Dear Reader, Are you having a hectic week? Lois and I haven't stopped once - it's been all go, to put it mildly.
Talk about our "hectic" lives today ! And even celebrities are beginning to "feel the heat". Look at celebrity golfer Tiger Woods and his "squeeze" of the moment, Lindsey Vonn - that pair haven't stopped for breath once this week either [Source: Onion News]!
It's total madness isn't it !!!! It's just got to all just quieten down sometime soon, that's for sure, or we'll all start to go stark staring mad, won't we !!!!
Having absorbing interests and hobbies is all very well - let's not knock that - but when those hobbies start to impact on a couple's relationship, this is a bit of a wake-up call, isn't it. Let's hope that Tiger and Lindsey can somehow find a way through this relationship jungle, maybe scale down some of their hobbies, somehow find a bit of "them time", and find true happiness again, that's what we think anyway!
10:00 It's been a busy week for Lois and me too, so there's plenty to talk about during our daily walk on the Poolbrook Common. Lois has already been "dipping into" her copy of "The Week" magazine, which plopped through our letterbox this morning bringing us a digest of the week's news from home and abroad, and she's already got lots of issues for us to chew over, that's for sure!
Lois and me: already chewing over the latest hot topics
from "The Week" during our walk on Poolbrook Common this morning.
First up, we feel we've got to discuss the new ChatGPT story - it's the "Elephant on the Common", as Lois puts it, and we decide we've really got to get that one out of the way before we discuss anything else this morning.
Lois and I don't really understand about chatbots - we get the impression that they're something on your phone or laptop that can talk to you like they're a real person, chat about anything you want to discuss or ask about. They can also write you a poem if you want one - and do lots of other bizarre things that we don't really want anyway - call us "outliers" if you like haha!
"What's the point, eh?", that's what we always say!
a typical man talking to a chatbot on his phone
Apparently, according to "The Week" quoting UK journalist Parmy Olson on Bloomberg, the most noticeable feature of the new updated version of ChatGPT is its "
flirty personality" - it doesn't just sound human but is "
strangely seductive", writes Olson,
"recalling the alluring voice used by Scarlett Johansson in the 2013 movie "Her", in which a man falls in love with his AI (artificial intelligence)."
film-star Scarlett Johansson, who has "never oozed more sexuality
than she does with just her voice" in the 2013 movie "Her",
according to the critic in "The Daily Beast"
Adds Olson, "If [software firm] OpenAI's mostly male engineers are trying to build the perfect girlfriend, they seem to be on the right track". She worries, however, about what might happen if emotionally vulnerable people develop an unhealthy attachment to the Chatbot - she thinks we should be told, and Lois and I are with her on that one!
But what a crazy world we live in !!!!
10:30 Tired after our walk, we sit down at one of the outside tables at the Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop.
we sit down at one of the outside tables in front of the
Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop, and Lois goes inside
to order our drinks and "naughty" cakes etc
It's been 6 weeks now since I had my hip replacement operation at Redditch, and I'm now entering the crucial 6-8 week "transitional period" where I'm supposed to gradually revert to my normal patterns of activity.
For now, though, Lois is prepared to go on pampering me, and making me feel "special", the way a man likes to feel, but all this "special treatment" won't last much longer now - oh dear!
For me, it's been a bit like becoming "the girl" in our relationship, a fascinating new insight. It's Lois who does the driving, when we go out. But first things first, she opens the car door for me and waits till I'm comfortable in the front passenger seat before closing it gently again, and then when we arrive, she opens the door again to let me out.
It's Lois who drives when we go out, after she's first
opened the car door for me and "settled me down" in the
front passenger seat - nice one !!!!
And when we get to the café, she settles me down at a table, and goes inside to order our drinks and cakes. And when we're ready to leave, she goes in and pays the bill.
And I can just sit there, "like Lady Muck". Very nice too, isn't it - and it's been such fun, you would not believe haha!!!!
How did that old song go, you know, the one from "The Flower Drum Song" ????
