Carol In Theatre

Carol was violently sick several times on Sunday afternoon. It got to the stage, by around 11.30 that evening for me to ring 999. There was very little I could do to help and it was at this point that I decided she needed professional support. I was really surprised by how fast the ambulance arrived, but perhaps not when you consider that we live so close to Milton Keynes Hospital. She went off in the ambulance and I followed in our car. To cut a long story short it was around 4 a.m. that she was finally admitted to Ward 20 and as she was handed over to the nursing staff I returned home but only had around 4 hours sleep before I returned to the hospital. It's somewhat annoying to think you have to pay to park, but there it is. It's around a pound an hour and at £4.50-£5 a time it soon adds up. A disgrace when you think you don't choose to be in a hospital, for whatever reason. Perhaps it's to deter people who park in them for non-hospital reasons, for example, to go shopping.

As I write this blog post, Carol is in theatre. The surgeons are working to remove the bowel obstruction which has been causing her so much pain for the past three months or more. Yesterday evening the surgery team came to her room in Ward 20 to say that they had discussed how they were going to treat Carol. This is an emergency operation but they are yet to find a way to treat the cancer. It's a bit worrying, but I'm sure this will be dealt with in good time. We have been waiting for at least four weeks to get some sort of response in regards to Carol's treatment, and had hoped we would hear by at least last Wednesday or Thursday.

The operation was set for this morning at around 9.30. Carol was prepped by the team and a surgeon came to discuss the procedure. They had got the consent form signed by Carol yesterday afternoon. Carol had quite a few visitors as the afternoon progressed. I went home to have a rest as well as go to Sainsbury's for some food for lunch and then returned to hospital later, this time not driving but walking. Well, as the hospital is so close and it's only a 20-minute walk not only is it good exercise but it saves on having to fork out money for the privilege of parking on a bit of tarmac. We've been going to another church recently, Shenley Christian Fellowship. We actually used to go to this particular church when we lived in Crownhill. It was when they used to meet at Shenley brook End School and then they managed to build a new church on a piece of land not far from the school. We went for a couple of weeks together and then Carol was so uncomfortable when she sat for any length of time that we didn't go again until the cancer diagnosis was given and then I decided to go on my own. I've got to know what a few people there who've been really supportive, including Ross Dilnot who is the pastor. He's been to see us and prayed and he was with Carol when I arrived back at the ward later in the afternoon. After he left I got a call from Bed Searle from M.K.C.C. and she turned up about an hour later and then Lois and her daughter so we had a prayer session and then Pauline, Carol's friend from Milton Keynes Academy who left to get a teaching job who is coming back to work there in the New Year. Apparently Carol discovered via Lois, but Pauline, being the person she is, had to tease poor Carol, who is excited to have her back working with her in the science department. It's a really positive thing and will encourage Carol to get fit enough to be able to return to work. Pauline stayed with us, chatting to well past the time they allow visitors at the hospital and she  said that I could be given a  lift home because her husband, Paul, came in their car to pick Pauline up and it saved me having to walk home.

On Tuesday I got to the hospital very early because Carol had rung me as she was scared about the operation that was to take place later in the morning. During the morning Carol was being prepared for the operation. It had originally been set to be at 9.30 but it was at about 10.15 that she was eventually taken to theatre. I went with her and I left her just as she was wheeled into theatre. I went home and intend telephoning the ward to find out whether she had returned after the operation. It wasn't until 2.15 that I got the news that she had been taken to the recovery room and that some while later she would be bought back to the ward.

Carol was bought back to the ward but she's not in the side room when she first arrived on the ward. She's now in the main ward, which is probably better, as she can at least have some sort of company as most of the other patients are communicative and so she can have a conversation. Unfortunately, though the patients either side of her are noisy. On one side is a girl who I assume has a learning disability and makes odd noises, as well as having a radio on constantly. But I think, in general, Carol prefers to be able to see what is going on around her. Who can blame her? When she was in the side room she had to contend with a next-door neighbour who was always shouting and being offensive and quite abusive to the nursing staff. I don't think they have to put up with this sort of treatment as they do a very good job.

999 Paramedics Call

Carol was  violently sick all Sunday afternoon. It calmed down for a couple of hours, but by 11.30 it was necessary to call 999. An ambulance arrived within 10 minutes and the paramedics did an assessment and it was decided that she should go to the emergency department at Milton Keynes hospital. I followed in our car and met up with Carol within the hospital. Fortunately it was relatively quiet and we spent around four hours as the nurses and doctors got things under control. It was decided that she should have to be observed and would need to remain in hospital and that the doctors and surgeons would meet up during today (Monday) to decide a pathway for her treatment. She was taken to Ward 20 where the nurse on Emergency handed over to the staff on Ward 20. I will be returning later this morning to be in attendance when the meeting is held to decide how Carol's treatment will be set up. I will post on here as things evolve.

Later

I've been in to see Carol this morning. She wasn't in a happy frame of mind, unfortunately. She's in a side-ward, so it's a good deal quieter than being in the main ward. Extremely busy. The nurses are very good at what they do as well as friendly, which makes things better. I've been to the Macmillan unit, which is on the floor below ward 20. I have had a brief chat with one of the counsellors there and have made an appointment for 8th November.

I had to come home as I needed to have something to eat. I went to Sainsbury's for a sandwich and had to buy a new mop as things need cleaning around the house. Fortunately it's sunny and mild, but last night, when I returned to the car to come home, there was some ice on the car's windscreen. It took a while to defrost. It's a good thing the new car as efficient heating and the windscreen has a heat strip to melt any ice. This morning I went to the hospital after 9 a.m. and parked as usual. On leaving later, I had to go to the ticket machine to pay, as you take a ticket from the machine when you enter the carpark and then put this ticket in the machine to pay on the way out and then use the ticket to get the barrier to lift when you leave. The machine would not accept my debit card, for whatever reason, and I couldn't read the digital display as the sun was too bright to make it clear to read. I asked a lady passer-by where the nearest pay machine might be as the one I'd tried wasn't cooperating and she said if I drove to the barrier and pressed a certain button I might be able to leave without having to pay if I said the machine was faulty. In driving to the barrier I found the barrier raised and I could leave with having to pay. This happened a few weeks ago when we were at the hospital so no doubt there was a technical problem with the ticket machine. Thankfully, because I saved at least £4.50.

Grass-Cutting and Hot Chocolate

I had put off cutting the grass for as long as possible. It was necessary to attack it at some point or other as it was beginning to get very long and if not done soon the mower wasn't going to manage. It's a right performance as you have to dig the mower out of the shed, un-tangle the cable and then run out the power cable from the house through the patio doors and plug it in near the fridge. I did around half of the grass-cutting yesterday morning and managed to complete the job this morning. I am hoping considering the weather and the fact that we will very soon be in November, that this will be the final cutting the grass will require until the Spring.

We went out for a short while. Carol's getting really fed up with being in the house all day, so we went to somewhere we haven't visited before. It's not far, within Milton Keynes and just up Chaffron Way and opposite Westcroft, where Morrison's has a branch. It's called Howe Wood and there's a café there. We've often mentioned it when we've seen the sign from the road but never visited. A real surprise awaited us as we drove into the carpark. The café is in the visitor centre and is called 'The Grumpy Cook.' I can't think why as the staff there are anything but grumpy. In fact I'd go as far as saying they're very pleasant. We ordered hot chocolate with marshmallows and had a large slice of coffee and walnut cake which we shared and then decided we wanted sausage rolls which we took home. They had a problem getting the card reader to work, so we couldn't pay using my debit card. Something about it not connecting but I don't know what is was exactly but we went back and had a second go and this time it worked.

Our neighbour on the other side has been cutting their hedge. It had got somewhat over-grown. She's an elderly lady and couldn't possibly do this work herself. The hedge is high and I imagine, because it's a laurel hedge (well, from looking at it I imagine it is as it has large shiny leaves which look like laurel.) It was certainly out of control and was in definite need of trimming. Her son had got someone in to do a lot of the trimming and there was a great pile of cuttings all over their drive-way (or, at least, their half of the parking space which we share.) Over the past few days our half of the driveway had been taken over by a large metal skip. I imagined it was there to take all the remaining hedge trimmings (the first batch had been removed by the man who did the first 'trim' of the hedge, but I don't know how he disposed of the bits of hedge, probably took it to the tidy-tip in his car.

