08:00 It's Pancake Day today, and when Lois and I wake up this morning we've both got tonight's pancake on our minds, I can tell by the premature lip-smacking.
And although this promising "vibe" is so quickly tarnished, just a little bit by Grant Mitchcell, sewer blockage "lead" for our local water company "Severn Trent Water", and by Worcester News's ace junior cub reporter Nathan "Scoop" Russell, we soon brush this aside, and our mouths are quickly watering again, which is nice!
You can't keep a couple like us down for very long, that's for sure!
You party-pooper, Grant !!!! But I don't blame you, really. You've got a great job title - "sewage blockage lead", and it's for one of the UK's premier water companies, so I bet it's hard to pass up the chance of grabbing a few local headlines now and again. After all, Pancake Day comes but once a year, so go for it, Lois and I say!
Needless to say, the traditional name for Pancake Day is of course Shrove Tuesday, and Steve, our American brother-in-law has been doing some research on the name's origins.
The word shrove is a form of the English word shrive, which means to give absolution for someone's sins by way of Confession and doing penance. Thus Shrove Tuesday was named after the custom of Christians to be "shriven" before the start of Lent.
a typical priest "shriving" some local sinners,
i.e. hearing them confess their sins
Ælfric of Eynsham's "Ecclesiastical Institutes" from around 1000 AD states: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do [in the way of penance]".
Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955 - c. 1010 AD)
And the pancake connection goes back a long way too, to put it mildly. It was traditional in many societies to eat pancakes or other foods made with the butter, eggs and fat or lard that would need to be used up before the beginning of Lent. Similar foods are the fasnachts of German-speaking Europe and the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and the pączki eaten in Poland.
typical "fasnacht"-style doughnuts - yum yum!
The specific custom of British Christians eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday dates back to the 16th century. A popular Shrove Tuesday tradition is the ringing of the church bells (on this day, the toll is known as the Shriving Bell) "to call the faithful to confession before the solemn season of Lent" and for people to "begin frying their pancakes" [my italics].
So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Grant "sewage blockage lead" Mitchell !
Environmentalist footnote: Later I see that Worcester News "newshound" Nathan "Scoop" Russell's bombshell story has set alight the paper's normally quiet "comments" section, no doubt about that!
Local resident "Pepsipop" (believed to be a pseudonym) was the first to "weigh in".
17:00 Lois and I have been listening out all day, even during our afternoon nap, for the local Shriving Bell or Pancake Bell to be tolled, but "no dice". It may be out of order, we're not sure, but anyway by 5 o'clock we get up and Lois starts frying the pancakes for tonight's tea anyway - time marches on, as she always says!
Meanwhile I sit at the computer upstairs to design and print out my Valentine's Day card to Lois. I wish I'd done it this morning now - my brain just doesn't work as well after midday, I've always been like that.
18:00 And it's pancakes all the way, with a savoury first course, tuna pancakes with mushrooms and tomatoes....
... and for dessert, pancakes with lemon juice and brown sugar....
flashback to medieval times: a family seen here
listening out for the "Pancake Bell"
Promising - and do send me your ideas for pages 3 and 4 won't you. Deadline 9 pm today Tuesday Feb13th, so get your thinking caps on haha!
Environmentalist footnote: we decide not to throw away any of the pancakes' minuscule residues while the "to bin it or not to bin it" controversy is still raging in Worcester News' lively "comments section", I agree to keep checking tonight in case there's any "pushback" from the local resident that Lois and I call "Pepsipops Woman".
So watch this space !!!! [I don't think I'll hold my breath! - Ed]
19:45 Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part via zoom in her church's weekly Bible Seminar taking place tonight at Tewkesbury High School.
the school in Tewkesbury where Lois's church
holds its weekly Bible Seminars.
I go upstairs to do some computer work, and to monitor "Pepsipops Woman's" evening posts - but her lips appear to be sealed for the moment. She may be preparing a detailed and lengthy tit-for-tat onslaught against "Lakeselus", of course. Well, we'll see in due course, I've no doubt.
Disappointment comes, however, when I start browsing the web - I see we've made a major boob in our Valentine's Day booking for tomorrow. We always like to book a lunch rather than an evening "do", because then you can come home and sleep it off afterwards.
However I realise tonight's that the Swan Inn's attractive Valentine's Day "specials", and other topically themed dishes are unaccountably only available for evening diners.
What madness !!!!
My "takeaway" from this "snafu" is quite simple - always have a backup plan at restaurants, something which local man Connor Foreman has become famous for, in this part of Worcestershire anyway (source Onion News):
Yes, it turns out that they're all ways for the universe to end, seemingly.
And here's a lesson there for all of us, isn't there, no question!
21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we get ready for bed with this week's edition of QI XL, the TV comedy quiz, hosted by the UK's favourite Dane, Sandi Toksvig.
The theme of tonight's questions is "ufology", which is a novel idea, and something Lois and I know very little about.
And here's what presenter Sandi Toksvig calls "the biggest question of them all".
Yes, everybody knows about the "Big Bang" of 13.8 billion years ago, but did you know about these other scientific theories about the Universe: the "Big Freeze", the "Big Rip", the "Big Bounce", the "Big Crunch" and the "Big Slurp", none of which have yet happened.
Comedienne Cally Beaton hasn't heard of any of these either, but she's enthusiastic nevertheless, which is nice to hear!
The Big Slurp: a random quantum fluctuation could cause a tiny bubble of emptiness to form somewhere in the universe. And this bubble will immediately start expanding at the speed of light, slurping up everything in is path, like a gigantic Pac-man.
The Big Freeze is the heat death of the universe. As the universe expands, the stars planets etc become spread out, energy is spread out, and everything will become extremely cold, and too cold to support life.
The Big Crunch: the universe gets bigger and bigger in volume, till the extent where it slows down, and then gravity can pull it all back together again into an incredibly hot but tiny point.
the Big Crunch
The Big Bounce would be a Big Crunch followed by another Big Bang: a possibly infinite cycle, but a process considered unlikely because the universe is showing no signs at all of slowing down.
The Big Rip: the expansion of the universe will accelerate until it overcomes the forces of gravity - so there's nothing holding everything together any more, and it all just rips to pieces.
Yikes! Let's hope none of these happen, at least not before Lois and I have our nice lunch out tomorrow.
I think Lois and I are probably going to be all right, though, don't you? I'm guessing none of these things are going to happen for at least - like - a billion years, probably more!
And as a very deliberate public show of confidence and to reassure possibly jittery local QI-fans, already unnerved by what people round here are calling "Pancake-gate" (see this week's Worcester News passim), I've decided to book next year's Valentine's do while I'm there at the pub tomorrow!
That should calm local nerves a bit.
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!
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