Sunday September 18th 2022

09:30 Our zoom call starts with Sarah, our younger daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia, with Francis and their 9-year-old twin daughters Lily and Jessica. In the last week the family has moved from their former home in Tapping to a new home in Eglinton. 

It was Francis' suggestion that they get out of the house today, so that he could get a rest from seeing all the unpacked boxes in their garage, and feeling guilty.

Poor Francis!!!!

we start our weekly zoom call with our daughter Sarah, who lives

in Perth, Western Australia, with Francis and their

9-year-old twin daughters Lily and Jessica

It's 4:30pm Western Australia time, and the twins are all excited because the family has spent the day at Yanchep Lagoon, and Francis took a short video - it looks like it was a pretty blustery day, however, to put it mildly!

the family has spent the day at Yanchep Lagoon 

on the coast north of Perth

As always we get a lively conversation particularly with the twins. Everybody over there is getting a day off this coming Thursday for the National Day of Mourning for the late Queen. I tell the twins that soon their money will look different when coins and some banknotes with Charles's head on will start appearing. This alarms them initially, and they make a decision to try and keep as many of the old ones with Elizabeth's head on as they can, until I explain that those coins won't suddenly disappear. 

some typical Australian coins and banknotes

But how cute those twins are! The family are hoping to move back to the UK next spring, and the big question on the twins' minds is "Are squish-mallow soft toys [a current craze among young girls - Ed] available in England?". Fortunately we can reassure them that they are freely available from all reputable soft toy manufacturers in the UK, which is nice.

Jessica showcases one of her favourite "squish-mallow" soft toys:

squish-mallows are currently the main thing 

they are spending their pocket money on - my goodness !!!!

14:00 After Lois has finished taking part in her church's two Sunday Morning Meetings on zoom, she and I go up to bed for our scheduled weekly mega-nap, but Lois doesn't sleep well this time, because, as she later tells me, she has been upset by an unusual event that happened at the end of the second meeting. 

One of the church's Iranian refugee members, a woman, was invited by the president to address the congregation at the end of the service, as she had requested. The refugee woman gave an emotional reaction to the recent case involving a woman in Iran who was imprisoned and, I think, tortured - and who subsequently died. I believe the woman in Iran originally came to the attention of the country's "morality police" simply because a lock or strand of her hair was seen to be visible on her face, and not concealed by her hijab. 

For our mega-nap afternoons, we normally like to shut out the rest of the world, so that it feels like we're the only people in the world. However, it's an illusion isn't it, and of course we know that. The world around us continues with all its many countries and societies that are still ruled by cruel and fundamentally stupid people - Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, the list is endless, countries still living in the 14th century at best.

16:00 We get out of bed and go down for a cup of tea and a scone with home-made gooseberry jam. I check my smartphone, and I page through today's debates on the quora forum website.

I'm delighted to see that one of our favourite pundits, Matt Rigsby, the anthropologist with the legendarily famous film-star good looks, has been weighing in on the vexed subject of interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals.

Matt, who has a BA in anthropology from UC Berkeley, writes, "Modern human populations have no mitochondria (passed on only through mothers) from Neanderthals. There are also indications that human Y-chromosomes (passed on only through fathers) entered Neanderthal populations. 

And Matt continues, "What this suggests is that there was general interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals, but with different results. Male Neanderthal/female human matings would produce offspring who would go on to be parents of human lineages, while male human/female Neanderthals would produce offspring who would go on to be parents of Neanderthal lineages."

So, if Matt is right, people today may have Neanderthal men in their family trees but probably not Neanderthal women, which I didn't realise. This will help to narrow things down if I manage to trace my family tree back more than a few tens of thousands of years - that's for sure. 

Anything that cuts down work is good in my book haha!

a typical human male - neanderthal woman couple -

Have you got one in your family tree haha?

20:00 We unwind with an interesting Channel 4 documentary in the "Lost Treasures of Rome" series, this one being all about Pompeii's "twin town" of Herculaneum.

This programme is a fascinating one for Lois and me. We've always known that Herculaneum was just "around the corner" from the more famous Roman ruins of Pompeii, but we've never really sorted the two towns out in relation to the famous eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. 

the "twin towns" of Herculaneum and Pompeii,

with Mt Vesuvius appearing like a horrid boil on the surface 

between them, ready to erupt - which it did in 79 AD, of course.

