A Bat In The Bedroom

No, please, don't mis-read the title of this blog post. But it is true. It was a scorching-hot day yesterday(Thursday) We didn't do a great deal, and when it came to bedtime we had the bedroom windows open and the electric fan on. We'd been listening to the radio, tuned to BBC Radio4 Extra. A lot of good stuff on there, 'The Goons,' 'Round The Horne,' 'I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again,' 'Just A Minute,' and a good deal more. One of our real favourites with the more modern stuff would be 'Clare In The Community.' I could discuss each in great detail, but I digress.  We eventually settled down to go to sleep, but it's not easy, being so hot. Then Carol said 'there's something flying around the room!' I wasn't sure what she was referring to. I could seen, in the partial light, something flying round and round the room. At first I thought it must be a moth, and it could have been that, but I don't think moths fly round and round. They flit sort of aimlessly and bump into the walls and the glass of windows. This didn't and it was completely silent. I got out of bed and turned on the lights and closed the door, as I didn't want whatever it was flying through into the rest of the house. I pushed the window open wider and stood still, eventually the bat flew out and I closed the window. Was this bat looking for somewhere to get out of the heat? In the shade, even though it was night-time? I'm not certain what sort of bat it was, mainly because I couldn't see it properly.

A 'sort of' letter came through the door early this morning from our landlord, giving a statement of the amount of rent we pay each month. Whether it will be accepted by the people at Milton Keynes Council for our application for Housing Benefit is open to doubt. It doesn't look official enough. It isn't signed properly and it looks more like something I could have written. It doesn't have his address on it, it's not typed and I am still sceptical that it is what they want. I can only take it to the Council offices and see what happens, but I have a feeling they will need something more substantial.

It's yet another boiling hot morning. It's bright and sunny, meaning it's going to continue like this for the rest of the day. I have never spent so long wearing shorts, and I'm only too glad I bought them when I did two years ago. Usually I only wear them for a day or two, when we are going out, but not for this length of time. I usually wear short sleeved shirts, as I don't really like long sleeved shirts, so the purchase of yet another polo shirt from Marks and Spencer can only be a good thing. The grass at the back of the house is looking decidedly patchy. It has longer sections which are looking like seeding but I may use the grass cutter instead of the mower to deal with it.

Later.I've managed to take the 'sort of' letter in to the Housing Benefit department at Milton Keynes Council this morning. I parked where I usually park, near 'The Point,' or at least, what's left of the rusting remains of this once-proud Milton Keynes landmark. I walked into the shopping centre and then through towards the Council offices in Saxon Gate. Fortunately I wasn't kept waiting too long. It appeared that I was only the second person in the queue (the number you are given on a ticket when you sign in comes up on a digital screen and a female voice gives out the numbers when it's your time to be called.) Fortunately the 'almost-letter' was acceptable as evidence of our tenancy. I had an idea that perhaps they would want something more official, but never mind. It would appear that we will now get Housing Benefit paid. Something less to stress over.

Now we need to sort out getting the car M0Td and insurance paid. I have managed to set up on-line banking so we can see our statements. I didn't think it was going to be possible, but we now have a new P.I.N. and password. Making things easier to track incomings and outgoings.

The nurse continues visiting to give Carol the antibiotics. We're about half way through the 12-days of this. Sometimes we get two nurses. I think the younger one is a student. Generally it takes around 45 minutes. They are scheduled to come between 11.30 and 1.00, but can come later, probably still here at around 1.15. One of the ladies doesn't like dogs, so poor Alfie has to go into the kitchen. We know he wouldn't bite anyone, probably sniff at them and then lick them like crazy. Although, to be fair, it's better he's not in the sitting room when they're busy with Carol as he'd just get in the way and there's a hygiene situation with a dog around.

Carol told me later, after I had come back from my visit to the Council offices and then Sainsbury's, that our landlord's wife had called, barely five minutes after I had left the house. She seemed concerned for Carol, having learnt that she had cancer. Which was quite a surprise. At least she's concerned for her welfare, intact, for both of us. Apparently they are coming to do an inspection of the house on Sunday afternoon , so at least all my efforts to clean the place will have at least had some purpose. The house might need a small amount of cleaning before they come, but at least it won't need a vast amount of work doing. The grass at the rear of the house needs attention, but as it's mostly shrivelled up due to the hot weather it shouldn't be too much trouble.

