08:00 We have our shower, and I can get out with a spring in my step - it's Lois's turn to clean up! Poor Lois !!!!!
There is still snow on the ground - 3 inches fell 24 hour ago, and a little bit extra in the course of yesterday evening, so we decide not to stroll round to the local football field for our Monday walk. I make an executive decision and make Monday a "de facto" exercise day, while Lois tries to walk round the back lawn: however even that is slippery, so she maps a route of 100 steps round the front garden using the paved paths and driveways, and then she does 15 rounds of it. Simples!
Later in the day, at around 5 pm, there is still a lot of snow on the back lawn - yikes!!!
our back lawn as it looks at 5 pm today
16:00 We settle down on the couch for a cup of Tea Pigs extra-strong Earl Grey Tea, and one of Lois's delicious home-made iced biscuits: yum yum!
I look at my smartphone. The former Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen has demanded an apology from Nina Hedeager Olsen, Copenhagen's "Technology and Environment" supremo, for burning an "effigy" of Løkke at a Midsummer Bonfire Party last summer. Poor Løkke !!!!
the traditional midsummer "doll-effigy" (bottom left) with Lokke's face pasted over
Nina has begun to make a bit of a habit of this tomfoolery - she was caught doing something similar with an "effigy" of the current prime minister, Mette Frederiksen the other day. Poor Mette F !!!!
What a crazy world we live in!!!
Lois and I have never shaken Mette F.'s hand, but we have shaken Løkke's hand: I'm sure he remembers us! We want to assure him that we would never stick a picture of his face on a doll and burn it - and that's a promise, Løkke !!!!
flashback to 2015: Lois, Alison, and I are tempted to lunch at a cafe table in central
Copenhagen, and get the unexpected chance to shake Løkke's hand as he hurries by
on a whistle-stop election campaign "meet the people" tour of the city centre
Løkke (right) approaches us to shake our hand...
... and now we'll never wash again ! (only joking)
Lois and I tend not to approve of "childish" protests against politicians, even when they clearly deserve it (not true of Løkke or Mette F. in our opinion!).
16:30 Steve, our American brother-in-law has sent us a shocking news report about the BBC's lockdown home-schooling programme, which is telling 9-year-olds that there are "over 100 genders".
We can't see anything remotely sensible in this report at all - the absurd total of "over 100 genders" is one thing, but even if it were true, why would you need to be talking to 9-year-olds about it?
It isn't April the first yet is it????
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
19:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Seminar on zoom.
Lois's weekly Bible Seminar on zoom
I settle down on the couch and watch the latest episode of "The Great", an almost-dramadoc about the life of Catherine the Great of Russia - at this stage still the empress to Peter VIII or somesuch number. Lois and I actually both mentally gave up on this series after Episode 1, but it's a handy thing for me to watch while Lois is busy, because I know she won't mind missing it - makes sense!!!!
Another meandering episode. One of the events is the death of the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Emperor Peter is supposed to choose his successor, but doesn't seem all that interested - oh dear!
Bishop Archie bursts into Peter's bedroom early in the morning to announce the sad news. Peter is spending the night with one of his mistresses, his best friend's wife, Madame Georgina Dymov.
The choosing of a new patriarch isn't important to Peter, but Empress Catherine is very interested. She is trying to assemble a coalition of supporters to back her planned coup against her husband. In the end she decides to go for Bishop Archie as her preferred candidate - she doesn't like him, because it was Archie who tested her for virginity before her marriage ceremony with Peter. But "at least he talks to women", she says - many of the other candidates just ignore them - oh dear!!!!
Catherine is unfortunately not making much progress in her scheme to assemble a ring of plotters against Peter. Everything seems to be against her - not surprising in a court where everybody is watching their own back. And all the court ladies seem to have taken against the Empress, taking their cue from Catherine's arch enemy Madame Svenska.
By the end of the episode Catherine seems to be despairing of the prospects for overthrowing Peter, and is taking more and more refuge in Leo, the lover that her husband Peter provided for her as a "gift". Catherine and Leo, reluctant to embark on an affair at the start, now seem to be getting more into it.
Tonight a confidante shows Catherine a room with a lot of erotic artwork on the walls,
Later Catherine invites Leo in to look around the room, offering him the opportunity to choose one to adopt for their next tryst. Oh dear! Don't forget your coup, Catherine haha!!!!
Oh dear - what a crazy world they lived in in those days in Russia - my god!
21:00 Lois emerges from her seminar and we watch one of our favourite TV quizzes, University Challenge. It's another quarter-final match, this time between Strathclyde University, Glasgow, and University of Durham.
Lois and I emerge from this contest feeling reasonably pleased, because tonight we get 7 answers right that the students fail to get, which is nice.
1. The politician Ellen Wilkinson died in 1947 while holding what cabinet position? The corresponding post was later held by Margaret Thatcher.
Students: Home Secretary
Colin and Lois: Minister for Education
2. As Minister for Education, one of Wilkinson's tasks was the implementation of the 1944 Education Act, introduced by which Conservative minister?
Students: Anthony Eden
Colin and Lois: "Rab" Butler
3. People with similar names: the early 19th century English mathematician noted for a theorem relating to integrals of functions bounded by a plane, and the children's book illustrator who gives her name to an annual award. Who are they?
Students: Green and Greenwood
Colin and Lois: Green and Greenaway
4. We recognise an excerpt from a quintet, where students are asked to name the composer.
Students: Vaughan-Williams
Colin and Lois: Elgar.
5. The tradition of the Ripon Wakeman dates back to 886, when the town was granted its royal charter, and was presented with a first ceremonial horn by which king?
Students: Athelstan
Colin and Lois: Alfred the Great.
6. Vincent Crummies, Newman Noggs, and Madeline Bray are characters in which novel, published from 1838?
Students: Bleak House
Colin and Lois: Nicholas Nickelby
7. In 1969 armed clashes occurred between which two major powers at the Ussuri River?
Students: India and Pakistan.
Colin and Lois: Russia and China
Enough said - and enough to prove we haven't got dementia [yet - Ed] haha!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!
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