Tuesday August 31st 2021

10:40 Mark the Gardener comes. I know nothing about gardening so it's Lois who chats with him and gives him her instructions. Later I see them from the window in our grown-up daughter Sarah's room - she's now in Australia with Francis and their 8-year-old twins: sob sob!

Lois takes Mark on a tour of the back garden, pointing out

things that could do with attention. Poor Mark !!!!

On the window-sill our daughter Sarah's old collection of shells

from a long-ago week in Sanibel Island, Florida during our residence in the USA 1982-1985:

we've looked after those shells conscientiously for 40 years, dusting them annually, which is nice!

flashback to November 1984: our daughter Sarah (7) collects shells on the beach at Sanibel Is., Florida

(left to right) me, Sarah and Lois

Sarah with her older sister Alison (9)

I recall an article I read a couple of years ago when a local married couple, Dale and Paula Watson, hit the headlines by bringing home a large collection of sea shells home after a vacation near the famous Myrtle Beach.

I recall an article I read a couple of years ago when a local married couple, Dale and Paula Watson, hit the headlines by bringing home a large collection of sea shells home after a vacation near the famous Myrtle Beach.

It's a bit hard to believe, but a simple wicker container filled with shells and and put on a toilet tank transformed the couple's suburban bathroom into a peaceful tropical oasis (source: Onion News).

"I cannot believe the difference adding those seashells made," Paula Watson told journalists. And she admitted that earlier that day she had been transported from her beige, bland bathroom to an unforgettable island paradise thousands of miles from the area where she lived. "Now, every time I walk in, I think 'Wow, where am I?' Cancún? ''

Grandmother Ilene Watson said that she could spend the rest of her life in the Watsons' carefree bathroom environment without complaining for one second. "It's so exotic," said the hypnotised 77-year-old Ilene. "Just like when Harold and I used to go travelling after the war."

Lois and I think that Sarah's old shells from Sanibel Island, sitting there on the window-sill have "done a Watson" with Sarah's old bedroom. We often sleep there in the summer as a change from our regular bedroom, and it's just like being in the tropics (apart from the cold temperatures and the grey skies haha!!!)

11:00 Lois and I have a coffee on the sofa, while Mark toils outside. I look at my smartphone and the DigitalSpy website: I'm pleased to see that Robert Popper, the creator of the old sitcom "Friday Night Dinner" about a dysfunctional Jewish family and their 2 sons and the sons' girlfriends, has now come up with a new series for Channel Four. This new series is about a chaotic friendship between 2 girls, and is called "I Hate You". 

This sitcom is good news for "old crumblies", because the two young girls starring in the series, Becca and Charlie (Melissa Saint and Tanya Reynolds), are both dating men in their 70's. I'm not single, but a lot of men in their 70's may be, and this plotline will be a good morale-booster for them, no doubt about that!

Melissa Saint

Tanya Reynolds

The writer, Robert Popper, says he is looking forward to writing a series not based around a super-intense family, but about super-intense friends. He says he has never had a friend in his life, so he's hoping that writing this series will teach him how to find one.

The great songwriter Paul McCartney once wrote, "All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?". Perhaps this is the answer for them - to write a sitcom about friends. I don't think anybody's done a sitcom series about "Friends" before, so who knows? I'm not sure it will work every time though. Well. we'll see !!!

comedy-writer Robert Popper who's never had

a friend in his life

Poor Robert !!!!!!

14:30 After lunch we drive over to Fran's "park home" for a cup of tea, a few biscuits and some "old codger/old crow" chit-chat. I'm a bit alarmed because Fran seems to have a cold, but we have no choice but to risk it and wash our hands when we get home - oh dear!

Fran says she's becoming more and more a recluse, but she actually meets far more people than we do - her daughter Rachel lives in Swindon and Fran looks after Rachel's 1-year-old granddaughter Elizabeth one day a week. Lois and I have got used to not having colds, since the lockdowns started, and we'd rather not have one again for a few years, given the choice haha!

flashback to June 2019: we visit Fran (left) and her park home,

several months before the pandemic hits, and she showcases 

her "wild" garden  for us - nice!

