Friday October 22nd 2021

Not a productive day for Lois and me - really just because we've got a delivery coming from Waghhorne's, the local butcher's shop and as always, they won't commit to a delivery time - what madness!

We do what we can to make the day productive: we did have our twice-weekly shower, not in the afternoon like we usually do on Fridays, but early in the morning, in case the Waghorne's delivery guy tries to surprise us.

We spend a long time trying to order Lois's beauty products from the Boots the Chemist website, like her Olay Beauty Fluid, but we give up in the end - the site say they're "currently experiencing issues": what a crazy world we live in !!!!! 

a typical woman using a beauty fluid (a different brand)

The delivery guy comes eventually, at 3 pm, so when the stuff has been swabbed down and put away, we go up to bed and snatch a quick nap after that, and I give Lois her twice-daily squirt of olive oil in her left ear.

a woman self-administering the "squirt"

We've decided against self-administering, so it's me that does the squirting in practice - it needs two of us to accomplish most jobs we do nowadays, now that we've become so old and doddery haha!!!

We've "streamlined" the process in other ways, to save time: I'm now giving her one long squirt instead of two short ones at each administering: and afterwards we stipulate now that she only has to lie still on her right hand side for 5-10 minutes, rather than the original 20 minutes - makes sense to us !!!!

Call us "sloppy" if you like haha!  [All right I will ! - Ed]

On Wednesday we listened to a radio programme, in which ageing comedian John Cleese was interviewed about his famous 1970's sitcom "Fawlty Towers". 

In the programme Cleese suggested that the show wasn't much of a success outside the UK, but apparently it was a big hit in Hungary, which I didn't know. How extraordinary!

Out of curiosity I watch a couple of clips on YouTube of the Hungarian version, which is called "Waczak Szálló".

This is Sibyl's lengthy phone call with her friend Audrey. where she says "Oh Audrey! Any news?" / "Oh dear, he hasn't!" / "Oh, I know!" / "He doesn't deserve you, Audrey, he really doesn't!" / "Exactly!" / "I know you have!" / "I know!" / "I know!" / "Oh, I know!" / "Oh, I know!" ... etc, to which Basil finally interjects, "Well, why's she telling you then!".

Still funny but it comes across even better in the Hungarian subtitles, which is nice!

20:00 We watch some TV, an interesting documentary on the life and career of film actor and director Charlie Chaplin on the Sky Arts channel.

Lois and I find that there are lots of things we didn't know about Chaplin, or had forgotten. And it's interesting to see how modern some of his more socially-aware films seem today, like "Modern Times" (1936).

Lois in particular is always very vocal in her criticism of working conditions in firms like Amazon, JD Sports etc, firms which allegedly time how long their workers spend in the bathroom etc. 

Who remembers now, that this practice featured in this old 1936 film of Chaplin's, when assembly-line worker Chaplin goes to the bathroom, where he finds that the CEO is watching him and talking to him from a big screen?

Fascinating stuff !!!!!!

21:00 We continue to watch TV, the second episode of the new Australian comedy drama, "Bump", about a teenage schoolgirl, Oly, who goes into labour at school one day, without having even known that she was pregnant.

Oly's situation is made worse by the fact that the baby's father is not her steady bob-friend, Lachie, but some other guy called "Santi", who she had a one-night-stand with. 

Tonight Oly's best friend Reema, who also fancies Santi, climbs into bed with him, which doesn't help. Luckily Santi's dad, Matias, bangs on the door at a critical moment, and Reema has to make a swift exit through the window. It's fortunate that most Australian houses are single-storey, which makes these escapes more doable, to put it mildly!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

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