Friends, here's a tricky one, that will also test your memory, especially if, like me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, you've been retired for 18 years (!).
Here's the thing - during your working week, how many presentations did you normally have to sit through each and every working day? "About 25 too many!", I suspect many of you will answer. Am I right? Or am I right? (!). [Just get on with it! - Ed]
Presentations - always an exciting break from your routine work to begin with, but which begin to pall after a while, don't they, for most people at least. Like the poor sods in this story from this morning's Onion News Local West Worcestershire print edition - turn to page 94 for full details, if you can stomach it, that is!!!!
Presentations are on my mind today, because I'm scheduled to give a talk on zoom this afternoon to members of the local U3A "History of English" group, which I've been asked to lead (or "conned into leading" as I put it (!). My topic is going to be "The Scots Language - Spoken By Many in Scotland", and I spend much of this morning going over my notes and practising my "wee" Scottish jokes etc etc!
.jfif)
flashback to 10 am this morning: I drive Lois to our
doctor's surgery for a check-up with the practice nurse,
and the sit in the "waiting area" nervously going through the
"notes" for my presentation, while I wait for Lois to emerge
Understandably I'm a little nervous about giving the presentation, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my zoom session won't suffer from any technical "hiccups" for starters (!). It's scheduled for 2:30pm, which is annoying in itself, because it's a time when Lois and I are usually in bed for our scheduled "nap-time", so all-in-all it's going to be a bit of an ordeal. And Onion News Local has given me a pointer here also: see this other story from this morning's local headlines.
And Lois and I think that story's rather sweet - call us a pair of "old softies" if you like haha!
[That's enough Onion News! - Ed]
I could have adopted what's being called locally "The Anna Claremont" method myself actually, because after our morning walk today, Lois and I sit in the car stuffing ourselves with our packed-lunches including a pecan and walnut roll (yum yum!).
It was a bit of a strange walk - we "powered our way" past prestigious local private boarding school Malvern College - alma mater not just of CS "Narnia" Lewis, but also of TV's Jeremy "Paxo" Paxman former host of one of our favourite tv quizzes University Challenge, not to mention alma mater of TV's "Mister Gardening", Monty Don, no less ! Plus the CIA's head of counter-espionage James Angleton - the list goes on. [That's enough famous alumni! - Ed]
We power-walk our ruthless way past the rugby pitches of
prestigious private boarding school Malvern College,
alma mater to CS "Narnia" Lewis and other "notables" (!)
Finally we arrived at the less prestigious but the perfectly "okay" local county secondary school, where some crazy ceremony was going on in the schoolyard, involving students dressed up as dinosaurs and other mad shenanigans. I tried to google this online but didn't find any references to it, so I'm waiting for your explanatory postcards to "plop" through my letterbox on this one. Over to you, my friends. Character limit 10 as usual, needless to say!
we witness some crazy ceremony going on in the local county
secondary school's schoolyard, involving students dressed up
as dinosaurs and other "doozies": what madness !!!!
This county school has only been around since 1955, so it hasn't really had the chance to educate as many famous alumni as the private school Malvern College, which is so old that US poet Longfellow visited it back in the 19th century.
This "less prestigious" school was, however, the alma mater of pop-star singer-songwriter Cher Lloyd, who Lois and I have never heard of, needless to say (!). Wikipedia says she came 5th on X Factor in 2010, before having some hit singles, including "Swagger Jagger" that entered the charts at no.1. She also had a hit album that peaked at No. 4 on the UK album chart, and which debuted at no.9 on the US Billboard album chart. So fair play to her (!).
Who knew? [I expect a lot of people knew that, apart from all the "old codgers" like you two "noggins" (!) - Ed]
I wait nervously in Guest Bedroom 2, before
signing on to zoom and giving my talk
on the Scots language
My biggest stroke of luck is that Maggie - our group's only "Scotsperson", doesn't seem to be joining us. This is great because I can use my critically acclaimed "cod Scots accent" with which to tell all my Scottish jokes, and to recite all my Rabbie Burns poetry excerpts etc, without fear of offending Maggie or of being lectured on it by her (!).
And, when all's said and done, wouldn't it sound a bit daft to read extracts like the following in my BBC-approved standard Southern English voice? Let me know!!! And be gentle with me haha!!!! Yes, you've guessed it - it's another "doozy" from the plays of the award-winning playwright Charles Barron, no less !!!!
"I can't remember it ever being so hot, and if I'd have had to do it. I couldn't count on him to [do it], and she's a fighter. She'll find her own solution. So are you, Gladys. You two have spirit. No, I haven't [got it]. I like an easy life. And my Frank was never one to stand up to anybody or anything. Even you, Peggy, though you might not think so, you'll look for the soft route".
This passage resonates with me, because I'm a bit like Frank, or Peggy, in Barron's play. I personally tend to go for the "soft route", I'm the "old saftie", while, of the two of us, it's Lois who tends to be the "fechter", and the one with spirit.
But what happens when a "fechter" goes to bed with a "saftie"?
To explain what happens, and to "lighten the mood" during my zoom presentation to the group this afternoon, I showcase this slide of a 1646 cartoon I saw in Lois's book that she's currently reading, the one about the history of underwear, which has now reached the 17th century.
The engraving, which appears in the book to illustrate what couples wore in bed in the 17th century, essentially depicts a "fechter" in bed with a "saftie" [softie], to put it mildly!
The wife in the engraving is giving the husband what the artist calls "a bolster lecture" - a bolster is what they used to call the long pillow that couples shared in those far-off crazy days.
The poem under the picture reads as follows;
"This wife a wondrous racket means to keep,
While the husband seems to sleep but does not sleep.
But she might full as well her lecture smother,
For entering one ear, it goes out t'other".
Tremendous fun, though, isn't it!
And er... that's it for today. That's all I have.
So byeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
And, oh, by the way, see you tomorrow!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!!
