Danskcolin: Friday July 26th 2024 "Talking point: the Olympics

Well, the Olympic Games are here again. Funny, it only seems about 3 years since the last one! [I wonder why! - Ed]

And for two dyed-in-the-wool "sport-o-phobes" like me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, the Games represent a 'clear and present' danger, in that people we hobnob with may start talking to us about it. You may laugh, but it's things like this that keep us up at night, cogitating, over and over.

Currently there's been a course running that we considered applying for, at the local Nob End Community College, but we 'missed the boat', as usual. Luckily, there was a summary on the local Onion News Worcestershire Desk website, which offers some clues for us, which is nice!

The course is really intended for young people, so, as two old codgers, I don't think we missed out on anything too serious for our general health and wellbeing.

me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois - we mostly hobnob

just with each other, even when we're out of the house, which is nice.

We don't tend to date strange guys, anyway, just each other, [You're the strangest guy I know - Ed] and same thing with our patterns of "hobnobbing" - mostly "nobbing" but the occasional casual experiment with "hobbing", depending on the weather mostly.

14:30 Sometimes there's a bit of "roughhousing" goes on too, and there's no reason to be coy about that, it's quite "healthy" in any medium-to-long-term relationship [What's "medium" about it? - Ed], but whether it was caused by that, we're not sure, but anyway, poor Lois since yesterday morning has been suffering from spasmodic pains around her left ear. And she did forget to take her earrings out before coming to bed on Wednesday night, which could have led to the problem. [And can you PLEASE edit that medium-to-too-long sentence in this para, Colin! - Ed]

flashback to 2017: Lois showcasing a new set

of earrings, a birthday present from our friend

"Magyar" Mary, wife of "Magyar" Mike

Whatever - but this is the reason why we find ourselves at our local doctor's surgery again this afternoon.

Lois and me, in our doctor's surgery's "waiting area" this

afternoon, waiting to see that nice Dr Rogers

And that nice woman, Dr Rogers, sends Lois away with a prescription for an antibiotic spray to be used 3 times a day, which is nice, although when Lois tries it tonight, it dribbles out again pretty quickly, so next time I suggest she lies down on the bed and lets me spray it in, and then she can stay lying there for a bit till it all soaks in - just saying.

But all other suggestions welcome - on postcards only, but please include diagrams: we're not the sharpest tools in the tool-shed haha! Just a simple pen-and-ink sketch will do, like this one but with the roles reversed - in this, an attractive woman sprays into an gnarled old man's ear, and obviously we want it the other way round. Just saying!

Try and make your diagram at least minimally artistic, as well, because Lois and I always have pretentions towards claiming to be art-lovers - I'll leave it up to you which style and school you choose for your diagram, but please avoid anything too weird or surreal or "modern-artish", like this "effort" from Mark Bauer.

Remember it's got to be educational above all else !!!

gnarled old man (right, partly out of shot) runs away a an attractive

woman (left) falls out of bed, letting her medication shoot back out of

her ear at him, in 'righteous' anger, after another flawed treatment

session (artist: Mark Bauer, interpretation: me, (both copyright))

Yes, yes, I know, flawed ear medication scenes like this have become a bit "passé" now, a bit of a cliché - it's a theme that's simply been overplayed and thoroughly "done to death" as a scenario, hasn't it. But at the same time I don't think one more will 'break the bank', do you?

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

So, Bob's your uncle! I think I've given you all the instructions you need, so get that pen and ink out, and get sketching!

[Is that all you two "noggins" have done today - looked at the local news and popped in to see your doctor for five minutes? - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you ask (!), absolutely not!!! We also get a couple of phone-calls, I'll have you know! There was a nice video-whatsapp-call with my sister Jill, who's recently left her old family-home in Cambridge and bought a flat overlooking the marina at Ipswich, and this afternoon Jill gives us "the tour" by video, which is nice. We're hoping to host Jill in person, here in our home at Malvern, for a couple of days in August.

flashback to April: Jill, having just moved in, sends us

this picture of the view-to-die-for from one of her

new flat's balconies. How great is that?!

Also this afternoon, Lois and I get to chat with our twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica in Alcester, who are celebrating their 11th birthday today - how time flies! We'll be hopefully seeing the twins tomorrow (Saturday), at Evesham Leisure Centre for their swimming-pool birthday party.

By coincidence, it's also our grandson Isaac's birthday - he's turned 14. How time flies (again)! And our daughter Alison puts these pictures on social media later today. She and husband Ed, plus Isaac and Rosalind (16) are spending a couple of days in Bristol today, where she and Ed lived when they were young couple.

20:00 Well, that's it. The time has come. We can't postpone it any longer, so we start to look at some of the Olympic Games opening ceremony from Paris, on BBC1. There isn't any real alternative so we grit our teeth - the other channels have put on only their direst rubbish to compete with it, so we decide to "sample it" anyway, in case the subject comes up at tomorrow's birthday party, just to be on the safe side (!).

"Don't miss a minute" screams this week's Radio Times

We wish haha !!!!!!

I don't know what you thought, if you watched it. The French can be so brilliant so often, but tonight's affair seems, unfortunately, like the way the French can be at their very worst - long-winded beyond the wildest imagination: the interminable parade of boats cruising for what seems like miles, down the Seine, each boat with a national flag and a team of that country's athletes waving at us.