Monday October 30th 2023

09:00 It's only 9 am, but Lois and I are busy on the couch already, enjoying a bit of "Danish" - not the pastries, but the latest developments in the crime story being read by the local U3A Intermediate Danish group that we lead. - "Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss), by Danish writer Anna Grue.

It's a bit racy, but that's what our group of local Worcestershire and Gloucestershire old codgers like about it, so fair enough! 

"Hot books you can't put down" - some of the typically 

racy Danish novels favoured by our members

The group's current novel, "Judaskysset", features a passionate relationship between a 52-year-old menopausal art teacher called Ursula and her young lover Jakob (29), so you can be sure it's certainly fulfilling the fantasies of our group's elderly, and mostly female, membership - my goodness, yes!

In the story, Ursula, despite her age, seniority and experience, has become completely besotted with young Jakob. She's willing to put up with all the backache that their very physical affair is giving rise to, and she's eager to have sex with Jakob all over the place, on tables in the college visual-arts room where Ursula teaches, on the couple's clifftop walks etc etc.

a typical college arts-room

Those Danes, eh?!!!!

Today, Lois and I read that Ursula has now decided to give up her college teaching job, pool her savings with young Jakob, so that they can buy a hotel together in Nice in the south of France. She has a plan to have the rooms individually decorated by local French artists, who, as their reward, will have the right to stay in that particular room free of charge for one week out of every year, on a kind of a weird Danish-style timeshare basis. 

Young Jakob comments that it's going to be like a hotel his parents once stayed at in Berlin, And Lois and I read today on page 17 that the couple's hotel in Nice is going to be modelled on the Hotel Arte Luise in Berlin. 

I quickly assume that this is a fictitious hotel, but Lois suggests googling it, and what do you know? It is a real place, and it looks quite unusual to put it mildly. My goodness, yes! Every window is made to look like an artwork.

the Arte Luise Kunsthotel (i.e. ''art hotel') in Berlin,

where all the windows look like artworks

a typical room at the Arte-Luise Kunsthotel

Ursula's dream is to employ local French artists to convert the French hotel that she and Jakob are buying into something similar. But, for the moment, the hotel is currently in a bit of a state - I suppose it was going cheap maybe?

And Ursula also says that some of the rooms are currently in a dangerous state - there are pebbles on a lot of the room-floors and iron chains are liable to fall on you as you make your way across the room to get to your wardrobe.

What does that signify? Lois and I are quite innocent when it comes to today's sexual mores - but does all this mean that the hotel had been used by its French owners as some kind of a brothel or as a sex-fantasy hotel, or that kind of malarkey? 

We're afraid that our members will expect us, as group leaders to know, and we haven't got the faintest idea, so answers on a postcard please, if you understand about these things!

11:00 Lois and I break for coffee, and I check my smartphone. I see that an email has come in from Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, all about further compliments that Donald Trump has paid to Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, this time on the campaign trail at Sioux City, Iowa.

Trump is an admirer of Orbán, but he tends to forget exactly who he is. He's previously referred to him as "Orbán, the Turkish leader ". This time he got the country right, but placed the country in the wrong geographical framework, as a country bordering Ukraine "and Russia" [sic], my italics.

Oh dear! And you know, the Hungarians are quick to pick up on these kinds of mistakes. Well, wouldn't you, if he described the UK as bordering Ireland [correct] and Italy [incorrect], say?

Factcheck: Hungary does indeed border the Ukraine,

but it's hundreds of miles away from Russia, that's for sure

- and let's hope it stays that way!

Lois and I sympathise a bit with Donald, however, who's similar to us in age. We don't tend to recognise most of today's celebrities either, for example, and to us, "celebrity editions" of game-shows and the like, are no different from the ordinary versions.

And it's so easy to fall into the trap of feeling that foreign countries are all pretty much "much-of-a-muchness", isn't it. Do you remember when UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, speaking in 1938, described the Nazi incursion into Czechoslovakia as "a quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing".

Crazy times.

10:30 An email comes in from Steve, our American brother-in-law, with another of the amusing Venn diagrams that he monitors on our behalf on the web. The diagrams have recently been taking an apparent extended summer break, which has given me withdrawal symptoms, no doubt about that. 

