Friday March 1st 2024

09:00 Breakfast over, I leave Lois busy baking downstairs in the kitchen and come upstairs to put the finishing touches to my so-called "presentation" haha. It's the monthly zoom meeting this afternoon of our local U3A old-codger "History of English" group, and I'm going to be in the "hot seat" again - oh dear!

a typical zoom meeting of our "old codger" group, seen here 

in happier times last year, seconds before former group-leader 

Lynda (bottom right) made her shock resignation announcement, 

leaving deputy leader "me" (middle right) to pick up the pieces

Yes, it's me that's down to give the monthly talk this afternoon, and my title - ENGLISH (1774-2024) - has the catchy 'subtitle', "If George III (reigned 1760 - 1820) walked into my house in Malvern right now and started "offloading" to me about his memories of his stressful kingly duties in the 1770's, and asked for my 'take', would we understand each other?"

Yes, I know, that "subtitle" is way too long to be put in the "catchy box", isn't it, but my efforts to make it snappier have failed so far, but this morning I spend far too much time working on my title and subtitle, and not enough on the actual so-called "presentation" itself. What madness !!!!

I also spend far too long working on my first slide, the "subtitle slide" - and here it is: and it features George himself, as I imagine him, relaxing with a cigar in our kitchen-diner after one of our typical meals here - a "scratch" snack-lunch of tinned pilchards on toast with grilled tomato maybe, unwinding with a cigar and "offloading" to me about the worst of his kingly problems from back in the 1770s.

my subtitle slide that I work hard on today - it shows George III

(1760-1820) relaxing in our kitchen-diner here in Malvern

and "offloading" to me about all his problems

My conclusion, by the way, is, if George and I were having a one-to-one chat, that I would understand poor old George but he probably wouldn't understand me, mainly because of the huge numbers of new words, new expressions, new slang, new buzz-words, new syntactical constructions etc that have flooded into our language over the last 250 years. 

Another of my "takeaways" is that George would come across as sounding a little bit American in his pronunciation, which is weird considering that he (a little unfairly in my view) became a bit of a "bogeyman" to the Americans, when the real "bogeymen" should have been the actual Government - the politicians in other words. But I'm no expert - so send me your views. 

George III - ironically he would have sounded 

a little bit American to our ears today

By the way did you buy that "catering pack" of postcards the other day, as I advised? Let me know if you did buy a pack, on a postcard again please! These bargain packs are still currently on special offer at Morrisons Supermarkets by the way. 

Just saying !!!!

What a lot of time I waste this morning on my laptop, and before I know it, it's time to give my so-called "presentation". Damn!

It's human nature isn't it, and we all find ways to avoid work, as has been documented ad infinitum on the influential American news website Onion News.

ST. CLOUD, MN—Saying that he was now “paying the price” for his failure to properly pace himself, Talos Analytics junior marketing associate Cameron Gaither, 28, admitted to reporters Wednesday that he had completely exhausted all of his usual time-wasting websites well before lunchtime.

“Oh my god, I’ve already checked all of today’s Gawker posts and everything new on Boing Boing and it’s not even noon yet,” said Gaither, noting that he had additionally “ploughed through” the latest updates on Fail Blog, Texts From Last Night, and Bleacher Report, where he typically fritters away his time throughout the course of a full workday.

“Oh dear, I’m really running out of ideas here. I’ve even taken another pass at the XKCD archives and burned through just about every subreddit I can think of. What the hell am I supposed to do for the next six hours?”

Gaither confirmed that his current dilemma was the worst he’d faced since last week when he got roped into attending a morning sales meeting and consequently had to spend the rest of the day fervently catching up on all of the online time-squandering he’d missed.

And another way to avoid work is to waste time planning it - have you noticed?

FORT WAYNE, IN–Julie Smalley, a 43-year-old Fort Wayne-area office manager, avoided completing any work whatsoever Monday, when she spent a majority of the day composing to-do lists.

"I've got a stack of mail up to here, I need to get the new schedule out by Wednesday, and department supervisors are breaking down my door for my signature," said Smalley, sitting at her desk at One World, a mail-order retailer of maps and other travel-related goods. "That's why I knew I had to lock myself in my office today, put my nose to the grindstone, and draw up a detailed list of all the things I need to do."

Upon arriving at the office at 8 a.m., Smalley got right to avoiding work, drawing up an extensive list of everything that needed to be accomplished. Among the pressing tasks she itemized: scheduling a meeting with One World promotions director Terry Connell, processing the stack of employee-reimbursement requests, and locating previous to-do lists and transferring any still-uncompleted items to the new list.

"I was supposed to get together with [co-worker] John [Tribley] to finalize some prices for the new catalogue, but I cancelled because I have so much to do," Smalley said. "That went straight to the top of my list: 'Re-schedule meeting with John T. re: catalogue prices.'"

Smalley's list was meticulously arranged, its more detailed tasks subdivided into numerous line items. Instead of simply writing a reminder to speak to the company's three department supervisors about hiring new employees, Smalley listed separately, "Talk to Sarah W. re: hiring," "Talk to Roger M. re: hiring," and "Talk to Howard B. re: hiring."

Several of the list's items were cross-referenced to other lists. One such list detailed 32 tasks for planning the company's summer picnic, including number 16, "Look up different caterers in phone book," number 17, "Decide which caterer to use," and number 18, "Call caterer (see list 5B)."

What a truly crazy world we live in !!!!!

12:00 So, all in all a wasted morning for me, with little to show for it when lunchtime arrives. 

And, as usual, Lois puts me to shame this morning by completing the first item on her Friday/Saturday to-do-list: a hazelnut nutella cake, or is it a nutella hazelnut cake - your views please (again !!!!!!).

Lois says to say "hi!" to you, by the way. Here she is!

Lois says to say "Hi !" to you

And this is Lois's cake that she's been baking this morning. 

Say "Ooooooh !!!"

just out of the oven: a delicious-looking hazelnut nutella cake 

And tomorrow she'll be making a mango ginger trifle, or is it a ginger mango trifle perhaps?

The only downside is that neither the cake nor the trifle are strictly for me, although Lois usually takes pity on me and "lets me have a bit". Tomorrow afternoon perhaps (?), if I'm lucky? We'll just have to see!

The cake and trifle are really being made for her church's contingent of Iranian Christian refugees, a dozen or so of them, who are being accommodated by the Home Office in local "bargain-basement" hotels in the Gloucester area, while their applications for permanent residency are being considered.

the members of Lois's local church, including

several Iranian Christian refugees

14:30 My presentation to our monthly U3A meeting passes off peacefully. The plus side for me is that I realise for the umpteenth time that most of the other members don't know half as much as I do about the history of English, and so this afternoon nobody challenges any of my so-called "ideas", some of them quite preposterous, which is nice. 

Just saying !!!! 

The downside, however, is my growing awareness that the other group members may now more or less have succeeded in "stitching me up" and manoeuvring me into becoming the new de-facto group leader, after former leader Lynda's shock resignation in 2023. 

And there's a nagging fear that I just can't get out of my head. Have the other members deliberately given me the impression that I know far more than they do, as some sort of tactic to nudge me into becoming the new leader with all the job's various time-consuming duties: the talk-scheduling work, the Middle English text-selection work, the speaker-chasing-up work etc etc ??????

I wonder.....!!!!

flashback to 2023: our former group leader Lynda (centre 

in mock-Hawaiian tee-shirt), seen here shortly after making her shock 

resignation announcement to the group, in which she cited her desire to, 

in her words, "spend more time with my ukulele" - a likely story !!!!

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