Fiddlesticks!

 Wednesday. 9.40 a.m. Well, another soggy day in fun city, Milton Keynes. The days are beginning to draw in as autumn catches hold.

The digital thermometer currently reads 24ºC.

I wanted to use my Canon printer, but the ink cartridge was more or less finished. When I attempted to print something the other day, it came out very faint, so I suspected that a replacement was necessary. I have this morning ordered one on the Argos website and gone to collect it after 9. I am now back in the flat, and the cartridge is installed in the printer.

Alfie is asleep in this bed. I am taking him to The Groom Room for an appointment at 11 a.m. I have already put the cage in the back of the car, ready to take him.

7.30 p.m. I came back from taking Alfie to The Groom Room, and hoped to have a cup of tea. I went to the fridge and found it was thawing out. How this happened, I have no idea, but all the contents of the freezer part have thawed and, as a consequence, can't be used. After the incident which happened a few weeks ago, when my chopping board and the handle of my best sharp knife melted because one of the rings on the ceramic surface of my oven was accidentally turned on, this was something which I hoped would never happen. As a result of the oven incident, I now turn the oven off at the wall point, but this doesn't explain how the fridge/freezer was turned off. It means I will have to throw away more or less the entire contents.

Thursday. 2.40 p.m. It's another very autumnal day. It's mild but bright. The digital thermometer currently reads 26ºC.

I have been to Sainsbury's and have bought my shopping home; it has been checked off, and two of the freezer drawers have been cleared out. It's not good to eat food that has been frozen, re-frozen and then thawed, as it would make me ill if I ate it, so I have accepted that it is wasted and put what I bought in Sainsbury's in the freezer.

Friday. 1.45 a.m. I couldn't sleep. Alfie was snoring like crazy and was sleeping on the floor, right in the middle of the threshold of my bedroom. The usual thing that wakes me is a need to visit the bathroom. (A thought: why do Americans always refer to the toilet as the bathroom? It just sounds so pathetic, a euphemism.  A bit like the Victorians covering the legs of furniture. Why don't they just say toilet and be done with it? The other one, said by women, is 'I'm going to powder my nose', when in actual fact, they're going to the loo.) Anyway, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to make myself a coffee and watch something on television. With such things as BBC iPlayer, Netflix and other streaming platforms, you are really spoilt for choice. I went on iPlayer and decided to watch one of my favourite sitcoms, 'My Family', which stars Zoe Wanamaker and Robert Lindsay. The actual sitcom is rather mediocre, but it is the acting of these two which makes it worth watching.

Late Night

Thursday 13th January.1.05 a.m. Here I am at my MacBook, which seems to be working relatively well, allowing me to sit and write this blog post. Another case of not being able to sleep. I have been doing domestic chores, washing up last night's things from making my meal and generally tidying the kitchen. I don't like having piles of dirty plates, pots and pans left in the sink. I think it goes back to being a temp and doing kitchen jobs in various units around Bedford in the 1990s. Kept the bills paid and a rich source of material for my writing. 

There is noise outside. I think it's on or around Oldbrook Green. The sound of what I think is a motorbike or scooter. Revving engines and bursts of engine noise. At this time of night, it shouldn't be allowed. People want to sleep, so why aren't the police intervening and preventing it? It's really not acceptable.

7.15 p.m. I have been to get my hair cut at Central Barbers this morning. I had booked online yesterday, which made it a good deal easier, even paying. I will have to get Alfie booked in at The Groom Room as he is in real need of a haircut himself.

10.25 p.m. Another sleepless night. Does it really matter? Not really. I've been watching an episode of 'My Family', the BBC sitcom with Robert Lindsey and Zoe Wanamaker. All the episodes are on iPlayer and I'm working though all the episodes. It's not exactly the most original of sitcoms, but it's their acting and general involvement which lifts it out of the rut of a lot of what you'd call studio sitcoms into something special. I think it's their chemistry as actors which makes it.  If I have a niggle with it, how come their son, Nick, played by Kris Marshall, who must be in his 20's, is still living at home and doesn't have a proper job? His career has certainly taken off since he was in this show, which finished production in around 2010, plus or minus a year or so, and has since starred in such television shows as 'Death In Paradise'.   There is virtually no sitcom on terrestrial television that comes anywhere near the quality of this show, and certainly no as there used to be once upon a time, or, say, the standard of something like 'Fawlty Towers' or 'The Good Life.' They used to make sitcoms in small batches, of, say, six or seven.  Modern television seems to demand a run of perhaps twenty or more episodes, rather in the fashion of American television. They usually write their shows with a group of writers and not with a single writer or even a couple of writers, which is how 'Steptoe and Son' was written by Galton and Simpson. In fact, generally, television has become really dull and unimaginative, something I've discussed elsewhere on this blog.

