09:30 Our daughter Sarah texts us, we think from the car taking herself, her husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins down to Devon for the interment ceremony for Francis' mother's ashes.
It's a very sad occasion obviously, above all for Francis and his 2 older sisters Shirley and Barbara - and a particularly poignant occasion for Francis himself. His mother, Anne, died about 3 years ago, when Francis, Sarah and their little family were living 9000 miles away in Australia, but the COVID lockdown prevented Francis from flying to the UK to attend the funeral, which was, needless to say, a great source of anguish for him.
flashback to June 2010: Sarah and Francis's wedding party on a boat on Lake Coniston.
Hidden behind the happy couple are Lois, together with Anne, Francis' mother, chatting.
They had both chosen dresses in a similar shade of blue - a cause of some embarrassment
to them both on the day, but hey, it seems like a very minor thing now, doesn't it.
flashback to Christmas Day 2012: Francis's mother Anne visits Francis
and Sarah at their house in Cheltenham, when Sarah was 2 months pregnant with the twins
Sarah and Francis and the twins are hoping to return from Devon to this area some time on Sunday, in time to celebrate Fathers Day with us, which will be nice.
10:30 With the Fathers Day occasion in mind, Lois and I drive the mile down the road to the Co-op mini-supermarket at Barnard's Green, so that Lois can look for a cake-mix and a Fathers Day card. I find I can park directly opposite, which is lucky!
Lois, dressed in blue, emerging from the Co-op mini-supermarket at Barnard's Green,
after buying my Fathers Day card as well as cake mix for my special cake - yum yum!
Every week, when we first look at the Popmaster questions, we think, "How much longer can we expect to be able to answer these questions, we're 77, and the 1960's are a long time ago, while the music of the 2000s is a completely closed book for us!" [Stop reminding us you're 77! - Ed]
And what a madness it indeed is, just trying to get the decades in the right order for ourselves, without mixing them all up!
After a few minutes' thought, however, we manage to scrape together 7 correct answers, which is satisfying, and no small relief to put it mildly. Oh dear - our brains hurt now. Pass the ibuprofen somebody please haha!
On Pointless, which today is all about Spanish artists, we disappoint ourselves by not remembering Dali - there's something surrealistic about that. However Lois triumphs by remembering Murillo, the name which none of the 100 people on the BBC's sample "guinea pig list" of contestants was able to come up with, which is encouraging.
13:00 Lunch - and doesn't Lois do a lovely lunch? She also takes a lot of care over presentation, which is nice!
We have a phone-call with Gill, my younger sister, who lives in Cambridge. She was sadly widowed recently when Peter, her husband of 37 years, died just before Christmas 2022. This very sad event has been offset to an extent, however, by some happier news - the eldest of Gill's 3 daughters, Zoe, and her partner Chris and expecting what will be Gill's first grandchild.
Gill recently visited the couple at their Cheshire home, and she reports that Zoe's pregnancy, now 16 weeks on, is going well. And next week Gill will be boarding a Eurostar train in London and visiting Amsterdam for 4 nights, in company with her long-term friend Helen.
There's a fantastic piece of news about Gill's youngest daughter Lucy, who's a solicitor working for a law firm in Ipswich. STEP recently emailed her with a "best in the world" certificate for "worldwide excellence", because of her exam grades in some aspect of UK law that she took an exam in, a few months' ago: she achieved a score which has never been equalled by anyone in the world, either before or since.
flashback to last summer: my sister Gill, with her 3 daughters
Maria (standing next to Gill), Lucy (seated left) and Zoe
Lucy felt flattered by this unexpected award, but felt she had to enquire whether the competition for this "worldwide" award was perhaps a somewhat narrow field, given that it would be assumed, on the face of it, to have been confined to law students from the UK. She got the answer back that this was not at all the case - apparently law students from all over the world study this particular aspect of UK law. Who knew that?
Lois and I were reminded of the occasion when our daughter Sarah, a chartered accountant working in Preston, Lancashire, was presented, in the 1990's, with an award by the Association of Chartered Accountants, for scoring the best results ever recorded, in a qualifying accountancy exam, by any student in the north of England. Not quite "worldwide" but impressive, none the less.
flashback to Sarah in the late 1990s: at the Ogmore
Stepping Stones, Glamorgan, which my mother used to cross as a child in the 1920's.
