Yes, Friends, are YOU ever tempted to take it too literally, when advised to "take a hike" ? Very easy to do, especially if you've been brought up to "just do as you're told!", like a many a young "boomer" was, back in those crazy 1950's!
And one thing's for certain, all these years later - you just can't keep 'hikers' out of the headlines, that's for sure. Reference today's Onion News, if you want the evidence in black and white - and new technicolour haha!!!!
And we're laughing because we ourselves just plain refused to "take a hike" ourselves this morning - i.e. to take our near-daily walk across local soccer heroes Liphook United's "hallowed turf", citing "pressure of other work", would you believe! You see, Monday is starting to loom large, as we prepare for the twice-monthly meeting of the local "Intermediate Latin for Local Old Codgers" group, that we're both members of - "for our sins" [Latin: pro peccatis nostris!!!!!].
And hence our mild panic this morning, and hence our kitchen table covered with our Latin books and notes etc!
Although retired now for 20 years, we find that we're busier than ever these days, and Lois and I often ask ourselves, "How did we ever find the time to go to work, back in the day?" !!!!!
This coming weekend is, in any case, going to be "non-stop" (!) for other reasons too, with, on Saturday, a church outing to a pub for a game of skittles and a lunch, down near the English Channel coast; and on Sunday, a much anticipated first look inside our daughter Alison's newly renovated house in nearby Headley, now that the builders have reached the final stages of the 18-month refurbishment project - what madness, isn't it !!!!
our crazy weekend coming up! (above) a Saturday pub lunch and a skittles game at a pub
on the Solent near Portsmouth, and Sunday's planned, and eagerly-anticipated first look
inside the house of our daughter Alison (with us, below left), after 18 months of renovation work
And Lois and I are both sorry we've had to miss our near-daily walk this morning, however. We always feel it does us good. And when we open Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, which "plopped" through our letter-box this afternoon, while we were in bed (!), there's an interesting article about how walking can even help kids - the young scamps!!!
Even at the grand old age of 80, Lois is still counting her daily step-count, aiming to do 3000 to 4000 a day. And, because Lois and I tend to be "in each other's pockets" (in a nice way!) 24/7, Yours Truly also finds himself doing a similar number of steps, which is probably for my own good - at least that's what I keep telling myself!!!!
Women rule ok, in many areas of life, at least! And what better example of that is there, than one of Lois's favourite fashion journalists, Felicity Green, who has sadly died this week, but not before reaching an incredible 100 years of age, and her amazing story is told in this afternoon's Last Word, on BBC Radio 4.
What a woman!!!!
When she took her first job in Fleet Street, as a secretary at Women and Beauty Magazine, she was told that her duties included not just typing and filing but also taking the editor's dog for a daily walk, and also making the fire - "We had coal fires in those days", she reports, which was mad!
flashback to the 1950's: a typical newspaper editor's office with
a coal fire for heating, which some poor woman probably had to
start going before he arrived (not before 11, probably!) - what madness!!!
And that editor's dog never wanted to go for a walk, she used to recall, so very often she just had to pick it up and carry it round the park.
Could Lois do that with me, do you think - pick me up and tuck me under her arm?
I wonder.....!
an exhausted Yours Truly, during one of our near-daily walks, taking a break,
and taking a welcome "breather", in the management "dug-out", above
local soccer heroes Liphook United's "hallowed turf" - a recent picture (!)
Determined to succeed, however, Felicity eventually became the Daily Mirror's Fashion Editor bringing fashion news to the paper's 5 million readers. She'd been appointed in person by the paper's then owner Hugh Cudlipp, who liked her because she "wasn't a yes woman" and "always said exactly what she thought".
Kudos, Felicity!
Fashion journalist Felicity Green - liked by owner Hugh Cudlipp
for never being a "yes woman", and always saying exactly what she thought
And Felicity's preferred style for women's fashion was "sexy and scintillating, without being vulgar", and her fashion ideas are often credited as "helping to define the Swinging Sixties".
However, newspaper offices were very much a male-dominated world in those far-off crazy days, and when eventually Felicity became the first ever woman board-member on a UK national newspaper, she was warned that she would be managing many men older and more experienced than she was; and she was advised, early on, above all, not to make those men feel emasculated.
a typical management meeting at the Daily Mirror
in the 1960's - "very much a male-dominated world"
Felicity confessed, however, that, from time to time, she still had to give many a man a "bollocking", but then, after she'd finished with them, she would somehow contrive to let them "leave with their balls", which was a nice touch!
But what a crazy world we live in !!!!
[That's enough madness! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!
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