Danskcolin: Friday December 1st 2023

Dear reader, are you perhaps an older man?

Or, if not, do you know an older man? A lot of people do! And if so, I expect that that man has told you how he loves nothing better than to be called "darling" or "sweetie" by a young woman, especially if she's a nurse!

That's starting to ring bells now isn't it! Well today is the day of my annual blood pressure test that's going to be with one or other of the nurses at our doctor's surgery, and I get the blonde one - you know the one I mean, don't you?

a typical older man getting a blood pressure test

Well, this nurse this morning calls me "sweetie" immediately, when she invites me into her little room. "Come in, sweetie!", she coos, and this for some reason relaxes me in preparation for the test, which is good, because I traditionally suffer from "white-coat syndrome" or "white-coat hypertension".

And when I take my jacket off and the nurse sees my short sleeve shirt, she says "Perfect!", and she asks if I've worn it just for the test, despite the freezing cold weather outside, and I say, "Yes I put it on just for you!". All this gentle banter seems to do the trick when it comes to the test, and the nurse tells me my blood pressure is "perfectly fine", and almost the same reading as last year, which is nice.

Larry David wasn't so lucky at his cardiologist's that time he got Nurse Renée - do you remember that episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"? You know, when Renée bent down in front of him? Larry got an eyeful down the front of her blouse, and his heart-rate "went through the roof" ?

Remember now?

Poor Larry !!!!

Later today, Steve, my American brother-in-law, sends me information about this handy little blood pressure monitor which I'm thinking of getting. If you supply your own recent readings, our doctor's surgery doesn't require you to come in for the annual test, which would save a journey.

But perhaps, dear reader, you're not only not an old man, but also, you don't even know any old men either. Am I getting nearer to the truth here now, perhaps?

And if so, are you a young woman who lives with another young woman or women? Well, if this is YOU, have you noticed how your periods soon begin to synchronise?

a typical group of flatmates who've

managed to synchronise their periods

Well, Lois and I have been married for 51 years, and neither of us has periods, so we can't do anything about that, but we HAVE been trying to synchronise our statin-taking - you know, statins, those pills that control slightly elevated cholesterol.

And this weekend I can exclusively reveal that we've done it at last - thanks to my bad memory. I didn't notice that my supply of statins was running out - I get 8 week's worth at a time. So I borrowed one of Lois's - we both take the 20mg sort, and hey presto, we realised we can today synchronise our requests for repeat-prescriptions online, and on Monday we'll be able to collect both lots simultaneously from the pharmacy, which will save a journey every 2 months or so.

Old people notoriously have bad memories. Remember that recent story in the local Onion News about the Hintons, that couple in the little village of Bell End, just outside Worcester?

Enough said, I think!!!!

[And try and say much much less next time! - Ed]

16:00 After our afternoon nap upstairs, Lois and I settle down on the couch and do the puzzles in next week's Radio Times. We're on fire today, not really on the "Popmaster" section but certainly on the intellectually more prestigious "Egghead" questions, where we get 9 right out of 10.

And today's challenge is - See how many answers YOU know!

Impressive or what haha !!!!

21:00 We settle down for bed with this week's episode of "Have I Got News For You", the topical comedy news quiz.

The first question is all about this week's "Elgin Marbles" furore. The Greek Prime Minister came over for talks with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, but Sunak called the talks off when the Greeks started referring to the Elgin Marbles in the press, which Sunak said they "had promised not to do".

Cause of the row? The pieces of the 2500 year old Elgin Marbles which Lord Elgin's staff broke off from the frieze on the top of the Parthenon in Athens in the early 1800's. They're now sitting in the British Museum, but the Greeks want them back.

One thing the UK press hasn't focussed on yet, to mine and Lois's knowledge, is "How did the Greeks react to this whole malarkey?"

Lois and I don't speak modern Greek, so we're not 100% sure what this headline means in English. Can somebody fill us in please? Thanks in advance!!!!!

And we also didn't know some of the circumstances of Elgin's removal of bits of the ancient frieze. Team captain Ian Hislop explains that, after securing permission from the local Ottoman Empire officials, Elgin just smashed it into a few big pieces and brought half of it back to England.

Even at the time, it was controversial, and Byron kicked up a huge fuss about it.

Byron's lines, written in 1811, not intended for publication

And Lord Elgin wasn't even taking the Marbles "for the nation". He was going to put them in his back garden. The only reason that they're sitting in the British Museum today is that Elgin later went bankrupt, and he needed someone to buy them off him.

And comedian Ross Noble wants to know how big Lord Elgin's garden shed was. Probably a bit bigger than the 6' x 4' shed that Lois and I are ordering for our back garden, I'm guessing!

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

Another big question on tonight's show is all about Omid Skobie's new book about Prince Harry and Meghan.

In the book, controversially, Skobie gives the names of the two royals who speculated about Harry and Meghan's first baby and its potential skin colour.

But is this such a big deal, really? Ian Hislop says it's not.

So fair enough, Lois and I say!

21:30 After the programme finishes, Lois and I chew it over on the couch. And it seems, that whatever, we would never want to give the monarchy up. Would YOU, if they belonged to YOUR country?

Yes, are you perhaps not British, nor even Commonwealth perhaps? Do you live in a republic but secretly wish that your country too had a royal family?

Well, this week, Tünde, my Hungarian pen-friend, has sent me a photo she took recently in a Budapest bookshop, where she counted 14 books about the British Royal Family, all on sale to customers.

photo taken in a Budapest bookshop, where Tünde, my Hungarian

penfriend saw 14 books about the British royal family on sale there

What madness !!!!

And I remember that when Tünde visited England in 2008 and we went up on the London Eye together, she said to me that, when you see from above what a modern, vast city London is, it seems impossible to believe that the country could still have a queen or a king as head of state.

Flashback to 2008: Tünde and me on the London Eye - that's us on the right,

me in a light grey coat and light blue cap, and Tünde looking over my shoulder

view from the London Eye: a vast and very modern city

However, assuming you haven't got a royal family, or have lost one through carelessness, surely you wouldn't want to try and assemble a fresh one completely from scratch, like a flatpack from Ikea, would you?

Please tell me "No!" !!!!

It looks from all those books in the Budapest bookshop that Hungarians have a deep-rooted but maybe unconscious desire to have a royal family of their own. And you would think also, that somewhere in Europe there is already someone with a claim to the throne of Hungary.

If you're that person, and you're reading this blog, please let me know, and I'll pass your name on to the Hungarian President, Katalin Novák.

Katalin Novák (right), President of Hungary,

seen here with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán

I seem to remember that Franz Ferdinand was the King of Hungary (and Austria) until his death by assassination in 1914. However, try as I may, I can't find anybody on the internet who has a claim to the throne of Hungary and who is around nowadays.

Maybe our own king, Charles III, could take it on? Through his mother the late Queen Elizabeth, Charles is a descendant of Arpád I, which I didn't realise till today.