Monday, July 13, 2020

Morning:  Lois and I have two parcels to send in the post, and we spend most of the morning trying to print out labels to stick on them, giving the addressee information, weight details etc, so that we don’t have to go into a post office to ship them – what madness!

The Royal Mail website always drives me into a fury because they’re constantly changing the format, so that I can never quickly find what I am looking for. Grrrrr!!!!

We are sending one parcel to Australia: some of our daughter Sarah’s old children’s books, so that her 7-year-old twins in Perth can read them. The other parcel is going to Coventry – an old cassette tape of Lois’s father, Dennis, where he can be heard choosing a selection of his 8 favourite "gramophone" records, à la BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs. 

The idea is to have the cassette tape converted to CD. Dennis was a popular lay preacher in Lois’s sect – much loved, in part, for his humorous approach:  he was a brilliant raconteur. It’s strange to hear his voice again as we play through the tape – he died nearly 20 years ago.

flashback to 1972: mine and Lois's wedding day

(left to right) my father (58), Lois's mother (56), Lois' father (Dennis) (58)

and my mother (52)

Afternoon: Lois goes down the road and posts the parcels in the local postbox.

Then she gets her mask ready for tomorrow – an exciting day. She gets to have her hair cut for the first time since the lockdown started. She has to wear a mask and gloves. Her hair stylist James will be dressed like a surgeon with all that PPE equipment we hear so much about  – what a crazy world we live in!

James, Lois's hair stylist in happier times

Evening: Lois goes into the dining room to take part in her sect’s weekly Bible Class. I relax in the living-room and listen to the radio: The Last Word. I try to listen to this programme every week to see if anybody has died recently or not. Usually it’s about 4 or 5 people only, so not too bad!

Enrico Morricone, the film score composer, died recently unfortunately. He made his name writing scores for so-called “Spaghetti Westerns”, films which his old school pal was directing.

Morricone wrote the score for “The Good the Bad and the Ugly before the film itself had been written, and he suggested that the director make up some story-line that would fit the music, which seems the proper way round to me. Pity that doesn’t happen more often!

I switch off the radio and see a bit of television, the second part in an interesting Channel 5 documentary series about the Battle of Britain in 1940. This episode concentrates on the most intense day of bombing of all, on August 30^th 1940, when the Luftwaffe tried to bomb the RAF out of existence.

It’s interesting that the RAF employed a lot of Polish air crew after the fall of Poland in 1939, but was inclined to trust them only with “light duties”. But after one Polish pilot shot down a German bomber on August 30^th, the RAF realised they were wasting one of their most valuable sources of effort, these Polish aircrews: they were actually much more experienced and battle-hardened than the RAF’s home-grown crews, who had had to be trained up from scratch.

It was extra difficult for the Poles initially, flying British fighter planes, which were totally different from all the continental ones – no surprise there! Also they had to learn our system of measurements: feet, yards, miles etc, which they were totally ignorant of, of course! 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

22:00 It’s 10 o’ clock and here are Lois and me, in bed again already.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

Danish translation:  Mandag den 13. juli 2020

Formiddagen: Lois og jeg har to pakker til at sende via posten, og vi bruger det meste af formiddagen på at udskrive etiketter til at klæbe på dem, som giver adressen, andet information, også vægtdetaljer osv., Så vi ikke behøver at gå ind et postkontor for at sende dem – sikke et vanvid!

Royal Mail-webstedet bringer mig altid til en raseri, fordi de konstant ændrer formatet, så jeg ikke hurtigt kan finde det, jeg leder efter.

Vi sender én pakke til Australien: nogle af vores datter Sarahs gamle børnebøger, så hendes 7-årige tvillinger i Perth kan læse dem. Den anden pakke sender vi til Coventry - et gammelt kassettebånd af Lois’s far, Dennis, hvor han kan høres ved at vælge et udvalg af sine foretrukne plader, à la BBC-radioprogrammet Desert Island Discs. Ideen er at få kassettebåndet konverteret til cd. Dennis var en populær lægprædikant i Lois's sekt - meget elsket til dels for hans humoristiske tilgang: han var en strålende raconteur. Det er underligt at høre hans stemme igen, mens vi spiller gennem båndet - han døde for næsten 20 år siden.

Eftermiddag: Lois går ned ad vejen og lægger pakkerne i den lokale postkasse. Så får hun sin maske klar til i morgen - en spændende dag. Hun får håret til at klippes for første gang siden nedlukningen startede. Hun skal bære en maske og handsker. Hendes hårstylist James vil være klædt ud som en kirurg med alt det der PPE-udstyr – sikke et vanvid!!!!!

Aftenen: Lois går ind i spisestuen for at deltage i hendes sekts ugentlige bibelsklasse. Jeg slapper af i stuen og lytter til radioen: Det sidste ord. Jeg prøver at lytte til dette program hver uge for at se, om nogen er død for nylig eller ej. Normalt handler det kun om 4 eller 5 personer, så ikke så slemt!

Sidste ord

Enrico Morricone, filmkomponisten, døde for nylig desværre. Han lavede sit navn og skrev scoringer til såkaldte "Spaghetti Westerns", film, som hans gamle skolekammerat regisserede.

Morricone skrev partituret til “Det gode, det dårlige og det grimme, før selve filmen var blevet skrevet, og han foreslog, at instruktøren skulle sammensætte en historie, der kunne passe til musikken, der synes at være den rigtige vej rundt for mig! Skam, der ikke sker oftere!

Jeg slukker for radioen og ser lidt fjernsyn, den anden del i en interessant Channel 5-dokumentarserie om Slaget ved Storbritannien i 1940. Denne episode koncentrerer sig om den mest intense bombedag af alle, den 30. august 1940, da Luftwaffe forsøgte at bombe RAF ud af eksistensen.

BB! / 2

Det er interessant, at RAF beskæftigede en masse polsk luftbesætning efter Polens fald i 1939, men var tilbøjelig til at stole på dem kun med "lette opgaver". Men efter at en polsk pilot skød ned en tysk bombefly den 30. august, indså RAF, at de spildte en af ​​deres mest værdifulde kilder til indsats, de polske flybesætninger, der faktisk var mere erfarne end RAFs hjemmevoksne besætninger, der måtte være trænet op fra bunden.

Det var ekstra vanskeligt for polakkerne oprindeligt med at flyve britiske jagerfly, som var helt forskellige fra alle de kontinentale planer - ingen overraskelse der! De måtte også lære vores målesystem: fødder, værfter, miles osv., Som de selvfølgelig var helt uvidende om! Hvilken skør verden vi lever i !!!!

22:00 Klokken er 10 og her er vi allerede i sengen igen.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz !!!!