Yes, friends, have YOU ever been "hoodwinked" by a tourist trap abroad, like, say, outrageously overpriced so-called attractions like America's notorious "Bear Country USA" or "Tommy Bartlett's Robot World", and later wished you had never opened your wallet to fork out for one of their "special price just for you, Sir!"-style tickets?
Well, I've got news for you! The world's worst tourist traps aren't in the States, they're right here in the UK, but at last the UN is doing something about it, according to this morning's Onion News - just turn to page 94, if you dare (!).
Poor old Britain - the world's "bad guy", yet again! But "Kudos, Canada" for having the guts to make us look a bit less of a minority, which was a nice touch!
And the story brings a slight hint of a faint chuckle this morning to the faces of Yours Truly and of "Mrs Yours Truly", a.k.a. my light-to-moderate wife Lois this afternoon.
my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me - a recent picture
Yes, we find ourselves this afternoon chuckling about that UN resolution, as we sip multiple cups of tea in the house of our 50-year-old daughter Alison and two of her teenage kids in her house in Churt, Surrey. Alison lives just over the county line and about 5 miles down the road from us in our lovely home in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, which is nice!
Lois and I sip our tea this afternoon in the house of our 50-year-old
daughter Alison and two of her teenage kids, Rosalind (18) and Isaac (15)
plus multiple dogs, cats, tropical fish etc - quite a menagerie (!)
And the reason why that welcome chuckle can be heard from us, is that, while chatting amiably with Alison's daughter Rosalind (18), we discover that she's so anxious to bring some solid evidence to her future "cee-vee" that she's applying to be a delegate to the Model UN scheme sponsored by Harvard University, something which she thinks will look good on her evidence when she later applies to university courses or job opportunities.
"But just what is a 'Model UN scheme', Colin?", I hear you cry! And this is what Mr Google says (!).
However, alarmed by the amount of work the scheme threatens to give her, on top of her A-Levels, Rosalind tells us that she's opted to be the delegate for Norway, a country she reckons "won't care" about most of the resolutions being tabled, which seems a good call! It's still a lot of work, however, and far more busy than working for the real UN, Rosalind estimates.
Rosalind doesn't speak Norwegian, but she has a working knowledge of Intermediate Danish, garnered in the 7 years that the family spent in Copenhagen (2012-2018), when her dad, our son-in-law Edward, was working as a hot-shot lawyer for some multi-national bathroom corporation.
But what a crazy world we live in !!!!
flashback to 2017: on one of our many trips to Denmark, Lois and I take
our 3 grandchildren: (left to right) Isaac (7), Rosalind (10) and Josie (11)
to their International School in Copenhagen, Denmark
For Lois and me this Sunday is a bit of a family catch-up day for us. This morning we spoke on zoom to our other daughter Sarah (48) who lives in Perth, Australia with husband Francis and their 12-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
Lois and me talking this morning on zoom to our daughter Sarah( (48)
who lives in Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their
12-year-old twins Lily and Jessica
In our topsy-turvy world, Australia is just coming into spring, apparently, and it seems kind of incongruous that they're planning their big December vacation by the seaside - what madness!! Kids in Australia will be having half of December and all of January off school, when it's really hot, and the family are planning to camp in some place called Bremer Bay on the so-called Southern Ocean (motto: next stop Antarctica (!)).
Bremer Bay, Western Australia, where our daughter Sarah and family
are planning to spend Christmas, 300 miles south-east of their home in Perth
Sarah says that she and Francis are planning to buy a second-hand "camper trailer" for their forthcoming Bremer Bay trip, and for subsequent holidays. Lois and I hadn't heard of "camper trailers", but it seems we're out of date - yet again!
And once again that nice Mr Google has the answer:
What madness !!!!!
But at least it means you're off the ground when it comes to sleeping arrangements, Sarah says, so, unlike in a tent, it's less trouble getting up in the morning, something which Lois and I, at our advanced age of 79, can see the benefits of, to put it mildly!
a typical couple waking up in a camper trailer
What a crazy world we live in !!!!! [That's enough madness! - Ed]
20:00 And after all of today's "international" excitement (!), Lois and I decide to go to bed on something quintessentially British, and what could be more British than the BBC's good old Antiques Roadshow, hosted by Scottish presenter Fiona Bruce - it's a Sunday evening "no-brainer", to put it mildly !
Tonight, militaria expert Mark Smith wonders over an amazing collection of World War II medals, brought in by the son of one of Britain's many wartime RAF heroes.
The man's grandfather was responsible for flying and parachuting British secret agents into Nazi-occupied Europe, dressed in civilian clothes, and all of them knowing that if they were captured they would face execution.
More dangerous than landing British agents, however, was picking them up after they'd completed their mission. On one occasion, this man's grandfather successfully boarded a group of agents, only for his Hudson plane to get stuck in the mud when it tried to take off again for the flight home to Tempsford, Bedfordshire.
Nail-biting stuff isn't it. And I bet those plucky French villagers remembered that night for the rest of their lives, that's for sure.
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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