07:00 Following the example of my role model, filmstar Michael Caine, the self-confessed "nosy neighbour", I look out of our bedroom window and observe that one of our neighbours, the personal trainer, has got a customer in his so-called "mini-gym" - and we see the tell-tale rhythmic movements going on through the open door.
self-confessed "nosy neighbour", film-star Michael Caine, seen here in
typical poses, observing one of his suspiciously mild-mannered
neighbours indulging in some superficially "mundane" behaviour
My background in intelligence helps me here. This is the second time this week that the observed "phenomenon" has been noted: a similar pattern was seen on Tuesday. My preliminary conclusion, somewhat tentative, is that Matt's customer has signed up for a twice-weekly hour of gym work (6:30 to 7:30 am), using a bench-press, probably before going on, from the mini-gym at 7:30 am to some 9-to-5 job.
Good! - another piece of the puzzle is in place. I'm not going to rest till I've checked out all our neighbours for suspicious activity. I've long suspected that many of the houses in this area are operating as a "front" for criminal and/or espionage activity. I must buy a new loose-leaf binder so that all the info is to hand when I eventually call the police or the security services. I must be ready!
10:00 The weather forecast tells us that it's going to be unusually hot here today and for the next few days, with a high of 81F / 27C this afternoon, and weathermen are saying that "There's more where that came from!"
Lois and I decide not to do our scheduled walk today, because of the expected heat. Instead I do a 6-mile ride on my exercise bike later in the day, in our daughter Sarah's old room which faces north and is always quite cool.
This morning, before it gets too hot, we'll pick some more gooseberries - they're literally [Really? Literally? - Ed] coming out of our ears! It's a crisis!
we bury ourselves up to the neck in the fruit bushes
..we extract the berries from the cut-off branches...
..and then we sit, and top and tail them on the patio
In the end we get about another 5 lbs of fruit out this morning (about 2.25kg). Not much, but then we are both old haha!
13:00 We have a cheese salad for lunch on the patio.
we have cheese salad on the patio
These are the days of our lives: the bad things in life are so few: these are the days of our lives: they fly in the swiftness of time (Copyright Queen) haha!
16:00 We have a cup of tea and some bread and jam on the sofa, and we listen to the radio a bit: this week's edition of "Last Word". We try and catch this programme every week to see if anybody's died recently or not.
The Bollywood star actor, Dilip Kumar, has died, unfortunately, at the age of 98. He was known as the "King of Tragedy" because he often played characters who came to a tragic end and/or were disappointed in love. Most Bollywood actors in the 1950's and 1960's perfected an outrageously melodramatic style, but Dilip liked to "play it like it was", and "keep it real", which was nice.
He got his big break in 1955 in a film about a love-triangle. He played the landlord's son who falls in love with a pretty, low-caste girl. His father refuses to let him marry the girl, so he moves away to Calcutta, where he develops "an obsession for alcohol". Well, we've all got to have some sort of a hobby, haven't we!
To make sure he could portray the role convincingly, he stayed up all night before the filming, so that he could have that "completely hung-over" look for the cameras.
In "Myghal-e-Azam" ("The Emperor") (1960), the biggest grossing Indian film ever, Kumar plays the Emperor's son, who falls for a low-caste dancing-girl.
The film includes a famous scene where a feather is filmed floating in the air between the lovers' lips - actual kisses were not permitted by the Indian censor. This is considered the most erotic scene in the history of Indian cinema.
a rather big feather manages to touch the dancing-girl's lips -
the other end of it is on the Emperor's son's lips [not shown, for decency's sake]
Not very satisfying for the Emperor's son, though, I would have thought!
Poor son !!!!!!!
And poor dancing-girl !!!!!!!
But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
18:30 We have dinner and, as we sit eating, we see our neighbour's mini-gym is busy again. I suspect that the client is the same tall guy who came early this morning, but it's difficult to be sure.
20:00 We sit on the couch and watch a bit of TV, the third part of an interesting documentary series on Ernest Hemingway.
This programme covers Hemingway in the early 1930's, when he was a famous author who suddenly wasn't writing much that people liked any more. He spends a lot of time in Spain, glorying in the violence of bullfighting, and in East Africa hunting large game and writing non-fiction accounts of it with himself as the big, tough hero.
When he and his wife Pauleen travel back to their home in Key West, Florida, they find the US has entered the Great Depression. Attacked by left-wingers for his "escapist" writing and lack of social awareness, he said,
"I cannot be a Communist, because I believe in only one thing: liberty. First, I would look after myself, and do my work. Then I would care for my family. Then, I would help my neighbour. But the state, I care nothing for. All the state has ever meant to me is unjust taxation. I believe in the absolute minimum of government."
He moved his stance after a particularly devastating hurricane hit Florida in 1935, causing havoc among the New Deal labour force sent down to the state to repair and build infrastructure, although he blamed FDR for their plight, and not the hurricane. Many of these guys had been Hemingway's drinking buddies.
He tried his hand at a different sort of novel, "To Have and To Have Not", a more realistic work centred on the plight of the poor and working class. Leftists praised it, but the novel failed to get critical approval. Oh dear!
When Hitler rose to power in Germany, Hemingway first held strongly to the view that the US should stay clear of any European war - it had been a mistake to get involved in the Great War, he said.
However, he loved Spain, as we know, and he changed his mind about neutrality when the Spanish Civil War started. He made the decision to go to Spain himself, like thousands of other US and other foreign volunteers, to take part in the campaign on the Republican side.
Yikes, turbulent times!!!!
Will the seemingly supremely self-confident Hemingway change his mind yet again? Well, we'll see. We look forward to the next episode next week.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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