About eighty years ago, a radio broadcast of “ War of the Worlds “ by Orson Wells, had people running through the streets of New York in a panic, convinced they were being invaded by Martians. ( that was probably because they had no Trump telling them it was fake news like The Big V death toll ) Yesterday, in my blog I listed all my current ailments and that had pretty much the same effect. Lots of messages from concerned friends anxious about the state of my health. Well, let me set all your minds at rest. It was just literary licence calculated to get my blog readers to sit up and take notice. Which indeed it did. I am pleased to announce that I am very much alive and well and living in Southgate. Indeed, I woke up this morning after a very satisfying seven and a half hours sleep ( a near record during the Big V ) and was delighted to find Chris Evans back from his holiday ( which I assume he took in a garden shed ) I was so bouncy that I broke curfew ( looking carefully around for any police waiting to arrest me ) and posted two letters. They were both payments of bills so I put on second class stamps ) You can get away with things like that nowadays.
Chris is moving house and downsizing so he is having a garage sale. My wife said that nobody would want to buy our garage as you can’t possibly get a car into it because of all the rubbish it contains. So, I am guessing that by a “ garage sale “ he is referring to the contents. He has an Evil Knievel pin ball machine and a 1950’s Coca Cola fridge and an old mirror signed by his son with a smiley face on it ( he’s been offered 10k for that if anybody wants to up the bid ) All I have to offer are some water-stained National Theatre posters that I had block-mounted, some old prints of nineteenth century steeplechases ( again a bit water-stained… my garage doubles as an indoor swimming pool when it rains ) a box of Gazza memorabilia , some boxes of old photos of my wife’s family…. Neither she nor her sister can identify most of the people in them, but anybody who wants to bid for them might have better luck, a few tennis racquets ( I’ve managed to keep my cricket bag and bat out of there in our “ gym “ in the hope I might be able to play again one day, loads of bottles of wine, some random bottles of soft drinks that we don’t like and bring out when we have guests ( was going to say guests we don’t like, but most of you read these blogs so we love you all ) a dismantled cot, lots of cardboard boxes from all the deliveries we are getting ( the bin collectors won’t take the cardboard even though they are supposed to, but I’m not going out there to argue with them ) and the lawnmower. So, you can bid for anything except the lawn-mower as we just got that and I really enjoy mowing the lawn and making it look like a pristine football pitch. All proceeds to the NHS. Colonel Tom, eat your heart out.
I just did an on line competitive quiz from my law firm. Was 3-0 up and three it away to lose on a tie break. I mean did you know how many postings there have been on Wikepedia since it started ? Or which London Underground station has the most platforms ( actually I got that right ) It was a bit unfair as my opponent was Polish and we were asked to spell a very long Polish name and my own Polish heritage ( my grandmother was born there which qualifies me to play for the Polish National football team as I always used to point out to my boys ) was utterly useless. Well done Caroline Hrabi for winning and Andrew Myers for your Who Wants to be a Millionaire quiz master impression . As another reward I am going to send you both a link to this blog Anyway, I didn’t mind losing because if I had won I would have had to go through to the next round and that would have been yet another intrusion into my daily schedule.
Speaking of which as of my five minutes ago I hadn’t heard from my old friends at the NHS. There I was thinking, you don’t write, you don’t call, you don’t send flowers or chicken soup or food parcels. when suddenly today’s missive arrived. They seem to have run out of ideas of things for us ‘ Shut-ins’ to do because today’s suggestion was, I have to say, pretty lame. They want me to share my staying in experience over the phone and on social media and stay apart from others. I mean I am ok, but for genuine shut-ins on their own how is that going to fill twenty-four hours. Who wants to listen to some ninety year old moaning away to another ninety-year-old on the phone who is suffering the same fate, as to how wonderful is the experience of staying in on your own ? Anyway, for once I am doing what they say because the link to this blog is posted every day on Facebook and I do make calls to my Bromance mates. Forgot to mention Colin and Anthony and Melvyn who are also in my Bromance date book,
Part of the reason I lost the quiz this morning was that I don’t read the paper and rely on the Chris Evans Virgin show for my news feeds. However, I still pick it up off the doorstep in the morning and in taking it up with my tea and digestive biscuit and my wife’s coffee ( yes, I am a really nice person and make her a coffee in bed every single morning ) I can’t fail to see the headlines. Today was all about little BoJo ( he’s going to be very confused when he grows up with all those half-siblings….. he’ll get a call or a message on Facebook when he’s in his teens from somebody introducing themselves as yet another long-lost half brother or sister… It’ll be like one of those books where somebody comes back out of blue to claim an inheritance and you never know if they are an imposter or not. I remember a book by Josephine Tey called “ Brat Farrar “ which had a plot something like that. Who remembers or reads her nowadays though she was a really good writer. I gather Bojo was there at the birth. Can you imagine Boris’s face being the first thing you see in the world ? Going to scar you for life.
Meanwhile our own one-year-old granddaughter, Cara thinks her Grandma and her Grandpa live inside a little box because the only time she sees us is during a Face-time call at 6.30pm every night when she is having her bath. Two verses of “ if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands “ and “ Round and round the garden” seem to get her going. Not many people look forward to me singing although I have written her a special bath song, “ If you’re Cara and you’re happy clap your hands,
If your’re Cara and your happy, clap your hands,
If you’re Cara and you’re happy and you have a nice clean nappy,
If you’re Cara and you’re happy clap you hands. “
Reckon it’s just as good as ‘ The Baked Potato ‘ song and I am negotiating with Matt Lucas for him to record a version.
Mind you, my wife did a mercy run of food to Pinner yesterday and saw her in the flesh and she held out her arms to her so she know she exists outside of that little square on the phone. Me, not so much.
My wife hopes the baby doesn’t keep BoJo up at night so he can get on with his job of saving the country. My poor son had to work the other day with Cara on his lap. Working from home nobody knows what you get up to. I’ve multi-tasked a few times now in meetings by typing up my blog whilst participating. That’s my excuse for the typos anyway.
Back to the headlines on the front page of the paper. One said we might have to wait 4 hours to board a plane. As things stand I don’t mind waiting a whole day. I love airport lounges, My holiday starts when I get into the Virgin lounge at Heathrow and in fact I would be happy to spend the next fortnight there drinking cocktails . But what from I hear about flying Easyjet or Ryan Air, 4 hours might be an improvement. My friend Colin once called my wife in desperation because he was queuing in a corridor and up a flight of stairs to board an Easyjet plane to Israel . Not sure what he thought she could do about it . But then my younger son once called his Auntie Val when he broke down on a roundabout in Birmingham . She didn’t come to his rescue either.
And still on the papers, America is blaming China for The Big V ( and a friend in the States who is a really nice guy and totally sane in every other way thinks Trump is the best thing since sliced bread and truly believes that the USA should sue China for every penny it has or whatever currency it uses ) But I am placing the virus firmly at the door of the media. I mean if they hadn’t bigged it up ( and continue to big it up, we wouldn’t know about it, would we? ) But that’s what the media does. It builds somebody or something up just to knock it down, They did that with Gazza thirty years ago after The World Cup. And now having built up the Big V, they say they are close to finding a treatment for it. It’s a cruel world out there. It could be that the Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame accorded to The Big V is drawing to an end ( at least as far as the papers are concerned ) They’ve given it star status for a while and are now moving on to far more important issues. Like BoJo’s baby.
So, reached my limit again without writing much of what I started off intending to write. Have a good day. Stay safe and see you all tomorrow if we are spared