Thank goodness that that particular nightmare is now over!

This time it's the middle diagram that particularly resonates with me - Lois and I have been retired for over 17 years now, but I still get the occasional nightmares when I'm stuck in one of boss-man Martin's awful meetings, wishing I were somewhere else. 

My colleagues and I often used to sneak a peak at Martin's online office-calendar, and it was just wall-to-wall meetings from clocking-in time to clocking-out time. The rest of us just wanted to get on with our "proper work", but Martin wouldn't have had anything to do all day if he hadn't set up a full 7.5 hours of meetings. I suppose it was the only way he could justify his position, though, wasn't it.

Poor Martin !!!!!!!

But what a madness it all was, looking back!!!!

a typical office meeting

And hopefully we've got enough treats in the larder for any "trick-or-treaters", who stop by here tomorrow evening. This is our first Halloween since downsizing to this new-build house in Malvern, and we're not sure how many times our door-bell will ring, if indeed it rings at all. 

flashback to earlier this month, we order a Fun-Size Party Mix a

and 3 bags of little Milky Way chocolates for the local trick-or-treaters

With hindsight we may have over-prepared. With the Party Mix and the 3 multi-packs of Milky Ways, I calculate (and I've got a maths degree, mind!) that we have enough in theory for up to 80 trick-or-treaters, although I dare say we'll give them each a bunch to take away, if we get any callers at all, that is.

The upside is that we'll have plenty over for ourselves, afterwards. And don't worry - we're not going to binge-eat them. Lois is a stern mistress-of-the-larder, and she tends to strictly ration treats, citing the risk of diabetes, so fair enough!

14:00 Lois and I go upstairs to bed, as usual. And we have another excuse today for spending the whole afternoon there - the clocks changed yesterday, back an hour to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), and we're trying to "embrace" it all, and fit our old ways to the new times.

The whole malarkey is taking its toll, however. We feel generally a bit out of sorts, waking up too early, getting hungry at the wrong times  etc - you know the kind of thing.

So it's 2pm GMT now, and it's time to relax, and we've got so that we can effortlessly screen out, as we lie here, the spasmodic sound of pneumatic drills, which is the price you pay sometimes for living on a half-finished 300-house new-build housing estate.

Also we can keep half an eye on what they're up to from our bed, as they make their holes or fill them in, whichever it is they're doing on a particular afternoon - and we don't even have to move, which is nice!

But they can't see us, we know because we've checked. Our bedroom windows just reflect the sky over the Vale of Evesham to the north and east, so there's no need to stick up pictures of giant bananas, like the Arte Luise Kunsthotel in Berlin does, which is nice!

the view from our bed this afternoon - and what a madness it all is !!!!!

Yes, what a madness it all is !!!! [That's enough madness for today. I don't want you getting overexcited again, Colin - go and fetch your medication, and let me watch you taking it! - Ed]

20:00 We relax on the couch with tonight's edition of Only Connect, one of our favourite TV quizzes, the one that tests lateral thinking.

And tonight we're delighted to see a question that involves Bertha Benz (1849-1944), our favourite pioneering motor-car daredevil..

Can YOU see the link between actor/film-maker/etc comedian Mel Brooks, eccentric cult popstar Peter Doherty, Bertha Benz and Washington Post investigative journalist Bob Woodward?

Enough said! And of course the answer is that they were all "paired with Carls" - kind of obvious when you know, isn't it!

Mel Brooks was comedy partners with film director Carl Reiner. Peter Doherty was in the punkish "Libertines" rock band with Carl Barat, Bertha was married to Carl Benz and was also his business-partner, and Bob Woodward's partner in the Watergate investigation was Carl Bernstein. 

However, none of the other three had the stature of Bertha Benz, Lois and I think. 

Bertha Benz 

As presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell explains, Bertha took the world's first-ever long-distance car journey, without telling her husband, in their newly-developed car, which wasn't really ready to go anywhere yet. 