On the way home, Lois tells me she thinks she's getting a cold - oh dear, already????! But it could be the result of the recent burst of cold weather. Time will tell, no doubt about that!!!

18:30 We have dinner, and after that Lois goes to bed - she thinks it's definitely a cold coming on. Poor Lois!!

I stick around the dining-table because I see signs that our neighbour is getting his mini-gym ready, probably for a 7pm session with a customer. So far we've only seen one customer, Mr So-Called "Tall Guy", but for our neighbour's sake I hope he attracts some more customers soon. 

I keep my eyes trained on the gym and have my phone ready to take a picture. As always I take my cue from film-star Michael Caine, spiritual leader of Britain's thousands of "nosy neighbours".

Film-star Michael Caine, spiritual leader of

Britain's thousands of "nosy neighbours".

flashback to last month:(left to right) Mr So-Called Tall Guy, and our neighbour

I stick around till 7pm and am just about to give up when my patience is rewarded, with the arrival of a totally new customer for our neighbour, and only his second ever, as far as we know. I'm calling this one "Pleasantly Plump Woman", because I think she could probably lose a few pounds without too much of a shock to the system. Well, we'll see if the mini-gym works its magic!

the arrival of "Pleasantly Plump Woman", our neighbour's

second ever customer, seen here exiting her car

I stick around long enough to see the tell-tale rhythmic movements begin in the mini-gym itself, and then I go into the kitchen to wash up after the meal. 

20:00 Lois is obviously not going to get out of bed this evening, so that presents me with a problem - what to watch on TV or listen to on the radio, sticking exclusively to programmes that Lois won't mind not seeing or hearing. Decisions, decisions !!!!!

In the end I decide to listen to the radio, a programme in the series "The Reunion", where presenter Kirsty Wark brings together people involved in one or other project from the past, in this case the comedy show  "The Day Today", which parodied the bombastic news programmes of the early 1990's.

 

It's nice to hear again some of The Day Today's famously spoof headline news items, read by bombastic anchorman, Chris Morris, who would declaim headlines as if he were launching warheads.

NATO Annulled After Delegate Swallows Treaty

Exploding Cardinal Preaches Sermon From Fish-tank

Where Now For Man Raised By Puppets?

Sacked Chimney-sweep Pumps Boss Full Of Mayonnaise

Branson's Clockwork Dog Crosses Atlantic Floor

Bombastic anchor-man Christ Morris: "declaimed headlines

as if he were launching warheads".

Weather man Sylvester Stewart was played by David Schneider: It'll be a misty day tomorrow with a droplet density of about 50,000 per spherical inch. That's roughly as if the mist were hugging the ground like an over-affectionate and rather damp dog.

the programme's weather-man David Schneider

And who can forget the end-of-programme look at the following day's newspaper front pages: A quick look at the front pages of the first editions of tomorrow's newspapers - the Herald-Tribune goes with "Boiled Dog Could Do Maths" Claims Experimenter; the European goes with "Elastic Song Strangles Hucknall", and the Daily Mirror has the first exclusive naming of the first cat to die of Mad Cat Disease. Good night!

Tremendous fun !!!!!!

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

Monday August 30th 2021

11:00 Today is a bank holiday in England, so true to form, the weather is fairly miserable. At least it's dry, but it's rather chilly and cloudy, to put it mildly.

In temperatures that are still only down in the low 60's Fahrenheit (15 to 17 Celsius), Lois and I go for a walk round the local football field, and on our way round we stop at the Whiskers Coffee stand, for a hot chocolate (Lois) and a flat white coffee (me). 

The Polish girl who serves her tells her it's been a "crap summer" in Poland too, and Lois compliments her on her grasp of colloquial English! Still, it's better than being in the hot  countries where they have all the fires, that's for sure!

After we finish our drinks I continue the walk home while Lois goes into the bushes to pick blackberries.