Pompeii's ruins are much more famous than Herculaneum's - but why? 

Well, maybe it's because of Pompeii's hundreds of bodies that were preserved in situ, doing whatever they were doing at the moment of the eruption, but just buried by tons of volcanic ash and pumice etc.

Herculaneum, which was to the west of Vesuvius had a different fate. There are virtually no human remains, because most of the town's population simply left by road for somewhere safer, although not by car, because cars hadn't been invented yet [You don't say! - Ed]. 

As a result, only one skeleton has ever been discovered in the town itself, a probable Praetorian Guard who'd been told to stay at his post. Apart from that, a group of skeletons were found on the shore, apparently waiting to be taken off by boat. And that's all - end of story.

this group of skeletons on the shore by the boat-sheds waiting to be rescued

is almost the only evidence of human remains found at Herculaneum

Why the difference? Well, you see, whereas Pompeii was buried under tons of pumice and volcanic ash, Herculaneum was hit "merely" by a wave of enormous pyroclastic heat - estimated by scientists to have been at 500 degrees Celsius, which made breathing impossible, and brains just exploded instantly. 

The buildings of Herculaneum, however, including multi-storey ones, survived almost intact, and not just the buildings but also some of their wooden furniture. In Pompeii, you mainly get just whatever was on the ground floors, because everything else was destroyed: Pompeii was "decapitated" by the eruption.

And that's the difference. See? Simples !!!!!!

And it's nice tonight to be shown around the amazing multi-storey remains at Herculaneum by the man we call "the smiling archaeologist", Prof. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (crazy name, crazy guy!). Lois and I think it's so important for archaeologists to "keep smiling", as they have to deal with a lot of dead people on a daily basis, so it's doubly important to "keep one's pecker up", isn't it!

Prof. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the man Lois and I

call "the smiling archaeologist".

And Andrew takes us - smiling, as always - through one of Herculaneum's two-storey houses. 

Yes, this house has an intact upper floor. Not only that but it's got a bedroom up there, one which still has a Roman double bed in it, plus a wooden screen for privacy.

yes, there's a bedroom with a wooden bed still in it,

and a wooden screen for privacy - my goodness!

So that's how Roman couples used to shut out the world around them when they were in bed - simples, isn't it, when you think about it!

Fascinating stuff !!!!!

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

Saturday September 17th 2022

Yes hurrah, at last Lois and I are trustees, after 76 years, years during most of which we had no real idea of what a "trust" was! Exciting! 

Yes, Lois and me - we go back a really long way, as these ancient photos prove:

since our earliest days together we've been snapping 

each other out in the countryside

And Lois and I absolutely need to be in a trust together, just the two of us - and we are married after all, so it's all perfectly respectable and all in the best possible taste! 

Yes, there's absolutely nothing "smutty" about it at all, so I don't want to hear any "sniggering". Let me explain. We needed to set up a trust in case any of our family members need some financial help.

Obvious really isn't it haha!

But the trust needs its own bank account, just like every child does these days. Yes, that's a good way of picturing it - a trust is like a little child really!

So Lois and I have got to venture out of the house again this morning to post the bank account application to Metrobank via financial advisers New Forest, so it's a nice jolly trip out for us to nearby Bishops Cleeve. And it also gives us the opportunity to declutter and downsize a bit more, by taking along a bag of junk - oops sorry I mean a bag of attractive trinkets - into the Longfield Hospice Charity Shop.

We've got our big envelope with us - the one with the application form to open a bank account for our dear little trust. And we just love posting things through the "extra big slit" in the pillar box outside Bishops Cleeve Post Office - it's a really accommodating one, and not only that, but there are even collections later in the day, which is nice, although admittedly it's only up till about 12 noon on Saturdays.

Lois checks her watch after we post our application form

through the "extra big slit" in the red pillar box behind her -

and yes, we're in good time for the next collection, which is nice!

And here's a detail you may have missed on the above photo of Lois. Almost out of sight on a street corner on the right, two Jehovah's Witnesses have set up a stand with some of their literature on, and we say hello to them as we go past on our way to the charity shop. 

a detail you may have missed: on the extreme right of the picture,

almost out of sight, on a street corner, two Jehovah's Witnesses have 

set up a stand displaying various pamphlets and other literature

Yesterday we got our first doorstep visit by a Jehovah's Witness since the pandemic began in 2020 - I guess JW activity is another helpful sign that a pandemic is over, telling the population that it's now safe to go out of the house. That's helpful - you can't have too many "all clear" indicators in this type of situation can you haha! It's a bit like taking canaries down a mine to test the air quality isn't it, in a funny sort of a way.

