Danskcolin: Saturday June 19th 2021

08:00 An early start for Lois and me because we're expecting two deliveries this morning, the first is our groceries order from Budgens, the convenience store in the village, the second is an order of ready meals from CookShop for Father's Day tomorrow, with all items to be swabbed down with disinfectant.

the Cheltenham Cook Shop on Bath Road

As it turns out, the CookShop delivery for Father's Day doesn't come, which is annoying, because we've been waiting in for it. It turns out I've made another mistake. I check CookShop's confirmation email and I find that somehow or other I must have asked for the meals to be delivered on Wednesday June 30th, which is plum crazy! That wouldn't have made any sense! Perhaps it's because I didn't log-in till I'd started filling my virtual "basket" - could the software have reset my delivery slot to some default date and time?

Or am I just going senile? [No comment - Ed]

Whatever.

The moral is, "Take nothing for granted. Always check the confirmation email (see above) and check the order details carefully!"

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

To salvage something for Father's Day at this late stage, Lois gets a shoulder of lamb out of the freezer. Luckily Budgens have delivered us some strawberries this morning, which will be nice as a dessert.

I have discovered that there's no way I can amend the delivery slot online, which is crazy. So I contact Cathie at CookShop and ask her to reschedule to Friday June 25th, so that Lois and I will be able to have our Cook Shop Father's Day lunch on Saturday 26th.

14:00 After lunch we put up the runner-bean poles in the back garden.

16:00 We have a cup of tea and a Chelsea bun (delivered this morning by Budgens), and I find another reason to celebrate this weekend apart from Father's Day - one of my favourite quora pundits, Norwegian Sturla Molden (crazy name, crazy guy) has been weighing in on the "red hair" controversy - did it originate with the Vikings, somebody has asked.

And the icing on the cake about Sturla's four-penn'orth is that he's included a map in his post! I do love a nice map!

Sturla comments that in Europe, ginger hair was originally associated with Celtic people on the British isles and with Udmurt people in the Urals. The Celts and the Udmurts constitute the two distinct hotspots of ginger hair.

He concedes that Vikings certainly played a role in disseminating the recessive gene responsible for the feature, but this influence was not made directly but happened through the slave trade, because many of the Vikings' slaves were picked up in Ireland and taken hither and thither.

Simples!

But who's ever heard of the Udmurts? [I expect a lot of people have - Ed]

The immediate family that I was born into, was made up of half gingers and half blondies (originally). My father, my brother Steve and my sister Kathy were all gingers. My mother, my sister Gill and I were blondies. I'm not sure if that's relevant, however. I'll have to check with Sturla next time I see him.

flashback to 1965: my brother Steve on holiday in the Netherlands

1967: my sister Kathy in the garden of our house in Bristol UK

Lois's brother Andrew was a ginger, and Lois herself was a blondie, so she's a similar case to me. [Sorry, but that's still not really relevant! - Ed]

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the second programme in Alex Polizzi's new series of "The Hotel Inspector", where the feisty Alex visits failing hotels, pubs and restaurants, and tells them what they're doing wrong, and works out how they can start making a profit.

This series is always an entertaining experience, and nice to see that Alex is swearing just as much as ever at her hopeless victims!

She soon sees that pub-owner Sarah is employing too many staff, many of who aren't very busy. She spots also that Sarah does most of the food preparation herself, even though she has a perfectly competent chef working for her, one who would actually relish being given more responsibility.

The decor and style of the pub are also pathetic, which is a shame given that it's a lovely old building in a charming old picturesque village in Bedfordshire. Alex isn't slow to point this all out, but Lois and I notice that the programme downplays a new factor in pub-owner Sarah's life: during the course of the filming she gets together with a new boy-friend, a carpenter, who designs and does up the rooms.

Lois and I think this is perhaps an alternative option for female owners of failing pubs. Yes, you can call Channel 5 and get Alex Polizzi in, but perhaps it may be even easier just "to go to bed with a carpenter" haha!

Simples!!!