Marion's son (our neighbour) came round to ask it we'd like our frontage trimmed up, as there a few rather nasty bits of tree that grow up near our front door which need the ocassional trim. I said I'd be pleased for him do it as the bits could go in his skip. The same in the rear garden, but I can cut them down and put them over the fence at the back. If we had a working side-gate at the rear of our house it would be easy enough to bring in a wheely bin and put the stuff in that, but our mean landlord won't pay to have it replaced, so I've no alternative method of removing garden waste other than shove it over the back fence.

The clocks changed this weekend. I can never remember if it's forward or backward. I know someone said that they 'spring forward' in April, which is spring- as a season, so it must be backwards in autumn. I have real problems adjusting my digital watch. It's difficult to get the thing set to an hour backward. I don't like it particularly when the clocks change as we have longer, darker days and I'm not a fan of winter. 

Current Reading

I'm interested in history. I think there's something really fascinating in learning about what happened in the past, how things perhaps several hundred years ago have an impact on things today. I've read several books on 20th century history, first the Andrew Marr 2-book The Making of Modern Britain. The first goes from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 up until the end of World War 2 and he second from 1945 up until the present day. I have Peter Ackroyd's first four books of his four-part series on the History of England.  The first is called 'Foundation, 'the second, 'Tudors', the third 'Civil War', and the fourth 'Revolution.' I'm not sure exactly when the final two books will be published or how far the series is likely to go. All these are worth reading. I've just finished reading 'Hope and Glory' by Peter Clarke, a history of the 20th century. I had wanted to read up as much as possible about the history of this period, so as to get a better understanding of why we're where we are now, with such things as Brexit, the E.U. and so on. I probably know more about the Tudor period, in particular anything to do with William Shakespeare, rather than this century.

My interest in history has always been there, but as we are members of both the National Trust and English Heritage you can't be ignorant of all the properties we visit which have connections to some aspect of history. One of our favourite places is Kenilworth Castle. It is a place just brimming over with history, particularly when connected to Queen Elizabeth 1. I read BBC History Magazine and recently started a subscription to History Today, which has had a revamp and is now in a far more compact format.

I've got a copy of  'The H.G. Wells Complete Short Stories.' I had watched a Sky Arts series called 'The Nightmare World of H.G. Wells,' which took a handful of his short stories and adapted them, rather in the style of 'Tales of The Unexpected' or 'The Outer Limits,' which are fantasy or science fiction-based shows. They did four of the stories as 2016 was the 150th anniversary of his birth. They adapted 'The Purple Pileus, 'The Moth', 'The Late Mr Elvisham,' and 'The Devotee of Art,' I've read the most famous story in the collection, which is a good deal longer than the average short story (I think it would be termed a novella) 'The Time Machine' and have read several of his novels, such as 'The Invisible Man' and 'War of The Worlds' but don't know the other stories so well. Today I read 'The Strange Orchid.' All these are exceptionally creepy and strange and not to be read when it's dark. I think 'The Strange Orchid' must have been the inspiration for 'Little Shop of Horrors.' 'The Time Machine', which I'm currently re-reading, is so good because it's convincing. The opening sequence, where 'The Time-Traveller' (who is never given his real name) is explaining his theories of time-travel, is done in such a way you can't not get drawn in, in a similar way to those of his friends who he's talking to. Then I have to ask, who is telling the story? As it's a first-person narrative, are we supposed to believe that it's actually H.G.Wells himself? It's no clear whether it is, but one is lead to suppose that it must be, probably because he wrote the story.

We have a bookcase which is bulging with books. Infact, we probably have more books than most people would usually have. A good deal of them need sorting and taking to a charity shop as they aren't likely to be read again. 

1000th Post

So, this is it. I've managed to write 1000 blog posts. Quite amazing when I come to think of it. So, what shall I write?

We have another mystery. The light on the landing in this house hasn't worked in ages, so we have to be careful when it's dark at night, for example, going to bed or getting to the bathroom. But a couple of days ago it suddenly came on. But then it doesn't work if you turn it off at either the switch at the bottom of the stares or on the wall on the landing. I imagined it might have been the bulb that needed replacing. One of those economy bulbs which are gradually replacing traditional bulbs. But it never worked. So I imagined it must have been a loose connection somewhere. The double switch at the foot of the stairs have been wired up the wrong way round. It would be common sense, surely, if there are double switches, to have the upstairs light operated from the left switch that is placed closer to that light and the switch that operates the hall light operated by the switch placed left, or closer to that light. But no. Whoever was responsible for maintenance for this house (our beloved landlord) has no idea how to do these basic jobs properly. It's the same for the taps on the various sinks, the bath, in the house. That means that the right tap (red) is hot and the left (blue) tap is for cold water. Just a slight niggle, but so annoying. None of the cupboards in the kitchen are hung properly so they don't close as they should. I know it can sometimes be just a matter of tightening up the hinges (common to most kitchen units) but they couldn't do the job properly so we have to put up with this sort of annoyance. Then the washing machine has to be operated using a cable from an electric socket in the hall and it makes me ask the obvious question: why doesn't the washing machine have it's own electrical point so we don't have to use a trailing cable to use it? There must have been sockets for this purpose (the other probably for a tumble-drier) as they were there once upon a time but have been blocked off. Why? it really makes no sense, particularly as it's a health and safety issue. We could get electric shock or else we could trip over the trailing cable. But does our landlord care? I really don't think so. I don't even imagine he is even aware of this issue.

Acrobatic Squirrel

We've had a  visiting squirrel giving us some entertainment over the past couple of days. It has come into the garden and run along the top of the fence and then it stands and stares at the bird feeder from the left-hand side of the garden, Garry and Shelley's side. We re-installed the bird feeder a few weeks ago and used a thing in the ground which has four 'spikes' in it which you push into the ground and then put the central pole of the feeding station into this and lock it in place using the butterfly nuts and, considering the wind we've had blowing through the garden recently, the thing seems to be working successfully. It has stood firm and hasn't moved. I'd suggested we move the entire thing further away from the fence because of the fact we had a squirrel actually jump from the fence onto the bird-feeding station. Quit a feat and actually could have impaled itself on the finial which tops the feeding station. Amazed when I saw this with my own eyes. This new squirrel has managed to actually climb up the pole and hang upside down from the bird feeders, and climb down and change direction several times before running away into the long grass near the fence and then, somehow or other, climb back up onto the fence and was last seen running away along the branches of the over-hanging trees. And throughout all this, Alfie was asleep on the sofa and totally oblivious of all this going on outside the window. I did manage to get some photographs of this incident, but unfortunately the results are not as good as they might have been.

Alfie came in the house and there was a really bad smell. We couldn't find out where it was coming from. Had he rolled in something stinky? Dogs have a habit of doing this. It's not nice. So we had to stick him in the bath, much to his displeasure. He currently looks like a drowned rat (although I've never actually seen a drowned rat.) Running around the house shaking himself and rubbing himself against bits of furniture. But it's as well to do this as we couldn't spend the rest of the day with that awful stink.

Daytime Television. The Good, The Bad and The Dreadful

Over the past few months I have watched a more than average amount of daytime television. Probably because Carol has been off sick from work. I have to admit under different circumstances I wouldn't normally watch so much. When she was at work I might watch Bargain Hunt, or otherwise I can find something on catch-up or recorded on Sky Q from the previous day or from a few days or even weeks. Most of what is shown is, franky, mere trivia, but recently there have been some quite good programmes. Admittedly there are too many make-over shows and programmes about selling houses. Also wall-to-wall gameshows. It seems that all I.T.V. can make and show are things like 'The Chase' (probably the best at the moment), but surely 'Tipping Point' has some of the easiest questions for any gameshow. But it's addictive. Watching that machine moving backwards and forward and waiting with bated breath for the discs to fall in just the right place and then push others fall over and score points that make cash has a sort of hypnotic effect. Perhaps that's what they want to happen; sort of activating so they have a sort of captive audience. Countdown on Channel Four is addictive. At least it's intelligent. I'm fine with the word part, but when it comes to the maths section, I give up. Perhaps it's because you have just 30 seconds to work it out. If it was longer then I might have a chance. I love words and particularly word-origins, so that bit intrigues me.