We've been able to go out fairly early this morning. Usually on Saturday mornings we talk to Sarah, Francis and the twins on zoom at 9:30 am (UK time), but earlier today Sarah texted me to ask if we can postpone our zoom session till tomorrow morning. The family are spending the afternoon (Perth Western Australia time) at a pub overlooking the coast near the new rental home they've just moved into at Eglinton, north of Perth. They wanted to hide from all the unpacked boxes that have filled up their house, apparently, following their move from Tapping, another suburb.

Later Francis puts these charming photos up on social media:

our daughter Sarah, with Francis and the twins

at a pub overlooking the coast near Eglinton, Western Australia.

How cute the twins are now!

The following morning, the twins text us a bit of a retrospective on the outing, together with some future planning, which is nice!

I've said it before, but I'll say it again - is it not worth all the money in the world to have two nine-year-old granddaughters who text us like this? Even if it is from 9,000 miles away on the other side of the world?

So the twins family is visiting Yanchep tomorrow - Sunday. It's a place which Lois and I remember well from our trip in 2016:

flashback to June 2016 - Lois and I visit Yanchep National Park

and see the koalas

Lois later showcasing her "koala face" for the folks in England

included for comparison purposes: 

Sheldon Cooper's "koala face"

on the Big Bang Theory

Happy days !!!!!!

20:00 We decide to go to bed on another stage of ex-cabinet minister Michael Portillo's trek across the Pyrenees, this time into the French bit.

Poor Michael, bless his heart, now in his early 70's, is, of course, walking across this spectacular mountain range. But there is also a railway, which was opened in 1859, and which brought the most important man in France to the area - Emperor Napoleon the Third.

And Napoleon marked his visit with a grand commission: for the design of a bridge, decorated with his initial "N". And Michael calls it "a monument to the Emperor's overarching vanity" - haha, good one, Michael!

The emperor loved the Pyrenees, but how the mighty fall, says Michael. "He must have pined for these beautiful mountains as he ended his days in Chislehurst, Kent, England", after the French finally kicked him out. 

Flashback to 1871: the Imperial Family, just settling in

at their new home in Chislehurst, Kent, after a bit of hasty downsizing

Poor Napoleon !!!!!!!

Lois and I had forgotten that it was in precisely the year 1859 that the Emperor's troops had fought a bloody battle against the Austrian army - the battle of Solferino. And Napoleon commemorated the battle's fallen at the town of Luz-Saint-Saveur in the Pyrenees, where there's a charming and touching chapel, erected as a memorial. 

Michael reminds us that the battle of Solferino was the decisive encounter between Austria and France in the struggle for Italian independence - a really old-fashioned battle, in that each side for the last time was led by its own emperor.

And who knew that a Swiss guy, Henry Dunant, moved among the injured after the battle, bringing them what help he could, and that Dunant's work led by degrees to the foundation of the International Committee for the Red Cross?  

[I expect a lot of people know that! - Ed]

And it's interesting that Michael uses the opportunity now to reflect on his own past - he was a minister in both Margaret Thatcher's and John Major's Conservative governments of the 1980's and 1990's. 

He was Defence Secretary shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the mid-1990's - the time when Eastern Europe was gaining its freedom and becoming democratic, entering the European Union and entering NATO, and Michael was involved in a lot of the talks and negotiations.

He says, "We really believed that we were creating a new world. And I look back on that as a period of enormous joy. Even today, with what's happening in the Ukraine, much of Eastern Europe is free, which it had not been before, and that is something to celebrate profoundly." 

And for himself, he says, "Just to have a walk-on part in these events, and to be a witness of a lot of it, and to be at the table with some very interesting people, making decisions as best they could - it was a terrific privilege. And I can't quite believe I was there!"

