Danskcolin: Saturday January 21st 2023

I can't pretend that Lois and I have done anything today very much, other than huddle together on the sofa near the radiator: it's that sort of cold, damp, foggy day when you just hunker down and wait for the night.

A thoroughly nasty day outside - cold, damp and misty. Brrrrr !!!!!

not a great forecast for this evening either, admittedly, feeling like

23F (-5C) outside when we go to bed, but at least we'll be indoors

and enjoying our electric blanket, which is a comfort!

Before we give up and seek the comfort of our old sofa this afternoon, however, we do do some clearing up after yesterday, when Stephen the handyman was doing handyman jobs all over the house, but at the same time creating little trails of dust and sawdust - so Lois did the dusting, and I followed after her with the vacuum-cleaner.

See? That's the way you do it. Simples, isn't it!

So, a bit of a day indoors, to put it mildly!

But will Lois and I decide to go out tonight and "paint the town red"?

Probably not, because, by a lucky chance, we have been tipped off that the "good" episode of Full House is being broadcast again at 9 pm, you know, the one where the fictional Tanners meet the real Beach Boys!

This news was broken earlier today by the influential American news website Onion News, and has been reinforced by a warning from the US Department of Homeland Security, advising people to stay indoors tonight.

WASHINGTON, DC—The United States was placed on high alert this morning as the Department of Homeland Security revealed credible evidence suggesting that tomorrow afternoon at approximately 9 p.m GMT, ABC Family Channel will air that one Full House episode where the Tanners meet the Beach Boys.

"We strongly advise all Americans to remain indoors between 9:00 and 9:30 p.m. GMT, huddle close together with their loved ones, and sit still and stay completely silent unless it's a commercial," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said during a live television address this morning. "In fact, we recommend you be fully prepared by 8:58 pm GMT, so you don't miss the part in the beginning where Danny, Uncle Joey, and the rest of the gang talk like surfers."

That's it then! We're staying home tonight! It's a no-brainer haha!!!!

20:00 We finally get to see a bit more of programme two in Ken Burns' mammoth 6.5 hour 3-part documentary on "The US and the Holocaust", although even tonight we don't finish it - what madness!!!

The hour we watch tonight chronicles first the seven months or so of the so-called "Phoney War" between September 1939 and March 1940: not much in the way of hostilities happened, and Burns says that US isolationists, supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, felt they had been justified in keeping the US out of something which was looking to be a bit of a non-event. Even so, Germany and its Russian allies were already busy carving up Poland and murdering thousands of Jews.

The "Phoney War" ended in April 1940, however, when Hitler started his invasions of Western Europe, starting with Denmark and Norway in April, and France and the Benelux countries in May. All of these quickly fell to the German forces, leaving Britain to fight on alone.

FDR had won an unprecedented third term of office and he started his political campaign in 1940 to prepare the US for war if it came, and also to provide aid to Britain, as the last best hope of defeating Hitler. In September he signed into law the first-ever peacetime draft in the history of the country, for which 16 million young men were called upon to register.

Surprisingly not only FDR but his Republican presidential opponent Wilkie both believed that, although the US should stay out of the war, nevertheless Britain had to be helped. And three quarters of US voters responding to opinion polls also agreed with this stance.

This was quite a turnaround from previous surveys. I wonder why it happened exactly? We're not told.

FDR agreed to provide Britain with 50 old destroyers. And, meanwhile, Charles Lindbergh was left to champion the "stay out" campaign, organising his new grouping, the "America First Committee".