Danskcolin: Sunday October 6th 2024 "Can YOU see the screen past that overly tall person sitting in front of us?"

Dear readers, let me ask you a question-and-a-half, if you're still awake, that is (!). Have you ever sat behind somebody very large in a theatre or cinema? Or, alternatively, are YOU a large person who's obstructing the view of the person behind YOU?

[That's TWO questions, Colin, Just saying (!) - Ed]

What we see and what we can't see can be terribly important, can't it. Did you catch these recent articles in Onion News' print editions, I wonder?

I appreciate that you, dear Reader, may not agree with the world's wealthy on this one. Maybe, like me, you prefer the stars to the nothingness, but it's a reminder, isn't it, not to ignore, or to take the views of the very well-to-do for granted. Rich people have rights too, people!

And sometimes, it isn't what we can see, and what we can't see, that's the issue. Sometimes what we hear and can't hear are important too, aren't they.

This morning, when I drive my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois from our home in Malvern to her church's two Sunday Morning Meetings at a village hall just outside Tewkesbury, we find that we're the last to arrive and that we have to sit right at the back of the hall.

flashback to August 2022: just prior to moving to this area, we check out

Ashchurch Village Hall where Lois's church holds its services

That suits me just fine, being at the back of the hall! It means we're sitting next to a big old radiator - although when I check my phone's shiny-new inside-and-outside phone app, I find it's 67.2F (19.6C) inside the hall today, which isn't too bad. And although I can't, from this position, check that the Parish Council still hasn't replace the portrait of our late Queen with a more up-to-date picture - [Parish Council please note !!], it means I can avoid meeting the eye of today's preacher, which gives me a bit more freedom - it means I can allow my gaze to freely "wander", without looking like a complete nutcase, or "village idiot", which is always a bonus (!).

the scene in the Village Hall this morning on the arrival of me and

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois for the church's 2 meetings

Lois and me sitting at the back of the hall in our coats,

with [inset] my phone screen showing a balmy 67.2F (19.6C)

which is unusually warm for a Sunday morning in here, may I say!

We sit here, at the back, for the first of this morning's two meetings. The church's congregation has been boosted recently by an influx of Iranian Christian refugees, but many of them have been moved elsewhere by the Home Office. The woman in front of us today escaped from Iran with her teenage son, but she was pursued here by her violent husband. The Home Office threw the husband out, however, and sent him back to Iran - evidence that those "mandarins" in the Home Office can do the right thing sometimes.

It's no good sitting here at the back, though, because Lois can't hear what this week's visiting preacher is saying. She suffers from occasional hearing difficulties, but even I can't catch everything the guy says - he's speaking in a what-I-call "Birmingham accent". He's a Brummie in other words - and here's a quick "idiot's guide" for you, completely free of course (!).

Fascinating stuff, isn't it! [If you say so! - Ed]

And isn't "demonym" a great word, incidentally! Am I right, or am I right haha (!). A lot of people think it's derogatory, "deconstructing" the word using a false folk etymology.

It's got nothing to do with "demons", people! It's decidedly NOT a word intended to "demonise" the good people and burghers of Birmingham. It comes from the Greek word 'demos' (people) which gives us our much-abused word "democracy".

Just saying !!!!!

The preacher this week is also a bit of a joker, and he has all the right delivery qualities for, say, a stand-up comedian - speaking slow and fast alternately, in an amusing way, and waiting for audience reaction. And we can tell he's being amusing because of the congregation's reactions.

Myself, being a bit of a self-proclaimed - and also qualified (!) - '"linguist", I try to "reconstruct" some of the preacher's address using the idiot's guide to "Brummie" (see above) - it's part of my training. After all my first ever job after university, way back in 1972, was to translate Japanese for what people in Cheltenham used to call "The Foreign Office".

After Japanese, "Brummie" should be a piece of cake, you'd think. But not so!!!

me, my ear 'cocked' enquiringly, trying to hear the jokes

and punchlines of today's preacher, de-constructing his

"Brummie" accent, and whispering a simultaneous translation into standard Southern English

for the benefit of my non-Brummie speaking wife Lois [not shown]

Anyway, in the interval between the first and second meetings, Lois persuades today's president to set an extra table for us right at the front - a bit embarrassing for us, feeling like we're "making a big fuss", but fair play to Alf, the president. And not only that, but Alf persuades the preacher to wear a strap-on mike for the second meeting. And when starting his second address, the preacher quips that Lois and I were "the lucky ones" during his first talk, not being able to hear him, which makes the hall rock with laughter. Happy days!

