Danskcolin: Tuesday July 30th 2024 "Museums can be a lot of fun!"

Another personal question for you, folks, and I make no apology! [Why not?! - Ed]

Well, this is the thing..... You see, have you ever visited a museum? A lot of us have, haven't we. Even I have visited the British Museum in faraway London, at least twice, so case proved haha!

flashback to 2013: I visit the British Museum with my

medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois...

....and in 2008, when I visited the museum with Tünde,

my Hungarian pen-friend

And if YOU have ever visited the British Museum, I'm sure you were impressed, as I was.

But a word of caution. Not all museums are as impressive as that one, and I've seen a few of those too in my time, let me tell YOU! And you yourself may have seen some of the helpful maps that some museums have started to issue, under public pressure from yours truly, amongst others [Source: Onion News] !

"At last!", Lois and I say, in unison, when we read that story this morning. "At last a truly "grown-up" museum guide that treats visitors like adults!", which makes a change, to put it mildly.

Sadly some local museums here in West Worcestershire haven't got the idea yet - maybe they're afraid that visitors may "skip" their museums altogether.

I wonder.... ! Source: Onion News again.

Well, the town of Malvern, where Lois and I "downsized" to back in October 2022, has a nice little town museum of its own, but we're still waiting for a more local one to open up here in our new-build suburb, Malvern Rise.

However, on our morning walk today, Lois and I are delighted to see some historical information boards, at least, that have gone up next to the playground area in the middle of the estate, telling us all about the Roman origins of the area. Plus there's information about the way that the ground the estate is built on was once a top-secret Ministry of Defence establishment developing techniques of radar, that were used to telling effect by the RAF and air defence units during World War II.

As fully paid-up history buffs, we soon get distracted by these information boards, when we're supposed to be walking over the common. Oh dear!

But who knew that, before the Romans ever started their metal-working in this area, it was part of the huge homeland of my favourite Ancient British tribe, the Dobunni? [I expect a lot of people knew that Colin! - Ed]

I've always had a soft spot for the Dobunni, who I think were arguably the most intelligent, and certainly the most pragmatic, of all the Ancient British tribes that the Romans stumbled across in Britain after their invasion in 43AD.

Unlike some of their more stupid neighbours, the Dobunni, as soon as they saw the Romans, realised that the invaders were "streets ahead" (or "strata ahead" to use the Latin (!)), nay, centuries ahead, in military technology and everything else, and so they didn't bother resisting them. And they quickly set about adopting the Roman lifestyle, with all its benefits: hot water on demand and all that stuff.

Smart guys !!!!

the territory of the "smart" British tribe the Dobunni, covering

(parts of) the following present-day counties: West Oxfordshire,

Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire, North Somerset, Bristol,

South Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire

Although a bit distracted by the historical titbits on these shiny new information boards, Lois and I eventually manage to finish the rest of our walk, and then, on our return home, we cool off with some iced coffees on the patio. And in the afternoon we're able to go to bed - our bedroom's on the cool north-facing side of the house - and we can throw the windows wide open. We're in the middle of a 3-day mini-heatwave at the moment, with a high today of 82F (28C): phew, what a scorcher!!!

in the blistering 82F heat, Lois and I struggle to complete our walk

in the lee of the 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills

the old black village pump, preserved in the quiet of the local churchyard...

on our return home, we finish up with

a nice iced coffee on the patio

20:00 There's news tonight about 2 of our 5 grandchildren, which is nice. Our daughter Alison tells us that her daughter Josie (17) is back at home now after spending 2 weeks in a village in Tanzania with about 20 of her schoolmates, working on various projects like painting and decorating for the local community. And Josie has brought a tee-shirt back for her 14-year-old brother Isaac, which is nice.

Awwwwww!!!!!

flashback to 2 weeks ago: our granddaughter Josie (17)

at London's Gatwick Airport with a party of schoolmates

bound for Tanzania to work on "projects"

Josie (ringed) in Tanzania, near the villate where

the group are going to be working on building and repair work

Welcome back to England, our Josie, and we look forward to hearing about your adventures in due course, so watch this space!

21:00 I wind down for bed on the couch with Lois, watching the first half of the first part of a fascinating new 2-part history of the British Sex Comedy.

Lois and I didn't know that, 50 years ago, people in the UK had become so transfixed by TV, with its massive choice of three channels (!), that, by the start of the 1970's, they had mostly stopped going out to the cinema, and the UK's film industry had fallen into dire financial trouble. And that's why the so-called "sexploitation" films of the 1970's began to be made, showing things that weren't allowed to be shown on TV at that time, ie nudity and other sexually suggestive material.

We both remember the period quite well, because it was when we had not long started "courting". And courting couples had traditionally spent many an evening at the cinema, if for nothing else, at least to enable them to get outside and away from their parents (!). And there wasn't much else on offer at the cinema at around this time, apart from these "saucy" films. That was our excuse anyway haha (!).

What madness !!!!

[That's enough madness and exclamation marks (!) - Ed]

Already, for a long time before 1970, films showing nudity and sex had been freely made uncensored on the Continent - the difference was that many of these continental films were classy productions with often serious underlying themes, whereas the British public, who had always thought of sex as something slightly comical, demanded comedy with their nudity.

And who knew that "Confessions of a Window-Cleaner" was the highest grossing film (grossing in financial terms haha!) in the UK in 1974, and that it also had long runs in both Europe and the US, where you would have imagined they would have had more sense haha!!!

The film featured a shy and gauche, and virginal, young window-cleaner, Timmy Lea (played by Robin Askwith), who saw a lot of things he shouldn't have seen from the top of his ladder, as he cleaned bedroom windows. Timmy became prey to the advances of a lot of sexually voracious women, before finally losing his virginity to a housewife, Mrs Brown (Sue Longhurst), on the floor of her kitchen, while it was becoming slowly flooded by a dishwasher malfunction.

Askwith says in tonight's programme that he and Longhurst were hosed with detergent for so long during the shooting of the scene, that by the final take his scrotum had been "ripped apart". What madness !!!! [Second warning! - Ed]

And Sue Longhurst, now aged 81, reminisces fondly about the scene in tonight's programme too, which is nice.

shy and gauche young window-cleaner Timmy Lea (Robin Askwith)

finally loses his virginity to a sexually voracious housewife

Mrs Brown (Sue Longhurst) during a malfunction of her dishwasher

- what madness !!!!

A redeeming feature of this type of film, says Longhurst, was that the men in theses films "never did anything nasty to the women", which is nice. And in a way, this film, like many in the "sexploitation" genre, played to the feminist movement of the era, because it was the women who were essentially in charge.

Plus, it was considered acceptable by Brits just by virtue of being a comedy. Even Prince Charles famously saw the film, when he was at Cambridge.