20:00 Don't think Lois and I are all "washed up", just because we've been a bit shattered by downsizing and moving house at our advanced age. Go on - admit it! You do think that, don't you!!!!
Well, let me tell you that on Monday evening we watch last week's edition of "University Challenge" between Sheffield University and Newnham College, Cambridge, and we get a total of 10 answers correct that the students fail to come up with - we think this is a record for us. Oh no, we're not finished yet, goodness me no haha!!!
1. In 1847 Jabez Tunnicliffe and Anne Jane Carlisle were founders of an enduring children's temperance association known as The Band of ... what?
Students: The Band of Aunts [Say whaaaaat?????? - Ed]
Colin and Lois: The Band of Hope
2. A solemn undertaking to abstain from alcohol was known as "signing" or "taking the" what?
Students: [pass]
Colin and Lois: pledge
3. "A rainbow and a cuckoo's song may never come together again, may never come this side of the tomb". These are the words of which poet, born in South Wales in 1871? His prose works include "The Autobiography of a Supertramp".
Students: Thomas
Colin and Lois: WH Davies
4. In a short poem by Wordsworth, what words come before "When I behold a rainbow in the sky"?
Students: "Wandered lonely as a cloud" [Say whaaaaat????? - Ed]
Colin and Lois: "My heart leaps up"
5. [Heard on soundtrack, a recording of Motown song "Bernadette"] What's the name of the group singing and playing here?
Students: The Miracles
Colin and Lois: The Four Tops
6. "Out of his surname, they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name an epithet for the Devil". These words of the historian TB Macauley refer to which Italian, born 1469?
Students: Casanova
Colin and Lois: Machiavelli.
7. US pharmacologist Gertrude B. Elion developed Allopurinol, a drug for gout that inhibits an enzyme necessary for the formation of what substance excreted by humans? It is present in large amounts in gout patients.
Students: bile
Colin and Lois: uric acid
8. What word, from the lyrics of europop song Barbie Girl by Aqua, comes in John Milton's L'Allegro between "light" and "toe" in a phrase that means to dance lightly or nimbly?
Students: "world" [Say whaaaaaaat????]
Colin and Lois: "fantastic"
What a weird question, though - my goodness!
flashback to 1997: Europop group "Aqua" in the Netherlands
9. A daughter of Ferdinand III, which queen consort gives her name to a number of crosses built to mark the progress of her funeral cortege from Lincoln to London?
Students: Elizabeth I
Colin and Lois: Eleanor of Castile
10. One of 3 surviving Eleanor Crosses is at Hardingstone, just south of which large county town on the River Nene?
Students: Hertford
Colin and Lois: Northampton
Enough said, I think!!! Aren't you just bowled over by the sheer range of our knowledge haha!!! Go on, admit it haha!!!!
21:00 We go to bed on an old episode of "The IT Crowd", the one where Jen gives a dinner party in her flat and invites 3 of her single girl-friends, and, to balance things out, also invites her 3 single male staff-members, Roy, Moss and morose goth Richmond.
You remember this episode - Richmond ends up making out with Jessica, the woman who puts quotation marks round a word in every sentence she comes out with, marking it with two fingers up in each hand, a habit that Richmond seems to find irresistible.
Jessica, making her "quotation marks" sign with her fingers...
...a habit which morose goth, Richmond, seems to find irresistible
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!
08:00 Tuesday dawns. The big event today is supposed to be a visit from the building firm Persimmon's customer care manager, Neil, to fill out his 30-day defects form. We've prepared a list of about 25 things wrong with our new-build home, but mysteriously Neil doesn't make an appearance, despite a phone message from me. I will have to call him again tomorrow.
Neil (left) the "human face of Persimmon"
We've learnt that if you don't catch Neil when you ring him, he doesn't always respond to messages, which is a pity, considering that he's got the nickname of "The Human Face of Persimmon".
It's freezing cold outside today so we don't go out, and anyway we're waiting around hoping to see Neil. He can't avoid us for ever - we've got 25 defects on our list, plus 2 defects from our 7-day report that haven't been fixed yet, and these will all have to be remedied inside 30 days.
Also we have to wait in for the Morrisons Supermarket delivery, the one that will see us through Christmas and New Year even if we find we're snowed in. We've ordered huge stocks of milk and bread and other necessities: call us risk-averse if you like haha!!!
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