Today is the day of the fortnightly meeting of mine and Lois's U3A Danish group on Skype, which we look forward to as one of the few social occasions we still have - yikes! We look forward to this group meeting (95%), while at same time dreading it (5%), because it's completely exhausting - not just because we're talking Danish but also because one particular member's computer seems to degrade the quality of the whole meeting: and we're pretty sure we know who it is - the group-member concerned tends to sound like one of the Daleks on Doctor Who, or alternatively like the voice of Sparky's Magic Piano.
a typical Dalek (left)
Sparky's magic piano
I know some people think that the Danes themselves sound a bit like Daleks because they tend to sound as if they've got a potato in their mouth - and I agree that there's an element of truth in that, but not to this extent! Lois and I always collapse in a heap when the meeting ends. However, I still think on balance that it's a rewarding experience - and it helps us not to feel completely cut off from the real world: no doubt about that.
16:00 The meeting is over, and Lois and I relax on the sofa with a cup of Earl Grey tea and one of her delicious home-made marmalade flapjacks.
We discuss the book she's reading, "Family Britain" (1951-57), which is full of incredible facts about 1950's Britain. Lois wants me to explain some "double entendres" in the book that she doesn't understand. Unfortunately I don't understand them either - oh dear!
A northern stand-up comedian with a summer show in Blackpool, Frank Randall, got into trouble with the town's Chief Constable, a staunch Methodist, for his allegedly risqué act. Randall was eventually summonsed on grounds of obscenity, and the police identified 4 bits of his act that they objected to.
1. A silent Chinaman shuffles across the stage. Randall asks the audience, "Is that King Farouk?"
[Lois and I totally fail to see what's obscene about this remark, or what its relevance is to anything at all, come to that!]
2. CINDERELLA to Buttons (Randall): "I'd like to do you a favour." BUTTONS: "I'd rather have a boiled egg". [We assume Randall and his audience are interpreting "favour" as some kind of sexual service, but we're really not sure - my god!]
3. CINDERELLA: "I'd like to talk to you."
BUTTONS: "It's nothing to do with me. It'll be my father again." [Was Cinderella's remark the standard way girls in those days used to preface telling a man that they were pregnant? Again we're not sure.]
4. "There's a flea loose in the harem and the favourite will have to be scratched". [We assume this refers to a favourite woman in the harem who finds she has an itch in an embarrassing place, perhaps, rather than the literal interpretation that the favourite horse in a horse-race is going to be withdrawn from the running. But does this count as a joke?]
For these strange bits of dialogue, Randall was found guilty on all counts and fined £10. My god!
Frank Randall, the northern stand-up comedian - fined £10 for "obscenity"
The law could be harsh in those days. And censorship on grounds of obscenity was a big feature of theatrical life in those days. It seems unbelievable, but in those days in Britain there was a public official called "The Lord Chamberlain", who from 1737 to 1968 had the power to censor theatrical productions on grounds of "public decency".
Steve, our American brother-in-law, has sent us an interview with journalist Andrew Doyle, the creator of the absurdly "woke" fictional journalist "Titania McGrath". A lot of people for a long time thought that she was a real person.
Doyle noted that there's a long history of fictional commentators dreamed up by satirists and passed off as real people like Titania. The playwright Joe Orton, active in the 1960's, used to write letters to the newspapers, ostensibly authored by members of the general public, complaining about his own "filthy" dramatic productions. One letter called for the Lord Chamberlain to put a stop to the plays and take them off the stage.
What a crazy world they lived in in those days!!!!
20:00 We watch some TV, the latest programme in George Clark's series "Ugly House to Lovely House", on Channel Four.
Lois and I have an alternative title of our own to this series, which is: "Lovely House to Ugly House", and this edition of the programme is a perfect example.
Why did this couple buy this perfectly nice house less than 1 year ago, and then apply to Channel Four to get the house totally transformed in front of the TV cameras into a completely different, and very very ugly, black, grey and dingy house with twice the living area? There are only two of them after all - what madness!!!! Why didn't they just buy a house they liked??????
Matt and Kevin took this perfectly charming 1930's house, that fits in with its neighbours...
...and transformed it into this dark monstrosity..
...adding on at the back a really ugly row of scratched grey, concrete, shed-like, window-less "volumes"
...and constructing some really dark, gloomy, empty and echo-y interiors
What are they going to do now with all those gloomy acres of space?
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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