Wednesday February 9th 2022

08:00 It's 8 o'clock [well obviously! - Ed] and Lois and I are still in bed drinking tea, so I show Lois the latest local newsflash that I woke up to on my phone. One of the county's most prestigious businesses has had a massive piece of luck, it seems. 

Yes, local Gloucestershire designer Jade Holland Cooper (crazy name, crazy gal!) has been lucky enough to have one of her sweaters showcased by a cross-legged Kate Middleton in a photo to publicise the Duchess's upcoming appearance reading a children's story on the CBeebies TV channel's bedtime story programme, to be aired on Sunday night.

And now those eminently huggable cream'n'cosy Fair Isle sweaters are selling out fast, even though they cost £179 a time. My god!!! What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Still, it's all good for the county's economy - that's for sure. But Lois is not sure that the sweater would look good on me, which is a pity. See later in the blog for further details.

09:00 We don't want to get up yet, so I have a quick browse through the Quora forum's website. and it's a real tonic to see one of our favourite pundits, Henry Hallan, weighing in on the vexed topic of whether there are Irish turns of phrase that the British still don't understand after a few millennia of living together with them on the same set of little islands. 

I love this thread - it's all useful knowledge, because you never know when you're going to bump into an Irishman, particularly in Cheltenham with the Gold Cup Racing Festival coming up next month. 

The authorities here used to warn  locals, in advance of the festival, to always check your change for e.g. Irish 50p pieces, but I have to say, that with the pandemic, Lois and I have more or less stopped using "real money", so that's not too much of a concern any more. 

And yes, I know that the Irish use the euro now, but I dare say some have still got a few of the old pound coins and 50p pieces stashed away in a piggy bank, and that they're anxious to offload them, so we can't take any chances can we haha!!!!

Henry Hallam warns subscribers to the quorum website that when an Irishman says that he's "after having a pint", it doesn't mean that this is his current ambition or desire. It means that he's just had one. And if you're an Irishman, what you don't want is for British people to hear this and then keep offering you another pint until you've had more than you really want, or more than what is strictly good for you, no doubt about that!

typical scene during Race Week in Cheltenham: a local barmaid

pours another pint of beer for an Irish customer, when he doesn't really want one.

It's pure madness isn't it, but it's all just one big misunderstanding, as Henry reveals

This turn of phrase is a consequence of the old Irish Gaelic language, which hardly anybody in Ireland knows any more, but in which you express the past tense by tacking on the words for "afterwards", which are "tar éis". My god, what a crazy language!!!!

11:30 We go out for our walk over he local football field. On the way out we notice a forlorn little dolly on the window-sill. We rescue it and put it by the telephone.

the dolly that we and Mark forgot - poor Dolly !!!!!

Yesterday we were clearing our attic, with the help of Mark the Gardener, and this little dolly must have somehow "fallen through the cracks" and got separated from all the other ancient toys which our daughters used to play with when they were very small.

Poor little Dolly!!!!!

But never mind, we'll reunite Dolly with her friends later today, and that's a promise !!!!!

If you're interested in how big the dolly is [No, I'm not! - Ed], see this later photo of Dolly with a wooden fork from a long-ago-discarded takeaway meal. The fork, which is 6.25 inches long, is now mine and Lois's standard measuring device for small objects around the house. And we estimate the dolly is about 7.5 inches long - it's not super-accurate, but probably good enough for most purposes. Let's hope so anyway!

the wooden fork from a long-ago-discarded takeaway meal

shows the dolly to be about 7.5 inches long - just for the record!

We carry on with our walk and I can today exclusively reveal that the Parish Council have made further additions to their "sensational" Sensory Garden with the erection of 2 archways, which can be used either for entry or for exit, which is convenient.

the Parish's "Sensory Garden", now complete with entrance and exit archways

(or vice versa) and 4 exciting colour panels, which is nice

We continue our walk, and, as usual, we stop for a hot chocolate and a flapjack at the Whiskers Coffee Stand, an opportunity also to fantasize about how I would look in Kate's sweater.

we stop for a hot chocolate and a raspberry flapjack

while Lois is queuing up for the drinks and eats, I fantasize about 

whether one of Kate's sweaters would make me more popular locally, 

or whether the scheme would backfire disastrously, as Lois fears.

