Danskcolin: Monday February 12th 2024

Today is VD-2, Valentine's Day minus 2, and preparations are proceeding apace. We drive over to Hanley Swan to get some groceries in the village convenience store and also buy Lois's Valentine's Day card to me, and we can check out the menu in The Swan, where we're going to have lunch there for the second year running.

And please, please, let nothing go wrong this year !!!!

Hanley Swan's famous village duckpond, with

village inn The Swan in the background

Yes, we're hoping against hope that there won't be any repeats of last year's multiple annoyances at the pub, with top of the list:

(1) any of the local rowdy cheapskate menage-a-trois afficionados taking advantage of the pub's unwise, opportunist offer of "discount for tables of three or more".

And/or (2) any more awkward "first dates" by local tax lawyer Marc Scanlon.

Poor Marc !!!! That guy just doesn't know when to quit, does he !!!!

11:00 So - lunch table booked for Wednesday- check - presents ready but not yet wrapped, my card not yet designed nor (obviously) printed.

But I can't do anything more about all that today, because my main task today will be to do some more work on my so-called "presentation", the one I'm supposed to be making on Friday to the monthly zoom meeting of the local U3A History of English group.

I learn today that centuries ago, people in England only had a very vague idea about "Europe" and "abroad", and many of them probably didn't even realise that not everybody in the world spoke English. And if they came across some foreign place-name in a book, some foreign city like Rome or Milan, they pronounced the name of the place as if it was somewhere just up the road from them.

typical English medieval villagers

"Rome" was pronounced to rhyme with "womb" or "tomb" in those crazy, far-off days, using the then fashionable way of pronouncing long 'o' vowels as "oo". Shakespeare would have said it like this, when he was writing "Julius Caesar", for example.

So in Mark Anthony's famous speech at Caesar's burial:

The fifth line above would maybe have sounded like "brought many captives hoom to Room"

And "Milan" was pronounced as "millen", to rhyme with e.g. Dylan. Milan was famous at the time for its hats, which is what gives us the word "millinery", describing headwear, or the work of the "milliner" or hat-maker.

See? It's all starting to make a crazy kind of sense now, isn't it. [Not in my book! - Ed]

a typical medieval milliner or hat-maker

19:00 I may have mentioned that in the last couple of years, Lois's church has had an influx of new members from some of the Iranian Christian refugees who have come to this country in recent years, fleeing the latest crazy regime in their homeland.

some of the British and Iranian members

of Lois's church

Lois has been spreading the word around her church-members about the current rerun of the BBC4 series Art of Persia, but there's been zero evidence so far that any of the church members Iranian or British have taken an hour out of their day to view it. Is that too much to ask haha !!!!

It’s interesting to me that the language of Iran, Farsi, is distantly related to English, despite its superficially weird appearance in curly-wurly Arabic-style script.

I learnt a bit of basic Farsi in the 1980’s, when doing my Government job, and I discovered that the Farsi word for “twenty” is “bisto”, also, since 1908, the name of the most popular UK make of gravy. The Farsi word “To” in Farsi means “ten” in English, and “bisto” = twice ten, just like in French “biscuit” means “twice-cooked”. Simples!

included for comparison purposes: a vintage ad for Bisto,

since 1908 the most popular UK make of gravy granules:

only 2 shillings and fourpence for a 16 oz tin in those far-off days.

And it was nice in tonight's programme to see some sort of medieval temple in Persia which had separate door knockers for men and women. The women’s knockers made a different sound to the men’s, so that the priest knew whether a man or a woman was waiting to come in, giving him time to comb his hair, apply Brylcream or just ruffle it up, as appropriate.

Perhaps Lois and I could install two separate door-bells on our own front door, playing different tunes maybe, say, "I Enjoy Being A Girl" and "I'm a Boy I'm a Boy but My Ma Won't Admit It" – it’s worth considering.

If you've got any alternative suggestions for the tunes, by the way, do send them in. If we use your ideas, you'll get the customary sixpence, which I believe is the going rate. [You're really showing your age now, aren't you, Colin! - Ed]

Joking apart, separate bells might be a good idea, we feel. Door-to-door salespersons and distraction thieves are seldom women, after all. It would at least give us time to hide our money away, which would be handy.

I wonder...... Your thoughts please!

And here's an issue - these days, would we need to also install three additional door-bells for trans-men, trans-women, "questionables" etc?

Perhaps some legal advice wanted here too! And what about that temple in Persia - will they be installing some extra knockers?

some of my ideas for extra knockers for that medieval

temple in Persia - what do you think?

I wonder...... Once again, your thoughts please!

21:00 We wind down for bed with the 3rd programme in UK-based Canadian comedienne Katherine Ryan's amusing series on parenting for working mothers.

Katherine feels constant bouts of "mum guilt", as the mother of 3 children - a 14-year-old daughter Violet, a 2-year-old son Freddie, and baby Fenna. And Katherine has to combine her maternal duties with her career as one of the UK's top stand-up comediennes.

Her partner, Bobby, is a semi-professional golfer, but Katherine feels she'd like an extra pair of female hands around the house to help with the kids. So she phones her mother in the small town just outside Toronto, where she grew up, asking if she'll come over to the UK for a while. This will give Katherine more time to work on new material for her act.

Katherine, however, has always had a bit of a problem with her mother. Growing up, Katherine was desperate to be "hot", as a teenager, but her mother always stood in her way by being hotter than she was.

As a teenager, Katherine says she remembers "having - like - freckles everywhere, and really bad teeth, not understanding how to do make up", whereas her mom " was - like - one of the sexiest people in the town".

flashback to the 1980's: Katherine as a teenager

Meanwhile, her mom was turning all the boys' heads, even the boys at Katherine's school.

Oh dear! The trauma of having one of your classmates dating you mother! And I foresee trouble when Katherine's mother arrives from Toronto to help Katherine's partner Bobby out with the childcare etc.

And I'm right. Because Mom - Julie - is still continuing to put Katherine in the shade with her looks and outfits, for instance when the two women get ready go out to a "Comedy Club" so that Katherine can try her new stand-up material out locally.

And although Katherine is able to perform her newly-written stand-up material during the "open-mic" session at the club, she's embarrassed to find that the other women stand-ups there are all younger and single, and that she's the only one "going on and on about her kids".

Poor Katherine!!!!

At least Lois and I understand Katherine's jokes, but when some of the younger comediennes take the mike, we quickly get lost, to put it mildly.

Can YOU understand any of these jokes? If you can, do drop me a postcard, won't you haha!