Once again there are no naked men in the blackberry bushes, she tells me later. We are now more or less 100% certain that nudity in fruit bushes must be an exclusively Danish phenomenon.

we start our walk and huddle together in the chilly north-easterly wind 

for the now obligatory selfie - the temperature is barely above 60F/15C.

Brrrrrrrrr !!!!!!

to warm up, we have a hot chocolate (Lois) and a flat white coffee (me)

on the recently varnished so-called "Pirie Bench"

flashback to last Friday - the Pirie Bench in less happy times: 

 when the Parish Council had labelled the so-called "Pirie Bench" 

out of bounds due to a still-drying coat of varnish

12:00 I go home but Lois dives into the blackberry bushes with an empty ice-cream tub, to see what she can find to pick.

flashback to last Monday - Lois in a typical foray into

the blackberry bushes

Later in the day I showcase what Lois has picked today -

she wasn't available to present them in person, so I stepped in

As stated above, Lois reports that once again there were no naked men in the bushes, so that's a relief, to put it mildly!

flashback to last Tuesday: on Ordrupvej in Ordrup, Gentofte,

Copenhagen, a suburb Lois and I know well, a 19-year-old naked Danish man had to be 

cut out of  a blackberry bush by police after being spotted there by a passer-by

16:00 We have a cup of TeaPig Extra-Strong Earl Grey tea and one of Lois's home-made raspberry crunchies on the sofa.

I look at my smartphone. I'm always interested in developments in the English language, so I'm immediately drawn to this article on Yahoo/Life about criticism of non-black [are you allowed to say that? - Ed] celebrity Olivia Rodrigo for speaking in a "blaccent". 

According to the article, "In a controversial video mashup, resurfaced last week, Rodrigo, who is Filipina-American, speaks in a way that is commonly known as Black vernacular, using forced phrases like “I be trending,” “AF” and “y’all,” sparking accusations of cultural appropriation."

I can guess what "I be trending" means, because that theoretically exists in traditional South West British English dialect, where "I be" is rampant in general. 

I don't know what AF is, so I look it up. I see it means " as f*** " and I've got an idea, without being 100% sure, about where I would put it in a sentence, although I think I should ideally be told, or given a few lessons. But I've heard "y'all" lots of times. 

How interesting! I look forward to possibly buying a primer in "blaccent"-speak for my newly-resuscitated Kindle, so I can talk blaccent myself, like Olivia. Then my plan is to master the similar so-called MLE (multi-cultural London English) - with those two languages under my belt I should be able to travel anywhere in the world, hopefully! 

After that I'll try and research what "cultural appropriation" means haha!

rapper Stormzy, the ultimate authority on 

what is correct MLE and what isn't.

Stormzy is bare nang, blud!!!

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. I settle down on the couch in the living-room to see the 10th and final episode of the third season of "The Killing", the Danish crime series that Lois doesn't like.

I saw Episode 9 two weeks ago, and I couldn't watch Episode 10 last week because Lois was around,  so I've almost completely lost the thread of this Scandi whodunnit. I'm watching this 10th and final episode tonight mainly for completeness sake. Oh dear!!!!

It turns out that the bad guy is Reinhardt, played by Stig Hoffmeyer, who doesn't even make the credits, even though he's been in every episode (see above).

Poor Stig !!!!!!

When Inspector Sarah Lund of the Copenhagen Police realises that the serial child-murderer is businessman Reinhardt, but that he'll never be brought to justice because of cover-ups by his business associates and by collaborators in the government, she decides to exact her own "rough justice" by shooting Reinhardt in the head somewhere up in the Norwegian fjords. Then she takes a private plane to Iceland to start a new life under a new identity.

Well.... I didn't see that coming, that's for sure !!!!!

when Inspector Sarah Lund realises that businessman Reinhardt is

the serial child-killer, but that he'll never face charges, she decide to 

exact her own "rough justice" and shoot him in the head - oh dear!

... and then she flies off to Iceland in a small private plane,

determined to start a new life under a new identity - my god!

Yes, you never know how these Scandi-whodunnits are going to end, do you! What madness!!!!

