Danskcolin: Sunday September 24th 2023

08:00 Well, Lois and I wake up with slightly painful arms - an after-effect of our winter flu jab of yesterday, but we decide to carry on as near to normal as we ever are. Yes we can be heroes, just for one day haha!

flashback to yesterday: we queue up behind a "drove of old codgers"

to get our flu jab with the rest: there's been no news yet about a possible COVID booster

I know Lois badly wants to attend her church's Sunday Morning meeting today at a village hall just outside Tewkesbury, and she's in any case eager to spring out of bed this morning and make up a mixed salad for the church's couple of dozen or so of Iranian Christian refugees, as she promised the church she would. She's so warm-hearted, isn't she!

So anyway we're going to take a chance and I'm going to drive her there, hoping that we won't suddenly start to feel any side-effects from the flu jab.

11:30 We get there a bit earlier than usual, because Lois wants to get her salad into the village hall's kitchen for the Iranians, while I sit a while in the car outside, with our own packed lunches of sandwiches and banana, trying to resist the temptation of having a bite.

I sit in the car in the car-park and inspect the 2 packed lunches

of sandwiches and banana that Lois and I have brought today for ourselves

And it's already the lunch break when I finally sneak in and grab an inconspicuous table for us near the back of the hall, where we can have our packed lunches and a coffee in a disposable cup.

the lunch break between the two meetings, the Bible Hour

and the Sunday Morning meeting communion service:

today's visiting preacher is Brother Tim (standing, 3rd from right)

who's here with his wife Ursula (right, seated at the table)

The visiting preacher today is that nice young Brother Tim from Solihull or somewhere like that, who's here with his young wife Ursula. I can exclusively reveal that Tim's exhortation today is all about Naaman the Syrian, who suffered from leprosy, and Tim is comparing leprosy with sin in general. However, I can't give you much detail beyond that. I'm feeling sleepy during the talk, I'm afraid - it's a failing of mine at around this time of day. Oh dear!

14:30 When Lois and I get home, we have a cup of tea and a "nibble" on the sofa, and then go straight up to bed - I know we've been doing this a lot this weekend, but we are trying to get over our flu jab, so fair enough: that's what we say! Don't tell anybody though haha!!!!

19:00 We enjoy a lovely classic Sunday dinner of roast lamb, roast potatoes and roast parsnips [not shown], followed by more of that summer fruit tart [see photo below].

flashback to Thursday: we buy a CookShop summer fruit tart

in Warner's supermarket, Upton-upon-Severn

We are certainly "eating like kings" today, no doubt about that, and after that, we settle down on the sofa to watch the first programme in a new series on the Sky History channel, "Sex, a Bonkers Guide", presented by Amanda Holden and TV historian Dan Jones.

This first programme is all about the ancient world, and tonight we hear some fascinating insights into life at the Greek city of Sparta.

Lois and I didn't know that, on terms of the Ancient World, Sparta was in some respects a feminist's paradise: Spartan society was very militaristic and everything was based on maximising the city's military potential - young boys were brought up to be strong and healthy, and young girls were brought up to be strong too, and to become proficient in a range of sports such as javelin, discus and wrestling, so that they would become mothers of strong, healthy babies.

Makes sense when you think about it, doesn't it!

Men and women were regarded as equals from birth, and unlike in most Ancient Greek cities women had a relatively free existence - they weren't weighed down by masses of clothing and they could wander freely through the city.

Here, TV historian Michael Scott tells presenter Amanda Holden some of the background:

Fascinating stuff!

In the course of the programme, we hear more fascinating snippets about various societies in the Ancient World: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, and the 4th century India of the Kama Sutra and Tantra. In Ancient Egypt, for example, we hear about a chili-based recipe for erectile dysfunction, and a recipe for a contraceptive, based on fertilizer and pig sperm, was it? Something like that, anyway. I'm afraid you'll have to write to Sky if you want the actual recipes haha!

And we're reminded time and time again that life expectancy in many of these societies was quite low, often as low as 30, as in Egypt, so you had to get on with it, and not waste too much time - getting married early in your teens and having babies as soon as you could was the obvious best option.

It's also clear that you can't always trust what the historians of the time said about their societies. The Roman historian Pliny, for example, wanted to get across the idea of the emperor Claudius' wife Messalina in as bad a light as possible, as a raging nymphomaniac - in the programme the story is put forward as the first recorded "slut shaming".

Pliny puts into his history a tale about Messalina waiting till Claudius was out of town before "going head to head" with Scylla, Rome's most experienced prostitute, in a contest to see how many men they could satisfy in one night: Messalina was judged the winner by 25 to 24, after Scylla finally concedes.

It was just a story, though, wasn't it. In those crazy, far-off times the historian's job was to bring home to you the main features of the characters and events of the past by telling you whatever story would do the job best. It's thought today that Empress Messalina was certainly promiscuous, but that the story about the alleged "contest" was almost certainly a fiction, designed to give you the main "take away" - that the empress was promiscuous - and then to entertain you with something spectacular or outrageous, so that you wouldn't forget the "take away", and also so that you'd come back for more.

This series has had a massive build-up in this week's Radio Times - I've never seen the Radio Times get so excited over one little series, and there's a massive, exuberant, 2-page spread in the magazine's "blurb section".

For Lois and me, however, this first programme in the series, by concentrating on little snippets, tends to raise more questions than it answers, and for preference we would have liked more detail and background.

And, for us, there are also far too many silly stunts, designed to put over the facts but in a gimmicky way, like a supposed Roman TV Game Show, "Blindicus Datus", where the contestant, TV historian Dan Jones, has to choose his date from among 3 contestants, all Roman Emperors who liked to dress in drag.