Let's not mince words - our ageing population can't do a lot of things it used to do when it was younger, and the examples are coming thick and fast, to put it mildly - they're almost becoming "legion" !!!!!
Did you see today's headlines from Onion News?
By itself, this story about Tom Cruise could be dismissed as a "one-off", but I'm afraid that that comforting conclusion is thwarted by a uninterrupted rash of similar headlines recently!!!!
It wasn't like that in the old days, though, to put it mildly!
The waters at the top of Niagara Falls used to be "thick" with pensioners kayaking across it, and skyscrapers like New York's Empire State Building had so many "crumblies" climbing up the sides that sometimes police had to be called to "control" them. And during these plucky pensioners' way up the sides, all those 'Help the Aged and 'Age Concern' Charity Helicopters were certainly kept busy supplying them with bags of Werther's Originals and other "crinklies" favourite snacks, weren't they !
flashback to the 1980's: a 'Help the Aged' charity helicopter
speeding towards New York's Empire State Building with bags of
Werther's Originals and other snacks for "daredevil" pensioners
making their way, floor by floor, up the side of the building
"But why are you recalling that golden generation of crinkly daredevils, particularly today, Colin?", I hear you cry.
[Not me, I've got a proper job to do, unlike some I could mention! - Ed]Well, seeing as how you're all clamouring to know (!), it's all because of a funeral that my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois is "attending" online this afternoon, the funeral of the sadly late Mike P, one of her fellow-members in the church she attends, taking place at Toddington Village Hall, Gloucestershire.
And I'm sure that Mike, who had a sparkling sense of humour, wouldn't have minded in the least my starting this blog post with a few of the 'lighter-side' story items that Onion News likes to keep for its "Leave Time for a Smile" column - don't miss page 95 in today's print edition, by the way!
And talk about "daredevils" ! As an engineer working for one of the UK's electricity companies, Mike had the distinction of having climbed National Grid UK's tallest electricity pylon, the one standing next to the Severn Bridge linking Gloucestershire with South Wales, after his management asked him to QUOTE "just clean those bird droppings off the top, would you, Mike?" UNQUOTE.
What madness !!!!
National Grid UK's tallest electricity pylon, by the Severn Bridge
linking England to Wales, and climbed by Mike on a mission to
QUOTE "just clean all those bird droppings off the top"
UNQUOTE, as his management put it - what madness!!!!
Bridgend-born Mike, who died at the tragically young age of only 62, had been a real dynamo in Lois's church in this area for decades - he was involved in organising the Sunday School camps in North Wales that our daughters Alison and Sarah used to go to, back in the late 1980's. And more recently, he also worked tirelessly on all the projects that the church undertakes in order to support the hundreds of Iranian Christian refugees that have come to this area in recent years. He also found time to help run a home in India for the children of leprosy victims. And it's no surprise to Lois to see that Toddington Village Hall was packed to the aisles with well-wishers this afternoon.
And memories of Mike and his energy and sense of humour give Lois and me a lot to reminisce about on our daily walk over Poolbrook Common this morning.
Lois and I reminisce about Mike's energy and sense of humour
during our walk over Poolbrook Common and over our shared
toasted tea-cake at the Poolbrook Kitchen & Coffee Shop today
The only time that I personally met Mike was at the baptism 'by hot tub' of one of these Iranian Christian refugees, back in October 2023, but I can certainly vouch for both his energy and his sense of humour - what an all-round 'good guy'!
flashback to October 2023: the baptism of an Iranian Christian
refugee in the garden hot-tub of church elder Andy, which Mike attended
Perhaps, however, Mike was maybe not quite so on the ball always when it came to finances - a lot of us are like that, aren't we, including Yours Truly, I have to confess, to put it mildly (!) And at today's funeral, Mike's plucky widow Steph jokes that she could "murder him" because of all the financial muddle that he had left behind. Sadly too late for that, Steph (!).
Mike kept altogether too many separate bank accounts, she tells the congregation today. And Lois knows a bit about this side of things, because she and Mike are the two joint-signatories on an account set up with Lloyds Bank to support the refugees. And Lois has been wondering what to do about that, now she's sadly become the sole name on the account. Yikes !!! Luckily Steph seems to be "on the case", however, which is a relief.
Rest in peace, Mike!
