Just imagine! If you were, say, a podiatrist, and human feet were your livelihood, what kind of feet would you choose to "specialise in", nice young feet that you can tickle playfully, or the horrid crinkly, chapped feet and gnarled toes of some old codger, like me, or my wife Lois ?
Be honest haha !!!!!
a typical old foot
It's a no-brainer isn't it!
You'd think!
But not so with local podiatrist Dan Smithson, who operates out of the lovely village of North Piddle, Worcestershire, just a couple of miles from us.
When Lois and I downsized, a year ago, from our big house in Cheltenham to this little new-build house in Malvern, we already had it in our heads to sign up with Dr Smithson, who operates from a caravan in his back yard outside his house in North Piddle, just a couple of miles away.
Luckily, something - I don't know what it was - stopped us, and in the nick of time. Almost by chance, we happened to read this damning report on Smithson from local man Greg Lind.
So, to cut a long story short [Finally! - Ed] Lois and I decided to give Dr Smithson a miss and instead we went with "our Joanne", and we've never looked back since, to put it mildly. We've got a 10:15am appointment today with Joanne, and she's a lovely way to start the day, no question about that.
What a lovely touch she has, and she's so easy to talk to - she's got a fund of stories, which is what you want from your foot-person isn't it, just like you do from a barber or hairdresser.
Joanne, looking at Lois's feet this morning
Joanne chats away to us this morning as usual. She has a brother who is interested in metal detecting. He recently answered an appeal on Facebook from a woman who'd lost an engagement ring while having a romantic tryst in a local field. Joanne's brother had found the ring with his metal-detector, and had collected a £300 reward into the bargain.
Like us, Joanne is a big fan of the TV series "Digging for Britain", Alice Roberts' annual review of the biggest archaeological results from the last 12 months. She hadn't yet caught up with Alice's latest programme, however, and she didn't know that a favourite local pub, the Air Balloon, has been demolished to build a new junction, demolition work which has also enabled archaeologists to unearth several Iron Age graves, including this 20-year-old or thereabouts possible "prince" or at any rate, "VIP" from the period.
flashback to one of last week's programmes in TV's
"Digging for Britain" series: the skeleton of a tall young
prince or other Iron Age VIP that's been lying underground
near the Air Balloon pub site for 1500 years or more
By coincidence Lois and I had read this morning that work on the new road junction here has started, with effect from today. It should be finished by Spring 2027.
Let's just hope that Lois and survive until our 80th or 81st birthdays, so that we, or whoever's driving us around by that time, gets the benefit of the new road. Oh dear!
Fascinating stuff, isn't it !!!!!
[If you say so! - Ed]17:00 While I go upstairs to cross off a few jobs on my frightening to-do-list of computer work, Lois watches a TV programme on Channel 4 about the ghastly Andrew Tate.
It's interesting to me that Lois is drawn to watching programmes like this about various awful people, while I prefer to say "
Give us a break!" to Channel 4, and add, "
Why don't you just ignore him, and perhaps he'll go away! It only encourages him and people like him, to make these programmes about him!"
Who's right, me or Lois? - I think we should be told. [I think you'll find it's Lois, again! - Ed]
Another issue for me is that sometimes wish I knew more about fish - it's my constant lament, as I expect you've noticed! There are few issues in the world that can't be resolved by considering the potential reactions of fish to many a "hot topic", that's for sure!
This is just one question about the fish world that you need to know the answer to, just to survive in this modern world!
just two of the many things it's possible to
learn about the fish world
And by coincidence, earlier today I was delighted to see that one of our favourite pundits on the quora forum website Martin Kittappa (crazy name, crazy guy!) has been weighing in on the vexed subject of "How do liberal tear-machines feel about a man who is determined to continue supporting Donald Trump and Top G Andrew Tate, even if they're convicted of doing everything that they're accused of doing?"
It's interesting too, that when Lois tells me about the Andrew Tate interview later, she comments on how much Tate reminds her of Donald Trump.
This is the original question, as posted recently by an unidentified quora website afficionado:
Ever since I first saw this question, I've been half-expecting pundit Kittappa to use his extensive knowledge of the fish world to come up with an answer, and today I see his reaction for the first time.
Martin, a freelance sound mixer, who's picked up a lot of the essential ichthyology basics along the way, chooses today to answer the question in the following terms, drawing telling parallels with some of his favourite fish:
I wish I knew as much about fish as Martin! I'm sure it would enable me to win any argument, wouldn't it.
What a guy!
19:00 An email comes in from Steve, our American brother-in-law, sharing another of the amusing Venn diagrams that he monitors for us on the web.
Speaking personally, I've been cutting my own hair for years
[You don't say! - Ed].
Well, why pay £15 to £50 if you're just an old codger - plus, it's easy enough to do yourself, really isn't it. You soon get the knack. But I see that today Lois, having seen these Venn diagrams, appears to have picked up on the eye-catching phrase "wobbly completion" and I suspect I'll be hearing that quoted back to me from time to time in the future.
Oh dear!!!
Well, a bit of "wobbly completion", which is my "signature" anyway, seems worth the monetary saving after all, doesn't it haha!!!
21:00 We wind down on the couch with the first programme in an interesting new series on BBC2 about the Indian city of Mumbai, formerly Bombay.
This programme, which opens the 3-part series, is all about the super-rich residents of Mumbai, and Lois and I keep saying to each other, "
Is this really India? It doesn't sound like it, or look like it!"
But that's because this picture of life in Mumbai is being seen from the perspective of the country's tiny high-end minority, people who talk of "the 1991 revolution" - the liberalisation of the economy - as a miracle, which it was, for them. They temper their delight, however, by saying that, while getting rich themselves, they are at the same time "giving back" to their less fortunate countrymen. Let's hope that's true - hopefully this 3-part series will tell us.
One of the contributors to tonight's programme, super-rich Mumbai resident and top radio presenter Malishka, reminisces fondly about the changes.
Lois and I are expecting that the two remaining programmes in the series will show a picture of Mumbai from the viewpoint of the less fortunate. But we'll see - it'll be a good test of the "trickle-down effect" won't it.
We keep wondering - is the "old India" still going on all the while, in terms of attitudes to women or attitudes toward the minority Muslims etc? Well, you wouldn't know it from tonight's programme.
And it's refreshing tonight to see much more enlightened attitudes holding sway in Mumbai, where this fashion designer has a large clothing factory. Here Muslim and Hindu employees work side by side.
It's also nice to see refreshingly enlightened attitudes to women.
Lois comments that India isn't the only country in the world where, until recently, women's needs have been ignored. And I have to admit she's got a point - my goodness, yes!
And it's interesting at this juncture in the programme to get the historical angle on this.
Shobhaa De, "The Jackie Collins of India", has been shocking polite society since the 1990's with novels with novels exploring the ambitions and sexual adventures of the emerging middle classes.
And here's an extract from one of her novels, describing a scene at one of those boring parties you sometimes get invited to. You know about those boring parties, don't you. I expect you've been to a lot of them - oh dear!
Fascinating stuff, isn't it!
And for me, as a language buff, it's also interesting to see the incredible command of the English language, its idioms, buzzwords etc, that you see on the part of what's called "educated Indians". If it weren't for their obvious "Indian accent", you'd think they were British, there's no question about that.
It's noteworthy, however, that when talking to their employees, these Indians switch immediately to using Hindi, which is fair enough.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!!
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