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we watch one of our favourite TV quizzes, "University Challenge", the student quiz. Tonight's contest is between Exeter and Manchester Universities.

Lois and I are having a good run at the moment, and again tonight we manage to find 8 answers that the student fail to come up with.

1. Edinburgh is twinned with which town in New Zealand, settled by Scots in the 1840's. Its name is from the Gaelic for Edinburgh.

Students: Auckland

Colin and Lois: Dunedin

2. The favourite son of a king in the Second Book of Samuel, which charismatic figure leads an unsuccessful rebellion and is killed by Joab to the great grief of his father, David?

Students: Solomon (Manchester), Saul (Exeter)

Colin and Lois: Absolom

3. The Anvil Chorus occurs near the beginning of which opera, first performed in Rome in 1853.

Students: Turandot

Colin and Lois: La Traviata

4. A music question - identify the composer.

Students: Gluck

Colin and Lois: Schubert

5. Self-portraits: a work in gouache and watercolour is one of the few known self-portraits by which Pennsylvania-born artist? It was created in about 1880, shortly after she began working with the French impressionists.

Students: Gertrude Stein [Say what??!!!! - Ed]

Colin and Lois: Mary Cassatt

6. The 18th century German naturalist Georg Steller: in 1741 Steller joined the Great Northern Expedition, an exploratory journey in the North Pacific planned by Vitus Bering, and sponsored by which country?

Students: the Netherlands

Colin and Lois: Russia

7.  Stella's jay, the provincial bird of British Columbia, is a colourful member of what family of perching birds?

Students: parrots

Colin and Lois: crows

8. Complete with four words this line from a poem by Rupert Brooke: "Stands the church clock at ten to three, and is there...."

Students: [pass]

Colin and Lois: ".... honey still for tea?"

22:00 Good enough! We go smugly to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!

Sunday August 29th 2021

10:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in the first of her sect's 2 worship services today on zoom. But she wants to take part in the second one at friend and fellow-sect-member Mari-Ann's house - and as her back is giving her trouble she wants me to drive her there and pick her up afterwards.

Mari-Ann (right), Lois's friend and fellow-sect member 

Timing will be tight - yikes! The first service ends about 11:45 am: then we have to have lunch and, after that, I have to get her to Mari-Ann's by 12:30 pm - yikes! That's why, while she's doing her zoom I have to get the lunch ready on plates with glass of water each and a cup of tea each, ready for when she appears at 11:45. What madness!

12:10 After a hurried lunch I drive Lois over to Mari-Ann's. I have a choice of 3 routes - decisions, decisions haha!

three of the many possible routes I could take to get us to

Mari-Ann's house: I choose the longest one (4.5 miles), 

because it's the least annoying. Makes sense to me haha!!!

14:00 While Lois is over at Mari-Ann's I relax with a cup of TeaPig extra-strong Earl Grey tea and one of Lois's so-called "raspberry delights", a crunchy finger of something that tastes "oaty and moist", which is how I like it. Call me crazy if you like!

I take a look at my smartphone and the quora forum website. I'm pleased to see that one of my favourite pundits, James M. Volo (crazy name, crazy guy!), has been weighing in on the vexed subject of "In medieval wars, how much time was spent travelling to the battle, compared to the battle itself?".

I'm glad to see Volo's contribution to this debate today, because I think the subject of "commuting time" to and from medieval battles is a topic that deserves more attention than it has received heretofore.

In a thoughtful response to this question, James writes, "Weeks or months might be spent [in order] to marshal an army, organize it into manageable units, transport it to the general area of the war, manoeuver for advantage, and deploy — for only a few hours of battle. Medieval combat, whether mounted or  [on] foot, was bloody, exhausting, and 'up close' [and personal]."

Remember that medieval battles were fought at a time centuries before the development of the Lear Jet, or helicopters, or similar quick and convenient modes of transport for fighting men.

It's well-known that the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson, lost the crucial Battle of Hastings in 1066 against William the Conqueror's Normans, a defeat which set England back a few centuries in terms of the development of democratic institutions and a fair judicial system.

