08:00 Lois and I wake up to the sight of snow falling again. We film it from the bedroom window and send it to our daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia. She can show it to hers and Francis's 7-year old twins Lily and Jess: they're unlikely to see any snow where they are, after all!
The pavements look a bit icy and I decide it would not be a good move to risk a fall. I'm going to make today an exercise day, and do the Friday walk tomorrow or Sunday - simples!!!
I remember the example of one of the heroes I had when I was middle-aged, "The Great Sperling", who bravely rejected the notion of a walk, many years ago now. And although the great man died shortly afterward the Onion News story, his courage has never failed to inspire me - rest in peace, Theodore!!
GERMANTOWN, TN—The notion of aerobic exercise
fleetingly crossed the mind of Memphis-area office manager Theodore Sperling
Monday. "There was half an hour to kill before Monday
Night Football," Sperling said, "and I thought for a
few seconds that maybe I should go for a walk around the block." After
raising himself from the couch, however, Sperling instead walked to the kitchen
for a leftover pork chop from that evening's dinner and returned to the living
room, where he briefly channel-surfed before settling on a Game Show Network
rerun of Match Game '75.
Hail to thee, Theodore Sperling - you kept us out of war haha!!
10:00 Later Lois gets out of bed and takes a picture of the road outside, and a second one of our back garden - we've only had a light covering of snow, as it turns out. Nevertheless I unilaterally cancel the walk that my NHS physiotherapist scheduled for me today.
our back garden this morning after a light fall of early morning snow
11:00 We ring up Budgens, the convenience store in the village, to order next week's groceries. We found out earlier in the week that they would be open as normal today, even though it's a public holiday. They will deliver the groceries tomorrow morning (Saturday).
Budgens, the shop with the thatched roof on the left hand side of High Street
14:00 After lunch we go to bed for a couple of hours.
16:00 We get up and have a cup of Tea Pig Extra Strong Earl Grey Tea and a slice of Christmas cake, while we listen to the radio, the latest programme in the series "Last Word".
We try to hear this programme every week, so we can find out if anybody has died recently or not - usually it's only about 4 or 5. We are beginning to suspect, however, that this week's programme and last Friday's programme were put together well in advance, because several of the deceased people mentioned died earlier in the year. We think the BBC saved up a few deaths as they went through the year, so that the staff who work on the programme wouldn't have to come in and work over the holidays. So some of the deaths are a bit stale, but never mind - a death is a death is a death haha!
Joan Feynman, Richard Feynman's baby sister, has died unfortunately, aged 93. She became a world expert on auroras. Richard encouraged her from an early age, giving her maths problems to solve when she was only 2 years old - my god! He also inspired her to study auroras: he told her when she was a small girl that nobody really understood why auroras happen, and this fascinated her immediately, and she took it as a challenge.
Joan Feynman with her big brother Richard
On the other hand her mother did her best to stop her studying science, saying that women's brains "weren't made" for it. And when she was studying at university in the 1940's her tutor suggested she studied not auroras but cobwebs "because you're sure to encounter them when you're doing your housework" - my god! What a crazy world we live in !!!!
Luckily she took no notice of these discouraging voices, and worked on auroras, simultaneously doing a deal with her brother to "keep his hands off auroras, to leave those to her, and to limit himself to the rest of the universe" - what madness! And it was eventually Joan who worked out that auroras were caused by solar winds of 300 to 800 kph colliding with the earth's magnetic field. Simples!!!
Here the green aurora borealis seen at Holy Island Causeway Northumberland, UK (23/1/2012). Caused by oxygen ions low in the atmosphere. If they were colliding with the solar wind higher, red colours would be created; Credit: Reed Ingram Weir
I always remember how Peter Cook in the 1970's introduced me, via the EL Wisty monologues, to the work of Prof. Bleendreeble, who wrote what Wisty called a seminal book on the universe. Wisty pointed out, however, that Bleendreeble "specialized in the universe" - he didn't branch out much beyond that, which was a pity.
Specialization - it's the curse of our age, unfortunately! Where are the polymaths of yesteryear? [They're dead! - Ed]
20:30 We watch a bit of TV, the grand final of this year's special Christmas series of University Challenge, where participating universities and colleges are represented not by current students but by "distinguished alumni" of the institutions concerned.
Lois and I usually try to pit our wits against the contestants, and try to come up with a few correct answers that the alumni fail to get.
However, we knew we'd be in trouble this evening, coming up against the two best-performing teams in the contest: the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and Manchester University. We still manage to get 5 of these answers, so we don't feel too bad.
1. Originally betrothed to Hugh of Lusignan, Isabella of Angouleme became the second consort of which Plantagenet king?
Alumni: Edward IV
Colin and Lois: John
2. What 6-letter word connects a mythological race led by Queen Hyppolyta, a river known in its upper stretches as the Solimoes, and a bookseller founded in 1994?
Alumni: Marathon (Courtauld), [pass] (Manchester) {Say what???!!!! - Ed]
Colin and Lois: Amazon
3. Mountaineer Joe Brown, who died in 2020, and fellow-climber George Band scaled the southwest face of which Himalayan peak, the third highest in the world?
Alumni: K2
Colin and Lois: Kangchenjunga
4. Which controversial novel of 1969 concerns a bachelor's appointments with his therapist, Dr Spielvogel? A 1972 film version starred Richard Benjamin.
Alumni: The Thorn Birds (Manchester), [pass} (Courtaulds)
Colin and Lois: Portnoy's Complaint
5. "What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators, Tropics, Zones and Meridian Lines?", so the Bellman would cry. and the crew would reply, "They are merely conventional signs". Those words appear in which poem by Lewis Carroll?
Alumni: The Walrus and the Carpenter
Colin and Lois; The Hunting of the Snark.
Fair enough. We're happy, and that's the important thing haha.
21:00 We switch off the TV and listen to the radio for a bit, the latest episode of the entertaining series "The Cold Swedish Winter", which chronicles English stand-up comedian Geoff's life in the north of Sweden with his wife Linda and Linda's parents Sten and Gunilla.
Linda (Sissela Benn), Geoff's Swedish wife
Gunilla (Anna-Lena Bergelin), Geoff's Swedish mother-in-law, with Geoff (Danny Robins)
Despite the wintry title of the series, this week in Episode 3 we are in the lockdown summer of 2020, and it's time for the traditional crayfish supper party.
Lois and I didn't realise just how much alcohol is an integral part of these suppers: in the words of Sten, Geoff's Swedish father-in-law, to be sober at a Swedish crayfish party would be just "too horrible".
Unfortunately this year Sten isn't allowed to drink alcohol, because of some medication or other that he's taking, which casts a damper on the evening, to put it mildly.
And Geoff claims that he's finally worked out the difference between British drinking and Swedish drinking. He says that the Brits drink to make themselves more "chatty", while the Swedes drink so they don't have to talk. He realises tonight at last, he says, why crayfish parties are so popular. "That holy trinity: cracking shells, singing songs, and getting smashed, it's so no one has to actually talk to anyone else".
Fascinating stuff !!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!
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