08:00 It's my birthday today and Lois and I planned a walk this morning, but the weather let us down - squally showers: damn!
10:30 I open my cards and birthday presents - my best ever selection, I think: 3 books, 2 about languages and one about my favourite poet, Philip Larkin. And three things to eat: chocolates, Turkish Delight and lovely cakes - yum yum! What more could I ask for?
I showcase my birthday books:
(1) Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World (Nicholas Ostler)
(2) The Horse, the Wheel and Language (David W. Anthony)
(3) Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love (James Booth)...
...lovely cakes...
.. some Turkish Delight from Turkey...
...and some lovely Lily O'Brien chocolates: yum yum!
starter: butternut squash and spinach tartlets
main meal: lasagne al forno
dessert: Belgian chocolate cake: here Lois is seen lighting the candles
After Lois has lit the candles on the cake, we sing a duet version of the Happy Birthday song, the one we sing twice when we're washing our hands.We're hoping that our neighbour Bob will join in the song from the other side of our party wall, but we draw a blank here: he's probably dozed off in front of his TV set watching an old "Boots and Saddles", we suspect.
flashback to March 26th 1950: my 4th birthday party - back row (left to right)
Roger Lowe, me; front row: Alison something, my sister Kathy and Jackie Rees
Everybody's having a good time! [Doesn't look like it! - Ed]
[My mother told me the "photographer2 was making everybody nervous: what madness!!! - Me]
16:00 After a nap in bed, we relax on the couch with a cup of tea. We listen to the radio, an interesting weekly programme called "Last Word". We try and hear this programme every week in case somebody has died since the previous Friday, or at some time before.
Brigadier Jack Thomas has died, unfortunately, aged 94. He was a career British Army officer with a long and distinguished military record, ranging from the British-occupied Palestine in the 1940's to Northern Ireland in the 1970's.
He was known for his love of animals and birds, and kept a horse, a ginger cat, and several dogs - at one time he had 14 Alsatians, all accommodated in his Army compound. He rescued a wood owl while stationed in Sierra Leone, and brought it back to the UK on an airliner - on the trip he protested to the airline's crew about having to pay extra for the owl's in-flight meal - my god, that's a bit penny-pinching, to put it mildly!!
The owl lived in their living-room in the UK for 15 years, and it used to watch TV on Jack's head, shoulder or lap: what madness!!!
British Army Brigadier Jack Thomas, seen here with his pet wood owl and one of his dogs
In Germany Jack lived in a terraced house, so there were no side-passages. His horse had to enter the house by the front door and exit it by some French windows that led into the garden, where it was kept. Jack also had an enormous dog called Hector, who stood 6 ft 4 inches tall (1.93m) and was very flatulent. Jack taught Hector to sing along with his harmonica playing. My god!
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
20:00 We watch some TV, the latest programme in the series about Amazing Hotels. Tonight's is in Macao, the former Portuguese colony, now part of China, which has become a mecca for gambling.
Despite the excited write-up in the Radio Times, Lois and I find this edition of the series quite boring. Yes we see crazy pictures of what the hotel looks like, and its vast central atrium, its massive "theatre" etc. But the Chinese authorities won't let the BBC team either film, or talk to, the guests. And can Macao or this hotel really be called the gambling capital of the world when virtually all the customers are from mainland China (where it's illegal to gamble by the way)? It's all just crazy!
What a nuisance China is! This great big country with a millennially ancient culture still hasn't worked out how to organised a humane, civilised society with a free press and proper democratic processes! What a waste of space it is in the world - they're no use to anybody are they, really, haha !!!!
Come back, Portuguese colonialists - all is forgiven haha!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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