Tuesday September 13th 2022

Well, Queen Elizabeth II died last Thursday so it's been 5 days, and, as Lois and I noticed yesterday, at last, after 70 years, it seems normal to sing and say "God Save the King" rather than "God Save the Queen". But it's been a bit of a journey.

flashback to yesterday's memorial service in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh:

at last it seems normal to sing "God Save the King"

But with the increasing familiarity of the new situation, some lighter and less grandiose news stories are beginning to surface.

Steve, our American brother-in-law, who monitors movements in the bullion coin market for us, notes that the Queen's death has (unintentionally - it has to be admitted) put a squeeze on an already tight market, because investors, particularly in Australia and Canada, are clamouring to get coins with the Queen's head on - before they  "disappear".  What a crazy world we live in!

Lois and I discuss this, and we think that one problem today is that people in many Commonwealth countries who are under the age of 60, have probably never seen any coins that didn't have Elizabeth's head on them. When Lois and I were children in the 1950's and were going through the ritual of counting our weekly pocket money or allowance, it was normal to find a mix of coins with one of 5 different heads on - Victoria, Edward VII, George V, George VI, as well as the newest, shiniest ones that featured a young Elizabeth.

our living-room wall-clock which showcases pre-decimal coins from 

5 reigns, including the Queen Victoria halfpenny seen at "3 o'clock"

After 1971 and the decimalisation of the coinage, most of the pre-1971 coins became obsolete immediately and others became obsolete within a few years. That's why, pretty much since 1971, people have seen only Elizabeth's head on coins. 

I always felt slightly annoyed that Prime Minister Edward Heath waited till I was out of the country - on a study year in Japan - before decimalising the coinage, so that at the end of my year in Tokyo, I flew into Heathrow with a bunch of useless coins in my pocket and an obsolete chequebook that only showed the old "pounds, shillings and pence" system. Thanks very much Ted!

flashback to 1971: I fly back from Japan with a bunch

of useless coins in my pocket. Thanks, Ted haha!

The Government also waited till 1983, when Lois and I were living in the US, to get rid of the pound note and replace it with the pound coin. By this time it was beginning to seem like a bit of a vendetta. Not that we bear grudges haha!

Incidentally, did you know that "Ted" is minority Cockney rhyming slang for "teeth"? "Teeth" >"Ted Heath" > "Ted"? Lois and I only learnt that fact this week from an old Reggie Perrin sitcom episode, but it does make perfect sense doesn't it!

flashback to a couple of days ago: David, Reggie's son,

remembers that he needs his "Ted" seeing to, ie his "teeth" - but what a madness it all is !!!!

Later in the morning, another "silly season" royal news story emerges today on the Danish quora forum website, when one of our favourite Danish pundits, Peter Hegelund, weighs in on the vexed subject of whether the Danes ought to call the new king "Charles III" or "Karl III".

Peter votes for "Charles", and he adds, quite appositely in our view, that one needs to be very careful when it comes to assigning names to foreign royalty. 

He recalls that an English-speaking journalist covering the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994 noticed that the Norwegians called their monarch "Kong Harald". And not realising that "Kong" is the Norwegian/Danish word for "King", he insisted on calling Harold "King Kong Harold" in the news stories he filed, which caused a few blushes in diplomatic circles, Peter says. However, in this instance, all out war was averted, luckily haha!

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

13:00 And there's more decluttering for Lois and me today. We're trying to downsize, so that we can squeeze ourselves into a smaller brand-new house 25 miles away in Malvern, Worcestershire.

A nice Oxfam charity van-driver comes and takes away several hundred of our unwanted books. And we feel ready to kiss his feet, although we decide this would seem weird.

After he's gone, I take a picture of our suddenly spacious-looking hallway.

I showcase our hallway, suddenly denuded of its

hundreds of unwanted books, and now in the possession 

of the Oxfam charity bookshop

How different our hallway looks now from the way it looked yesterday. My goodness!

flashback to a few days ago - our hallway

littered with hundreds of unwanted books, a real trip-hazard

especially in the dark - yikes !!!!

In the afternoon Lois and I decide to sort out our garden shed, rescuing the few items we want to take with us to Malvern, moving them to the patio and protecting them from the autumn weather with large polythene covers. Makes sense to us !

we sort out our garden shed..

...and we put the few items we want to take with us 

onto the patio under large weather-proof covers 

One slightly nostalgic story is that the awful old wooden step-ladder that my father used to use to do any home-decorating, has at last after 80 years been consigned to the rubbish dump of history.

my father's old step-ladder - consigned to

the "rubbish dunp of history"

Poor wooden step-ladder!!!!!

19:00 After dinner we settle down on the couch to watch an old episode of the 1970's sitcom "The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin", which charts the final breakdown of burnt-out Sunshine Desserts middle manager Reggie.

This episode is a real "doozy" - you know, the one where Reggie makes a fool of himself in front of his boss and colleagues by making a drunken speech to the Fruit Association, the speech after which he's bundled off the stage by Fruit Association officials?

You know, the episode where Reggie finally drives a borrowed Sunshine Desserts lorry down to the coast, to fake his own suicide by leaving a bunch of his clothes on the beach. You must remember that one, surely haha!

Below, see some beloved excerpts from Reggie's disastrous speech: those should bring it all back to you, I think!

One of the phrases in Reggie's speech, "Is there anybody here from Tarporley?", passed into our family folklore. If I had to give a talk at work, Lois would always  say, "Don't forget to ask if there's anybody there from Tarporley". 

20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her church's weekly Bible Seminar on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch news pictures of the Queen's coffin being driven back into Buckingham Palace from RAF Northolt, where it had arrived from Scotland. 

Tomorrow it'll be taken to Westminster Hall where there'll be a lying-in-state for 4 days, allowing some tens of thousands of people to file past and view the coffin.

And as the cortege moves into London, it's amazing to see the crowds, often several rows deep, who have waited, each for the few seconds when the car moves past them on the way to the palace.

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session, and tired as we are we decide to watch this week's edition of Only Connect, the TV quiz that tests lateral thinking.

Lois and I feel pleased tonight because we solve one of the connecting walls - whereas the contestants only come up with a partial solution.

Can you solve this one? Be careful, but it's a real "doozy" (again) haha !!!!!

This is the solution -

Row 1 is words for "danger". Row 2 is a collection of Belgian footballers. Row 3 words can all be followed by "light" - hazard light, pilot light etc. And for the Row 4 words, you just have to add a letter to make a word meaning "beginning" - i.e. "origin", "birth", "dawn" and "start".

See? Simples haha !!!!!

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