There are some far better shows on more recently. One is in the afternoon at 3.45 on BBC1 and called 'Money For Nothing.' The premise doesn't sound particularly brilliant, perhaps not on paper, but actually works and keeps you hooked until the end. It starts off with a lady called Sarah Moore, who apparently won the first series of 'The Great Interior Design Challenge.' She visits a tidy-tip at a variety of locations across the country and hunts out people who are disposing of what are at first sight worthless bits of furniture, old chairs, wardrobes, and the most unlikely objects, such as washing machines, old bits of fence and a good deal more, which she takes away. She has, according to the voice-over, done in a sort of tongue-in-cheek style by Arthur Smith, that she has had 'special permission' to ask for and remove these otherwise gone-to-seed items. In other words, you, as a member of the public, cannot take any item from a tidy-tip. Actually I would say, once it's gone in the recycling bins there you can't remove it. Well, legally you can't. She has to select three items and then takes them away to either transform them herself or takes them to designers and makers who revamp them into new bits of furniture or uses part of them to make new items. These she sells on and the profit is returned to the people she took the original item from at the tidy-tip. The results are usually quite stunning. Although a very small minority haven't hit the mark, at least with us. But that is extremely rare.

'A Matter of Life and Debt' is the sort of programme that is fitting the BBC's public service remit to    'inform educate and entertain.' It's on mid-morning on BBC1. It's about credit unions, set up at various towns throughout the United Kingdom as an alternative place for people to save and take out debts so as to avoid taking on loans from loan sharks or pay-day loans which charge outrageously high interest rates. Sometimes it's so people, who have poor credit ratings and would never get a loan from more traditional sources such as high street banks. Some people want cash to buy furniture for their home or have a holiday but a lot of them use the cash to set up a business or to expand an already existing business such as a dog-walking company or hairdresser's.

Waiting

We're still waiting to hear from the hospital regarding Carol's treatment. We thought we'd hear on Thursday regarding the next step but there was absolutely nothing. Whenever the post comes or the phone rings it seemed it might be about something or other, but nothing. We decided to ring the specialist nurse who has been assigned to Carol and she said she'd ring around to see if she could discover what was going on or at least speed things up. She rang back, really quickly, thankfully, to say we were unlikely to hear anything until at least Wednesday or Thursday, because the cancer team met on those days. Also, they hadn't yet received the M.R.I. scan which was done the previous Friday. Just waiting for the relevant administration to be be done. It seems the N.H.S. is over-run by bureaucracy  If they were to get rid of half the paper-work it might run more efficiently. The same in education where there are to many targets and bits of paper to keep filling in. Crazy.

Friday At Sainsbury's

I had to go to Sainsbury's this morning. First I went to Ashfield Medical Centre as I had to collect a prescription for Carol. Not actually a repeat and they couldn't send it electronically as some of what was on the prescription was controlled meds and it could only be done as a paper version. Managed to get there without any problems, no heavy traffic at the Standing Way roundabout which can be very busy at peak times. Parked easily in the rear carpark. I have to say I'm not overly impressed by the fact that the side road is chocker-block with cigarette ends. I know it's illegal to smoke in public places, indoors in places where the public go, but why do smokers think it's alright to smoke outside and drop their fag ends wherever they please? The same along the Redway outside Milton Keynes Academy which is littered with cigarette ends. What is the environmental impact of all these cigarette ends? Surely it must be bad. If you insist on smoking, do at least put the dog-ends in a bin or somewhere else, not just throw it on the ground. Apart from anything else, it just looks horrible. Don't people realise how awful it looks? Why doesn't someone do something about it? I can't believe it's allowed to continue like this.

I managed to pick up the prescriptions in Ashfield Medical Centre and then drove back through the Standing Way roundabout along Saxon Street and went to Sainsbury's. Parked the car in the carpark. Not quite as busy as it was yesterday, perhaps because I arrived a good deal earlier in the morning. I don't like parking on the lower level because of the extremely tight corners you have to negotiate when you drive down the ramp. It seems most supermarket carparks are designed this way for some unfathomable reason. Perhaps it's to get as much car-parking space into a relatively small piece of land.

In the store I had to get a trolley, but unfortunately it had a fault. Why do so many supermarket trolleys have faults? It's usually with the wheels, pushing sideways, one sticking, or, in this case, with a sort of wobble as I pushed it along. Just annoying.  I suppose I could have swapped it for another without a problem, but I didn't bother on this occasion. I took the prescriptions to the pharmacy and had to spend 15 minutes or so whilst they made up the prescriptions.

I managed to get everything on my list and then returned to pick up the meds from the pharmacy and then walked back to the carpark. As I got closer to the car I walked past a car which had just parked and a girl got out of the passenger-side door and shouted something at the driver- her partner, father, boyfriend, I couldn't tell. She stormed off in the direction of the walk-way leading into the store. Bad temper, merely a temper-tantrum, I couldn't tell, but whatever it was seemed quite dramatic. Certainly caused something of a scene. Had they had a row as they'd arrived in the carpark? Had she not wanted to come to the supermarket? I don't know and probably won't ever know. How embarrassing to have all this in such a public place.

Crazy Television

Why do we have to have so many trailers on television? I don't mean for films, but for television shows. They seem to show the same clips for a drama, for example, and it surely ruins the actual show because if there's several clips which are extracted from that show, they're just going to spoil the surprise element and just destroy that programme. If it's a comedy show, then, to have some of the comic moments shown endlessly during a trailer is going to kill any sense of humour that may have been in that particular show. Having said that, they're running trailers for my least-favourite programme, 'EastEnders,' where all the most dramatic 'bits' are squeezed into about 30 seconds and actually improves this programme. Whenever the famous introductory music starts, we always reach for the remote and switch channels or turn the television 'off.'

To the question 'why so many trailers on television?' I'd say, so we know a new show is coming up in the near future and the producers want us to watch. Which I suppose is obvious.

I've mentioned how they have to squeeze the credits at the end of a programme into a horrible narrow strip and insist on telling you what's coming up. Why does the announcer have to speak over the credits and why on earth do the credits have to be rushed through so fast that you can't possibly read them clearly? Just an insult on the actors as well as the production staff.

Something else I hate about television is when directors and cameramen insist on using crazy angles to shoot film or video. WHY I have to ask? It can be very unsettling. Also, using what they call 'whip-pans' (I think I have the correct term for this) when they spin the camera around quickly, perhaps cutting from one place to another. It makes you feel sick. Then there's this thing they have of filming people as they walk along, which can make you feel sort of sea-sick, or at least motion-sick. I feel sorry for the cameraman having to walk along backwards to follow the actor or presenter. It must be difficult, probably having to avoid colliding with furniture or, worse still if it's outside, falling into a ditch or running into whatever is in the way.

Daytime television: why are there endless programmes about couples selling houses? Some are fine, such as 'Homes Under The Hammer,' because it's about people who buy empty, probably derelict houses, at auction, and you then see how they manage to transform them and then sell them on at quite large profit or rent them out. At least they're giving people homes and preventing houses being built on greenfield sites and increasing the housing stock. But it the programmes about couples who have so much money, from selling one over-priced properties, usually in the South East and London, and have this fantasy about moving to an idealised rural property with a 'large kitchen,' and 'space for a pony' or most likely it someone who's retiring and has got money from a bonus working in the city or it's from being a director of a company or business they've had something to do with and got share options. . . the show I'm thinking about is called 'Escape To The Country' and it's on virtually every day, in the afternoon.

Road Accident and Amazon Deliveryman's Blunder

I had to go to the local shop in Garroways for a few items. I drove out of the estate and was amazed to find a single-decker bus attempting to do some sort of manoeuvre in the slip road off Saxon Street. It wasn't clear what the driver was trying to do; was he going to drive through the estate or turn round in the road? It wasn't clear until I moved into Saxon Street because at first I had to wait for the bus to move. On looking left I could see the road was closed off, with cars drawn up across the carriageway and several emergency vehicles with flashing blue lights on their roofs. It was then clear that there had been a car accident when someone had pulled out of the road leading into Garroways, Lloyds, which was where I had hoped to go. I wasn't going to get through so I had no alternative but to execute a u-turn and return the way I'd come, this time going to the local shop in Eaglestone. Other cars were doing as I had done and then a red car raced past, I think probably from the Fire Service, as it had blue lights flashing and it's siren blaring. It was clear that the road hadn't been closed off at the Four Bridges roundabout on Chaffron Way because traffic was still coming along Saxon Street, totally unaware that the road was closed off because of a traffic accident. I could see a smashed-up car in the road, so I imagine the driver had attempted to come of of the turning into Coffee Hall at Lloyds, the road which leads up to  Garroways and risked running into another vehicle and ended up in a, what looked to me, somewhat nasty smash.

