Sunday August 8th 2021

09:30 No zoom call with Sarah today - we did it yesterday - so Lois and I can snooze on in bed for once, which is nice.

10:45 Lois disappears into the dining room to take part in her sect's first of two worship services on zoom. 

Earlier in the week she had been thinking about going along in person to Ashchurch Village Hall, where the services take place, with me driving her there and picking her up afterwards, but she is getting trouble with her back intermittently, so she decided to stay home and take part on the computer.

Ashchurch Village Hall, where the services take place

The elders had asked her and other members to bring an extra lunch or two with them, because they were expecting a bunch of Iranian Christian refugees plus Clare to arrive by train from Gloucester without any lunches. Lois decided to say definitely that she wouldn't be there today, so as not to risk letting them down at the last minute, which makes sense. 

Also, it will be easier for her to take part via zoom, because she'll be able to get up and walk around the room every so often, to ease the strain on her back. It all makes perfect sense haha!

flashback to black-and-white photo days:

Ashchurch Railway Station in happier times

As it turns out, the Iranians don't show up, and Clare gets lost on the 10-minute walk from the railway station to the village hall, ending up on a golf course - what madness !!!!!

the route that the Iranian refugees and Clare would have taken

if all had gone to plan haha!

I can't find the golf course that Clare ended up on - could it be Trump's one in Scotland. [No, that's far too far away - remember Clare was on foot! See map below - Ed]

a possible route for Clare to get off a train 

at Ashchurch and make her way to the Trump

International Golf Links on foot

11:00 I rush into the kitchen and make one of my signature lunches: corn-beef and home-grown-cucumber sandwiches with mini-tomatoes and half a banana for dessert - yum yum! Then I go upstairs and do the List A exercises that Connor, my NHS physiotherapist has scheduled for me, followed by a 4.5 mile bike ride on my exercise bike.

12:30 After lunch, Lois goes back into the dining-room for her second worship service on zoom, and I settle down on the couch and take a sneaky look at Lois's copy of "The Week", which gives a digest of the week's news from home and abroad.

It's interesting for me to see in the magazine a review of a book by Anne Theroux, wife of best-selling travel-book author Paul Theroux, which tells all about what it's like to be married to a writer. 

It's particularly interesting, after Lois and I have just been watching the BBC's documentary series on Ernest Hemingway, who "went through" 4 wives, expecting them all to drop their careers and other interests so they could devote their lives to looking after him, the Ernest. 

To a writer, Ernest himself admits, being able to get the time and peace and quiet to write when he wanted to write, was the only really important thing in his life - in Hemingway's case he would write religiously every morning, and then spend the rest of the day relaxing with his fishing or his drinking with his buddies.

But what did his wives think about this? We don't know, but now Paul Theroux's wife Anne has given us some idea of what it's like to be married to a successful writer.

Several years after the couple's marriage collapsed, Anne saw her ex being interviewed on TV. "Writers", said Paul Theroux in the interview, need to marry "a specific type of woman - protective and self-sacrificing types... a secretary, mother, guardian of the gate". 

When she had watched the interview Anne sent Paul a note: "If you had given me the job description in advance, I wouldn't have applied!".

After the couple first got together in Uganda in 1967, Paul insisted that Anne give up her teaching job, and while Paul roamed the world for his travel book writing, having frequent affairs on the side, Anne was left to cope at home with their 2 young sons, including Louis, himself now a frequent documentary maker and presenter on British TV. 

a typical travel book by Paul Theroux

And it's interesting in Anne's book to see the flip-side of Paul's public persona: "his amateur dramatics, his sentimentality, his hypocrisy" is what she showcases. And professional travellers, she says, tend to be charming and adventurous, but also distant and brutal. Oh dear!

Never marry a writer, girls haha !!!!

16:15 Lois goes for a walk on the local football field. She sees the site where the developers are preparing to build yet more blocks of flats.

Those bastards! 

They won't rest until the whole of the football field is covered with their eyesores, that's for sure!!!

What a crazy world we live in !!!

20:00 Lois and I sit down on the couch and watch another BBC Proms concert, this one featuring from some of the great Broadway shows of the past.

Lois and I are great history buffs, so it's a joy to hear some of these old songs with their original, ephemeral references, like Cole Porter's "You're the Top" from the Guy Bolton/ PG Wodehouse musical "Anything Goes" (1934).

Katie Hall tells Nadim Naaman how much she appreciates him

You're the top

You're a Bendel bonnet (a)
You're the top

You’re a Shakespeare's sonnet…

You're the top

You're an Arrow collar (b)
You're the top
You're a Coolidge dollar… (c)

You're romance
You're the steppes of Russia
You're the pants on a Roxy usher (d)

I'm a lazy lout, who's just about to stop
But if, baby, I'm the bottom
You're the top!

FUN FACTS: (a) “Henri Bendel” was a woman’s accessories store in New York City, 1895-2019.

(b) The Arrow Collar Man was the name given to the various male models who appeared in advertisements for shirts and detachable shirt collars manufactured by Cluett Peabody &Company of Troy, New York. The original campaign ran from 1905 to 1931.

(c) The [President] Coolidge dollar was thought to be sound until the Wall Street Crash.

(d) The Roxy Theatre ("the Cathedral of motion pictures") on Seventh Ave, at 50th Street in Manhattan had a squad of ushers who were trained like an army platoon. They wore very tight pants.

And there's more where that came from......

Who knew all that? {I expect a lot of people did – Ed]

We also learn tonight that the original words, "You're the National Gallery / You're Garbo's salary" were later changed to feature "Crosby's salary", because Crosby was rumoured to be particularly tight with money. Could this be true haha???!!! What madness !!!!

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