "dissolute" life we've both led over the last 78 years! Not only that, but this morning we realise also that we're not the only ones, when we see stories like this "doozy" in our local Onion News print edition, which has just "plopped" through our letterbox.

If only Lois and I, when we were younger, had known what scientists know now, I mean, what they know now about how to avoid these aches and pains in our old age. Onion News has more on this story...

Well if only we had known! 

And my poor wife Lois is certainly suffering from aches and pains today, to put it mildly! And she's got a great sense of humour, may I say, and she won't mind at all my leading this post with these amusing Onion News stories, both taken from their "Leave Time For A Smile" column this morning, reserved for local stories with a human, lighter-hearted touch - turn to page 94 in today's edition: it's a real "doozy"!

the tag-line to look out for when browsing Onion News - it's normally on page 94

- if you're gagging to read some of its lighter-hearted local stories, that is (!)

And at least some of Lois's aches and pains this morning, and probably most of them, have been caused by yesterday's "winter flu and covid jabs for old codgers" programme, being run by our local NHS doctor's surgery, so not really due to 78 years of bad posture and all that malarkey - just saying! 

flashback to last year: the queue of old codgers

in front of us snaking their way through the building

to get their winter flu and COVID jabs

I was due to drive Lois to her church's two Sunday Morning meetings this morning at Tewkesbury, being held, unusually, in Chief Elder Andy's "mansion" high in the Cotswold Hills, and not in the Village Hall where they're usually held - the Parish Council always has reserved rights to the hall on one Sunday every year for their so-called Harvest Festival: what a madness that is !!!!

Lois showcasing here the Village Hall outside Tewkesbury where

the Parish Council lets Lois's church meet every Sunday

except for when they're holding their "Harvest Festival" - what madness!!!

However, Lois doesn't want to go to meeting this Sunday, understandably. The last thing she needs is to be sitting around for hours, especially on Andy's fashionably modern, and far too deep, sofas, mainly designed for lying on, we suspect. You can't really sit on them unless you've got loads - like a billion (more probably!) - cushions stacked up behind your back. What madness !!!!

[That's enough madness! - Ed]

flashback to October 2023, and a previous meeting held on

Chief Elder Andy's fashionably uncomfortable sofas

So here's the thing.... We've got some unexpected free time today - time to take a walk through Polly's Orchard, by the railway line, to ease Lois's back, and then to spend the afternoon in bed with the blinds down, hopefully this time without the neighbours wagging their tongues about it - just saying!

And along the railway track we can see that the signal's down which in a way is a bit of a metaphor for us today - our signal's down too, and we're not going anywhere today, that's for sure.

I wonder... !

a walk through Polly's Orchard by the Hereford-Worcester

GWR railway line - the signal's down: is that a metaphor

for today for us too? I wonder.....!

I myself am feeling fairly okay today - apart from an ache in my arm where the clinician put the needle in. Plus I've got work to do. Lois and I, "for our sins" (!), run the local U3A Intermediate Danish group, which is due to have its fortnightly meeting on Thursday.

Our group is currently reading a Danish whodunnit, "Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss) by Danish writer Anna Grue. 

It's all about a serial Danish scammer, Jay, who seduces local menopausal widows and spinsters, goes to bed with them, marries them, gets access to their bank accounts, murders them and then pockets the takings, before going on to the next woman. Simples! 

NB: Don't try this at home, however - it's strictly illegal in the EU and other countries - just saying!

Danish crime-writer Anna Grue, and the book we're currently

reading in our local U3A Intermediate Danish group

Ironically, our group's membership is heavily skewed towards the over-60 female "demographic", but whether or not the book plays to their fantasies or to their fears, Lois and I aren't sure, to put it mildly!

At the moment Jay is working on his latest victim, a rich spinster in her 60's called Birgitte, and so far our female members have "gone with" the story happily enough. The sex-scenes are sometimes a bit embarrassing for all of us, however, so we try to get through them as fast as we decently can. Oh dear!

Birgitte - will she be Jay the Scammer's latest victim?

Birgitte's passion is her cats, and Jay's method of worming his way into her affections is to pretend to be a cat-lover himself, and also, as a subsidiary "weapon in his armoury" to pretend that he's terminally ill with something or other. Already Birgitte is granting him a lot of favours, including sexual ones, "to cheer him up" (!), and if all goes well Jay's hoping she'll eventually agree to marry him and share her bank account with him.

Here's an extract from the pages our group will be trying to read and translate this coming Thursday:

I'll spare you your blushes by not translating this passage for you. But if you know a bit of Danish, you'll know why Lois and I are sort-of dreading having to translate into English this particular account of one of Jay's nights in bed with Birgitte, and you'll know why we're fearing there'll be a few red faces on all our computer screens on Thursday afternoon. 

Oh dear!!!

21:00 We go to bed on his week's programme in the "Gone Fishing", following the progress of keen amateur fishermen and ex-comedians Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer, tonight trying to catch barbel in the River Trent outside Nottingham.

And it comes as a bit of a surprise to Lois and me tonight that finally Bob has given up on his mission to be awarded the "rear of the year" tag, which seems too early to us - give it one more try again this year, surely Bob? You're almost there, after all, as Paul stresses tonight in this scene:

Yes, Lois and I think too, that Bob has earned the award this year for the way he's presented his rear on so many British riverbanks, and even though he was passed over by the judges again, we think we can hold his rear up high for the way he's performed.

Just take a look at these recent winners of this coveted award.

Amanda Holden and [inset] Andy Murray -

winners of the 2019 "rear of the year" award

Surely Bob must be in with chance one of these years, and not before time, can we say?

But let me know what YOU think - and Lois and I have designated this particular readers' poll as the DanskColin "vote of the year", so get those cards and letters flooding in. I want to hear them "plopping" through our letterbox  ASAP, if you don't mind, and if you're not too "busy" haha (!).

Results next week - so watch this space!

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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