Thursday January 30th 2025 "Are you following the 'Frasier' re-boot to its bitter end haha (!)?"

Here's a ticklish one for you, Friends, this wet Friday morning (!) - are you a diehard fan of lovable Boston psychiatrist Frasier, played by the equally lovable Kelsey Grammer? 

Most of us are, aren't we. And if YOU answered a big "Yes" to my question, I wonder.... are you already into the long-running show's much-awaited "reboot" on the Paramount Plus TV Channel. I bet you are, aren't you! 

The story was all over the Onion News this morning, on the TV page - did you "catch" it?

A heart-warming story, isn't it, and one that brought a tear to the eyes of my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me today.

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me,

pictured here in December 2023 - awwww!!!

But there's a more serious side to this "reboot" story too, isn't there. Could this series finally teach Lois and me to be "old and lovable", just like Frasier? 

Yes, we can do the "old" bit - no problem, and we've got the "sick note" to prove it: "clinically old" was the diagnosis (!), and signed copies of our doctor's somewhat damning verdict on us are available to any of my Readers on request. Just drop me a postcard with an unused first-class stamp attached, and Bob's your uncle - it'll be "plopping" through your letter-box before you  can say "Jack Robinson" (!).

a typical postcard - get YOURS in the post today!

So yes, Lois and I are old, no doubt about that (!). But are we "lovable"? Surely not! Or are we? 

It's a question very much on our "conjugal" minds at the moment, after suddenly finding ourselves being "looked after" by the next two generations. You see, we moved to our new house in Liphook, Hampshire just 4 weeks ago, with the express purpose that, in our old age, or should I say "in our dotage" (!), we would be near our daughter Alison, her husband Ed, and their 3 teenage offspring, who live about 5 miles away in nearby Headley.

And to ram the point home, Alison comes round to our house this sunny Thursday afternoon, to show us how to open and close our garage door, before loading into her new car all the "flattened" cardboard moving boxes the our movers, GB Liners, left us with, after they "moved" us here 4 weeks ago. She also stops to chat with us, which is nice.

Being the sort of people Lois and I are, i.e. a bit self-deprecating, we both find it hard to understand, but we think it's true nonetheless, that Ali and family actually like us, and not just "love us because we're Ali's parents". They seem genuinely really pleased to have us in the neighbourhood, and look pleased, and act "real cheery", and chatter "nineteen to the dozen" whenever they visit us and whenever we visit them. So let's hope it's true (!). 

We'd hate to be a burden, after all. Who wants to be that, dotage or no dotage haha?!

And we do our best to stay "relevant", with me taking particular care to whistle some of the latest "pop" hits, like Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy (For My Shirt)", and being "on message" about the latest current talking-points from the pop world like "So What's Next For 'Right Said Fred'", and similar currently hot topics. 

And just this morning Lois is looking incredibly young for her years (in my humble opinion), sitting "in the hotseat", having her hair cut and styled, for the first time in our new hometown, by the local hair salon Haircraft's incredibly even younger-looking owner Anna, who looks about 12 (!).

(right) Lois relaxing at home today after a first visit to the jauntily-named 

"Haircraft" salon in Liphook's tiny "town centre". Even the men in the waiting-chairs,

be they husbands, partners, boyfriends, "friends with benefits" or just "minders" get a free 

cup of coffee and a two-pack of biscuits here - so what's not to like haha!!!

And we try to stay fit, with a walk almost every day, weather permitting, which is a big "ask" in the British climate, to put it mildly, although it's a nice sunny day today for once.  And we're trying to eat healthily - just today, Jsssie Inchauspé's "Glucose Goddess" book "plops" through our letter box, while we are out doing our walk, a mile or two of the 7.5 mile "Flora's walk" in our book. 

us today, doing a mile or two of "Flora's Walk" and later,

Lois, studying the recipes in Jessie Inchauspé's "Glucose Goddess Method"

So we're doing our best - is the bottom line. 

Will we eventually fall victim to "dotage"? I think we should told. 

But in the meantime, as a "long-standing-and-looking-for-somewhere-to-sit-down" word-buff, I check the history of the word 'dotage' this evening, just to be on the safe side. And who knew that dotage-sufferers were once called "dotards"? 

"Doddypolls" - yes! I like that word, better than "dotards", on balance. And it turns out that dote-related-words are really old, going back to Anglo-Saxon, with related words in other Germanic languages. "To dote", first recorded around 1200, meant "to behave irrationally, do irrational things, become silly or deranged".

Yikes!

And the idea of being "liable to nap", as in Dutch, Icelandic and Middle-to-High German is particularly appropriate for me this evening, because I nod off, or, "dote off", as I now call it, when watching the second and final part of "Brian and Maggie":  the dramatised story of the unlikely friendship between Maggie Thatcher (Harriet Walter) and former Labour Party MP turned TV presenter Brian Walden (Steve Coogan). Yes, incredbly, I just at the wrong moment "nod off" or "dote off", Lois tells me later.

And when I "dote off" I completely miss the bit with the dramatisation of Brian's fateful 1989 interview with Maggie, the interview which led to her being eventually removed as Prime Minister and Tory Party leader, to be replaced by John Major.

Damn !!! But thank goodness for "catch-up" (!), so that I get a second chance to see that bit.

The programme reveals that, back in  1989, after trying and failing to get Maggie to explain the real truth about Chancellor Nigel Lawson's resignation - Lawson had insisted that she sack her unofficial adviser Alan Walters - Brian then "goes for the jugular", with just seconds to go to the next ad-break:

Ouch! And yikes, what's all this building up to?

No, it's no good, Maggie. Brian's got you with that one, that's for sure!

Fascinating stuff! Brian was always Maggie's favourite TV interviewer, but it's telling that, after this 1989 interview, the two never spoke to each other again. And Lois and I are now looking forward to Channel Four's promised rebroadcast of the actual 1989 interview, so watch this space !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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