Fascinating stuff !!!!!!

included for comparison purposes: 

Michael Portillo's "koala face"

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

Friday September 16th 2022

11:30 The pandemic must be over - we get our first visit from Jehovah's Witnesses since the pandemic closed all that stuff down in spring 2020. My goodness! Luckily Lois answers the door - it's the one called Christine, who Lois gets on with and who she can swap views with. Lois' church and the Jehovah's Witnesses differ on many points of doctrine, but both have had the benefit of recent influxes of Iranian Christian refugees, because Iranian Christians are always looking to join denominations that reject the standard mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity. 

a typical Jehovah Witnesses doorstep visit

While Lois and Christine are discussing some point on the doorstep I check my smartphone and log onto the Quora forum website. And I'm delighted to see that Rui Azevedo (crazy name, crazy guy!) one of our favourite pundits, has been weighing in on the vexed subject of "How big is Russia's GDP?"

But I'm grateful to Rui today, because I've often heard it said that Russia's GDP is smaller than Spain's, which seems unlikely, but after I check the diagram, I can see it's correct.

Rui challenges his readers to find Russia in the diagram and it's certainly not that easy, especially if you're short-sighted like me.

Russia's an absolutely huge country, but it's GDP is indeed - well - smaller than Spain's. What's gone wrong? I think we should be told!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

12:00 Lois and I have been spending the morning picking apples off our trees and moving unwanted belongings about. Mostly out of our shed and into our garage. 

And at last things appear to be moving forward, as regards our efforts to downsize and move from Cheltenham to a smaller house 25 miles away in Malvern, Worcestershire.

Possible events are now at last jostling to get entered into our calendar, which is nice:

Tuesday: a British Heart Foundation van will collect two single beds, the mattresses and a dressing-table. And Mark the Gardener will clear out what unwanted belongings remain in our attic.

Wednesday/Thursday: we'll be able to drive over and see our new home, and check it for so-called "mistakes". I don't think I have a chance in hell of spotting any - you know me, Mr Impractical haha! But we'll have to go through the motions, that's for sure. And Lois has got a great eye for detail, so I think we'll be all right, thanks to her.

Sunday; our neighbour Bob's son-in-law has agreed to take away most of the junk in our garage.

I've also made a request to another charity, the Gloucester Furniture Project, to see if they'll take away a couple of armchairs, two tables and a chest of drawers, although they haven't replied yet.

16:00 We relax on the sofa with a scone and an ice coffee, and with next week's iconic edition of the Radio Times magazine with a hastily organised picture of Queen Elizabeth on the front cover.

We have a luck at the puzzles in the back of the magazine, but once again our efforts are lacklustre, particularly on the Popmeister, where we score 2.25 out of ten - the time is coming when we're going to have to give up on this quiz: our long-term memories just aren't goo enough. But we think they're deliberately making the questions more and more obscure. What do you think? Answers on a postcard please: closing date tomorrow haha!

On the Egghead quiz, we get our most usual score: 7 out of 10, but we're disappointed to get the question about the New Zealand flag wrong. What were we thinking of?

But what a madness it all is !!!!!

21:00 We wind down with an interesting programme put together by "Game of Thrones" actor Kit Harington, a programme about all his 4 grandparents' lives and experiences in World War II.

Kit Harington as Jon Snow in "Game of Thrones"

The programme proves to be a really engaging conversation with Kit Harington, who proves to be a quiet, modest, sensitive and intelligent man with a wry sense of humour. And it seems that his 4 grandparents, for all their amazing exploits in the war, were like him in that way too. 

Kit says, "I'm proud of all four of my grandparents - they put their lives on the line during World War II. There was a huge war effort on their part - what they risked, and they did it for a greater good, for their country and for a cause.... There's this idea of being humble, of being quiet about things, not showing off. It's something I really hold dear." 

Kit continues, "I've gone and found a life partner who holds those things very strongly as well, so my son will doubtless have that, and will be brought up feeling that way. I really treasure the values I've inherited from my grandparents. What's been fascinating is seeing glimpses of me in them. I think we're all a big melting pot of our four grandparents."

Kit just wishes he could have inherited something else from his grandparents, however, something he didn't get - "tall genes". With that, he says, he could have been up for being the next James Bond.

Not being in the running to play James Bond is not Kit's only regret, however. He also wishes he could have been a spy himself, rather than an actor, but he doubts whether he would have had the intelligence for it. 

The programme's intelligence expert suggests, however, that maybe the qualities required for acting and the qualities required for spying are not so different after all. Kit's doubtful about this, though.

Fascinating stuff !!!!!

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