At last - a morning where Lois and I don't have to get up early, which is nice. About time too - we've only been retired for 15 years - my god!
Lois just has to be up and about by 10 am, to take part in a zoom session, but she can select non-video participant, and be dressed as casually as she likes.
This morning she's not taking part in her sect's usual local Tewkesbury meeting - she's going to log in to the one at Newbury, Berkshire.
a typical recent "Fellowship Day" at the Newbury meeting -
organised to study the Book of Daniel
Her sect has attracted a lot of members and would-be members recently among Iranian refugees in the UK. There are quite a few of these living in the Gloucester area who are interested in joining the Tewkesbury meeting, and one of these, the one who speaks the best English will be preaching at the Newbury meeting this morning.
It doesn't work out as well as she hoped this morning, however, because for some reason Lois can only access the Farsi (Persian language) version of the meeting - oh dear!
And not enough time to read the manual haha!!!
My bedside CD-player has become unreliable so I order a more compact one. I also order something that will play the sounds of nature: it does -
(1) Train noise - the carriages going tiddly-dum tiddly-dum along the tracks, with background noises of people talking on their phones etc.
(2) "Stream in the cave" - ???similar to a dripping tap perhaps?
(3) A fan - probably electric sort, rather than a screaming groupie, I would imagine.
(4) A sea wave - hopefully more than one haha!
(5) White noise - I'm dubious about this one. Will it be like interference during a phone call, in which case it's definitely not for me!
(6) Brooke - hopefully similar to (2) above - I definitely don't want Brooke Shields: I'm trying to give her up haha!
(7) Piano - and this will be ok as long as it isn't too honky-tonky
(8) Meditation - will this be somebody mumbling, or saying "Ommmmmmm" perhaps?
(9) Rain - my favourite!
(10) "Star dust" - ???????
(11) Campfire - another good one, I would imagine.
Well, we'll have to see when it arrives. I'll let you know.
15:00 I look at my smartphone again. I'm pleased to see that one of our favourite pundits on the quora forum website, Rich Alderson, has been weighing in on the vexed subject of the origin of feminine forms in the Indo-European languages.
Rich comments: "It was noted in the 19th Century that the feminine singular nominative marker was
identical to the neuter plural nominative/accusative marker. This led to the
hypothesis that the feminine derives from a collective, a noun
indicating a group of objects treated as indistinguishable.
a large male northern fur seal, with his harem of smaller females
The thinking was that in a pastoralist economy, a herd will have only 1 or a very few male animals, and many females. The collective term then gets applied to the females even as individuals."
What a crazy world they lived in in those days - where the females were treated like "a group of indistinguishable things that weren't male" and nobody cared if there's one of them or more than one.
What madness!! Thank goodness it's not like that in the world of today, that's all I can say!!!!
15:00 Lois tells me that young people in their late teens and early twenties are now the biggest users of subtitles on TV, more than us old people. They haven't got hearing problems. The subtitles make it easier to monitor their phones at the same time apparently. What madness!!!
15:30 We get up and have our tea and buns while we talk on the phone to our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with Ed and their 3 children: Josie (15), Rosalind (13) and Isaac (11). Chat about Christmas present wish-lists dominate.
Ed works as a legal adviser for the Scottish railway companies, and he's got to do a lot of business trips over the next month or so. His company has given him a silver pass, whereby he can travel first class anywhere in the country for the next 6 weeks. Quite a nice bonus to have, especially during a pandemic - you can certainly space yourself out in First Class, that's for sure!
a typical Scottish railway line and train
a typical first-class railway carriage
20:00 We watch some TV, an interesting documentary film called "A Little of What You Fancy", all about the British Music Hall on the Talking Pictures TV channel.
The documentary takes its title from the old music hall song:
"I always hold with having it if you fancy it,
If you fancy it, that's understood.
But if that's your little game,
I shall want to do the same,
Because a little of what you fancy does you good!"
Lois and I didn't know that British Music Hall started really small, in an old inn near Waterloo Station, London, called "The Canterbury Arms", so called because in the Middle Ages it was where pilgrims made their first stop when they were going from Westminster on pilgrimages to Canterbury Cathedral.
Around the mid-19th century the pub's landlord, Charles Morton, had the idea of putting on Saturday night entertainment in the pub's parlour, which held about 100 customers, men only. Piano-playing in pubs was illegal at the time, but the authorities hadn't thought to ban other instruments, so banjos and violins were used instead.
Charles Morton, landlord of "The Canterbury Arms" in the 1850's
This Saturday night fun became so popular that Morton extended it to Thursday evenings as well, and from now on women were invited too, which was a bold step at the time.
With crowds of women now being admitted, the popularity of the venue only increased, and soon Morton had to build a special hall at the back of the bar, and by 1854 a second hall had to be built. Extra rooms were added: a large entrance hall, smartly furnished, an enormous aquarium, a restaurant, a large picture gallery, a tropical garden and a "promenade", lined with sparkling mosaic tiles.
Lois has a special interest in British Music Hall, because, surprisingly enough, on her father's side of the family there were a number of music hall artists and performers, including "The Thompson Trio", a couple and their son, so famous in the 19th century that they were invited to perform in Paris at the Folies Bergere.
The Thompson Trio
The son's name was Percy Henry Thompson, but when the trio appeared in Paris, the French misunderstood the name and called him "Percy Henri" (pronounced On-ree), and the young lad took a fancy to that name, and thereafter performed under the stage name of "Percy Honri".
Little Percy had a long life - he died in 1973 at the age of 99. As a child he was famous for his iconic "clog dance", but later he came to specialise in playing the concertina and accordion. You can even see clips of him on YouTube.
flashback to the 1930's: Percy Honri playing the concertina
with his daughter Mary on accordion
I ask Lois if the popularity in the 19th century of "The Thompson Trio" was the reason why the pop trio of a similar name in the 1980's had to call themselves "The Thompson Twins", even though there were three of them - had Lois's family perhaps already copyrighted the name "The Thompson Trio"?
Lois doesn't know the answer to that one, so perhaps we should be told - and quickly!
popular 1980's pop trio, "The Thompson Twins"
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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