I drove back into Eaglestone and drove around the inner ring road and went to the local shop to get eggs, milk and other items for our lunch. Having completed my shopping trip I drove home. Yesterday I had ordered a couple of books from Amazon and was expecting the parcel to be delivered sometime during the day and was somewhat surprised to see the parcel on the step we use to reach the electric meter outside in the bin cupboard. The parcel had arrived when I was out. Then Carol told me that the delivery driver had opened the door and shoved the parcel inside without first knocking on the door and as a result Alfie very nearly got through the door. The driver rushed off before Carol could speak to him as this sort of behaviour isn't acceptable, particularly as she was alone in the house due to illness. As a result of this I went through the Amazon website, and got a call from someone in their call centre and explained what had happened and got an apology. I said that this had happened before and, according to Carol, it was the same delivery driver. The woman who I spoke to was very apologetic. I said the driver should be disciplined as his actions were not acceptable. In now way should a delivery driver ENTER a customer's home. It was obvious that he hadn't done his job properly. He should have knocked on the door and waited for someone to open it and then hand over the parcel, not just leave in inside the house, or else leave it in the pre-determined place or ask a neighbour to take the parcel in. I got a refund of the cost of the books as a goodwill gesture and I trust the matter will end there.

Alfie and the Squirrel

We've had a visit from an extremely cheeky and crafty squirrel to our garden over the past couple of days. This might explain why Alfie, our little Yorkshire Terrier, keeps on disappearing into the garden. He spends quite a lot of time in the rather over-grown area near the fence at the bottom of the garden and near the shed (a polite way to describe the wreck of a shed as it's totally unusable as it is.) The squirrel has been seen actually IN the garden, darting about in the long grass. It has been on the shed roof and flicking it's tail about in an agitated fashion. It then climbed about in the over-hanging branches of the trees and then on the fence to the left. It seems to be keen to find a way to get at the food on the bird feeding station. A couple of years ago we had our feeding station a good deal closer to the shed that belongs to our neighbours, Garry and Shelley. A squirrel actually JUMPED from the roof of this shed onto the bird feeding station and managed to perch on the thing, and at one point hung upside-down on it in order to eat some of the food. It's a wonder that this crafty squirrel didn't impale itself on the pointy finial on the top of this thing! It even managed to climb the metal pole of this feeding station. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw all these acrobatics. This latest visitor is so cheeky, it even stares at the house to find out if Alfie is about before venturing further. 

Strange Skies

Over the last day we've been experiencing strong winds, as a result of Storm Ophelia coming in from the Atlantic. It's supposed to have been the end of a hurricane which has crossed over from near America. Also, a really strange orange light for most of the day yesterday. It was like an orange or reddish glow. It was apparently caused by dust from the Sahara Desert causing the sun to appear red because of dissipated dust particles. I have now idea how or why but the light was diffused through the clouds. I expect we'll get a reason for it sooner or later. Fairly strong winds whipping up the trees behind our house but nowhere near as windy as we've experienced in he past. I don't think you can call it a hurricane, although Carol Kirkwood is calling it 'ex-hurricane Ophelia'  on BBC Breakfast as I write this. And in particular it's being compared to the 'Great Wind' of October 1987, which was highly destructive and it's exactly 30 years ago since that happened. I know this storm has done a great deal of damage and in particular in Ireland, but no trees have been bought down as in 1987. At the moment, as I write this post, the sun is out and the wind has dropped. It's actually quite mild out.

Living At Home- Part 5

I've mentioned in an earlier post how I went to Rushmoor School in Bedford, and how I absolutely hated it. I'll repeat myself by saying I can't understand why my parents wasted good money sending me to such a hopeless school. I dread to think how much money it cost per term or year. I came away from there with nothing in particular and had to go to a state school, Abbey Sec Mod in Elstow to complete my final few school years. I've said before somewhere on this blog that I had problems with maths at school. I think my basic skills were sound, but when it came to complex fractions and the more advanced stuff I really struggled. Anyway, I have survived all my life without the need for such things as algebra so I'm not worried. It was the fact that I wasn't able to get into Bedford School as my other brothers was the problem. Or, perhaps, that's what my mother thought. So I was dragged around a variety of tutors, actually taken out of Rushmoor School in, presumably, an attempt to get me through whatever exam it was so I could join my brothers. But it wasn't to be. It was great to be taken away from school for a couple of hours, as anything was better than being at Rushmoor School. I recall a couple of the places where the tutors ran their sessions, one being above a shop in St Peter's Street, about where the Probation Service had, or used to have, their office, and the other was around Goldington Road, about where the offices of an agency I used to work for and opposite my former doctor's surgery. All I remember of that one was that there was a pipe rack on the fireplace, odd that I should remember that, but absolutely nothing about doing maths exercises. All I remember of the other place was that there was a sandpit and I played with toy soldiers in this sandpit. Again, nothing remains of any maths I might have done.

I had another dose of tutoring (or whatever you want to call if) of a different kind as I had a slight speech impediment, a stammer. Not surprising if I was always being picked up over my maths. I went to a speech therapist (I imagine that was what this person was, but probably not called that in those days) and the house I went to was off Kimbolton Road, in Pemberley Avenue, Bedford. There again, I can't remember a great deal about the sessions I had to endure. But I remember having to shove my tongue to the front of my mouth to get me to speak properly and being given chocolate mint sweets as a sort of incentive. Even today I really like them, but I don't suppose today you've be able to use them as an inducement to stop lisping or to push your tongue forward because they'd be considered unhealthy or something like that, with too much sugar in them. Even today, although I don't recall much else about these sessions, I think I'd know which house in that road they were and I have a sort of thing about 'speaking properly.' I have a certain affinity with the George Bernard Shaw 'Pygmalion' which is about 'proper speech.' My mother was constantly picking me up if I dropped an 'H' when I could easily drop one off the end of certain words. I don't know why me, in particular, as I don't think she did it to my other brothers.

I've mentioned my lack of skills in anything sporty, somewhere in an earlier blog post. I think it's got a lot to do with being forced to use my right hand when I should probably have been left-handed. I think that is how you were taught at school in the late 1950's- early 1960's. Probably just to make it easier for the teaching staff. If you were left-handed you would be considered a problem child, thus creating more work for teachers, so it would have been easier to make a child write with their right hand. I think this made me very clumsy when using a cricket bat, making it really difficult to hit a flying cricket ball in any sense of a straight line or merely hit the thing. The same with kicking a football or merely catching a ball when thrown at me. So, I didn't like being made the butt of jokes or have unpleasant remarks made by teachers or other pupils. So, inevitably, it put me off sport of any kind. This lead on to maths skills. Totally hopeless. I think this 'disability' if such it can be called, wasn't (or isn't) dyslexia as such but dyscalculia, a term which I've since discovered. So, as a result, I can't stand either cricket or football. I just have memories spent at the very edge of cricket grounds on long hot summer afternoons. Or football, played on the school playing fields, a long walk from the school in Shakespeare Road and along Manton Lane and then trudging up a muddy path to the top of the hill and having to endure cold, wind, ice, snow and whatever awful weather conditions to 'play' a game which I detested, as I suffered terribly from the cold at that age. The hill seemed to be open to every thing the elements could throw at me and then having to trudge back to school, coated in mud and our boots encased in thick, claggy mud. Shivering like crazy and taking an eternity to get some warmth back before leaving to walk to the bus station in order to get home. Not nice. I think the sports teachers were just sado masochists to make us go through that ordeal. Sometimes you could get to the top of that benighted hill and look down to where the rest of Bedford should have been, to find it had disappeared in a haze of fog.