She just put her kids in the back of the car and set off on the road, just like that. The car only had two gears, so when they were going uphill, the kids had to get out and push the car up the hill. And of course, there weren't any petrol-stations, so they would have to stop at apothecaries on the way to buy a bottle of something Bertha could put in the tank as fuel.

What a woman !!!!

flashback to 1894: Carl and Bertha Benz in their car

Bertha also had a habit of fixing fuel-lines and suchlike with just her garter-belt and a hat-pin. 

Was there no end to her ingenuity? [Woaaaaah! It's getting near your bedtime, Colin, so don't start on that one now - another evening  perhaps! - Ed]

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

Sunday October 29th 2023

11:00 We drive from our home in Malvern to Ashchurch, just outside Tewkesbury, so that Lois can attend her church's Sunday Morning Meeting. 

We believe, on some very good grounds, that, thanks to my vigilance on checking local news websites and parish notice boards, we may be one of the first cars to try getting through the little local town of Upton-upon-Severn from the north since the floodwaters subsided and the 5-day road closure finally ended this morning. 

Take my tip: UPTON PARISH NOTICEBOARD is generally first with the really big news, which is nice!

Yes, Upton Parish Notice Board doesn't just give details of who's taking the services in the parish church (Rev. Barry Unwin in case you're interested!) - it's that too, but it's so much more !!!!

flashback to 2021: local Anglican/Episcopalian vicar Rev. Barry Unwin, 

seen here in drier, happier times, before the Floods, giving his 2-minute message

on one of the many country back-roads you find in these parts

11:30 And, as we drive past the Warner's Supermarket and petrol station on Hanley Road, even though there aren't any cheering crowds, admittedly, we still somehow feel a bit like veteran journalist Max Hastings of the London Evening Standard, the first British reporter into Port Stanley, the Falkland Islands, after the "Argies" surrendered in 1982 - remember that?

And in a strange way, we also feel a bit like John Simpson, the BBC reporter who "liberated" Kabul after the Taliban withdrew, in 2001.

[Aren't you overplaying this "we liberate Upton" story just a little bit? - Ed]

11:15 We arrive at Ashchurch Village Hall just as this week's visiting preacher, Mark, from Knowle & Dorridge, is bringing the Bible Hour to a close, so we tiptoe in at the back of the hall and take our places as unobtrusively as we can.

we tiptoe into the Village Hall, just as Mark, this week's visiting preacher

from Knowle & Dorridge, sitting on the platform next to today's president, 

David (left), is bringing the Bible Hour to a close. Lucy's dog (name?, 

foreground to the right) eyes me suspiciously - I just LOVE that dog,

and I'm not strictly a "doggy person" - like me, he's just so quiet and soulful!

Awwwwwwwwwww he's so sweet !!!!

Knowle & Dorridge is a place somewhere near Birmingham, and it's famous, above all, for its amateur cricket club. Lois remembers the town fondly, because when her parents used to drive the family there in the 1950's, she and her little brother Andrew, always used to start singing their self-penned pastiche song, "Knowle & Dorridge, Knowle & Dorridge / Go together like a horse and carriage (Dad was told by Mother / You can't have one without the other)". 

You may have heard the song on the radio - I think Frank Sinatra wrote and asked permission to record it, but I'm not sure Lois and Andrew wanted that kind of fame at such a tender age. A missed opportunity perhaps?

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

13:45 Lois and I drive home, with just a quick stop at the OneStop shop on Poolbrook Road, because we forgot to take anything out of the freezer this morning for our tea tonight. Oops!

And there's more evidence here of the 'Halloween Fever' that's gripping this area at the moment - the shop is now officially a "zombie zone", with an official-looking "do not pass" type of tape-malarkey stuck over the entrance-door, but Lois goes in anyway - she really wants a couple of their delicious pork chops. 

Don't you just love a woman with spirit? I know I do !!!!

When she comes out of the shop, I ask her what it was like, but she doesn't want to talk about it, so fair enough - I imagine it was pretty traumatic, particularly if there was a zombie on check-out, as there normally is at this time of year - you just can't get the staff on a Sunday, can you. 

Yikes !!!!

if you look carefully through the glass in the left-hand panel, 

you may be able to make out the shadowy figure of Lois, 

dodging the zombies in the shop's notorious Aisle 1 - yikes!!!!

