Saturday July 27th 2024 "Talking point: SHOULD fire-doors EVER be propped open with copier paper?"

I've got to admit it, even though you've probably guessed this "yonks" ago! Like many of today's journalists and bloggers I learned my "blog-craft" and general "use of English" from none other than that master of linguistic style, Donald Thuler, the office manager at Johnson Railing Supply, central Missouri's largest wholesaler of rails.

It was the great Thuler who, way way back in the year 2000, wrote that seminal article on the Onion News website, "When I Put Something in Italics, I Mean It". Incidentally, that masterwork is also the "bible" on that other vexed subject of not overdoing either exclamation marks (!) or "quotation marks", so it's always worth a browse, that is, if you've got "several hours to spare" (!).

And I think it's worth quoting Thuler's "take" on italics in full here, because it's important. Thuler wrote, and I quote....

Some castigated Thuler for the perhaps "over-dramatization" implicit in this notice, but I think he was right - because fire can be an awful hazard (!).

And in case you're one of the many "non-believers" on the hazards of fire, at this point I normally ask my readers to take a quick glance up at the ceiling of the room in which they're reading my words. Is there a "smoke alarm thingy" there, amid all the light fittings and other paraphernalia? 

I bet you there is! Am I right, or am I right?

I showcase a smoke alarm in our own kitchen

here in this, our new-build home in Malvern

It IS important to avoid fire hazards, and this is a consideration we should always bear in mind (!), whether we're at work (and not just at Johnson Railing Supply, but generally), or whether we're "at play", maybe just using PlayStation 5 for example, as this story underlines [Source: Onion News again]:

16:30 And fire-hazards were very much on the minds of me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois this afternoon let me tell YOU!

The two of us are sitting alone in an eerily almost deserted Evesham Leisure Centre. Yikes! But you see it's officially "out of hours" now, and there's only a skeleton staff on duty, and we're not even sure if we  know where even they are, even, in this vast almost-empty building. [All right - we've got the point (!) - Ed]

my wife Lois and me, sitting in the eerily deserted, and officially closed,

Evesham Leisure Centre café, with drinks we've got out of an unattended

 machine, which fortunately works in this case and doesn't just 

"swallow" our money  - phew! Oh and YIKES !!!!

Yes, YIKES !!!!!

"And just why are you two "noggins" there, anyway, after closing time, in the massive Evesham Leisure Centre?", I hear you cry [Not me, I don't care! - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're asking (!), Lois and I, plus our daughter Sarah and husband Francis, have paid for the Leisure Centre to stay open with skeleton staff, just for us and our guests, so that our twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica, can celebrate their 11th birthday with a few of their best friends, availing themselve of full use of the swimming pool to "cavort" in, which is nice!

The money we've paid over also includes the presence of a life-guard when the girls are in the pool, a lifeguard who only looks about 11 years old herself (!). What madness !!!!

Normally this huge place, a popular venue for local meetings and activities, with its swimming pools, gyms, climbing walls etc is simply "a-buzz" [Is that a word? - Ed] with fitness fanatics, including couples and families, as it in this library picture I googled off the internet:

a gym, part of the huge Evesham Leisure Centre,

seen here in more normal times, packed with

couples, families and fitness fanatics in general

"But why are you so worried about fire-hazards, Colin?", I hear you cry. [Get on with it! - Ed].

Well, it's the lighting of the firework-candle on the birthday cake, OBVIOUSLY !!!! Lois and I just feel that if alarm bells started sounding all over this massive complex, or, worse, if fire actually broke out and we had to run for our lives with 9 kids and a couple of extra mums, into a car-park full of fire engines and ambulances and sirens going off, that this would somehow take some of the "shine" off our twin-granddaughters' "Eleventh Birthday Experience. 

Call us "worry-worts" if you like haha! 

Luckily, after a massive search of this near-deserted building, we find a young lad who claims to be "duty manager", although he only looks about 12 years old himself. We ask him if it's all right to light a firework candle, and he says "No problem" - so there you are. Bob's your uncle!

