A frustrating day because Lois and I have to stay in for 2 important deliveries which haven't materialised as yet - the first is for medications and the second is the wood for our shelving.
It's really annoying about the medications because we saw the courier get out of her van - we were sitting 8 feet away from our front door waiting confidently for our door-bell to ring. Nothing happened and by the time I got to the door to see whether she'd gone to the wrong house, she was driving away. My private theory is that she just stopped outside long enough to take a misleading picture of our front door. What madness!!!
Right now I'm preparing to write her a really bad review when she makes the second delivery attempt tomorrow!
And at time of writing this, (5 pm and it's getting dark) the wood for our shelving, supposedly to be delivered today between 7 am and 9 pm, hasn't arrived as yet. Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!
It's been a frustrating day for Lois too - she's been charged with overseeing one of her church's combined bank accounts: the one that records expenses and receipts for its weekly seminars, and also expenses and receipts for the church's support of Iranian Christian refugees who live in the area: refugees who are waiting for permission to stay from the Home Office. She's found that there is £100 extra in the account that she can't explain.
It's like the Uncle Billy saga in "It's a Wonderful Life" all over again!
George Bailey tackles Uncle Billy over the missing $8000
in his "Building and Loan" institution in "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946)
Well, at least the discrepancy is in the church's favour, I tell Lois lightly, hoping to get a laugh. But I know how she feels - it's quite a responsibility. We think that the most probable explanation is that somebody hasn't paid in a cheque yet that the church has written them - but we'll see! It's a work-in-progress!
three of the Iranian Christian refugees who belong to Lois's church
People are finding a whole lot of mistakes at the moment, particularly in online information, which is weird, and kind of unnerving.
Recently a mistake was found on a site dedicated to recording facts about the sitcom The Brady Bunch, of all things - a revelation that has sent shock waves among all computer users who rely on the web to provide them with cast-iron certified facts about The Brady Bunch. Source for the story: the influential American news website Onion News.
LONGMONT, CO—The Information Age was dealt a stunning blow Monday, when a factual error was discovered on the Internet. The error was found on TedsUltimateBradyBunch.com, a Brady Bunch fan site that incorrectly listed the show's debut year as 1968, not 1969.
Caryn Wisniewski, a Pueblo, CO, legal secretary and diehard Brady Bunch fan, came across the mistake while searching for information about the show's first-season cast.
Though the Brady Bunch error is the first confirmed instance of false information on the Internet, scares have occurred in the past. In 1998, an e-mail sent to a woman in Warner Robins, GA, made an unverifiable claim that she could earn thousands of dollars from an initial $5 investment. The claim was never conclusively proven false, and no charges were filed.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!!
18:00 Hurrah! After 2 days of failure, I finally get my shiny new ROKU streaming player to connect with our TV and I set it up with wifi password etc.
Hurrah - a personal triumph for me: I finally get my shiny new
ROKU streaming player to work: (the tiny player has been highlighted
for you by my graphics team (i.e. me): also highlighted beneath is
my shabby old ROKU streaming player, which I've decided to "keep on",
currently unsatisfactory, until it completely "packs up"
I have found many times with all manner of devices that the instructions are very often unsatisfactory.
Sometimes they're written by somebody who doesn't speak English, and sometimes they're written by people who are a bit absent-minded. It's the second case with my shiny new ROKU streaming player: the person who wrote them tells you to "follow the on-screen instructions" but he or she has forgotten to say that the instructions don't appear until you've been pressing and holding the ROKU remote's "home button" for at least 5 seconds!
Can you imagine more total madness that this???!!!!!
I was almost reduced to calling the helpdesk, something I always try not to do, in case, again, the helpdesk is being manned by somebody who doesn't speak English, at least not English as I understand it!
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
21:00 We settle down to watch a documentary all about the 1970's John Stonehouse scandal.
Stonehouse was an MP and former Cabinet Minister under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Stonehouse became beset by allegations that he was spying for Czechoslovakia and also under investigation for irregularities in his business affairs. In November 1974 he flew to Miami, faked his own death by drowning, and then tried to start a new life in Melbourne, Australia, under a new identity, with his former young ministerial secretary, Sheila Buckley.
This week we've been watching a 3-part drama series based on the case, so it's nice tonight to see a more factual account, which hopefully will make clear some of the things the drama series left vague and obscure.
Watching the drama series on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night, I had thought that the Stonehouse character seemed like a bit of a vacant version of the "Mr Bean" character, a man who seemed to dream his way through the scandal, always looking as if he'd rather be somewhere else. And this interpretation seemed unlikely to me, given that Stonehouse was once tipped as a future Labour Prime Minister.
Tonight we see the real-life Stonehouse, who was actually quite an effective cabinet minister, both at the Ministry of Aviation, where he masterminded the joint Anglo-French project to launch the Concorde supersonic airliner, and then later, as Postmaster-General, when he was successful in modernising many aspects of the postal service.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson liked Stonehouse because he seemed to give the Labour Party a new image. Unlike most Labour MPs who at that time were still mainly working-class figures, many of whom had worked in Britain's traditional heavy industries, Stonehouse was a well-groomed, handsome, debonair and more sophisticated man, whom Wilson thought would be more of a vote-winner for the party in the new Britain of the 1960's.
After the spying allegations surfaced however, although there was no conclusive proof of them, Wilson decided to remove Stonehouse from his cabinet post for safety's sake. Stonehouse remained an MP, however. It was then that Stonehouse set his sights on a new goal - to make himself rich by acquiring a number of companies.
The documentary makes clear that Stonehouse was also something of a split personality. He cherished his image as the family man, but he also craved the excitement of being in politics and government, and he seemed at times to fantasise about himself as an action hero.
When he staged his disappearance he was apparently inspired by a character in the "Day of the Jackal" film, who starts a new life under a new identity, stolen from a man who had died. Stonehouse did the same, borrowing the identities of two deceased residents from his constituency in order to acquire false passports, to the great distress of the dead men's relatives when the truth became known.
It's fascinating tonight to see the real people involved in the case - Stonehouse's wife Barbara, who knew nothing about her husband's plan to acquire a new identity, and Stonehouse's mistress, Sheila Buckley, who was in the scheme from the start.
Stonehouse's wife Barbara, who knew nothing about his scheme
to fake his own death and begin a new life in Australia under a false identity
Stonehouse's former secretary and mistress, who was in on Stonehouse's scheme from the start
What a crazy world they lived in in those far-off madcap 1970's !!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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