10:00 I try to set up my shiny new mobile phone that arrived yesterday - there are minimal instructions in the box, probably because they are assuming I'm young and get a new phone every year - oh dear! I do the basics, but I'll have to start getting used to using it and then seeing what I can and cannot do. Modern technology eh - don't you just love it !!!!
my new phone with its slightly scary screen display - what does it mean???
11;00 My follow-up telephone appointment with Connor, my physiotherapist, who is trying to get me fit again. I tell him I can do all the exercises he suggests, except one: I find it difficult to "fold up" my leg so that it rests on the other knee, a contortion he calls his "gluteus maximus special". I explain that I'm not a young sprog any more, and he sympathises. He's going to send me an alternative routine that does the same job, together with some more general exercises. He'll speak to me again on New Year's Eve.
It's not as good as visiting a physiotherapist in person, but it's on the NHS, so at least the price is right haha!!
13:00 Lunch and a nap in bed, and then we get down to writing our overseas Christmas cards. We discuss what to put in them this year. It seems inappropriate to enclose a newsletter - everybody in the world has had a not-very-exciting year, so we don't want to suggest that we're any different and that we have a lot to write about, and are a cut above everybody else. Keep it simple this year, we think on reflection!
17:00 I have a look at the Danish press (ekstrabladet). I see that Denmark's former Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen has been talking about his surprising decision to become a TV reality show star, trying to sail across the Atlantic with a crew of other totally inexperienced sailors.
Løkke (right) on board the TV reality show craft that he will try to cross the Atlantic on
Løkke explains that his party, the centre-right Liberal Party (Venstre) no longer seems to need him. But I see that the Danish press have commented that he's still drawing his full salary from the Danish Treasury, and also that he's being paid handsomely for appearing on the reality show - probably to the tune of about 400,000 kroner (nearly £50,000 or $65,000).
Well, we say, good luck to him, though - we admire his spirit! Lois and I have followed Løkke's career with interest ever since he shook our hands in 2014 in the middle of Copenhagen, while soliciting votes in the general election campaign which brought him to power, and which eventually led him to a game-changing handshake with Donald Trump.
Yes, Lois and I have shaken the hand that shook the hand of Donald Trump. And my hand starts to hurt just at the very thought of it - what madness!!!!
Flashback to June 2014: Løkke (right) is preparing his right hand to shake our hands,
as we were eating lunch in the middle of Copenhagen.
18:00 We open one of yesterday's deliveries, from our daughter Alison in Haslemere - it turns out to be a sort of "advent calendar" with a different specialty tea-bag for each day in the run-up to Christmas. What a novel idea - we're going to enjoy these, no doubt about that!
a pre-Christmas gift from our daughter Alison - an "advent calendar" with
a different speciality tea-bag for each day in the run-up to Christmas
20:00 We watch a bit of TV, a documentary about the late Dick Emery, a comedian whose old TV shows from the 1960's to the 1980's are not repeated any more, like the Benny Hill shows, because of what's now considered sexism and other related modern taboos.
When he started out in show business after World War II, he had a showbiz comic persona very similar to that of his friend, Peter Sellers. But whereas Sellers' career really took off later internationally when he went into films, Emery found himself limited to TV series - he later tried to break into films, but was unsuccessful, a failure he always regretted.
Poor Dick !!!!!
He had a number of stock characters, male and female, that he used to appear as in his TV shows, several of them having their own unique catch-phrase.
His most famous character was Mandy, a brassy middle-aged blonde, who, whenever questioned by a man, always interpreted the question as a sexual reference. And the interviews would always end with Mandy telling the man, "Ooh, you ARE AWFUL! But I LIKE you!", before pushing him over with a hefty shove in the chest.
In this typical example, we see a charity fund-raising "flag day". Mandy is playing a woman carrying a tray of "flags" to pin into the lapels of any passers-by willing to donate a bit of money to the charity she's representing.
Lois and I didn't realise that the comedians in shows like The Fast Show, The Brilliant Show, and Little Britain - Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse and others, were all brought up on Dick Emery shows in their youth, and Dick was the main inspiration for the catch-phrase based humour in their sketches.
Well, wodda you know!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!
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