Danskcolin: Wednesday September 7th 2022

Today Lois and I watch fascinated as new Prime Minister Liz Truss confronts Labour Party leader Keir Starmer for her debut in Prime Minister's Question Time in the House of Commons.

Liz Truss faces Keir Starmer for her first Prime Minister's

Question Time today in the House of Commons

And it's revealed today also that Liz has appointed an unprecedented number of non-white ministers and secretaries to her cabinet, as well as a lot of women, so feminists should in theory be pleased.

But are feminists happy?

Maybe not. Well, feminists, you've heard of the "glass ceiling", the unacknowledged barrier that stops women achieving the highest positions in government or in companies.

But have you heard of the "glass cliff"? Lois and I didn't know about this concept until our brother-in-law Steve sent an email today explaining what it's all about. The "glass cliff" concept was apparently first formulated by two academics here in the UK, at Exeter University, which notes that governments and companies often choose women leaders whenever they're about to implode.

The UK is in a lot of trouble at the moment and what do you know: the Conservative Party has chosen a woman to lead the nation at this critical time. And the "glass cliff" theory is essentially that governments and companies choose women at these difficult times because they think they're bound to fail, but that it doesn't really matter, because they regard these women as expendable.

There's a lot of data that supports the "glass cliff" hypothesis, but is it as simple as all that? Everybody knows that it's much harder for women to get to the top than it is for men, which tends to make women leaders stronger and more determined in a lot of instances, and sometimes make them more able to confront a crisis than men.

And some of the world's most legendary leaders have been women: just think of Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, and Queen Victoria, not to mention modern leaders such as Maggie Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Golda Meir, to name but three.

Don't you remember the heady days of 1953, when everybody in Britain was looking forward to what people were calling the dawn of the "New Elizabethan Age", that was going to bring the UK back to its former glory? [Not everybody's as ancient as you, Colin! - Ed]

Well, I remember it, even if you don't! It was a time of great optimism, wasn't it! [I've already said, only you remember it! - Ed]

And I remember also people saying that men have always worked much harder under a woman boss, possibly as an evolutionary memory of worker bees happily slaving away for their beloved "Queen".

a typical queen bee with her 2 adoring male "workers"

Happy times!!!!!

flashback to 1953: me with my parents and

my little brother Steve, in an Oxford park,

at the dawn of the "New Elizabethan Age"

10:00 Our eldest grandchild, Josie, turns 16 today - quite a milestone. And the family are planning a special sushi take-away for this evening. Josie's party with her young friends was last Friday night. Later our daughter Alison puts this charming photo of the birthday girl up on social media.

our eldest grandchild, Josie, turns 16 today

It's a special memory for Lois and me that it was on the day we both retired, in February 2006, that we heard in a phone call from Alison that we were going to become grandparents.

How grown-up Josie looks today! We're so proud of her.

flashback to 2011: Josie, aged 4, with Lois at Ledbury

Time flies !!!!!

11:00 Meanwhile today, mine and Lois's downsizing work continues unabated in preparation for our planned move from Cheltenham to a much smaller house, 25 miles away, in Malvern.

Our narrow hallway is now filled with hundreds of books - the Oxfam charity has promised to take these away, probably one day next week. If they don't keep their word then Lois and I are in a lot of trouble, to put it mildly.

our entrance hall is now filled with hundreds of books

- and now the line of boxes even goes round the corner

and under what we call our "coat hooks" - yikes!

Another plus from today is that our neighbour Bob has started taking away some of the unwanted items in our garage - although only with our permission haha!

A further plus today is that I've almost finished shredding the 18-inch-high pile of bank statements that our daughter Sarah left in her old bedroom when she and Francis moved to Australia in 2015. Oh dear! I only discovered these yesterday, by accident.

I didn't realise that shredders designed for home use quickly overheat. After a lot of trial and error I discover that this shredder only goes for 5 minutes before it stops in a cloud of steam.

What a madness it all is !!!!!!

20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch to watch a Michael Palin comedy film from 1982, "The Missionary", about an Anglican missionary, Rev. Charles Fortescue, who returns to England after 10 years in Africa, specifically to marry his prudish young English fiancée, Deborah.

On his return to England, Fortescue's problems start when his bishop appoints him to establish and run a Church of England home for "fallen women" in London, and Fortescue's first task is to find some rich donors who will agree to put up the money for it.

Luckily he knows at least one rich woman, Lady Isabel Ames, whom he bumps into getting off the boat from Africa. The two collide coming down the gangplank, and Fortescue's suitcase comes apart, giving Lady Ames the opportunity to admire Fortescue's stock of African fertility symbols that he's brought back with him. Oh dear!

It proves a fortunate encounter for Fortescue, however, because Lady Ames is very rich and seems willing to stump up the money for the planned Church of England home for fallen women, which is nice.

She invites him to her stately home and knocks on the door to his room in the middle of the night. This is when Fortescue discovers that Lady Ames and her husband, Lord Henry Ames, have never slept together.

This admission by Lady Ames prompts a curious Fortescue to ask if she and her husband have ever.... - you know!

Later Lady Ames visits Fortescue's mission in London, and she finds out that he's taking his work with fallen women a little too in-depth for her liking.

But the film's disappointing, I find - it's a good idea for a plot but I don't think the script is as funny as it could have been. A missed opportunity.

Will this do?

[I don't think much of that as a review. You didn't even watch the film to the end, did you, admit it! - Ed]

[Well I saw enough! - Colin]

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we watch the programme we've been waiting a couple of years for, i.e. the much-awaited start of what's going to be the last-ever series of "Doc Martin" - the drama series all about the life of an irascible Cornish GP with the zero bedside manner, Dr Martin Ellingham.

It's often been said that a lot of the appeal of this series is in the Cornish scenery and atmosphere. And what better way for a GP to enjoy the Cornish scenery than to have to get into a car perched perilously half off a Cornish cliff because the driver suddenly finds she can't breathe.

It's the perfect setting isn't it haha! Just look at this wonderful scenery (below) !

It reminds us of previous car-half-off-a-cliff scenes, like the one in the 1970's sitcom, "Some Mothers Do Have 'Em" starring Michael Crawford as the young idiot Frank Spencer. Remember that one?