Friday. 10.15 a.m. Some dear soul in one of the flats beneath me is coughing. It isn't for a short period, but going on continuously. I have an idea it's because they smoke. So I have to be sympathetic so someone with a cough who smokes? No, definitely not. It's self-inflicted. Why not merely get some cough sweets to suck or some cough mixture of some sort or just drink something to relieve it. It's just becoming annoying and interrupting my writing and general peace and quiet.

I've done my washing for the week. Friday is always washing day. I had the machine on a good deal earlier than normal, around 7.30. I have purchased a garment steamer and I've been trying it out on one of my Marks and Spencer polo shirts. It certainly does it's job and gets rid of any wrinkles in a garment and saves having to get the ironing board out, plug in the iron and the stand and iron. I'm fine doing this job, but it still takes a lot of effort. 

Quite sunny and bright out, but frosty when I took Alfie out. 

Telly Watching- Part 2

I may have to watch 'Line of Duty,' which seems to be very popular and has had extremely high viewing figures. All the episodes are on BBC iPlayer, so I should be able to watch this series. There's been around six series so there's a lot of episodes to get through.

As mentioned in the previous post about 'The Repair Shop', 'Money For Nothing' and 'Saved and Remade', it seems that once the BBC gets the 'bug' with certain genres of shows, they seem to think we'll fall over ourselves to see similar formats. So we get endless cookery shows together with antiques, although it seems this area has slowed down somewhat. 'Flog It' was really a rehash of 'Antiques Roadshow' but with the difference in that the items which are valued by the experts are then sold at auction. I often think that people who go on these shows are only interested in the cash value of their items. Surely you have some sort of emotional attachment to antiques, value their historic value. If you inherited an item that was owned by an ancestor who did something heroic or made some ground-breaking invention or had a fascinating life or was just an ordinary person, surely you'd want to keep it and then pass it on to the next generation. I often think that when medals are shown and there's a provenance attached to them, certification of some sort of a letter, that gives the item, in this case, medals, tells the story behind them. Then people turn round and say 'it belonged to uncle Cuthbert, but I don't like it. It's been in the cupboard or drawer for 25 years and we never look at it, so we might as well sell it.' A bit annoying and, frankly, crazy.

There's not a lot of sitcoms on television at the moment. By sitcom I mean in the classic sense, usually set in a house with a sofa, family orientated. Think 'The Good Life.' (Although there is no actual family in this show. Both couples, the Leadbetter's and the Goods, don't have children.) Usually shot in a studio with a live audience. The one I am about to mention is 'My Family,' which I am watching on BBC iPlayer. It must be some 20 years old (or at least the episodes I have reached.) There's nothing particularly brilliant about it, in fact, the actual events in it are somewhat mundane, it's just the performances of the two lead actors, Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker. They could make the Telephone Directory funny. I suppose it's the chemistry between them that makes it work. There's nothing very special about the scripts, in fact, they might be described as very ordinary and mundane. It's the actors, particularly Zoe Wanamaker and Robert Lindsay who make it what it is. If it was cast with other actors I don't reckon it would have the same appeal. 

How do you define a sitcom? Interesting question. Usually, a sitcom can be defined as a short-form drama, on television or radio, with a small cast of characters and with an easily identifiable location, a street, home, or workplace, the characters being a family, workplace, or otherwise connected in some other way.  Traditionally, they run for 30 minutes, but longer episodes have been made, but they are rare. Each episode tying up within the running time (usually 30 minutes.) and not always connected to the next episode, although there may be some connection vaguely hinted at. They rarely continue storylines across episodes. Characters never seem to learn from their mistakes (the same in your average soap.) Good story-telling usually requires that a character goes on a 'journey' and by the end of that story they have changed from how they were at the beginning and as a result, they have learned something. The sitcom, in the traditional sense, performed in a studio with a live audience, seems to be dead. The likes of 'Steptoe and Son', 'Fawlty Towers, 'The Good Life' and 'Keeping Up Appearances' have virtually died. Most modern sitcoms, if the term can still be applied to this form of television, are mostly made on film, or at least, video, without an audience. That may not be such a bad thing, as a cackling audience doesn't always help the show. Except for the actors who can time their lines to the audience's reactions, laughing, clapping, or whatever. There are a handful of sitcoms that are made on location, on film (single camera) which don't have a cackling audience in the background. One such being 'Bloomers' and another, which doesn't really fit the term 'sitcom' and that's 'Car Share.' It could never be made in a studio and the fact it's filmed on location adds to the realism.