Living At Home- Part 4

we didn't have any sort of record player at home when I was growing up until quite late into the 1960's. I have a feeling that there was an ancient gramophone of some sort, probably only capable of playing 78's, but not a modern one capable of playing modern L.P.s and 45s. We eventually got a small portable machine when my great aunt died and there were heaps of Greenshield Stamps which were converted into this new player. If you remember Greenshield stamps, you used to 'earn' them when you bought things at certain retailers, such as Tesco, so many stamps when you shopped and then stuck them into books. I suppose the equivalent today would be Tesco Clubcard points, or Nectar points, although these are collected on a card, electronically saved and then 'spent' when you have sufficient, either on your grocery bill or on other items such as free tickets for places such as Alton Towers or Sealife World, Warwick Castle or Madam Tussaud's. This record player was eventually replaced by a far better player which my brother Sandy and I shared.  I remember my mother deciding that we needed a decent record player as she like to hear the occasional bit of classical music. We went to Weatherhead's, a local electrical retailer which had a large shop at the corner of Bedford High Street and Dame Alice Street. It's long since gone, replaced at the last time I visited Bedford by a pub. A shame really, as it was an independent company. Anyway, we went there to choose a record player, one of those semi-portable machines, only playing records, but one with a device in it which was the height of technological wizardry which enabled you to stack a pile of 45 r.p.m. discs on this system which allowed you to play these records one after the other without having to get up and do it manually. My brother was more into pop music than I was. I became interested in classical music and began my own collection of LPs of standard classical repertoire. I also became interested in recording using a tape-recorder, as a result of being influenced by a teacher at Rushmoor School who used a tape-recorder in some of his classes to record our voices, reading poetry and prose. Later on, when I moved to Abbey Secondary Modern School, I bought a Grundig tape-recorder from one of the teachers. I know Sandy used to record pop music off the radio (as did everyone else during this period) and be was (and probably still is.) obsessed by motor sport, and in particular, Grand Prix races. Was it called Formula 1 in those days? I don't know, but he used to record the radio commentaries on a tape recorder. I eventually replaced my tape-recorder with an early Philips cassette recorder.

Although quite good for recording from the radio, the occasional bit of voice work and listening to music, cassettes had their limitations. For a start, you couldn't edit them. The tape was extremely tin and had a tendency to stretch. You could never find specific points on a tape, for example, the beginning of a piece of music. Eventually pre-recorded cassettes were introduced, as a sort of replacement for LPs, but the technical quality of cassettes wasn't up to much. It took a long time to re-wind a cassette and, because the tape was very thin it could get caught up in the mechanism of the machine as well as stretching and this eventually lead to them not functioning. In-car players were eventually introduced, some with built-in radios, but if you kept your collection of cassettes in your car, they could become damaged if there was warm weather, as heat seemed to cause all sorts of problems to the tape. My brother Sandy had an 8-track player at one point, I think perhaps it was a birthday present. The cassettes were bulky and not as good as cassettes, and I recall he had all sorts of problems with the machine which constantly got jammed. The tape was far wider than a Philips cassette, but eventually he gave up on the thing and the whole system was eventually abandoned by the manufacturers.

A friend of mine when I was at Mander College, John Gregory, introduced me to The Goon Show. His father had recorded the original episodes off the radio and onto reel-to-reel tape. John allowed me to record many of the episodes onto cassette when he used to visit me at home over several Saturday afternoons. I am still an ardent fan of The Goons and listen to some of the episodes which are broadcast regularly on the digital radio channel, BBC Radio4 Extra. Not just The Goons, but I also enjoyed many other BBC comedy shows, such as I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, Round The Horne, The Navy Lark as well as The Men From The Ministry. All re-broadcast on BBC Radio4 Extra. I, and probably loads of other people, recorded from the radio using a microphone, but I eventually managed to find a way to link the tape recorder to my transistor radio by using a lead from the tape recorder fixed to the loudspeaker, linking to the soldered points inside the radio. It worked! Which meant I could get a far better recording as there was no background interference as you would get if you used a microphone set up in front of the radio, for example, cars going past or people talking in the room.

My interest in tape-recording and recording in general was a very useful skill because when I worked in stage management I was sometimes called upon to operate the sound desk at several of the theatres I worked at, having to make up the various sound effects tapes and I learned how to edit and splice tape. In those days it was physically cut, using a special splicing machine and sticky tape. No doubt today all this would be done digitally and saved onto either a CD-ROM or at least on a computer hard drive.

Living At Home- Part 3

My elder brothers were into music. James was (and still is, as far as I know) a very good trumpeter. He liked people such as Herb Alpert and had quite a few of his LPs. Robert, on the other hand, was (still probably is) a very proficient pianist. There was a good piano, an upright Steinway, in the house at Malting Farm. My grandmother Ferriman, who lived at Mill Farm, Cardington, was also a good pianist. She used to play at the annual children's Christmas party which was held each year at the Reading Room in the village. She had the scores of several musicals in the piano stool, including My Fair Lady and Salad Days. When I was a Student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham in 1969 I was involved in a production of Salad Days. It may have been my grandmother's love of musicals which rubbed off on me and got me interested in not only musicals but theatre in general. Granny Ferriman as she was called was something to do with the W.I. I'm not sure in what capacity, but each year they had a drama competition, held in the Civic Theatre, Bedford. Over several years I was taken along to watch the one-act plays performed. I do remember going to London with her to see a play called "Mr Brown Comes Down The Hill", written by Peter Howard, which was put on at the Westminster Theatre. I'm not sure what reason we went to see this play, but it had a sort of Christian theme to it. I had the script of the play, which I had in my book collection for years, but, unfortunately, it got lost basically because I've moved house so many times over the years. After the show we went to a house in, I think, somewhere in Cavendish Square, for a rather elaborate meal. The house was once where Robert Clive, of India lived or someone like that. I remember it was quite a lavish meal. To this day I'm not sure what it was all about. I suppose I would have been about 15-16 at the time.

Every Christmas we always went to see a show of some sort in London. I remember going to see either Chipperfield's or Smart's circus which was put on at somewhere such as Olympia or Earl's Court. A circus came regularly to Bedford, usually in one of the fields along the road leading into Bedford. I remember going to see 'Peter Pan' which ran every year at the Scala Theatre and being taken by Sister Watson, who was a nurse at Bedford Hospital when my mother was a nurse before she married. It was a big, elaborate production which included flying, most likely done by Kirby's Flying Ballet. There was a spectacular scene on board Captain Hook's ship, I expect the sequence where Hook attempts to kill Peter Pan, and there were lots of cannons being fired, which, apparently, scared me. I don't expect I can have been much more than 8-9 at the time.

The Scala Theatre was one of those theatres which allowed you to have tea in the auditorium. You ordered before the show began and it was bought to you on a tray. I can't remember if you got sandwiches and cakes. You probably did. You just sat and drank your tea in the auditorium during the interval. I can't believe they did this, and it's not likely to be revived for a 21st-century play-goer as it would be against our old friends, health and safety.

M.R.I. Scans and Mild Weather

The weather continues to be unseasonably mild. I'm going out without a jacket or a sweater on. Just doesn't make a lot of sense, since we're well into October. I've been out on some days, thinking it's going to be cold (some early mornings start of cold.) put on a thick sweater and find, once I'm out, that the sweater is making me far too hot so I remove it. I end up carting the sweater around with me as I did when we went to the shopping centre the other morning. The trees all along the various grid roads around Milton Keynes are changing colour. Quite striking and surprising.

We're still waiting to hear from Basingstoke. Carol had an M.R.I. scan yesterday morning. It took a good deal longer than I was expecting, but at least it's done. Not at the hospital, but at a, presumably, private provider called In Health, which is based in the same block as Sainsbury's, just off Witan Gate. I expected the appointment to be at the hospital, but it was here. A very different atmosphere to the usual N.H.S. facility. Decent chairs to sit on and not lots of other people sitting and attempting to avoid eye contact. The staff were very good, very professional and caring. So, with this last scan, the various departments will now have all the information they have to deal with this 'thing.' Every day we wait patiently for either a telephone call or a letter.

Living At Home- Part 2

Living on a farm we had acres and acres of places to explore, run completely wild and play. I think we were exceptionally lucky in that respect, unlike children bought up living in a town. No excuses when it came to finding something to do in the school holidays. My mother would never allow us to spend our time indoors. No such thing as mobile phones, tablets, computers, Gameboys or any sort of computer game console. No daytime television during the 1960's. Television didn't start until children's programmes started at around 4-5 o'clock. No 24-hour television as we have today. As I've said in earlier posts, we only had 3 channels until Channel Four came along in 1982. If it was sunny and warm during the summer we'd be outside all day and not go indoors until it was teatime. Long bike rides through the country lanes around Cardington, generally messing about in and around the village, particularly the brook that ran through the farm. I doubt children would have such a connection to the world about them today as we had then. Getting dirty, building dens, tree houses and having adventures. Probably in a world which seems to be dominated by our old friend 'Health and Safety' it's more than likely that they don't have anywhere the same sort of lives as we did.