Listening to Radio Four- Part 2

Not only is there all manner of drama productions on Radio Four, but an amazing array of comedy shows and panel games. I think the main advantage over television with radio is that you can be doing other things while it is on, such as having a bath, lying in bed or driving a car, doing the washing-up, ironing your clothes or eating your dinner. Television requires a certain amount of concentration to get the best out of it, although people do also surf the internet or use their mobiles whilst watching television, such as Tweeting or using Facebook, but generally, radio does have the advantage. I love shows such as 'Just A Minute' which has been running for around 50 years. It's such a simple idea (for those who don't know the show it involves panel members talking on a subject given by the chairman, Nicholas Parsons, and they have to speak for 60 seconds without hesitating, repetition or deviation and the others on the panel have to spot these mistakes. It must be quite difficult. Over the years the panelists have included Kenneth Williams, Derek Nimmo, Tim Rice, Julian Clary,  Shelia Hancock, Stephen Fry and a host of others. Sometimes the panelists get quite heated, but generally, the shows go smoothly. Nicholas Parsons, which is well over 90, has been the chairman for all those years. I don't actually think 'chairman' is the right chose of word for what he does, he has to keep the panelists in order. Not an easy job. I reckon I've been listening to it on and off since it began, but I can remember it starting sometime in the mid-1960's when I was living at home at Malting Farm. It's always entertaining and amusing.

Frank Muir and Denis Norden were contestants on a panel game called 'My Word.' It ran for years on Radio Four, and probably on the Home Service as it was before it was re-branded in the 1960's. This show was about words (well, the title was imaginative!) At the end of the programme both these contestants had to tell a story, using a well-know phrase or saying, which was given them by the compere. This saying had to be part of the 'punch-line' or closing sentence of the story. When it ended, the contestant who had the longest applause from the studio audience won. I just loved this show. I've always had a love of words, and these two men, who were major scriptwriters, working on BBC radio comedy shows such as 'Take It From Here' which starred Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley, and June Whitfield. It was a sketch show, best remembered for 'The Glums' section, with Dick Bentley as the dimwitted Ron Glum, June Whitfield as his ever-so-patient girlfriend Eth and Jimmy Edwards as Ron's father. Frank Muir became  Assistant Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC and then Head of Comedy at London Weekend Television and Denis Norden introduced the long-running television show 'It'll Be Alright On The Night' which consisted of clips of out-takes and bloopers from television shows and films. I think the best way to describe their comedy would be 'droll' and probably not appreciated by today's audiences as being somewhat tame. Perhaps so, but they had a wit and originality which is missing from today's entertainment, which seems dead-set on being quite offensive (don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with a lot of modern comedy, but so much is just out-and-out offensive and crude. A double entendre is one thing, but being crude is another. Using bad language to get is laugh is just cheap. We don't appear to have any boundaries today, anything goes, which is a shame. Muir and Norden then went on to be involved in 'My Music' which used the format of 'My Word' but using music as the theme. Steve Race was the compere of that show.

When I was at Mander College in Bedford in the late 1960's, a friend of mine on the course came to visit me at home and introduced me to 'The Goon Show.' His father had recorded the original broadcasts on to reel-to-reel tape (actually illegal, but never mind. I think everyone did this at one time or other.) and he had transferred these recordings onto the then newly-introduced format of tape cassette. I was able to listen to some of them and was immediately hooked. I just loved the surreal humour of those episodes, probably first broadcast in the 1950's. The characters, played by Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan (who also wrote most of the scripts, along with Eric Sykes.) really captivated me and I have been a fan ever since. I have been a fan of Spike Milligan ever since. He's been called 'The Grandfather of Alternative Comedy' and influenced the Monty Python style of comedy.

I got hooked on the crazy comedy of another radio show called 'I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again', which had John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Graham Garden, Jo Kendal and co in it. This ran from the early 1960's into the 1970's and some of the performers went on to write such shows as 'Fawlty Towers' and from 'The Goodies' on BBC television. They began their careers at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and performed in'The Footlights' revues. I recorded a lot of these shows onto audio cassette and replayed them endlessly until the tapes wore out. Cassettes might be the latest technology in the 1960's, but they weren't very reliable. The tape was extremely thin and often got twisted inside the horrible little plastic cases. The longer the running time, the thinner the tape and as a result, the more likely they were to cause problems. I had a Philips cassette player, which must have been one of the first cassette players on the market.