Bright and Sunny

I've done a great deal of writing in the last couple of weeks. Some of it rewriting and editing material which I have handwritten in a couple of notebooks. I'm transcribing it onto my MacBook and using the newly-acquired iPad. Dictation is speeding things up, but I have to keep checking as it has a tendency to come up with some hilarious alternatives to some words.

The idiot building the shed in the garden along the street is banging and sawing like crazy. I think it's a substitute for something, working off his frustration with the hammer and saw, but it's annoying me. I think some people don't realise that their D.I.Y. activities can be so irritating and annoying, they are so focussed, sort of O.C.D., that they don't realise it has an effect on those who are close by. Probably due to having to endure lockdown.

I've taken Alfie out but I am beginning to get somewhat bored with Oldbrook Green. Alfie loves to stop and sniff virtually every tree and lamppost, as most dogs  do, but I'm concerned when he picks things up in his mouth, and on several occasions he's picked up what I suspect are chicken bones, thrown aside by people who buy fried chicken. But they can be lethal to a dog as the sharp bits can get stuck in their throats or further inside their system and could kill them. I have had to extricate several bits from his mouth when he's picked them up and it upsets me that they could have devastating effects on my best pal.  I don't think people realise the danger of their actions in this regard and I have to be vigilant in removing these bones when Alfie picks them up.

Yesterday morning it was misty as I stood and washed up at the kitchen sink. I can see quite a distance from that standpoint. It's not so clear now because the trees are in more or less full leaf. You can see the Milton Keynes shopping centre and Debenham's building, but the mist was obscuring most of the distant buildings, which includes Sainsbury's. I know that it's that because it has an orange block of colour which stands out quite clearly.

This morning (Saturday) as I write this, it's again quite over-cast, but it's mild. Not exactly as the title of this post states, but at least it's mild.

I've been watching the BBC sitcom 'My Family.' First two episodes of the first series, which are on BBC iPlayer. I had seen later episodes, but not from the beginning. I can't believe there was so many series and episodes. It's not actually a brilliant series, but Zoe Wanamaker and Robert Lindsey are great actors. Any other actors in those parts wouldn't have made it as good, as Ben and Susan Harpur. It's actually being rerun, on Fridays, on BBC1. I image the BBC is running short of new material to show, because so many shows are furloughed due to the pandemic lockdown. It seems amazing to think that this series began 20 years ago and ran for an amazing 11 series. Some really hilarious lines and good storylines which other sitcoms can't compete with. There is one thing that bothers me, and that the actors who play the children seem far too old, or at least seem too old, for the ages they're supposed to be playing, and why is Nick still living at home with his parents? How old is he supposed to be? Surely in his twenties. The daughter seems far older than 16. Just not realistic, but does it really matter.

I have also watched the first episode on 'The A Word,' which, again, is on iPlayer with entire seasons available, so it's possible to binge watch. A drama series which I haven't seen before and interested me because it features a child who has autism and that was the specialism I dealt with when I worked in care with people with learning disabilities, so I have a fair amount of experience of the subject. It's great to have a drama series which isn't about cops and robbers, car-chases and men in lycra and is believable and the characters interact well and is well written and acted.

(Sunday) The iPad has decided to go into dull mode. What I mean is, I want to use it early this morning and I can barely read the screen. I can't reset it so it's bright enough to read. I think it's supposed to do this to allow you to read it at night without eyestrain, but actually it's making it worse so I can't read it and it's creating more eye strain. I'm going through the various settings to allow me to re-set it to counteract this, but, as I write this, that is not possible.

(Later) I managed to sort out the iPad. It was obvious really. I just restarted it and it came back on in the bright mode. I can't think why it wouldn't work with the brightness setting because I hadn't set it to be in dark mode. The problem was that I couldn't see what was going on and it was more or less impossible to read anything on it. Never mind, it's now fixed.

I've carried on with more transcribing of hand-written material, but I have now found quite a lot of my stuff on Google Drive, which I had forgotten about. I think it's like iCloud, meaning it will work across different computers and saves having to store on discs or other media.

The lovely D.I.Y. I have mentioned earlier has continued, but at 3.45 this afternoon, there is no sound, fortunately.

I took out Alfie and I saw people playing some sort of ball game. Oh dear, they're not supposed to be doing that. Either they are ignoring the legal requirement to not be gathering in such places as Oldbrook Green, or else they have not seen the sign (a permanent one, no doubt erected by the Council, either Milton Keynes or the  Campbell Park Parish Council cil, which clearly states that 'no ball games, barbecues etc.' in a very curt and rather puritan sort of fashion, as most of them do.) The notices which are put up around the park, on the outdoor gym equipment, are written in the typical officialese sort of language, but it wouldn't hurt to put 'Please' and 'Thank you on them,' but I don't expect the bureaucrats who write these sorts of notices to do such a thing.