All in all, a good morning for us - at 9 am we had a lovely whatsapp video chat on the phone to our daughter Sarah, who last month flew with husband Francis and their 11-year-old twins Lily and Jessica to Perth, Australia, 9000 miles away, to start a new life over there - sob sob!

Lois and I have a nostalgic whatsapp video chat this morning

with our daughter Sarah and her twins Lily and Jessica,

who last month moved from the UK to start a new life in Australia

And if it looks like, from the above photos, that Sarah and the twins are in bed while they're talking to us, that's because they ARE - please note! Not because of the time difference: while it's 9 o'clock in the morning here, it's still only 4 pm in Perth. However, although Sarah and family are installed in their own rental home now, in the north Perth suburb of Eglinton, they haven't bought much furniture yet, so their blow-up beds are the best place for them to relax for the time being.

Poor Sarah-and-family !!!!

14:00 The rest of the day passes quietly for Lois and me - when we get home from the meeting, we go straight to bed for a self-indulgent 3 hour "nap-time" - what madness! Still we need it sometimes - I expect you do too, if you're honest (!). [Get on with it! - Ed]

21:00 We prepare to get back into bed again, this time for longer (!), by watching this week's TV programme in the "Gone Fishing" series, following the progress of keen amateur fishermen and ex-comedians Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer, tonight trying to catch trout on one of the UK's chalk rivers up in Yorkshire.

Apparently the UK has something like 85% of the world's chalk rivers, so they're officially classed as an important world environmental resource - it's the British version of the rain forests. We don't have any rain-forests here, despite our more-than-average annual rainfall - just saying (again) !!! We only get 32 to 55 inches (800 to 1400mm), but it's the light persistent drizzle sort of rain that makes the heart light - only joking (!).

And what a "humdinger" of a programme it is tonight - my goodness!

The information content of the show I would class as "medium-to-high" tonight, like this vey enlightening explanation of the finances of the insurance industry, for example.

Bob, who Lois and I think, before his retirement was working in insurance at the industry's very beginnings, explains how the breakthrough came when the industry decided they could make themselves the principal beneficiaries of most transactions - and, when you think about it, it isn't exactly rocket science is it!

Yes, Paul's been told that he needs insurance and has got to get some, as soon as possible, which seems to make sense (!).

A fascinating insight isn't it! And viewers are lucky tonight to have the benefit of the explanations of insurance-industry-insider turned amateur fisherman, Bob, in between the pair's repeated failures to catch one or two of the river's very sought-after trout, to put it mildly!

And there's a moment of pathos too, when Bob asks what's going to happen to Pauls' treasured fishing-bait flies when he "goes", and isn't around any more.

Sadly perhaps, however, Bob doesn't want to be "willed" Paul's flies. And he thinks also that other people's treasured possessions are always a bit sad too.

Paul agrees, and thinks of the fishing gear his own father left him.

Still, that's life isn't it - sadness is part of life and part of our mortal state. But without sadness we wouldn't feel any happiness either, so it's not all bad - that's my "two penn'orth" anyway, call me a bit of an armchair philosopher if you like!

Awwwwww!!!!!

But surely the highlight of the programme is Bob's 11-year-old dog Ted, who's now become very smelly, getting a much-needed emergency makeover at a local beauty salon for dogs.

The nice salon-lady offers to give Ted a bath with a nice shampoo, a blueberry facial to get his muzzle smelling lovely, and a mobility mud-bath to get soothe his aching joints.

Here we see Ted, all sweet-smelling and fragrant after the makeover, being reunited with his owner Bob, and his "uncle", Bob's friend Paul.

Ted himself, however, doesn't seem to appreciate his smooth new "metrosexual" image, and he lets Bob know about it in no uncertain terms (!):

Poor Ted !!!!!

In this morning's whatsapp video call with our two 11-year-old granddaughters in Perth, Australia, we promised the girls that we were being careful to look after some of their left-behind stuffed toys, like their favourites Rover the Dog, and Buckles the Uniform.

So tonight Lois and I stretch a point and let Rover and Buckles stay up later than their usual bedtime to watch this special "Ted Makeover" edition of "Gone Fishing", so we can send them one or two nostalgic pics and reassure them that Lois and I are properly looking after them (!).