Harold Godwinson, King of the Anglo-Saxons, is said to 

have started the Battle of Hastings feeling bad-tempered

after a "punishing" commute from Yorkshire.

Harold had a huge, 257-mile commute to complete before taking part in the battle, which probably made him and his men rather bad-tempered and perhaps longing for a drink of some sort. And remember that this journey also came on top of another battle, the Battle of Stamford Bridge against his brother and the invading Norwegians. 

The army also had to keep itself fed on the long march south from Yorkshire. I noticed when I saw the film "Bananas" (1971) that the rebel army in the South American republic of San Marcos, on their march to capture the capital and stage a coup, were able to just stop off at a McDonald's and put in an order for 1000 grilled cheese sandwiches to go, plus tuna and BLT's. Not so easy in Harold's time - fast food hadn't been invented, so you had to get a table and wait for the waiter and the kitchen staff to respond: and the queue would have been right out onto the street, no doubt about that! Can you imagine it???!!!

What a crazy world they lived in in those days!

Poor battle-scheduling was undoubtedly a factor also. I've often thought that if the Normans had arrived a few days earlier, then Harold and his men would have been feeling fairly fresh after the relatively short commute from London. The Anglo-Saxons could have easily defeated William the Conqueror and his Normans, before then completing the opposite commute northwards up to Stamford Bridge. 

And after that, even if Harold had been bad-tempered and ill-at-ease at Stamford Bridge and so suffered defeat at the hands of his brother and the Norwegians, it wouldn't have mattered so much for English history, as the Norwegians had the same system as the Anglo-Saxons. Any changes that the victorious Norwegians might have brought in might have been fairly trivial and "transparent".

Damn! What an awful pity!!!! Still, it's a bit too late to do anything about it now, that's for sure !!!!!

the Battle of Stamford Bridge - the result of "poor scheduling"

15:00 Lois rings me to say she's ready to come home, so I drive over to Alma Road to pick her up.

21:00 We haven't seen any Channel 5 royal documentaries for a while, so we decide to watch the first half of "Princess Alexandra: the Queen's Confidant".

Lois and I have got vague memories of Princess Alexandra, the Queen's cousin from our childhood in the 1950's, but I think that after Alexandra's high-profile marriage to businessman Angus Ogilvy had taken place, in 1963, she more or less dropped out of the headlines, because in the 1960's the press were taking a far bigger interest in Princess Margaret, Prince Charles and Princess Anne etc. 

(left to right) King George VI, Alexandra and Princess Elizabeth,

the future queen; there was a 10-year age gap between the two girls

but they have remained close friends up to the present day

Princess Alexandra (right) with the Queen, 

the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles

I don't think she minded dropping out of the headlines, because she seems to have been a quiet soul, even though she was a bit of a tomboy in her younger years. 

Princess Alexandra, the "tomboy princess"

Lois and I didn't realise that Alexandra's family were relatively poor after her father the Duke of Kent was killed in a plane crash in the early 1940's. There was no provision at that time from the royal purse for royal widows. What madness!

So Alexandra became the first royal to be educated at a school, rather than by a nanny. It's nostalgic for Lois and me to see pictures of girls at Alexandra's school at Ascot queueing up to get their free mid-morning bottle of milk, just like Lois and I used to do, all through our schooldays up to age 18.

girls at Alexandra's school queueing up for their mid-morning bottle of milk

What remained of he free school milk scheme was finally stopped by the then Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher, in 1971, a move which earned her the nickname "Thatcher the Milk-Snatcher".

an anti-Margaret Thatcher demonstration from the 1980's

What a crazy world they lived in in those days!! [Let me remind you you're only allowed to say that up to five times in each post - and I'm counting! - Ed]

I remember that at school I used to take as long as possible to drink my milk during the mid-morning break, so as to minimise the time left for "playing"  - an activity that didn't interest me too much. 

What a crazy little guy I was !!!! [Just watch it, that's all, you're getting near the limit now! - Ed]

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