21:00 Lois and I start our evening falling about on the couch, laughing about some of those other old "crinklies", the sort that don't climb up electricity pylons, potentially risking the lives of those poor mountain search teams.
Just saying (!).
Yes, it's those crazy pensioners in that village in the Yorkshire Dales again, featured in the world's longest-running sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine".
And tonight the focus, for once, is very much on the old women of the village. How much do they really know, or remember, about their husbands' bodies?
It's a question often asked of older women, particularly perhaps the widows, but seldom answered: after all, it was the generation that famously just didn't talk about those sorts of things, wasn't it (!).
Well, this is Yorkshire, after all, and they don't want any perversions or (in Yorkshire dialect) "funny business" up there now, do they, that's for sure (!).
Nelly's husband Travis is still alive, but she admits that she can't readily bring his feet to mind:
Glenda, however, is more observant perhaps and she seems to know all parts of her husband Barry's body quite intimately, which is nice.
Tremendous fun, though isn't it!
21:00 We go to bed on an old edition of the comedy game show, "Call My Bluff". This was the game show, popular in the 1970's, when 2 teams compete, each challenging the other team with 3 possible definitions of some obscure English word, one of the definitions being true and the other two false: and the opposing team have to guess which is the true definition out of the 3 being offered.
The programme listing for this re-run caught my eye in the Radio Times for this week when I saw the name of Peter Jay, who sadly died last month, at Woodstock, Oxfordshire, at the age of 87.
Back in the 1970's Jay was the dashing, young good-looking public figure of the moment, seen all over the place as one of the UK's foremost journalists, the "golden boy", and "on TV all the time". He was also the man who married Prime Minister James Callaghan's daughter Margaret, and was a member of the consortium that founded the ITV company TV-AM.
And controversially, Jay was appointed the UK's ambassador to the US in 1977, amid charges of nepotism on Callaghan's part (!).
Peter Jay and family seen here with Jimmy Carter in the 1970's,
when Prime Minister James Callaghan appointed him UK Ambassador
Later in the 1980's Jay briefly became chief of staff to Czech-born businessman and Labour MP Robert Maxwell, who had earlier been Lois's boss just before I married her, in 1972.
At the time of our wedding, Maxwell had just asked Lois to be his companion on a visit to Eastern Europe - the kind of trip known informally among Maxwell Publishing's office staff in Oxford as "a fate worse than death".
Luckily Lois was able to tell Maxwell that she couldn't come on the trip with him, "because I'm marrying Colin" (!).
Flashback to 1972: Lois on our wedding day, the excuse
that saved her from "a fate worse than death" -
being Robert Maxwell's travelling companion
on a trip to Eastern Europe - phew !!!!
"Call My Bluff" was a very 1970's TV show, as you can tell from team captain Frank Muir's introductions of his two team-members, first for American film-actress Gayle Hunnicutt and then for Peter Jay.
And Lois comments how it was considered okay - obligatory even - in those crazy far-off days to always comment on women's looks and to compliment them on their beauty first and foremost, before saying what their work was.
Contrast his introduction of his other team-member, Peter Jay.
Perhaps, though, the fact that Frank Muir has to preface his introductions by a plea to be allowed to be a "male chauvinist pig", is a sign that those days of gushing introductions of women were numbered (?).
I wonder.....!!!!
And it's a humdinger of a Call My Bluff re-run tonight, with some REALLY obscure words being given definitions, let me tell YOU! Look at this "doozy" of an obscure English word - "anderoon" !!!!
Team-captain Frank Muir claims that an "
anderoon" was an ointment or unguent, chiefly made of cobwebs; known to the Phoenicians, and designed to stop any bleeding,
Peter Jay, however, claims that the anderoon was "a sacred baboon, worshipped by the Ubeshara, a strange sect of tree-dwellers in Nepal". He adds that the Ubeshara worship the anderoon because it has an exceptional property, one which has hitherto defeated human scientists: the ability to be in two, or even three, places at the same time.
Finally Gayle Hunnicutt gives her definition.
She claims that an "anderoon" was the word for an anteroom to a Persian harem, or the private chamber where the ladies of the Shah's harem used to wait, whiling the time away 'playing ping-pong or doing embroidery', until the Shah invited them into his room to give them "a seeing-to".
And guess what - it's Gayle Hunnicutt who turns out to be giving the true definition.
What a truly crazy world we live in !!!!!
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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