Monday 19th October 2020

10:00 A day to start thinking about putting the garden to bed for the winter. The patio table has to be covered up and the chairs stacked up against the wall. Sob sob1

We continue by putting the greenhouse to bed, gathering up all the tomatoes that haven't gone red yet. We bring them into the house and put them on the south-facing front windowsill to try and tempt them to redden up a bit.

we put the reluctant tomatoes on a sunny windowsill to tempt them to redden up a bit

How cute the "baby" tomatoes look (see the left hand dish)! I think it's time to try talking to them when we're in there having our meals, or at least to "include" them in the conversation. Or should we try to persuade them to "join the conversation", as people say nowadays? This is essentially what Prince Charles told us to do decades ago. He was so ahead of his time! Come back, Charles, all is forgiven haha!!!

A lot of people talk to their pets, no doubt about that. But how many bother to smile or look pleasant to them? We both miss talking to Minx, the cat we took over when our daughter Alison moved to Denmark in 2012. Sadly Minx died a couple of years ago.

Lois says that a recent study found that dogs show no more excitement on being shown pictures of their owners' faces than when being shown the back of their heads. According to the Journal of Neuroscience, the canine brain relies far more on the sense of smell, and sound.

But cats, by contrast, do respond to a human smile, although not the usual kind of smile: what they like is the so-called "Duchenne smile" - which entails the skin round the eyes crumpling up into little "crow's feet" (the little lines you get round there), simultaneously with a slow blinking of the eyes. 

It takes a bit of practice, though. Lois says she has been trying it out on me apparently over the last few days, she says, since she read an article about it. That's a relief to know - I was getting a bit worried, no doubt about that!

Lois says that if you do a "Duchenne smile" to a cat, it's much more likely to blink back at you, or to approach, and sniff, the outstretched hand of a stranger. For my part I must try and practise that, but not the sniffing strangers bit, that would be a bit weird.

19:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Seminar. She emerges at 9 pm and we watch our two favourite TV quizzes, Only Connect. and the student quiz, University Challenge.

As usual in University Challenge we try to come up with answers that the students can't get. We're both tired so we're not expecting much, but as it turns out we get 7 of these answers, which is as good as it gets - hurrah! 

As often we score particularly well when it comes to the geography of the UK. We always say young people today don't learn about this at school, and for the rest of their lives they rely on satnavs to find their way about, whereas Lois and I used to pore over maps before we made a journey and listed the roads we were going to take etc - what madness it seems now !!!!!

All the previous episodes in this series were recorded pre-pandemic, but in tonight's contest between 2 of the highest-scoring losers in the first round, we see pandemic precautions for the first time - perspex screens between the team members - yikes!

1.     The name of what element in the actinide series is named indirectly after a Greek god whose name means 'the wealthy one', and directly after a large member of the Kuiper belt?

Students: (1) promethium (2) neptunium

Colin and Lois : plutonium

2.    Turbulence caused by the Benguela Current in the South Atlantic is a major cause of the desertification of the Skeleton Coast region that lies primarily in what country?

Students: South Africa

Colin and Lois: Namibia

3.    From the Latin meaning 'case' or 'occurrence', what term is used for the application of rules of religion or morality to specific practical cases, such as in medical ethics?

Students: oath

Colin and Lois: casuistry

4.    Which TV mockumentary does this picture come from?

Students: "W1A"

Colin and Lois: "2012"

5-7.    (three questions on the so-called "Rotten Boroughs", abolished by the Electoral Reform Act of 1832)

5.    In which county is Dunwich? Formerly a thriving port it disappeared under the sea in the 14th century, but continued to return members to Parliament until 1832.

Students: East Sussex

Colin and Lois: Suffolk

6.    Which largely rural county was notorious for its large number of rotten boroughs, including Callington, Bossiney and West Looe?

Students: Derbyshire

Colin and Lois: Cornwall

7.     The site of a former cathedral, the depopulated settlement of Old Sarum is few miles north of which present-day city?

Students: Coventry

Colin and Lois: Salisbury

Say what????

Overall, a good enough result for a tired pair of old crocks!

22:00 Time for bed - zzzzzzzzzzzz!!!