Pictured here, (left to right) our daughter Alison and husband Ed, Sarah, and Lois,
the occasion being mine and Lois's 25th wedding anniversary
The award was quite "a thing" for us all at the time, and Sarah was presented with the award at the headquarters of a major Lancashire soccer club. And the presentation was made to Sarah there by the soon-to-be-disgraced Tory MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine, who were both later implicated in the notorious "Cash for questions scandal" at the House of Commons.
Not that that "cash for questions" scandal detracts one iota from Sarah's triumph, needless to say!
It's nice to get all that good news from Gill this afternoon, because I think Lois and I have both been feeling a bit "down" today after reading the sad news from America about Marty, relayed to us by Steve, our American brother-in-law.
Do you keep up with all the latest news about the world's moose population?
I know Lois and I do - well, we try to, at least - there's so much going on, it's incredible! And today there was a poignant story in the US media about one of America's most famous "mooses" [sic], Marty. who obviously had a problem accessing the members-only elevator at the basement level of the Capitol Building in Washington DC.
Marty, presumably, wanted to progress to one of the higher levels, possibly the one giving access to the chambers - I'm not completely sure of the details here.
Marty, one of America's most prominent "mooses", having problems
accessing the members-only elevator up from basement level to the chambers
Poor Marty!!!!!!!!
But what area of the country does Marty represent, and which party? I definitely think we should be told, and quickly!
[
And I'm wondering if maybe there's a general problem with basement-level elevator entry in American government buildings, even for people with just moderately large heads. I should know - I worked in one of these buildings for 3 years in the early 1980's.
I estimate a moose's "hat size" as maybe 30 to 40 - what do you think? Let me know, but on a postcard only, needless to say - have some pity for our poor hapless local postman here in Malvern!
My own "hat size" is 7.5, which is larger than average, but a degree or two smaller than a moose's, and this is how I used to dress for the office, with my 7.5 size tricorn, back in the day.
Our first trip out of town, after moving to Maryland in 1982 -
to Williamsburg, Virginia: me (36) with our daughters Sarah (5) and Alison (7)
And there was also always a bit of a wait for the elevator up from the basement level, where all the "computer rooms" were situated - you didn't have your own personal computer on your own desk in those days, so you always had to go down to the basement to do any real work.
Fortunately the management acknowledged this elevator problem, and had a lot of snack-dispensing machines installed next to the lift shaft, so that at least nobody died of starvation after pressing the elevator button.
But what a crazy world we lived in, back in those mad, early 1980's!
21:00 Lois and I wind down on the couch by watching this week's edition of the satirical news quiz "Have I Got News For You".
We open with what, for this programme, is a rare moment of dignified mourning and silence.
And the programme has a problem this week, because there is so much to cover on political stories, such as the House of Commons Committee's report about Boris, and not just (a) Boris's before-the-event resignation, but also (b) his honours list.
Ian Hislop, the Editor of satirical magazine Private Eye, tells us, "The two stories do collide, however, because when you woke up this morning, you realised that the only people who are defending Boris are the people he gave an honour to, 3 days ago. There is a case for suggesting that the political honours that he gave out should all be annulled. Normally we go through the honours list looking for the names of people who are dodgy. This year we went through looking for anyone who wasn't."
Oh dear!
And journalist Helen Lewis is feeling a bit sorry for all the women on the list.
Helen Lewis explains, "Charlotte is 29 years old. Six years ago she was an intern. Now she's going to be involved in making our laws for the next half-century. She's the youngest peer ever appointed." And Private Eye editor Ian Hislop adds, "Nobody knows why Charlotte has got this honour. She's only 29 and she has served less than 2 years in the policy unit at Number Ten."
Quizmaster Clive Myrie suggests that maybe Charlotte had maybe done the least damage of anyone in the policy unit, and that could have been the reason why Boris gave her a peerage.
And he asks, "Does anybody know why Boris Johnson might have given her one?"
Oh dear, but what a crazy country we live in !!!! [Just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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