Malting Farm house was large (and is. It's still there, although no Murdochs live there any more). Well, it would have to be because there were seven in our family. It had lots of corridors and it wasn't centrally heated. I think I've mentioned this in an earlier blog post on here. There was an Aga cooker in the kitchen, which could be very difficult to light and had to be kept going using special fuel, sort of nuts of coal. In the dining room and some of the downstairs rooms there were fireplaces which were lit occasionally. It could be extremely cold in winter. But, saying that, we didn't know anything different and we survived. With so many rooms, idea for playing hide and seek. There were two attic rooms which we used as play rooms. It meant you could make a mess up there and it didn't matter. We had a model railway layout. I'm not sure, but I think we inherited it from a relative. I'm not sure whether it was from my mother or father's family, but it was quite an extensive Triang railway with no end of track that ran around an amazing raised sort of construction which included tunnels, stations, houses and other bits and pieces. With four brothers, we did get toys passed on as they were grown out of. Me being in the middle of five, anything I got passed down had already come from my two eldest brothers, James and Robert.

I had Mecanno when I was a child. I doubt very much if young boys have this toy nowadays, or even girls. I doubt they would even know what it was. It had metal pieces, usually coloured red, blue or silver, nuts and bolts and various mechanical gears, pulley and similar pieces which you could use to build all manner of machines, cars, bicycles or a combination of mechanical devices. I inherited most of this from my older brothers and got more 'sets' as the years went by. It grew and grew. You could get clockwork and electric motors to drive the machines you created and a lot of these creations could be built using instructions you got in magazines and leaflets. I'm not sure that you can still get this 'toy,' even if you can call it a toy. Birthdays and Christmases bought more and more bits to build more elaborate creations. Endless fun and interest and no doubt it encouraged boys (and possibly girls) to become interested in engineering and probably careers in this field. I think perhaps today children are more interested in computers and similar electronic devices and the fact that they can communicate with other people via the internet makes things that are more physical, such as Mecanno, somewhat obsolete, which is a real pity.

It seems that children in particular, but also a great many adults, spend a lot of their time on smart phones and tablets (as well as other gadgets) and don't appear to communicate much face-to-face. Living in a cyber world, chatting on-line via chat-rooms, text or email, seems to have replaced speaking to another person in the 'real-world.' You only have to walk down the average street or visit a supermarket or shopping centre to see how many people only appear to interact through their devices. Also, I'm sure that manners have gone out the window. People seem to have lost the ability to be even remotely patient. Not everyone, but mostly young people. They don't like having to wait, especially in queues, for example, at the supermarket. A lot more short-tempered people on the roads. A lot of people cutting me up on roundabouts, impatient to wait if you stop at a roundabout, coming up behind me in their car and expecting me to drive faster. Pushing you to move out of the way for them or at least drive faster. People expect to have everything NOW, not time to wait for anything.

Mystery Man

Here we go again. I'm in the kitchen, standing at the sink, washing up, when a white van draws up, but I can't see exactly what's going on because the hedge which shields off next door's garden. The drive is shared, although the lady who lives that side of us doesn't have a car so the space is usually vacant. Then a man appeared poking about under the hedge with what looked like a screwdriver. I imagine he was only doing his job, but he looked somewhat mysterious and shady. He had a mobile phone to his ear and was talking to someone on it. I imagine he was a workman from a contractor who was going some work on our neighbour's house, for the Council as it's a council house. Probably quite genuine, but he did look a bit shifty. Poor man, as he must have seen me through the window. I should have just gone outside and ask him what on earth he was up to, but I didn't.

Why is I seem to notice so many strange things going on outside our house? No real answer to that question. But there are certainly a great many odd people wandering around 'out there.'

It's been an almost spring-like day today. It's just far too mild, considering we're well and truly into the month of October. We put an extra-thick duvet on the bed, but it's far too hot so I've gone back to have the lightweight summer duvet back on the bed.

We've had a couple of pigeons in the garden. I've seen them sitting on the flowerpot which stands near the shed, although it's full of water. One of them appeared to be swimming in the water, or at least having a bath. I wasn't sure whether the other pigeon might have deliberately pushed the other one into the water. Probably not as I think they're a bit dense, pigeons, and wouldn't be able to think like that. It just looked so comical, floundering about in the water.

After the comic pigeons a squirrel ran across the roof, stopped in the middle, stared at the house, did a little nose-twitch and ran off. And Alfie didn't even notice. It was fast asleep and then one of the two neighbours' cats did a shimmy across the fence and did what the squirrel had done, took a glance at the house, no doubt to see whether Alfie would respond as he usually does. But no . . . it disappeared before Alfie could wake up  and rush out of the house, barking.

Life's Little Mysteries

There are all sorts of little mysteries which seem unexplained. For example, why is it when you do the washing-up (by hand in our household. We don't have a washing-up machine. Frankly a waste of time and money. Just an excuse to load the thing up and forget it and then spend time emptying it. You still have to rinse the dishes and cutlery and whatever else you need to wash, so why not just wash it and dry it and then put it away?) You spend an age doing the job and at the end, when you've dried everything and it's back in it's place, you find a single lonely teaspoon at the bottom of the bowl? Why does the washing-up liquid make so much foam, which doesn't actually have any purpose at all? I have worked in industrial kitchens and used professional washing-up liquid which is very effective and has absolutely no foam. The foam doesn't have any purpose other than just being a sort of 'extra' which takes ages to rinse away. It doesn't make the liquid work any better, or, indeed, at all. It's just that we've been conditioned to have foam when you use washing-up liquid. I expect the manufacturers put an ingredient into Fairy liquid and other similar products, that has no other purpose than to create foam.

Not just teaspoons being left after washing-up. How about when you do clothes washing, you invariably get one lone sock left in the drum of the washing machine or a pair of underpants or knickers, when you've finished the job and hung the laundry out to dry. I always seem to find I haven't got a complete pair of socks to peg out or at the end of the whole operation, when I come to put the clothes away, nothing more irritating than having one or two lone socks which don't have a partner. Nothing more annoying when you need a fresh pair of socks, you open the drawer, and all you can come across is one or two single socks. This very thing happened this morning when I did some washing and I had two socks which didn't have partners.

Why do we get telephone calls, and when you pick up, there's NOBODY THERE! You just get a sort of 'burr-burr' sound. What IS that all about? Is there someone on the other end? Are they listening? If so, are they little green men from some far-off planet? It does make me wonder. When you get those really annoying calls from some company trying to sell you something and they seem to know something about you which perhaps you didn't know about yourself or they're just being 'nice' in order to sell you whatever, I begin to wonder how much information is shared by companies you've signed up to legitimately. Then there's those calls which are obviously scams. Telling you there's a problem with your computer. Usually your Windows computer, which I don't have. Just trying to phish (if that's the correct term) in order to get your personal details so they can send a virus or something worse to infect your computer.

Where does all the junk mail we receive come from? Most of it's definitely not for things I signed up for. I never asked for it to be sent. How do they know that I might be interested in buying a rather expensive vacuum cleaner that you can charge up and it comes with a special version that you can use to clean your car? We have a perfectly efficient vacuum cleaner and certainly don't need another one, thanks all the same.

Living At Home- Part 1

I have many more memories of living on the farm at Cardington. Being a farm, life seemed to revolve around the kitchen. I've probably mentioned this in an earlier post, but it was some time ago if I did but never mind. 

We had all our meals around a large table in the kitchen. We rarely, if ever, had meals in the dining room. Probably at Christmas, but certainly not for every-day meals. The kitchen table was large, probably made of deal and had a Formica surface. My mother used it when she was making cakes as it was high enough to stand at comfortably to work.

We always sat around that table to have meals. I don't think we ever sat and watched television with plates of food on our laps. We had to eat whatever was put in front of us, no finicky eaters. I don't suppose my mother would have put up with that sort of carry-on, with having five children to feed. We weren't allowed to be fussy eaters. You had to sit and eat what was put on your plate and finish it off. You had to sit quietly and wait until everyone else had finished until you got down from the table. I think it's only manners. Thank goodness we had such manners instilled into us as children. I grew up during the 1960's, well before the introduction of gadgets such as smart phones and tablet computers. You certainly wouldn't  bring toys or any sort of gadget to the dinner table. I think we had more respect for adults when I was a child. We stood up whenever an adult came into the room and you gave up your seat, for example, if you were on a bus. You held the door open for a lady (I expect you'd be called sexist if you did this today.) You didn't talk unless asked to and you didn't butt in if two adults where having a conversation. I'm sure in general people had more respect for other people and you waited patiently if you were in a queue.