Our daughter Sarah (left) lights the firework candle on our twin

granddaughters' 11th birthday cake in an almost deserted

Evesham Leisure Centre this afternoon (the twins are

2nd and 3rd from the left in the line of young girls)

The candle-lighting ceremony is the joyful climax of a long afternoon for my wife Lois and me. We two were alone responsible for transporting the elaborate birthday cake from the family's house in Alcester, a cake decorated by the twins themselves, and we were also responsible for helping Sarah set all the food up on the tables in the deserted Leisure Centre café, for the twins and their 7 young guests.

flashback to earlier this afternoon: we transport the cake

from Sarah and Francis' family home in Alcester,

and then help Sarah to set out all the food on the tables 

in the eerily deserted Evesham Leisure Centre café

20:00 Lois and I arrive home, feeling completely exhausted well, we are 78 you know, plus we had only had about 75 minutes in bed this afternoon, instead of our usual 2 to 2.5 hours - what madness! [You're going to have to stop using that as an excuse! - Ed]

Fully exhausted, we collapse in a heap on the couch on getting home, and we watch a bit of TV before getting into bed again. We didn't even have time to hand over our birthday presents to the girls, so we just left them behind in the family's house in Alcester, and this evening we get a surprise phone-call from them thanking us, which is nice.

flashback to earlier today: we unpack the girls'

birthday presents (knitting, embroidery kits,

plus travel games) and wrap them in birthday wrap

The whole family is going back to Australia at the beginning of September so we thought we'd give the girls some "activity" presents - including games they can play on the plane and that kind of thing. 

The family has tried living back here in the UK for just over a year, after ending their 7 years residence in Perth, Western Australia (2015-2023). However, things haven't really worked out for them in the UK, so they're going back to "Oz" again. One of the more pressing reasons is our son-in-law Francis' health problems - the British climate has exacerbated his difficulties, so fair enough, Lois and I say.

When the twins have a birthday it's a joyous memory to us of the fact that, astonishingly in the view of many leading statisticians, 3 of mine and Lois's 5 grandchildren have a birthday on the same day of the year. We were celebrating our other daughter Alison's son Isaac's 3rd birthday when the news first came in via phone that Sarah had given birth to the twins that very day, in Gloucester Royal Hospital - what are the chances of that happening, eh? [I'll let you know! - Ed]

flashback to July 2013: we are just celebrating our grandson 

Isaac's third birthday with a "Colin the Caterpillar" 

cake on our patio in Cheltenham...

... when a call comes in - with the news that our younger daughter 

Sarah has given birth to twins in Gloucester Royal Hospital

(left to right: Lois's niece Sharon, our elder daughter Alison

(Isaac's mother) and Lois) getting the news, with a picture 

first pictures of the new-born twins

Happy days!!!!

our grandson Isaac, celebrating his 14th birthday

by the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol

And here's a final question for you - do you like to have a laugh in bed? I know Lois and I do, and we often get our laughs on the phone from a Facebook group celebrating traditional British saucy seaside postcards, such as those by ace cartoonist Donald McGill (1875-1962). 

when Lois's Huawei starts "beeping" under the bedclothes...

When Lois's Huawei starts beeping under the bedclothes and my Samsung starts to "diddle" in response, it's often because a new posting has been put up by this Facebook group, and by coincidence, what should "pop up" tonight but this "doozy", weirdly appropriate for today:

And there are plenty of other "doozies" tonight too, like this one that "popped up":

Not to mention:

Also, perhaps more worryingly, with these comes this final "shot across the bows":

My "takeaway" from this little "gem"? When popping to see your secretary, only go round corners with extreme caution, you never know what might be waiting to catch you "off guard".

And that's just the physical side. Because life itself is a bit like that, in a way, isn't it. You never know when you're going to be hit by a "double whammy" right out of the blue.

[Well, I've never heard them called that before. And stop wittering on - just go to bed! - Ed]

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