Monday September 2nd 2024 "Have YOU ever been interrupted while cleaning out a mucky sink, or similar vital task?"

Another question for your, dear Readers, a bit personal for a Tuesday morning, I admit! 

Here's the thing - have you ever been interrupted in what you're trying to do? And in case that's not too explicit a question (!) , the Cambridge English Dictionary officially defines an interruption as QUOTE "an occasion when something or somebody stop something from happening for a short period" UNQUOTE.

Got it now? Yes, it's a familiar scenario, isn't it. We're trying to do Task A, shall we call it, and somebody "sticks their nose in", perhaps, so we have to abandon it, even. 

It's happened to most of us, I'm willing to bet, especially to a couple like my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me, who together have led an (in total) 156 year battle with people constantly trying to interrupt us when we're doing "this" or "that", mostly "that", haha! 

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me: constantly

interrupted by something of somebody when we're trying to get on 

with something - e.g. a 'Task A' or something similar, a 'Task B' perhaps!

And some interruptions can be a bit longer than the Cambridge Dictionary's "a short period", like with this local couple whose whole comfortable way of life was halted for a whole weekend. Did you see the story on the local Onion News?

What an awful warning! And I bet that the Shoestrings, after that 'excruciating' 2-day interruption, were glad to get back to their normal way of life, cleaning out sinks and weeding flowerbeds etc. Poor them !!!!

Fortunately, however, some interruptions in life are less traumatic and, for the more creative among us, even an inspiration to something genuinely to create something awe-inspiring, like with this student film-makers' routine "short" that has turned into a minor cinematic "classic" by a chance interruption.

Did you see the story?

And that, my friends, is, incredibly, the story of the bombshell film that we have all now come to know and love - the 'Worcester Films' iconic classic 'short', "Brother Brother", the film that keeps turning up endlessly on the Drama TV channel - you know the one. And viewers just can't seem to get enough of it, can they, especially on one of those wet Sunday afternoons! It just goes to show that "happenstance" or "serendipity", and unexpected interruptions aren't always a bad thing.

Just saying!

14:00 And interruptions, welcome or not, are, willy-nilly, the order of the day today for Lois and me too, here in our new-build home in Malvern, Worcestershire, as we get into bed this afternoon for 'nap-time', only to be, within literally just minutes, alarmed by the sight of "Martin's pole" appearing like some horrible monster in the bedroom window. Yikes!

our "nap time" again disturbed by the sudden appearance

of local window-cleaner Martin and his gigantic pole

But no panic - we know for 100% definite that Martin can't see us when we're in bed: we've numerous times simulated tests, with a mock-up pole of our own, just to check.

Martin cleans the upstairs windows using his gigantic pole again today, as usual. And he doesn't demand a friendly chat unless we initiate one. He just pushes his bill through our letter-box before leaving, and I pay him on the computer by bank transfer, so he's the ideal "contactless" window-cleaner. 

When we're available, we're very happy to chat with him, of course - he's a nice enough guy, but the occasion isn't always appropriate, so "fair enough" we think! He's no doubt spotted our car out front, so he may be suspicious when we don't appear, but that's life isn't it, and you have to just shrug your shoulders and "move on" sometimes, don't you!

[I wish YOU'D 'move on', Colin! - Ed]

Martin's lucky today - it's been raining all morning here in Malvern, but there's a respite this afternoon, so he can do his "squrting" etc in the dry at least.

The weather "in these here parts" has been what they call  'medium-to-middling' today, with daily highs in the high 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit (20-23C).

And it's weird to think how different the weather's been in Hungary, as Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, points out in an email later today, citing an extraordinary article by Anna Sára Pupli on the telex.hu website. Temperatures in Hungary this summer have at times reached 104F or 40C.

And the effect on the Carpathian basin, where Hungary lies, has been dramatic, and it's visible even from space, as these "before and after" pictures from NASA make clear, turning the earth from green in June to light brown by the end of August. Yikes!

And in Budapest, the authorities have made the situation even worse, by installing patches of artificial grass, which has the effect of making the city temperatures even higher, as I described in my blog post for August 16th. Remember?

flashback to my blog-post of August 16th

Footnote: and for completeness, and included for comparison purposes, here are the last few days of weather in Budapest, with daily highs of 91 to 93F (33 to 34C):

"Phew - what a scorcher!", as we say in the UK. Or "It's hot as blue blazes" as they say in the US. Or, more appropriately perhaps. "Fú, micsoda perzselő!", as they say in Hungary.

What a crazy planet we live on !!!!

16:00 And in case you're wondering (!)....  after Lois and I hear Martin "plop" his bill through our letter-box downstairs, our afternoon bedtime idyll isn't affected by any further instances of what we call by the technical term, "nappus interruptus".

And this evening, while watching TV on the couch, by chance we learn of a possible alternative term to "nappus interruptus" to describe a Martin-style intrusion - and it's a word that neither Lois nor I have heard before in all our (combined) 156 years of experience, which is a surprise, to put it mildly!

It happens while we're watching one of our favourite TV quizzes, Only Connect which tests lateral thinking.

tonight, "The Cat Cows" take on "The Harmonics"

And among tonight's questions, there are some real "doozies" again, as usual. 

Like this one: can YOU work out the connection between these 4 phrases?

Well, "The Cat Cows", and Lois and I, soon see the answer to this "doozy" of a conundrum, to put it mildly! 

Yes, of course, all four expressions are the first half of some well-known phrase or saying, as the "Cows' " team captain explains:

Fair enough, very straightforward, and not one of the more difficult "conundra" that Lois and I have grappled with on this programme. 

But did you know the technical term for this? 

Well each one, apparently, is an instance of anapodoton, a rhetorical device that occurs when a thought is interrupted or discontinued before it's fully expressed. And we have programme presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell to thank for this fascinating piece of information, which Lois and I can "chew over" when we get into bed again tonight.

And next time Lois and I are in bed, and Martin sticks his pole up at our bedroom window, we'll just make a mental note of it, putting it down as just another of Martin's many "anapodota", and 'carry on' as normal, which will be nice!

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

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