Danskcolin: Friday May 31st 2024

Indecision and procrastination - there's a lot of it about, isn't there! Local magician, the "Amazing" Paul Schweig of Crotch Crescent, Upton-on-Severn knows that better than most, to put it mildly!

Poor Paul!!!!

But let's hope he "gets all his doves in a row", and "starts mysteriously reappearing on schedule", at least in time for the Christmas Party season anyway, even if we're only talking Christmas 2025 haha!!!!

08:00 And when Lois and I wake up in bed this Friday morning, we still don't know what's going to be happening this weekend. Will our daughter Sarah be bringing her twins over to stay with us, and if so, will they be arriving tonight or will it be tomorrow morning? Exactly how many breakfasts will they be with us for, and what precise tonnage of Cheerios cereal will those twins be consuming, and have we got enough - these are the questions that occupy a lot of grandparents' minds, aren't they!

flashback to November and a previous weekend visit:

Lois helps Lily (left) and Jessica with their weekend homework

over a comforting mountain of breakfast Cheerios

Preparing for a family visit is just one of the things Lois and I have got to do today. I myself have also got to give a so-called "presentation" to the local U3A "History of English" group on June 7th, so only a week from today. And not only that but I've got to have a "synopsis", "digest" or potted version of the talk ready to email out on Sunday.

So far I've come up with the title for my "presentation" and also a picture, but I haven't actually prepared the talk itself, which is becoming a concern.

And so far I've wasted a lot of time trying to find an opening joke, to start my presentation off with a bang, and get the group laughing, to disarm any potential "trouble-makers" in our little group!

"Always start with a joke" is what the pundits say, and until today I was going with one of the Pope's famous legendary "one-liners" - he's got one for every nation in his realm, apparently.

Pope Francis, laughing as he tells his joke to Eduard Habsburg,

Hungary's Ambassador to the Holy See and Sovereign

Military Order of Malta, and colleagues

And "what was the Pope's favourite Hungarian joke?", I hear you cry? [Not me! - Ed]

Well, it's quite amusing, admittedly, but hardly a show-stopper, is it. But luckily Steve, our American brother-in-law, who sometimes writes a lot of my material, has come up with some alternatives. Here are just a few:

Some real "doozies" there, aren't there - my goodness! But I might just go with this one:

Haha! It's quite a long joke, and difficult to say quickly - I must remember to "time" it before next Friday: they always say you should time yourself before presentations, don't they! But whatever - the joke is bound to take up quite a bit of the talk-time of 90 minutes, which means less actual factual stuff that I have to prepare for the rest of my talk, which can only be good news, to put it mildly!

Well we'll see. The jury's still out on that one, but your views welcome (on postcards) as always! So keep them coming in haha!!!!

typical audience reaction to a speaker's

opening "doozy"

14:30 And a spin-off of this "search for the perfect opening joke" means that there's plenty for Lois and me to laugh about in bed this afternoon, and not just Hungarian jokes either, which is nice.

Lois has already been reading bits of her shiny new copy of "The Week" magazine, which gives a digest of the week's news from home and abroad, and she's got some "doozies" of her own to show me, which is stimulating.

First there's news of yet another unimpressive painting of a royal, following several others in recent weeks. This one is of Princess Kate.

What's wrong with these "royal" artists? What is their problem? Lois and I can't decide this afternoon.

That one of Kate looking like "a bored air stewardess" is right up there with that recent painting of King Charles, looking uncomfortable in the Australian desert, by local artist Vincent Namatjira.

Australian artist Vincent Namatjira with his

picture of King Charles looking uncomfortable in the desert

After all, no respectable parish council is going to want to put either of these "embarrassments" up on the walls of their Village Halls, are they. Be fair !!!!

And here's another thing... How impressed are YOU so far with the UK's latest General Election campaigns? Rishi Sunak's crazy, "where-did-that-come-from", idea of reintroducing compulsory national service for 18-year-olds, or his "determination" to scrap "rip-off" degrees at universities.

Pretty desperate, we think, and obviously ill-thought-out attempts to make it look as if the Government, after 14 years in office, is still coming up with fresh, thrusting and bold, new "dynamic" ideas, even though they may be quite trivial or stupid ones - "Just give me some headline-grabbing ideas, don't care what they are!", Rishi must have said to his speech-writers, or did he send the plea to his joke-writers by mistake? I think we should be told, don't you?

But maybe we should be pleased that neither Sunak nor Starmer are coming up with anything too bold - at least it's mainly a two-horse race. And at least we don't have the problems most of the Continental countries seem to be having with their multiple big 'raving loony' parties, as "The Week" points out today.

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

16:00 Lois and I relax on the patio and look at the puzzles in next week's Radio Times.

We put in a poor performance on Popmaster, admittedly, only 5.5 out of 10, but we score an impressive 8 out of 10 on the intellectually more prestigious "Egghead" questions, which is nice!

See how many of these "doozies" YOU can answer haha!

18:00 Sarah and the twins arrive - they'll just be staying the one night this weekend and then most of Saturday, before going back to their home in Alcester on Saturday afternoon or evening. The twins have a "play date" with schoolfriend Ruby organised for Sunday.

Lois does us all a quick "spagbol"-in-a-bowl, with one of her home-made jellies for desert, which we eat while watching "Shipwrecked" on the Talking Pictures TV channel.

we eat "spagbol in a bowl" while watching

"Shipwrecked" on the Talking Pictures TV channel

Then, before bedtime, it's "fun with cushions" time for the twins - the perfect way to end the day. Lois and I really must try this ourselves next week, when it's "just us" again!