A quiet day, even by our standards - my god!
08:00 Lois and I are in bed when I get the shock news on my smartphone from our American brother-in-law Steve - apparently taking regular paracetamol is bad for you: yikes!!!
Who knew that? Well, Steve did.
From now on I'll just take my regular Vitamin D supplement and Selenium pills, and see what happens. Life is a journey, that's for sure! [Aren't you making rather a lot of this relatively minor so-called "decision"? - Ed]
Is this decision a no-brainer? Not quite, apparently. According to a new study from Philadelphia (source Onion News), there are 2 choices: it's either give up pain-killers or increase intake of bourbon, but the first option seems cheaper, that's for sure!
11:00 In a separate development the green rooibos tea which Steve recommended, and which I ordered from Amazon has arrived today, so I foresee a healthier future for Lois and me from now on, no doubt about that!
handy 10-second guide to our so-called "tea shelf" (left to right):
Green Rooibos, Extra-strong Earl Grey, "regular" tea (Yorkshire),
regular-strength Earl Grey (loose-leaf), and regular Rooibos.
See? Simples!
We were surprised that the tea arrived so quickly - the vendor, Boston Tea Market Inc, seems to be in quite a mess at the moment, to put it mildly. The reason? Well according to Onion News they recently took on a new guy, 33-year-old kick-ass middle manager Matthew Stuart who thinks outside the box.
33-year-old junior executive Matthew Stuart
BOSTON—Matthew
Stuart, an enthusiastic 33-year-old junior executive at Boston Tea Market,
Inc., gets things done quickly, confidently, and terribly, sources at the tea
supplier said Monday.
"Matt is always willing to take on new responsibilities," said Nellie Jordan, Stuart's direct supervisor. "In fact, just this week he was responsible for the boneheaded move of reorganizing the 500 items in our new catalogue alphabetically, instead of by product group. Really screwed it up good."
Boston Tea Market distributes high-end teas and tea-brewing accoutrements to coffee shops, restaurants, and retail stores. Stuart decided that an alphabetical listing would make the company's catalogue easier to use and took the initiative to redesign the winter issue.
"See, if you work here you'd want to be able to go right to 'S' to find the order number for Sunshine Organic Green Tea," said Jordan, scowling as she paged through the catalogue printout. "On the other hand, Matt, if you're a customer, you might wish to find it by looking at a page of green teas."
Oh dear - another go-getter who seems to be fouling everything up. Why don't they get rid of Stuart and bring in a more stupid-looking but less dynamic, older person who just keeps things as they are: it's always the best way in the end!
Just to be clear, incidentally, I am available haha!
Unfortunately we're plagued by technical "hiccups" today. Joy's camera isn't working at the start, so we can't see her for the first 10 minutes.
a typical Skype user with camera problems
And our own speakers aren't working so we have to unplug them and use the laptop's own speakers which isn't ideal.
After the meeting's over, Lois and I crawl under the table checking all the wiring, but everything seems connected as it should be. Eventually we discover a microscopic switch which mutes everything - it's so small you can hardly see it: it's about 0.2 inches (0.5 mm) long (?) and thin as anything.
What madness!!!!! Is this some sick joke by the makers? I definitely think we should be told haha !!!!!
the ridiculously small 0.2 inch long and thin, barely visible "mute" switch:
is this some sort of sick joke by the makers?
I think we should be told !!!!
16:00 My old friend of 30 years, "Magyar" Mike has sent me a Hungarian vocabulary test - his first offering since early December. Mike and his wife, "Magyar" Mary had a terrible shock over Christmas, when their daughter, only child Claire, died of breast cancer - she had hidden the fact of her illness from her parents, and her husband Charles only let them know shortly before her death, so that they could visit her one last time.
Claire's funeral took place last Friday in a tiny country church in the village of St Leonards in Hertfordshire. Mike says the church was packed, with some people having to stand at the back.
Nobody ever thinks in a million years that they are going to outlive their children, but I know it's a great comfort to Mike and Mary that she gave them 2 marvellous grandsons, both now established in their professions of lawyer and veterinarian, and whom Mike and Mary are very close to.
Charles and Claire's two sons, Adam and Stephen -
picture taken in December 2021, on Mike and Mary's last visit to see Claire
flashback to 1994, and my first visit to Hungary: me (left) and "Magyar" Mike,
here showcasing our recently-acquired second-hand
"excellent worker" medals from the Communist era
Happy days!!!
A few days ago we watched what was probably the last TV interview ever given by actor Derek Fowlds, who played Bernard, the Prime Minister's principal private secretary in the series, and who died in 2020.
Mine and Lois's favourite bits in this show were always seeing Derek Fowlds as Bernard, correcting all the misleading and false statements and mixed metaphors that the other two, Jim and Sir Humphrey, were always coming out with, and there's an instance of this in tonight's episode:
Haha! Well done, Bernard!
flashback to last Sunday: Lois and I watch actor Derek Fowld's
possibly last ever TV interview before his death in 2020
Tonight we thought it would be nice to see a bit of Derek again when he was in his prime.
This is the episode where Prime Minister Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) and his right-hand-man Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds) get tough with senior civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) by changing the locks on 10 Downing Street, so that Sir Humphrey can't just appear in the Prime Minister's office without telling them that he's coming.
Sir Humphrey reacts by climbing up to the first floor and trying to get in through a window, but unfortunately he sets all the security alarms off.
Prime Minister Jim Hacker has had the locks changed at 10 Downing Street,
but senior civil servant nevertheless tries to enter through an upstairs window
And rest in peace, Derek!!! [You've said that once already this week! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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