What a woman I married !!!!!!

14:30 We arrive home, still feeling a bit shattered after a busy week of hosting, and we go upstairs to "plug ourselves in" using our "virtual recharger", and we just stay there like that for a couple of hours.

16:30 Later I browse the Quora forum website and I'm delighted to see that one of our favourite Quora pundits, historian Alex Mann, has been weighing in on the vexed subject of "Why did Christianity spread so quickly in the Roman Empire?".

There are so many stupid questions asked by complete idiots on this Quora website, with so many sarcastic replies from the website's resident pundits, that it's refreshing to see a serious question for once, and one that you don't often hear about.

Alex writes, "Christianity did not spread fast at all. It was around during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, starting sometime around 31–33 AD, but it remained a niche offshoot of Judaism for some 300 years, never being the majority [religion] in any way.

For those first 300 years, it never did well. It remained small and mostly irrelevant, occasionally drawing the ire of the emperor. Then everything changed.

The crisis of the third century was a defining moment for the Roman Empire. The government collapsed, two thirds of the empire declared independence, numerous barbarian tribes invaded what remained of the empire, the economy collapsed, famine gripped the populace, and even a pandemic went around."

He continues, "The Roman government- caught up in local conflicts - was unable to respond to the needs of the people well. In this void, Christianity, one of the [few] organized religions in the Empire, stepped up big.

Christians fed the poor, treated the sick, and helped alleviate the intense poverty of the Empire for decades while the government figured everything out.

Eventually, an emperor named Aurelian put the pieces back together - ending the civil wars, defeating the barbarians, and stabilizing the border.

It was the Emperor Aurelian that made the key change, Alex writes. Traditional Roman religion was polytheistic, and their pantheon included not just the Roman gods, but all the other gods in contemporary cultures - Egyptian, Greek, or Celtic even, whatever. 

Aurelian selected one particular god, the sun-god Sol Invictus, for his personal religion, and this crucially laid the foundations for acceptance of Christianity, Alex believes, by planting the idea of monotheism in people's minds.

But not yet - Christianity's time hadn't quite come. After Aurelian died, his successor Diocletian tried to stamp out Christianity, but his attempts were ineffective, and the religion remained strong, although still very much a minority faith. 

Alex concludes, "Then Constantine won a civil war, became the sole emperor, and adopted Christianity. There is some debate here. Constantine may have worshiped Sol Invictus like Aurelian or he may have just used the Christians to gain standing, but, regardless, he brought it out of the dark and made it a legitimate religion.

From there it spread more and more year by year. Emperors (with only a few exceptions) were Christian and supported the expansion of the church. Following the emperor’s religion was always a good way to get “good boy” points so more and more jumped on the bandwagon.

By the time Rome fell, Christianity had cemented itself throughout the empire as the dominant religion by a mile.

Fascinating stuff !!!!

18:30 Battered and bruised by our day, Lois and I seem nevertheless to enjoy, even more than usual, the lovely pork chops that those zombies sold Lois earlier in the day - yum yum!

the pork chops those zombies sold us - yum yum!

21:00 We settled down on the couch and wind down for bed with another episode of the Sky History Channel's fascinating series, "Sex and Sensibility", all about sex and courtship in the Georgian period of British history: 1714-1837, which, for both of us, is perhaps our favourite period. 

I think we like it, because there are so many parallels between the Georgian period and our own times, many more parallels than are offered by the much more buttoned-up world of the Victorian era that followed: 1837-1901.

Presenter Dr Kate Lister, author of "A Curious History of Sex", sets the scene:

Well were they or weren't they? Fact-check this, please Lois haha!

It's always helpful watching series on Georgian sex and courtship if Lois is by my side to comment, because there isn't much that she doesn't know already about sex and courtship in this period, from her reading not just of history books but alsoof historical novels set in the period.

And it's nice also that so many of the dramatic scenes have been filmed in Bath, a city Lois and I know well.

looking for a wife or husband in Bath, Somerset

It turns out that Lois is critical of this documentary on many grounds. The series stresses the important part played by the so-called "season" of lavish balls in London in enabling reasonably well-to-do young people to find a partner in a controlled setting, possibly watched from the side-lines by anxious parents. 

