Thursday April 20th 2023

Utter utter utter madness (version 589).....

Nearly 6 months Lois and I have been living here, in this new-build home in Malvern, and we still haven't got a lawn-mower - and the grass in the back garden is going crazy. 

We ordered a lawn-mower this week from Amazon, and it was due to arrive today, but guess what - we are fairy sure that the delivery guy yet again tried to deliver it to the wrong address.

Grrrrr !!!!!   They may have attempted to deliver it, but not at this address they didn't! The Amazon delivery guy has taken our last two orders to the same wrong house a mile away from here. So we're guessing that the same thing happened today, but that the nice older couple who live there, and who kindly brought our last 2 misdelivered orders round to us, were out today. 

The worst thing is that there is no way that you can tell Amazon what the problem is - they haven't included "totally wrong address" or "stupid delivery guy" in the short list of reasons that you're allowed to choose from.

What utter utter utter utter madness !!!!!

They say they will "try to deliver it again tomorrow", so I can't see what we can do except to wait for them to "fail to deliver it" again, and then ask for a refund. There'll be no more Amazon orders from us any time soon, that's for sure!

11:00 I don't mean to imply that there hasn't been any good news today - the sun is shining and it's actually warm on the patio, so for the first time since we moved in on October 31st 2022, Lois and I have been able to sit out there in the sunshine to drink our morning coffee. 

we have our morning coffee outside,

for the first time for months, and first time ever at this house

Not only that, but Lois, for the first time for nearly 6 months, has been able to indulge her love of plants and gardening, just a little bit, which must be very satisfying to her soul, that's for sure. I can almost hear that soul singing.  My goodness, whatever next!

Lois gets the chance to potter about with little gardening jobs

- which is nice!

After lunch we settle down on the couch for a zoom session. Lois and I lead the local U3A Intermediate Danish group, and today it's our fortnightly meeting.

One of our members - Jeanette - is actually Danish. 

This is a really great help to us, and to have one native speaker is a definite advantage, we think. What you don't want is to have a whole class packed with native speakers, with no Brits at all. 

Remember poor Terry Jones's Italian Language Evening Class at Gerards Cross, Bucks, where every single student in the class was an Italian native, a bit of bad luck that put Terry at an enormous disadvantage from the get-go? Do you remember?

Terry Jones, Italian Evening Class teacher at Gerards Cross, Bucks

Poor Terry Jones's Italian Evening Class at Gerard's Cross,

where all the students, as native speakers, were were already fluent - oh dear!

When it comes to our Danish group, Jeanette, by contrast, is so useful to us in explaining some of the Danish idioms. Who knew, for example that one way the Danes have or describing somebody who drinks himself stupid, is that he "drinks himself into the fence" (drikke sig i hegnet) ? And the writer of the short story we're currently reading permits herself to make a little Danish joke at this point, and she says that, because this drinking orgy is going on in a shrubby sort of garden, that somebody is "drinking himself into the fence, or, it might be, into the hedge for that matter". 

"drinking yourself into the fence (Danish style)"

- a Danish cartoonist's viewpoint. 

The caption reads: Danish young people hold the European record,

and maybe the world record, in boozing.

Haha!!!!  But to be perfectly frank, the writer's fence-hedge joke doesn't really work in English, does it! [It's still funnier than a lot of your jokes, Colin! - Ed]

20:00 We go to bed on the first programme in the TV reality documentary "Meet The Richardsons" that follows the lives of married stand-up comics, Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont.

This week, Lucy gets invited to the National Comedy Awards, but once again there's no invitation for Jon, which is a bit of a sore point with him again. Jon's view is that these awards are "horrific, absolute self-serving nonsense".  

Jon would like to see the opposite kind of awards on TV - awards that call out performers who are crap. Awards that make people come into the room and look down that camera, and ask people "why did you make that programme and why did you think it was going to be funny?". And afterwards, make them walk off with no applause. And say to them, "Don't come back until you've had some better ideas!"

 

And Lois and I can see Jon's point. There are far more bad comedy programmes on TV than really funny ones, aren't there. Perhaps we should be "celebrating" these, do you think?

The couple then go on to talk about their fans. Lucy finds that her fanbase is particularly varied and heterogeneous, but Jon says that his fanbase tends to reflect overwhelmingly one particular type of woman.

But he adds, "My fans would be so disappointed if I tried to have sex with them. They just want to cuddle me. They don't even think I've got genitals. I'm like a little Action Man to them, but a knitted one. A little knitted Action Man, that's what I am to them. They knit for me a lot." He adds,however, "They're kind, it's lovely, they bring me presents, what a privileged position to be in."

Poor Jon!!!  And Lois and I don't know what to suggest to make him more of a sex-symbol and an object of desire for his female fans, so that he can get a bit more of a satisfying rapport with them. 

Any ideas, readers? On a postcard as usual, please, needless to say !!!!

Apparently Jon's female fans will even turn at the couple's house with their knitted gifts for him. Take "superfan" Kerri, for example, as seen here on a recent visit to the property.

So at least Jon is getting something out of his female fan-base, which is nice to see. After all you can never have too many knitted action figures, can you. I know I can't!

But fascinating stuff !!!!! And what a really surprising insight it is into the world of celebrities!

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