 20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch the last programme in the reality TV series "Toast in Tinseltown", where TV cameras follow around actor Steven Toast, star of London's West End, as he spends time in Los Angeles trying to make it big in Hollywood.

Who says you never learn anything from reality TV series? Well, they're wrong! Tonight I find the answer to one of those perplexing issues that Lois and I frequently argue about. 

Many's the time I've said to Lois during a TV commercial or "trailer" for an upcoming new film, that (quote) "That voice-over sounds just like Orson Welles, the large film-actor with the distinctive gravelly voice". 

Well, it turns out that I've probably been right all along - because we see tonight that the late actor is running a wine bar in Los Angeles, and by a complete fluke, that wine bar just happens to be the one that Steven Toast stumbles into before going out to the film studio to film his part in the latest Star Wars movie.

What are the chances of that happening, eh?

Toast is tempted by the sign "Wine Tasting Today", and drops into the wine bar

being run by the late actor with the distinctively gravelly voice, Orson Welles

as Toast enters (at rear of picture) the late Orson Welles (left) can be seen

playing with a snow globe, and a ghostly waitress stands waiting with a tray (right)

Toast's visit to the wine bar is good business for Orson, but it works out badly for Toast - at the wine-tasting he forgets to spit out the wine he is offered, and as a result arrives on the film set smelling of alcohol. He is then barred from meeting Queen Elizabeth when she arrives from the UK on a state visit.

Poor Toast!!!!!

Incidentally, talking of wonderful voices like Orson's, has anybody else noticed what a wonderful fixed smile and "computer says no" voice film-set secretary Ms Sorry Johnson has? 

Ms Johnson's message is delivered with a friendly if totally fixed and artificial smile, but the effect is still as annoying for Toast, because he has to stand aside while "our producer, Mr. Doubla Decca" escorts the Queen round to meet the rest of the cast.

Toast has to stand in a corner, while HM Queen Elizabeth, 

escorted by producer Mr Doubla Decca, 

meets the rest of the cast of the new Star Wars movie

Poor Toast (again) !!!!!!

21:15 Lois emerges from her zoom session. We like to go to bed on a Portillo, so we decide to watch tonight's programme in his new series "Great Coastal Railway Journeys".

This week Michael is travelling along the north-east coast of England, and his adventures tonight are packed with interest items. My god!

People today tend to associate bagpipes with Scotland, but who knew that they started out in the Mediterranean countries and only slowly penetrated north as far as Scotland? Well, Lois and I did know that one, because we once visited a bagpipe museum in Clermont-Ferrand in Central France. The Scots were actually the last people in Europe to start playing them, but they've never discarded them like almost everybody else did - what madness !!!!!

The English county of Northumberland on the Scottish border, where Michael is tonight, also has a strong bagpipe tradition but they use smaller bagpipes than the Scots, and they're played tucked underneath the arm. And who knew that the Duke of Northumberland employs a piper among his permanent staff. 

Of course, when Michael is in Morpeth, he has to have a go at playing one of these local bagpiptes, but the results are painful, to put it mildly. My god! Why do you do it, Michael ?!!!!!!

And who knew that Morpeth is the town where Emily Davison, the famous suffragette, came from? It was Emily who in 1913 rushed out in front of the King's horse during the Derby, thus losing her life for the cause. However, it's thought she didn't intend to kill herself because her body was found with  a return ticket to Morpeth in her pocket.

When Michael gets to Rothbury, we learn about the amazing Victorian industrialist and inventor William Armstrong (1810-1900), whom Lois and I have never heard of, who built a massive home here, which he called "Cragside". 

The house is full of Victorian hydraulically and/or mechanically-powered gadgets, which Armstrong invented himself, and installed for the benefit of his many staff. These included an auomatic dish-washer and an automatic roasting spit, amongst other devices. My god!

'Cragside' was also designed as a house of beauty, in the style of the Arts and Crafts Movement - look at this huge fireplace, pictured here below, made from 10 tons of marble and alabaster, which had to be transported by train from London. My god !!!!

And how could such a large and heavy fireplace be installed on the upper storey without crashing down through the floors of the house? Well, they fixed it to the crag that the house was built beside, of course!

See? Simples !!!!!!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!!

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