Then we  had just 3 television channels. We now have countless television channels on multi-channel-channel platforms such as Sky, Virgin and Freeview. BBC 1, BBC2, ITV and much later Channel 4. We didn't have colour television in our home until well into the 1970's. My father didn't want a set until the system was well established. People who had colour television tended to show off that they had a set by having their television positioned so that if the curtains at the window were drawn people who walked past the house could see in and see the television when it was on. Not in our house, as the television wasn't positioned in such a way. We had a black-and-white set and you couldn't record anything as you could when V.H.S. and Betamax recorders came in in the 1980's. We didn't have ITV in our house until around 1964-5 as far as I can remember, probably because we had to have a new television arial put up.  Anglia was the ITV company serving the East Of England where we lived. We didn't have BBC2 because you needed a set which had the higher definition signal which gave 625 lines for the picture. BBC1 and ITV were on the old system which had 405 lines. Colour didn't come in until the early 1970's, but BBC2 introduced colour in the late 1960's and I remember going on a trip to Robinson Rentals, which later got taken over and became Granada Television Rentals in Bedford when I was at school and they showed colour television pictures of Wimbledon tennis which I think was a sort of experimental broadcast.

Further Television Annoyances

O.K., so I'm going to mention even more things which annoy me about television. You may be asking, 'surely there can't be any more?' Well, you are wrong, sorry to have to tell you. 'So,' you are going to tell me, 'how come you don't just find something else to watch, with somewhere in the region of 250 channels on Sky and probably 30-40 if you have Freeview. Or you could read a book or find some other pastime to keep you entertained.

This time, I get annoyed by the strange camera angles employed in some programmes. The picture at a peculiar angle, or, the camera being spun round to make you feel sick. Why do directors of such programmes have to resort to this sort of thing? Because they can. Another thing I hate is BIG CLOSE-UPS. For no better reason, again, because they can.

I really detest 'Strictly Come Dancing.' It's not the dancing, which, in general is really entertaining. It's the ballyhoo which surrounds it which annoys me. The fact that they use 'celebrities,' which, as a term to describe the contestants is annoying, the amount of space taken up in the press as a result, every little thing that gets mentioned by the judges and any slight hiccough gets a full-page spread in the likes of The Sun or Mirror or even Daily Mail. I hate the fact that the audience has to clap along with the music. It's so infantile and pathetic, I don't think children in a Primary School would behave like they do. Then, all the over-the-top cheering and noise they make. We attempted to get tickets to this show over several years, but never managed to. But, on reflection, I'm glad we didn't because I don't think I'd want to have to clap along to the music if I'd been in the audience. Can the BBC at least be honest and tell us which bits of this show are genuinely live and which pre-recorded? I imagine the opening dances done by the professionals are pre-recorded as well as the bits with the guests.

Why can't they have the results programme on the Saturday? Is this show pre-recorded? I reckon it is, because I can't believe they'd send the audience home after the Saturday show and then have them back on a Sunday. Just seems unlikely. I reckon it's recorded after the live Saturday show. For a start, they'd have to get the celebrities re-dressed and re-made up for the results show. I wish they'd just stop pretending all this is live when it's quite obviously not. I think also that the cost of production staff on a Sunday would be a reason for not having this show live, what with the cost of overtime etc etc.

A lot More Television Annoyances

I can't believe I can find even more things that annoy me about television.

Why do so many presenters have to speak as if they're talking to a classroom-full of Primary School children? The worst offender being Kate Humble. She speaks with such a cloyingly-nauseating voice I just want to throw up. It's so twee that it puts me off some programmes such as Springwatch and the other similar wildlife shows. It's as if we, the viewer, were totally unintelligent and have to be spoken down to in this fashion because we probably don't understand things if talked about in a more grown-up fashion. Please, television producers, treat your audience as if they're at least grown up. Or I just won't bother watching and go elsewhere for stuff to watch. Shows aimed at children, such as 'Blue Peter,' never talked down to the children they were aimed at. Even 'Play School' managed to avoid that and it was aimed at pre-school children.

So many gameshows have questions that are just plain easy. 'Tipping Point' is one such gameshow which has ridiculously easy questions. There's no sort of anything if it's easy. If you can answer every question then what's the point of the whole thing? Shows such as 'University Challenge' have particularly difficult questions, as you would expect, although we're able to answer quite a few of them. I know they have to aim their gameshows at a wide range of abilities and no doubt if they had questions that are too difficult it would put a huge section of the public off watching, but if it's just plain simplistic then it's crazy.

Wild and Windy Night

It was very wild and windy last night. I could hear the sound when I woke up during the night. I just hoped the garden fence wass strong enough to withstand the storm and we din't end up having the fence repaired as we had to a couple of years ago and woke up to find part of it laying across the garden. Alfie is spending a lot of time in the rough area at the end of the garden at present. No doubt he has come across something that might possibly be a hedgehog or other small animal which has left it's scent in the grass or rough area where the mower can't go. I'm just concerned that he might get into the old garden shed as he once got inside and got stuck and it took some while to rescue him.

12.45 p.m. Well, as I write this, the wind has dropped and the sun is out. We've been out, into the MK Centre to browse the shops. We walked through the centre, having parked in Debenham's carpark. Actually, I don't think that carpark is part of Debenhams, it's just in the centre and you walk in through Debenham's store. We didn't on this occasion as it looked as if there was a security alert as there were staff standing around near the door so we went into the shopping centre down the escalator and came out opposite the main Debenham's entrance. I don't like these moving staircases as you have to be so careful because if you mis-step you could come down faster than you would normally want. Also, going up I have a real thing about heights so don't want to look down. Sad really. I have to admit that I don't like heights at any price and no matter where.

We walked through the shopping centre and were going to buy something to take home for lunch and went into Gregg's to find sandwiches but we weren't over-impressed by the selection on offer and there was quite a long queue to pay so we gave up and left. We went into W.H.Smith's to find a suitable birthday card for our grandson George, who's birthday is coming up and browsed in the racks, found what we wanted, paid and left. We walked back towards the carpark at Debenham's and went into Waterstone's (there are two branches in Milton Keynes, one in the main shopping centre and the other in Midsummer Place, which also has it's own coffee shop.) A good range of books as usual. It's building up to Christmas so all the newest titles are on offer and on display. Clever that they have books on tables which are laid out so you can pick them up to look at them, which makes it far more tempting to buy. We then went into Marks and Spencer's to get the sandwiches for lunch and returned to the carpark and left to drive the relatively short distance home.

Even More Television Annoyances

Why do the credits at the end of so many television shows have to be rushed through so fast? How on earth are you supposed to be able to read at that speed? Then, not only do they insist on speeding the credits through at high speed, but they have to shrink them down by putting them in a narrow window at the same time and you get a voice-over which tells you what the next programme is or some other television show. So why do they have to treat the credits in this way? It seems something of an insult to all those who have contributed to the making of the programme that has just ended, not just the actors but the production staff and other creative personnel. It's almost as if they're not important enough to be given some sort of recognition for the work they've done as regards the production that has just finished.

At one time dramas on television used a minimal amount of music in their productions. Obviously you'd get music as the programme started, the opening titles and at the end, over the credits. You didn't get a lot of music used as incidental to the action. Probably such shows as 'The Onedin Line' had the very distinctive music at it's opening and closing and it probably had quite a lot of music over scenes of ships and the sea. But today we seem to have far too much music. Is this another bit of American television's influence on our productions? It can be over-used and in some ways it's become something of a cliche to have a hidden orchestra bursting forth as the action on screen gets dramatic. It's almost as if the director can't allow the audience to think for itself. The problem with all this music is that in some cases it can drown out dialogue. There was much controversy some while ago over the BBC production of 'Jamaica Inn' where viewers were complaining about the actors not speaking clearly. I find it difficult to believe that actors were unable to be understood because they weren't speaking clearly. I know from working in theatre that it's one of the most important things that an actor has to do and that is to be able to speak clearly and be heard. When I worked in rep (and, yes, it's around 45 or so years ago) none of the theatres I worked in used microphones for the use of the actors. Most big musicals use amplified sound and the actors have tiny microphones hidden in their costumes and sometimes in their hair or even stuck to their faces. As a result it means that the sound engineers can balance the singing voices with the orchestra or band. It means that nowadays actors don't have to worry about speaking clearly or to be able to project their voices to the back of the auditorium so every audience member can hear them. It also means that if actors have no real experience of working in theatre and only concentrate on television and film work they can then rely on sound engineering and all the paraphernalia of sound production without worrying about their ability to project properly.

