Friday February 19th 2021

08:00 We scramble out of bed, but take far too long over our shower and cleaning up afterwards - damn! But it's not going to be a day for doing much anyway - wet and windy all day, which always makes us feel sleepy for some reason.

10:00 I look at my smartphone. I see that the UK's so-called "R number" for the coronavirus epidemic has dropped to its lowest ever, which is good news.

My Hungarian pen-friend Tünde has sent me an email about Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's latest sham "ask the people" exercise on pandemic policy.  

According to Insight-Hungary, the government has already decided what they want to do, but they are taking a online poll with a lot of loaded questions, virtually guaranteeing the result they want - it's a neat way of disarming opposition, that's for sure.

poster with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's "Hungary First" slogan

Voters will be asked 

(1) whether pandemic regulations should be gradually phased out or eliminated simultaneously at the end of the pandemic

(2) whether the night-time curfew of 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. should be lifted

(3) whether restaurants, hotels and sports facilities should be allowed to reopen

(4) whether receiving an immunity certificate attesting to one's protection against the virus (vaccination or having already recovered from infection) should afford document holders special exemption from pandemic restrictions, such as attending concerts, festivals, sports matches and other events

(5) whether to allow only foreign nationals that can prove they have been vaccinated or have recovered from the virus to enter Hungary until the end of the pandemic.

For example, the last national consultation, conducted last summer on "the coronavirus and restarting of the economy," was used by the government to justify decisions not to introduce new pandemic restrictions,  even as new cases, hospitalizations and deaths began rising dramatically in September. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán then said his government would seek to avoid imposing pandemic restrictions, adding, "The country must function."

According to data obtained through a freedom of information request, the government spent HUF 11.5 billion (32 million euros) on that consultation as the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic crisis heated up, most of which went to advertising. Pollsters and social scientists have criticized the consultations as lacking genuine polling value. 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

12:30 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed for a nap. Lois has to keep working however - it's time to order her seeds for the coming growing season in her famous "raised bed" planters.

It's a vote of confidence in the future, that's for sure haha!

flashback to June 2020: Lois showcases her shiny new "raised bed" planters

flashback to 1 year ago: the nightmare days of the existing vegetable beds

before the shiny new "raised bed" planters were installed

Today Lois has decided to go with Sutton Seeds, an old established (1806) firm that her father before her used for his orders. Also the Queen uses them, and if they're good enough for Her Majesty, they're good enough for us haha! 

Lois is going to throw away all the "legacy" seed packets she has - some of them probably quite old and rubbishy - and she's decided to start afresh: hurrah!

This is what she decided to order:

16:00 We settle down on the couch with a cup of TeaPig Extra Strong Earl Grey Tea and a slice of bread and butter with Lois's delicious home-made gooseberry jam: yum yum!

We listen to the radio, an interesting programme called "The Last Word". We try and catch this programme every week to see if anybody has died this week or not.

Robin Pooley has died, sadly, at the age of 84. A sad day for all potato-lovers, because Robin led a campaign which was responsible for our being able to buy new potatoes all year round. In the bad old days, you could only get these around June time, but he organised the growing of potatoes around the world in various climates, that would then be transported to the UK, so that we didn't have to wait for June each year before we could get them in our local supermarkets.

Robin Pooley - potato king 

Lois and I didn't know that Robin was doing his national service in the British Army in 1956, at the time of the Suez crisis, when President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the Suez canal without consulting the existing owners - what madness, some would say (although not many perhaps haha) ! 

When Britain and France invaded the country in protest at Nasser's move, young soldier Robin was asked to rescue all the British embassy staff and other British nationals in the country, and drive them along the coast in a convoy through Libya to safety. 

Robin later described the flight from Egypt as his "Moses" moment. The mission was a success, even though the RAF, in ignorance of his mission, used his convoy of vehicles for target practice (not with live ammunition fortunately!). What a crazy world we live in !!!

Larry Flynt, the pornographer and owner of "Hustler" magazine, has also died, aged 78. Lois and I didn't realise that he was raised in poverty, in one of the USA's poorest counties, in East Kentucky, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. 