We've now got digital radio. I won a rather smart Roberts radio, courtesy of Classic FM. It was around 11-12 years ago. It sits near our bed. We listen to Radio 4 Extra on it. They broadcast what I can best call 'back catalogue' or 'archive' material on the channel. It was originally called Radio Seven. I'm not sure why it was re-branded as Radio 4 Extra. Perhaps because most of what it broadcasts originated on Radio 4. They have old episodes of such shows as 'Round The Horne', 'The Goons', 'The Navy Lark' as well as crime series such as 'Sherlock Holmes' (there are quite a few radio versions of the stories, going back several decades.) As well as the occasional documentary and play. It seems to run on a 12-hour cycle, which means it can run 24 hours a day. 'Desert Island Discs' is played on Sunday evenings at 9.15. As this is a series which has been going since around 1942 it could run almost indefinitely. Also, other comedy shows which are on earlier in the week on Radio 4, such as 'Just A Minute' and 'I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue.'

A Wash-Out

From being scaldingly hot to being chilly and wet, our summer is just being normal. I saw on the local B.B.C. television news last night that there was some quite severe flash flooding in parts of East Anglia over the past couple of days. Cars caught in floods on roads, for example. There was water running down the road outside our house, looking more like a river than a road. Just as well we stayed in yesterday and didn't venture out. I just hope the rest of the holiday isn't going to be the same. We'll just have to find something else to do that is indoors somewhere. I'm sure we can, such as visit art galleries and museums. Well, at least we haven't got to endure the awful noise from such things as the Daisy Carnival or whatever it was called which was at the Bowl a week or two ago. It was really awful. Although, mention of noise, our neighbour, or at least one of them, started up making some awful noise just as we were about to head for bed yesterday evening, drilling or something, so loud it would deafen you. I don't know what it was, some sort of drill. It didn't last long, but I can't believe people have to make so much noise at so late an hour and on a Saturday too.

It's not raining at the moment (9.45 a.m.) I was in the bathroom, just about to have a shave, and I opened the window to look out to see what the weather was doing. As I say, it wasn't raining. Just as I did so, a large lorry turned up and parked outside our house. It had 'Knowhow' printed all over it, on a  black background. It was from Currys/Dixon. Two men got out and proceeded to unload something from the back, using a rear lift. One of the men then took the item (it looked like either a washing machine or a cooker, wrapped in plastic sheeting, so I couldn't see properly what the item was.) on a sack barrow to the neighbour's house. I was just so surprised that Curry's, or any company if it comes to that, would be delivering goods on a Sunday. Although it's a good idea to actually deliver something when the customer wants it. No use when you are out or don't particularly want it delivered. Not actually a great fan of either Currys or Dixon's. There staff are generally hopeless. Only seem interested in selling large items so they get their commission. The last time I was in our local branch and we were looking for something quite low-priced, I think a coffee maker or something, the member of staff who came to help was totally useless and didn't go to find the price or something or even stock levels.

10.25 a.m. I'm sorry to say it's raining again. I didn't think the dry weather was going to last. It's certainly just as well we hadn't planned to go anywhere specific today.

7.05 p.m. All day indoors. It's becoming a bit boring. 'Stir Crazy' I think the term is. We sat through two episodes of "New Tricks" on the digital channel, "Alibi." We've always enjoyed this series. They weren't two of the best episodes, and it's clear why they aren't making any further episodes. I think ten seasons was very good and perhaps it had outstayed it's welcome. When cast members leave then you begin to wonder, will it ever be as good as it once was?

It's raining on and off. Our neighbour has been making more loud noises, some sort of drill. I can't think what he's up to, but if he goes on like this, he'll have drilled through into our kitchen. Our dogs don't like it, and who can blame them?

The day has turned out like the famous "Hancock's Half-Hour" episode, "Sunday Afternoon At Home" when Hancock is stuck at home with nothing to do. He even counts the raindrops running down the window. Classic television from 1958 and repeated at one time or another on the  B.B.C. digital radio station Radio 4 Extra.