I seem to have wandered slightly from the main subject of this blog post, but the matter of actors being able to speak clearly does connect with television sound and the over-use of music and the reliance of sound being over-used in dramas and other television productions.

My final moan is regarding the use of what I imagine must be library music. In a lot of shows, particularly documentaries and lifestyle shows, particularly those about antiques, is the repetitive use of some very familiar music. No doubt it's because they might not have to pay a composer to write original music and then fall back on using library or 'stock' music which doesn't require the production company to pay a royalty. But the same bits of music seem to appear regularly on things like 'Antiques Road Trip,' 'Flog It,' 'Bargain Hunt', and 'Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.' Just becoming very annoying and repetitive. I bet if you watch a lot of these shows, usually shown during the day, you will notice this music and how it's over-used. Come on producers and other people, do give us a break from this monotony.

More Television Annoyances

Well, for a start, why on earth do we have to have 'what's coming up' on some television programmes? They do this with 'Bargain Hunt.' Why spoil things if you're going to give away some details? Are producers worried that we are going to turn to another channel or just loose interest unless there's 'peaks' in the show which we have to be told about in advance? If you're reading a really good novel, do we have to turn to the end to find out how it's going to end? Why do television dramas have to have the 'next week' or ''next episode' bit after the credits run at the end? It's an American thing I'm sure, because so many of our television shows are sold to the U.S.A. and a lot are co-produced with American television stations. There's no sense of surprise if we know that a certain character is going to be in the next episode or some major plot-point is going to be revealed. Doctor Who used to be one of those shows which had an element of surprise about it, that is, in it's original format, running from 1963 up until it was taken off in 1989. When a story of so many episodes, usually 4 or 6, came to an end the Doctor and his companions would get in the Tardis and fly off and we wouldn't know where they would end up until the doors of the Tardis opened at the beginning of the next episode. Now, since the 'new' version, which started in 2005, we have to be told exactly what to expect, well in advance. The difference is that now we only get about 13 episodes a season (or series) together with a Christmas special, but we have pages and pages in the Radio Times and elsewhere about the different stories and what monsters will be appearing, whether it's the Daleks or Cybermen or hopefully new monsters and villains. Not knowing is obviously not an option and any surprise is totally lost. In it's original form Doctor Who ran virtually all year round. I think it may have had breaks at some point during the year, probably Easter and during the summer, but when it began in the '60's it seemed to be on for most of the year, certainly not in bursts of 12-13 episodes. This is another American thing, also, having it as hour episodes (not actually 60 minutes, as it has to be sold to commercial networks it has to run for around 45-50 minutes so that 10-15 minutes is left for advertising.) I'm sure it was better when it was 25-30 minutes, and each story was told over 4-6 episodes so you got a cliff-hanger at the end of each episodes so the excitement of 'what will happen next?' was built in. The longer episodes don't always work as the writers have to create stories which tie up within the longer framework, although some stories cover two or more episodes. They may have thrown more money at the new Doctor Who stories, so we have better sets, locations and special effects, but it doesn't always mean better stories. The production values are a good deal higher than the original show, but some of the C.G.I. effects look totally obvious. Some of the computer-generated monsters, for example, look sort of 'pasted on,' almost Photoshopped onto the video footage. In film and television you should never be able to spot what is 'real' and not. If it stands out too much it's not working properly. It's a bit like 'seeing the joins' in something.

Do producers and others who are involved in television not realise that they spoil the impact of the stories they're attempting to tell by giving away plot details? What's the point to putting so much effort into something if you are going to give away these details in advance? Just crazy.

8 Years of Blogging

I find it difficult to believe that I've let the anniversary of starting this blog pass by, but it was on the 27th September 2009 that I began writing this and I would never imagine that when I began it all that time ago that I'd be still finding things to say in 2017. In only a handful of posts I will reach the 1,000th post, which I will make quite a big thing of when the time comes. So keep an eye-out for the momentous day. Neither can I imagine that Carol's health would be so precarious so many years later. I'm not going to discuss it on here as it's far too difficult for me to even mention it. My heart attack was bad enough, and I managed to get through that and tell the tale so the same will happen with Carol's cancer. As a couple we've endured some real problems, the worst of which was when we had to move house from Crownhill to Eaglestone, which is described in fairly vivid detail in some of my earlier posts. I know some of what I've written is just waffle but that was actually the whole point of the blog, to record the insignificant things that happens in our life, the details and observations of life and all that goes on around our life. Some boring, I know, but all the same, interesting in some way or other.

We are  now, amazing at it might seem, into October. The weather is currently playing tricks. It is actually quite mild and it's deceptive when you go out because it might seem you need to put on a heavy jumper or coat but then when you've been out a while and the sun comes out you find you're far too hot and you don't need such a thick item of clothing.

Saturday Whipsnade Zoo Outing

Having had to remain indoors for such a long time it was a necessity to get out and with the sun shining it was a really good excuse to visit Whipsnade Zoo. We went to the hairdresser's in  Shenley Brook End, Arcarna, as Carol wanted to book an appointment. She got one for Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock. From there we went to Morrison's to put fuel in the car, and remembering that the new car is a diesel and to not put the wrong fuel in the tank. Having done that we drove towards the A5 as we went to Whipsnade south towards Fenny Stratford when Carol said she needed a toilet. We could have gone into Dobbie's garden centre but ended up at the McDonald's on the roundabout on the A5. The traffic lights weren't operating so it was somewhat dangerous as this is a large roundabout with many roads leading in and out and it depended on other cars being sensible and allowing other vehicles to enter and leave without trying to take advantage. Having negotiated the roundabout and got into the side-road which is how you enter the McDonald's carpark, we noticed that it wasn't lit up and the found that the site, which also includes a Shell petrol station, was not operating so assumed that the fact that the traffic lights were not working the whole area was dark due to a power cut. We went into the McDonald's building and the staff were sitting at a table, no doubt unable to do any work with the fact that there was no electricity. Carol managed to use the toilet and we then returned to the car and drove back towards the A5, having to negotiate the heavy traffic that was backing up along the road towards Aylesbury and managed to squeeze in and then back onto the A5 and south towards Dunstable and Whipsnade.

The zoo opens at 10.00 am. but we were there at around 10.20, and managed to drive in without too much trouble. There weren't a lot of people so finding a place to park at the various stops around the zoo was easy and the fact that it was sunny and warm made it virtually perfect conditions to see many of the animals. We drove through the Passage Through Asia 'drive-through' which has a wide variety of animals within it such as deer, camels and other animals. Many of the deer were lying down which we have never seen before. We decided to not take too many photographs as we already have plenty. Having driven through this enclosed area we came out and went towards the elephants paddock. A couple of months ago we were at Whipsnade we visited the day after H.M. Queen visited to open the new Elephant Care Centre, an enormous building perfectly equipped to house elephants and with a viewing platform. Many of the animals houses at Whipsnade have been up-graded to include areas where you can see the animals at close quarters. This has been done at the giraffe house where there is a platform which means you see them up close and personal, virtually at giraffe-eye level. A couple of the female elephants were close to the fence at their paddock, two with their calves, one is called Elizabeth after the Queen and born close to either the Queen's wedding anniversary or her jubilee or when she visited. We met a lady-Z.S.L. volunteer who spoke to use about the elephants and had an elephant tooth to show us. Quite heavy and she explained how elephant's teeth grow from the back of the mouth and are replaced over several years. The tooth was like a mill stone with a rough surface which would be perfect for chewing grass and other vegetation. Apparently another female elephant, called Donna, is pregnant but we weren't told when the new baby will be born. Probably quite some time as elephants are pregnant for near-enough two years.

We went into the Wild Bite Café which is just opposite the tiger enclosure and very near the pelicans and flamingos. We had hot chocolate and a slice of very nice lemon drizzle cake which we shared, along with sandwiches. We didn't eat all of the cake so wrapped it in paper serviette to take home with us to eat later. No doubt we'll be back for another visit quite soon.

A bit of a wander around the zoo until we decided to leave and drive back to Milton Keynes. Fortunately the power had returned when we got to the roundabout on the A5 near Fenny Stratford and the McDonalds looked as it was up and running as normal although we drove past.