Larry Flynt, owner of "Hustler"

This afternoon we hear excerpts from a BBC interview with him from about 15 years ago, conducted by one of the Corporation's blind reporters. Today the reporter reminisces about how during the interview Flynt was surrounded by a bevy of "lovelies", although being blind, the reporter had to take other people's word for that!

It's strange how Americans from some of those areas near the Appalachians sound almost English when they talk. 

Today we hear Flynt recalling that the biggest industry in his home town was "jury duty" - my god!

It's one of my greatest disappointments that I've never been asked to serve on a jury and I have only 13 months before I will be too old to qualify  - damn! In the UK you get about £65 a day, more generous than the States for some reason ($60). Still not too bad, considering! In Australia it's $106 (AUS), which is about £60. [All right we get the picture - that's enough jury pay stats - Ed]

20:00 We settle down on the couch to watch a bit of TV, the first in a new series about UK coastal walks, presented by Kate Humble.

So many big names are doing these "celebrity walk" series at the moment, that Lois and I feel it's only a question of time before somebody like Kate Humble bumps into, say, Julia Bradbury or Clare Balding doing something similar - in which case there might be trouble: oh dear!

We're guessing it's an easy thing for TV channels to put on during a pandemic: easy for the presenter to keep 6 feet away from anybody they're talking to. And the programmes can get a bit tedious after a while, but I'm going to let that one slide because tonight Kate is in one of our favourite parts of the UK - the North Devon coast.

Tonight it's very nostalgic for Lois and me to see Kate walking down the gorge along the East Lyn River into Lynmouth.

flashback to September 2019 - Lois and I walk down the gorge of the

East Lyn River into Lynmouth

Nostalgic also to see Kate ride the famous 130-year-old water-powered Lynmouth to Lynton cliff railway.

flashback to 2018: we ride the famous cliff railway

Nostalgic also to see Kate walk the famous coastal Valley of the Rocks. {Give it a rest! - Ed]

flashback to 2018 - we walk through the famous Valley of Rocks

Happy days !!!!!

21:00 We continue to watch a bit of TV, the first in a new archaeology series presented by Janina Ramirez, called "Raiders of the Lost Past".

Lois and I used to call Janina Ramirez "boots woman" because of her trademark fashionable black boots that figured so prominently in her documentaries - the cameramen obviously loved them, and tended to focus on them as Janina was walking about. But she's now long since hung up her boots - we think she's perhaps put quite a bit of weight on. Lois thinks this could be the aftereffects of having children, but we're not sure: the jury's still out on that one.

Tonight Janina's picking over archaeologist Arthur Evan's apparent discovery of the Minoan palace at Knossos, Crete, in 1900, although we hear tonight that a local man actually discovered it before Evans, but without doing much about it. So Evans did most of the hard work, it seems.

For decades the Minoans were thought to be a unique civilisation, separate from all the other contemporary cultures. Their art seemed different, with a focus on the female form and on the beauties of nature: both of these being subjects that didn't figure much in the contemporary Egyptian or Greek Mycenean cultures. It's actually quite difficult to find representations of men there - in complete contrast to Mycenaean art, which was homocentric and emphasised mankind's dominance over nature. 

Minoan art prioritised female figures over male ones, and also 

focussed on the beauty of animals and sea-creatures, and of nature in general

And the Minoans had their own unique form of writing, different from Egyptian and different from the Myceneans of the Greek mainland, a form of writing which nobody could decipher.

The script, called Linear B, was finally deciphered in 1952 by English architect and amateur self-taught linguist Michael Ventris, who showed that Minoan was actually a form of the Greek language.

Michael Ventris, who deciphered the Minoans' Linear B script in 1952

It was for a long time a puzzle as to what ended the Minoan civilisation on Crete, but it was shown eventually that it was dealt an initial hammer-blow by a tsunami following the volcanic eruption at Santorini around 1600 BC. The Minoans then tried to rebuild their cities and settlements, but in their weakened state they fell easy prey to sea-borne invaders, thought to be from Mycenae on the Greek mainland. And the rest is ancient history (as opposed to ancient prehistory haha).

But aren't ancient history and ancient prehistory and other sorts of prehistory fascinating! 

Who would want to study anything else (apart from history itself obviously!) ????!!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzzz!!!!