Danskcolin: Sunday October 20th 2024 "Having a bad day? Local man Alan Bower can fix that for you!"

Here's another rather personal question for you, friends - sorreeeee, I know it's probably a grim Monday morning when you read these words!!!!!

And here's the thing - do YOU know local man Alan Bower from just up the road in the lovely Worcestershire village of Bell End? Yes, he's making the headlines again, locally - need I say more? I think not !!!! And the good news is that it's all there in today's Onion News for you to laugh about in your own good time - see the eye-catching quarter-paragraph "spread" with colour photos, on page 94 of today's print edition. Check it out now if you like!

What a guy! And my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I could do with some of Bower's witty twelve-liners (!) today, to cheer us up a bit, because we're certainly not having a good day today, to put it mildly!

When I drive Lois to her church's two Sunday morning meetings this morning, guess what?

That Hanley Road past Warner's Supermarket is closed again at Upton-on-Severn, or "Upton-under-Severn" as local ironist Alan Bower calls the town (see the latest local news story about joker Alan above, by the way, at Para 3 of this very blog!!!) due, of course, to the mighty River Severn bursting its banks again after this week's heavy rain - what a crazy planet we live on !!!!

The supermarket itself is open, I believe, but people are saying, locally, that you have to have a "Swimming Proficiency certificate, Platinum Level or above" to be allowed in or out. Especially, I believe, if you're over 65 and want to shop there today - what a nonsense that is !!!! And over-65's make up the majority of the supermarket's customers, as everybody knows.

Great (!) - more bureaucracy, just when we all want less!!!!

Here's a typical swimming proficiency certificate issued by local old persons' charity SwimSafer, of the kind accepted by all Warner's supermarket staff, allegedly. But don't even think of shopping there without the Platinum Award upgrade - they won't look at you if you've just got the Gold, ridiculous though it may seem!

What madness !!!!

a group of typical customers taking Warner's Supermarket-sponsored

SwimSafer (Bronze Level) training course

shoppers canoeing through the Packet and Tins Aisle

during a recent flood

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

We do manage to make it through to the meeting in that Village Hall just outside Tewkesbury however, braving the floods in a somewhat harrowing journey.

And while Lois chats to fellow church-member Mari-Ann about our nightmare "drive to hell and back" (!) - Lois seen in this picture, standing by the window in her pink winter-coat - I meanwhile calm my nerves with a cup of hot coffee, with just about enough presence-of-mind left to check that the Parish Council still hasn't replaced the portrait of our beloved late Elizabeth II with something a bit more topical. Just saying!

And parish councillors please note!!!

And to complete my "bit of a bad day" analysis, just to say that Lois and I, sleeping soundly in our bed, are later woken up at five minutes to midnight by every smoke-alarm in the house making the most deafening screeching noise - indicating that I haven't cured the problem in the system by replacing the battery in the living-room alarm, as I thought I had a month or so back.

flashback to September: after consulting two neighbours,

Lois and I find out where the totally unmarked "flap" is, the one you

evidently have to push on, in order to open the smoke alarm

"lid" and remove the battery - what madness !!!!

An UTTERLY DEAFENING "BEEEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEEP" accompanied by an equally deafening NEE NAW NEE NAW like an ambulance from the 1960's just going on and on and on. Just what Lois and I need at 5 minutes to midnight (I don't think!!!!), and we have to wake ourselves up, stumble out of bed, and hurry downstairs, so I can have the pleasure of pulling a muscle in my leg and standing on a dining-room chair to take the battery out again - what utter utter utter madness!!!

[That's enough madness for today, Colin - not one more madness, or I'll have to get your GP to "up" your medication again. You have been warned!!!! - Ed]

And I know we're not alone with smoke-alarm issues, because the local Onion News has been full of them recently, as I expect you've noticed - and these "doozies" of a bunch of headlines are taken from just one issue of the influential news organisation's print edition:

"OH DEARIE ME" as they say in Scotland!!!!!

"Oh Dearie Me!" - the slogan of fictional airline

Air Scotia, in the Scottish sitcom "The High Life" (BBC)

And talking of Scotland, that reminds me that at least there are a few positive stories to report from today, in the short (!) interval of 13.5 hours, between the flooded road closure (10:30 am) and the five-minutes-to-midnight smoke alarm mayhem at 11: 55 pm (!!!).

One of those positive stories is progress with preparing my so-called "presentation on Scots English" that's been hanging over my head recently. It's coming up on Friday, and I'm giving it on zoom to members of our local U3A "History of English", which I (for my sins!!!) am the so-called "leader" of - yikes !!!!!

I'm having to get a lot of help from friends and family on this one. Steve, our American brother-in-law, has come up with a bunch of Scottish jokes ["a tooshtie o' scots gypes", as they say north of the border], for me to start my presentation with, lighten the mood, and hopefully get the audience on my side from the outset, and minimise the jeering and catcalls (!), which will be nice!

Enough said!!! And there are loads, like - a billion - other Scottish "doozies" in Steve's email - not just those featured above, but other "corkers", which should take up the first 15 minutes of my 30-minute presentation, so problem solved, fingers crossed !!!!

And today, Lois helps me as well, sorting out some "challenging" Scottish quotes for the group members to translate into "proper English" haha!

Like this "doozy" (!):

And here's my translation (comments from Scots-speakers welcome by the way - on a postcard please, with my usual 12-character "max" - just saying!).

Oh dear - remind us not to get ill next time Lois and I are up in Scotland, won't you!!!!

a typical hospital kitchen, seen here in happier times

21:00 We go to bed on this week's programme in the "Gone Fishing" series, featuring ageing ex-comedians Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer. This week the "boys" are trying to catch mackerel and bass off the coast of Norfolk.

And tonight also, our lovable pair of ageing jokers are reminiscing about the municipal parks of their childhood days growing up. In this scene, Bob waxes lyrical over his younger days:

We then hear Paul predictably scoffing at Bob's reminiscences of his "sensitive" childhood up in the North-East.

Bob sticks to his guns however, and raises a half-hearted cheer for himself, and maybe for other "sensitive" kids too the world over, who were scoffed at by their peers back in the day. Kids just like - dare I say it? Just like Yours Truly and Yours Truly's medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois.

Do you know what I'm saying? [No, haven't a clue! - Ed]