Have you noticed how people don't seem to like it if their neighbour, as they see it, "lowers the tone of the neighbourhood" by not keep his or her house and garden nice'n'neat?
Some people criticised billionaire Mark Zuckerberg recently, didn't they, because of his continual carping to his neighbour on Hawaii, just because of a little bit of untidiness that he happened to spot one day looking over the garden fence dividing the two properties [Source: Onion News].
My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I, however, sympathise with Zuckerberg to an extent, because, to a smaller degree, and on a day-to-day basis, we have to put up with our shy young next-door-neighbour Laurence not keeping his back garden in good order, even if his long-suffering mum (Jackie??) wields a mean scythe on it whenever she visits him from her home in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
Laurence probably looks on his back garden as a "wilding project", designed to help endangered species like bluebottles and all those other "bright and beautiful" things mentioned in the famous hymn, but his fresh-faced idealism can be a bit trying to Lois when the spores from Laurence's weeds come floating across the fence to land on Lois's exquisitely manicured flower-beds - there's no doubt about that!
What madness !!!!!
Job done, I think you'll agree!
Lots of laughs on the couch tonight for Lois and me, watching loose-living Rock Hudson trying to get straight-laced Doris into bed with him by pretending that he's the shy one.
our neighbour, young Laurence's back garden (left).
Compare with Lois's exquisitely manicured flower beds (right)
- you can almost see those weed spores floating over the fence,
and you can almost hear them shouting "Tee-hee!" as they land.
But everybody's a neighbour to somebody aren't they. And in a way, Lois and I are kind of like "neighbours" to each other, no more so than when we're in our double bed.
And when we're in bed, I always try to be "a good neighbour". For instance, if I'm holding a party late at night on my side of the bed, I ask my guests to be respectful, stay on my side of the bed, and generally keep their voices down, not do too much singing, take their empty beer bottles home with them, and also not slam their car-doors when they go out on the street below to head for home.
I can't say much fairer than that now, can I haha!!
[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]
And I know Lois appreciates my keeping what are really just the common-sense rules of normal bedfellow-on-bedfellow courtesy.
However, I happen to know also that, when talking to her friends, Lois has at times been critical of what she calls the "clutter on top of my nightstand", i.e. my bedside cabinet, and she's also criticised the additional clutter of useful items that I normally "dump" on the window-sill on my side of the bed, which she knows I regard as a de-jure "extension" to the top of my bedside cabinet, citing the local precedent of Smith vs. Smith (Worcestershire County Court, family division, 1956).
flashback to earlier this year: the clutter on my "messy" bedside cabinet,
and (extreme left of picture) the beginning of the clutter on my window-sill
[some items out of shot] where I store additional stuff I may need at short notice
Well, I get the chance to put all that of that situation right today, because Lois and I are staying home today for once, which is a nice change, and I'll be able to do a little tidying-up on my side of the bed.
"Isn't it Sunday? Why aren't you driving Lois to Tewkesbury today so she can take part in her church's two Sunday Morning meetings?", I hear you cry. [Not me! - Ed]
Well the truth is, I've persuaded Lois to stay at home today and just take part in her meetings online, via zoom. She's been acting really tired and listless over the last few days, and yesterday I thought she was getting cross with me a lot over little things, until I realised she was just plain exhausted. [She was exhausted, but angry with you also, is what my sources tell me! - Ed]
To cut a long story short [Finally! - Ed] Lois didn't take much persuading to stay home today, and that's given me the extra time I need to tidy up my side of the bed, and I've taken a whole bunch of things down to the shed where they can't be seen on a daily basis.
Who's a tidy boy then !!!! Look at the evidence of this picture
taken today, showing an orderly and attractive bedside cabinet,
and a pleasingly uncluttered window-sill. Nice !!!!!
[Is that really all you've done today, Colin? - Ed]
20:00 We wind down on the couch watching some of the BBC4 channel's Doris Day Night from last Thursday, mostly watching Day's classic "Lover Come Back" film from 1961, which neither of us has seen before.
It's the one about Day and co-star Rock Hudson playing advertising executives from rival ad agencies, each trying to win the same lucrative account for a product that doesn't exist yet - you must remember!
And let's not forget the "comic support" from Tony Randall, who plays Rock Hudson's boss at ad agency Ramsey & Son. And, in the opening scenes of this film, Randall explains to Hudson some of the problems of being born rich - issues not often talked about, and more often just "swept under the carpet", let's be honest, and people like Mark Zuckerberg know all about that too, I would imagine!
Here we see Randall (left) putting the rich man's point of view to Hudson:
Watching the film tonight, Lois and I are also struck by some of the changes in fashion since the 1950's / early 1960's.
As part of Hudson's campaign to get Doris Day into bed, he pretends to be shy scientist Linus Tyler, the chemist allegedly working on the as yet non-existent product, provisionally dubbed "Vip".
How times change! For the past.... (who-knows how many?) ...decades, it's been de rigeur for any man who doesn't want to look like an old fuddy-duddy to "sport" a neat beard.
Not in the 1950's though! And in this scene we see Doris Day going along to the barber's with Hudson, and waiting in the waiting-area while the "operation" of shaving that beard off is all going on.
I expect you remember me telling you how, on the 1950's TV panel game "What's My Line?", where the panel had to guess a contestant's line of work, my dear late mother would always assume that a contestant with a beard was sure to be doing a job that was in some way "artistic". Am I right, or am I right haha!
flashback to the 1950's: the BBC's panel show
"What's My Line", presented by Eamonn Andrews (right)
where the panel had to guess the contestants' lines of work
Hudson soon finds out, however, that he and Day must earlier have been through some sort of "quickie" marriage ceremony, although Hudson was too drunk to realise it had happened.
It's a short marriage, however, because, before she realises Hudson has already got her pregnant, Day decides to get the marriage annulled, in some sort of "quickie" annulment ceremony, which means that she has to marry Hudson again before the baby is born, to make it "legitimate".
Ingenious plot, isn't it, but Lois says that, traditionally, you couldn't get a marriage just 'annulled' in the UK if it had already been consummated. Perhaps the law worked differently in the States, but I think we should be told, don't you?
[Oh, just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!
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