"The Season" was timed to coincide as far as possible with sittings of Parliament, because many young marriageable peers, including many a "good catch", would have been in London during these months, away from their "country seats", and so available to attend balls in the capital.  

What a madness that was !!!!!

But Lois questions why no mention is made of other, less elevated, less controlled ways of "hooking up" with somebody, or finding a wife or husband - like going to taverns, or going to London clubs like Almack's, popularly known at the time as "the marriage mart", Lois says. 

an "odd couple" dancing at Almacks Club, the so-called "marriage mart"

Alternatively there were the open-air dances in places like the Vauxhall Gardens or Ranelagh Gardens, with their dozens of little grottoes and secluded nooks, which prostitutes could also access and make use of. The authorities tried to keep them out, but with little success, Lois says.

What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off times !!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!! 

Saturday October 28th 2023

Lois and I are both real "old codgers" these days - 77, both of us [Stop telling us that - you won't get any sympathy from me! - Ed] 

But Lois and I haven't spent too much time for the last few days sitting on the couch. Oh no! We've been entertaining here in our new-build house in Malvern since Thursday: daughter Alison and 2 of her 3 children from Thursday morning to Friday afternoon, and our other daughter Sarah and her twins starting Friday morning, and possibly staying till tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Busy busy busy!

Still it's so nice to catch up with everybody, no doubt about that. And if you've got a grandma, I wonder, did you see that heart-warming story about her in the Local News, on the The Onion website the other day?

PRESCOTT, Gloucestershire —Saying that it’s been ages since you made her one of your special pictures with your art set, Grandma, 86, inquired Monday as to whether or not you are still drawing.

“Remember the pictures of my house you drew for me when you were only in Year Two? I still have them. You were so good!” said Grandma, who went on to note that you had a real knack for making drawings like the one you did of your dog, Sandy or Sally or Andy, decades ago now, but expressing disappointment at your lack of creative output since then.

“Your parents spent all that money on art supplies when you were growing up, but I haven’t seen anything you’ve made in so long. If you ever do any watercolours or other paintings, I’d love to see them.”

At press time, Grandma then fixed you a grilled American cheese sandwich, cut diagonally into fancy triangles, just how you like it.

Heart-warming story isn't it! And it inspires Lois and me to try to be just like your grandma too, not immediately, needless to say, but over a period of time, in the coming months. So watch this space!!!

08:00 Well, as today dawns, we've now just got our chartered accountant daughter Sarah staying with us together with her 10-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, newly back in England after 7 years in Australia, so the house feels relatively empty with only 5 of us for breakfast this morning. My goodness - like 5 peas rattling around in a gigantic drum haha!

Annoyingly, there are still floods in this area blocking the main road into Upton-on-Severn - yikes!

However, Lois and I study some local road maps and we reckon we can take some country back-roads to get ourselves plus Sarah and the twins to one of the top local attractions in these parts - Clive's Fruit Farm. 

In recent times Clive has installed a children's adventure playground and also a nice café, and, with the local Warner's supermarket still inaccessible, Lois and I can also stock up on a few much-needed groceries, especially some of Clive's local meats, freshly-baked bread and locally picked fruit - yum yum!

This is a good choice of activity for this morning, as it turns out, and the twins have a lot of fun carefully selecting the nicest-coloured apples from Clive's "apple rack" and putting them in Granny's "pouch", so that's nice!

the twins enjoy the responsibility of selecting the apples with the

nicest colours, to put in Granny's "pouch" - awwwww!!!!!

And then, after all the shopping, it's hot chocolates for five at Clive's Café. 

hot chocolates for five at Clive's Café, and you can also see,

dotted around, some of the many pumpkins for sale, behind Lois...

...and if you look carefully, you may also get a glimpse of some of

the flooded fields between the farm and the little town of Upton-on-Severn

There's some excitement in the café, when the waitress brings round entry-forms for the Farm's big annual Halloween Competition, in which there's a chance to win a prize by guessing the name of the Farm's resident skeleton - and later I see a post about it on the Farm's Facebook page:

And I take a couple of photos of the twins, working hard together on their suggestions for guessing the name of the skeleton's name. They are really putting a lot of thought into it, no doubt about that!

hot chocolates for five as the twins consult each other, working really hard,

trying to come up with guesses for the Farm's resident skeleton.