Although I have to say, that if I sometimes drool over hankies made of lace, with me it's a purely physical thing - i.e.
actually drooling drool haha !!!! Well, I am 78 - cut me a bit of slack haha !!!!
I don't think I'm really becoming a girl - not yet anyway haha! Although I am actually now keeping my legs well apart in bed, thanks to my shiny new multi-positional "knee pillow" - I have to do that because it's less strain on my shiny new hip. And there's a good choice of positions, which is nice.
a woman trying out the "multi-position use"
of her shiny new knee pillow
I think about some of those positions this morning at the Coffee Shop when Lois brings up the next topic on our agenda this morning, the magazine's "Controversy of the Week", "Maternity Wards in Crisis". This is is all about the House of Commons' recent cross-party inquiry into birth trauma. The inquiry was led by Tory MP, Theo Clarke, who gave birth to her first child in 2022.
Lois recalls how she had fortunately had a fairly comfortable time on the whole, without much trauma, the two times she gave birth, to our daughters Alison and Sarah, in 1975 and 1977 respectively, at St Pauls Maternity Hospital in Cheltenham.
flashback to 1977: Lois and me with Alison (2)
and her new-born sister Sarah
Lois also recalls, however, that during any hospital stay, there always seems to be one member of staff, whether it's a nurse or matron or whatever, who is "not as nice as the others". When she gave birth to Sarah, there was this "strange nurse" on the ward, she says.
And Lois remembers how, if any of the mothers in the ward ever expressed feelings of discomfort after giving birth, this particular nurse used to imply that it was the mothers' own fault: "I'd never open my legs for a man", she used to say. As a result the mothers gave her the nickname "Nurse I'd-never-open-my-legs-for-a-man".
Oh dear!
Of course Lois has had to be doing a lot more driving than she normally does, since my operation on April 3rd, and she's getting much more confident. She still won't drive on motorways, however, or on the busy dual carriageways round Worcester, so for my two upcoming follow-up hospital appointments at Redditch, we're getting our daughter Sarah, who works for an accountancy firm in Evesham to take us.
flashback to 2015: Sarah (second from right) joins with her colleagues,
as they meet to celebrate the accountancy firm's 80th birthday.
Lois doesn't mind driving on quiet B-roads, or on "country roads", however, so she'll drive me and herself to Evesham and park at the back of Sarah's office. Then Sarah will take us the rest of the way to Redditch. This will minimise the time Sarah has to take off work. Hopefully the surgeon at Redditch will give me the okay to start driving again, but we'll have to see.
21:00 We wind down for bed with a relaxing journey down the River Firth in Scotland, in the company of Scottish broadcaster and presenter, Paul Murton.
An interesting programme in the series and full of surprises as usual.
For instance, Lois and I didn't know that the quiet town of Alloa, on the River Forth, was, in presenter Paul Murton's words, "a launchpad for rock'n'roll royalty".
They were on a tour headlined by the now forgotten solo singer Johnny Gentle, who was a big teenage heart-throb at the time. Tickets cost 4 shillings before 10pm and 5 shillings after.
On this Scottish tour, which kicked off their debut tour, they changed their names, we hear. Paul Macartney was "Paul Ramone", John Lennon was "Long John", George was "Carl Harrison", stage names which they thought would lend them an air of mystique. In their set, they apparently played a lot of Elvis songs, and also Buddy Holly.
Tonight two local Beatles fans tell presenter Paul Murton about one local girl's close encounter with the future world-beating group.
She agreed to the lift and on the way back in the Beatles' van, John Lennon asked her if he could see her again when they were due to call back in the town later that month after their tour in the north of Scotland.
They fixed up a date to meet again, but she says now, "I didn't turn up for the date with John, because my best clothes were in the wash, and I couldn't be bothered to change, so I just said no. Years later when I saw him become famous, I said, 'My god, that's John Lennon, you know, he kissed me!' "
Lois and I think, however, that it may have been for the best that Jean didn't turn up for the date with John. Who knows - she might have met that notorious "fate worse than death" before she was quite ready for it haha!
Fascinating stuff, though isn't it!
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!
