A nasty soggy day all day – damn! I email all the members of our
U3A Danish group with details of our next Skype meeting in 2 weeks’ time, and
that’s about the only thing I achieve all day. We wonder whether the ground
will be too wet for our daughter Alison and her family to camp here in our back
garden on Sunday night – what madness!
Lois and I think, however, that the children will enjoy the experience –
it can be hugely uplifting. A similar life-affirming camping experience for 3 escaped prisoners in the
US was recently highlighted by the world’s press, after the story broke via
Onion News, the influential American news web-site.
CLEARVILLE, PA—Acknowledging that getting the chance to relax
in nature was its own reward, a group of longtime friends camping out in the
woods confirmed Wednesday that they were just happy to escape the daily grind
of federal prison.
“It sounds like the simplest thing in the world, but it’s
unbelievably nice to sit by the lake and think your own thoughts for an
afternoon without the rigid structure of penitentiary life,” said convict Jesse
Howell, who like his friends claimed that sitting against a tree feeling the
breeze in his hair was a nice change from the rat race of roll call, meals, and
15 minutes in the yard.
“My pals and I have been planning a trip like this for five
to seven years, so it’s nice to finally kick back and bask in the beauty of the
natural world. Just look at all these stars—you can’t even see them back at The
House, what with the light pollution and the 12 inches of reinforced concrete.”
A heart-warming story, and one that Lois and I will be sure to
share with the family if they begin to talk about maybe “chickening out” of the
expedition, due to the damp conditions!
10:30 Lois orders next week’s groceries from the Budgens convenience store in the village, to be delivered tomorrow. And she makes 3 birthday cards – most of the birthday cards we have sent since the lockdown started have been home-made ones.
The Budgens convenience store in the village.
I have a nap in the afternoon and at 4 pm Lois and I settle down
on the sofa to hear an interesting radio programme, “The Last Word”. We 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!
The adventurer Philip Horniblow has died unfortunately, aged 92.
He was variously described as a mountaineer, soldier, spy and doctor.
He took part in 3 expeditions to climb Mt Everest. On one of these
expeditions medical man Horniblow was asked by hang-gliding enthusiast Nigel
Gifford to be on hand for his attempt to hang-glide from the mountain, in case
of any medical emergency arising during his attempt.
Although Horniblow was by now 80 years old, he agreed to be
Gifford’s medical back-up. However he requested that Gifford “either bring him
back alive or with a valid death certificate”. My god, what madness!!!
One day Horniblow met Gifford up on the mountain at 8 am. He said,
“I’ve just had a little stroke, but it’s all right, I’ve cured it with whisky
and water!”
Shortly afterwards, at 9.30 am, a 7-year-old Sherpa boy was
brought along to see Horniblow, who examined the boy and confirmed that the lad
was suffering from a burst appendix. At 12 noon in hazardous conditions, while
nursing this semi-conscious child, Horniblow flew to Katmandhu, and at the same
time briefed the local hospital by radio from the helicopter. At 2 pm he handed
the boy over to the paramedics on the tarmac at Katmandhu AIrport, and at 7 pm
the hospital confirmed that the boy had been operated on successfully.
You might think that all that was probably enough for one day for
the 80-year-old Horniblow. But on meeting up with Gifford in the evening, his
first words were, “Where are we going out for dinner?”.
Philip Horniblow (1928-2020)
My god, they don’t make them like that any more, that’s for sure!
20:00 We ring our daughter Alison, and to our delight we find out
that the family are still gung-ho about coming to see us on Sunday and camping
on our back lawn on Sunday night, going home to Haslemere on the Monday, which
is a public holiday here – hurrah!
20:30 We watch a bit of TV, the first night of the 2020 Proms
Concert season, staged in the Royal Albert Hall, London, as usual, but without
an audience, and with socially distanced musicians.
It’s nice to see again some of the musicians we’ve grown to love
over the years, especially “lovely hair woman” (will it, won’t it, get caught
in her strings tonight?) and the flautist with the big moustache – not that we’re
shallow or anything!
“lovely hair woman”
“big moustache guy”
21:30 We catch the first half hour of an interesting documentary
on Channel 5, looking back at the old sitcom series, “Are You Being Served”, set
in an old-fashioned London department store – a series which ended 30 years ago.
The original idea for the sitcom came from the actress Joanna Lumley, who played “Patsy”
in “Absolutely Fabulous”.
Lois and I had thought that this series was quintessentially
British, but when we lived in the US between 1982 and 1985, we discovered that
this sitcom had also been shown over there. And later when we visited our
daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia, we found out that the show had been very
popular over there, and a follow up series had been made and filmed there, set
in Melbourne I think, after the sitcom had finished in the UK – with John Inman
imported from the UK to recreate his “Mr Humphreys” role over there.
My god what a crazy world we live in !!!!!!
The original pilot for the series was rejected by the BBC, and
only revived when there were big gaps in the schedules in 1972 after a serious terrorist
incident in Munich meant that the BBC couldn’t show pictures from the Olympic
Games.
The BBC became desperate for something to show, and they ransacked their
archives and so the series was born – it then went on to run for 13 years. What madness!!!!
a scene from the original pilot, which was at
first rejected by the BBC
22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzz!!!!!
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