Unfortunately, I myself have already put my entry in to the waitress - and yes, you've guessed it, it's "Brian" again. 

I don't suppose it'll win - at that stage I hadn't seen the Farm's clue on its Facebook page about the name being something to do with the skeleton's habit of dancing round the farm all the time. 

However, as you know, I tend to say "Brian" for all name-guessing competitions, in honour of my hero, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who all those years ago taught me "not to worry". Thanks again for that, Brian, and for those nearly 60 years now of expecting, yes, expecting that "everything will turn out all right", and being surprised only if it doesn't. Nice one!

Brian Wilson (2nd from left), the guy who persuaded me

all those years ago, not to worry - thanks again Brian!!!!

It's like the Winnie the Pooh story too really, isn't it. 

Tremendous fun !!!!!

15:00 Sarah and the twins head off for their rental home in Alcester, and Lois and I have a cup of tea and a chocolate hobnob on the sofa. We're too tired right now to put the house "back to rights" tonight - we'll keep it in its temporary "house-for-five" configuration till tomorrow morning, we decide, and then, and only then, we'll move everything back to the normal status quo.

20:00 After dinner, we settle down on the couch again and try to stomach the 4th and final episode in the disturbing part-dramatisation of the career of Jimmy Savile, the posthumously-disgraced radio and TV DJ, who was also a high-profile charity campaigner and apparently committed Roman Catholic, but who was revealed after his death to have been a serial sexual deviant and paedophile, over decades.  

It was only after Savile died, in 2011, that his decades of repeated acts of paedophilia and other deviant sexual behaviour came completely to light, although it's said that many people who worked with him on his TV and radio appearances, or on his many charity campaigns in hospitals and children's homes, had known all about it for a long time. 

Lois and I had absolutely no idea about that side of Savile's long career until all the news about it started breaking 12 years ago, just after he died. 

And not all of the people who rubbed shoulders with Savile knew about his dark side either. My close friend Paul, who sadly died in the 1990's, was a clinical psychologist who came across Savile from time to time when working stints in the high-security Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, at Crowthorne,  Berkshire. 

Paul used to talk to us about Savile, but never once mentioned any sexual "dark side", concentrating his reminiscences solely on what Paul regarded as Savile's peculiar personality, with its extreme extroversion.

flashback to Christmas 1982 - my close friend Paul, seen here on

a visit to Lois and me,  during our residence in Columbia Maryland.

In this mainly-dramatised documentary, there's no doubt that actor Steve Coogan does a masterful job of playing Savile, but for us, the stand-out moments of this series have always been the occasional shots and clips of the real Savile, clips which give us shivers. 

For Lois and me, Savile was very much a fixture of our TV-viewing starting way back in the 1960's, when he was presenting Top of the Pops on many a Thursday evening, and also the Saturday evening "Jim'll Fix It" series, where Savile famously made people's, and especially children's, dreams come true, for example, granting them access to a chat with a much-admired celebrity, or the opportunity, say, to try their hand at some daredevil sport etc, you remember the kind of thing.

flashback to 2006, when the Guardian breaks a news story

about the possible scrapping of Top of the Pops - at this stage

Savile's reputation as a good-guy charity campaigner

was still intact

And Savile still appears from time and time on mine and Lois's TV screen when we're watching some of the old video clips that we made of Top of the Pops back in the day, with Savile introducing a Top Ten record or one of his "tips for the top", and we chillingly see him chatting with some of the teenage dancers on the TV studio dance-floor. 

parts of Jimmy Savile's elaborate gravestone in Woodlands Cemetery, Scarborough,

where he was initially buried "at a 45-degree angle, so that he could see the sea" 

- in 2011 the headstone was dismantled and his body moved elsewhere

The phrase "Pass the sick-bag, Alice!", as Sunday Express newspaper mogul Sir John Junor used to say, isn't really strong enough, though, is it.

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