I think I may have wandered into the wrong crisis. In anticipation of a petrol shortage I filled both of our cars. The only problem is that we have nowhere to which to drive them. I now have the most useless app of all on my phone which tells me where my car is. I know where it is. It’s on my drive and likely to stay there for the foreseeable future. There’s an upside and a downside to that: I’m saving a fortune in fuel (upside) but not getting any loyalty points (downside).
Is the whole nation now watching re-runs of “Not Going Out”, or are they actually starring in it? Speaking of not going out, I am sure that, like us, many of you are using the time to tidy cupboards and drawers that haven’t seen the light of day for decades. My wife lost her 2020 diary in January so when we got back from five weeks in South Africa (that seems a life time ago) I went and bought her another. I was a bit cross that when it was nearly March, W.H . Smith still charged me full price, but that’s a complaint on hold at the moment as I can’t see it being top of their Customer Service list. I wasn’t to know she’d gone to our local Post Office and bought another one on the same day. Nor that our 94 year old neighbour, she of the bottle of gin request (which might well need replenishing by now), had popped a charity diary through the letter-box. And sure enough diary number one turned up in the Great Drawer Cleansing Exercise. So, now she has four 2020 diaries and not a thing to put in them. Am considering playing around with the dates in the nicest one (the original probably) so that she can use it next year.
My son’s Escape from California saga continues apace. BA cancelled Wanda the Dog’s flight on Monday. Nicky has found an amazing guy called Chris (actually my daughter-in law’s father Anthony found him….take a bow Anthony… he’s been waiting for a blog mention since I started….) and Chris has now got her on a flight out of San Francisco on BA on Tuesday. If anybody from BA reads these they really should know they will incur the wrath of the whole Stein family by cancelling that one too. Amazingly, seems there are about 40 animals booked over next couple of days on various BA flights (hang your head in shame Virgin for stopping taking the little critters). So hopefully we will have Nicky back in the UK on Tuesday and Wanda back on Wednesday, as long as her plane doesn’t get involved in any dog fights. I’ve now got my 11 year old grandson reading these blogs every day so I reckon he might give me minus a billion for that one.
Since I’ve been writing, readers haven’t been slow to come forward with potential material. Thanks to Jonny (estate and letting agent) for sharing the fact that one of his council funded tenants had just called him and asked if he could have a three-month rent holiday. Even better our cleaning lady at our Cotswold house shared with us a story she heard from our village vicar (who’s both female and a lady of the cloth so it must be true). One of her parishioners went shopping (lucky her to find a shop with anything left to sell) and was queuing to pay behind a man who had filled two bags with purchases (it was that kind of detail that normally would have had me doubting the veracity of the tale, but keep remembering it does emanate from a vicar). He finished paying and as she fumbled in her purse she dropped a twenty pound note. The man bent down and picked it up and just as she was about to thank him he said, “Finders keepers” and pocketed it. It seems she pleaded for him to return it and followed him out into the car park still begging (it’s not clear what all the other customers were doing or how big the bloke was, which may well have been why they were doing nothing). I mean, it’s all very well having a go at an armed terrorist on a London bridge because you’re going to grab some headlines, but to take on some fellow over twenty quid in a Cotswold store is at best going to get you a paragraph or two in a blog. Anyway, the woman kept on following him and asking for its return, all the way to his car, when he put the two bags on the ground to open the boot. At which point the aggrieved woman picked them up saying, “Finders keepers” and made her way to her own car. Seems the bags contained meat and alcohol so she got a result.
So, there we have a village vicar countenancing the break-down of law and order. And so it begins. Speaking of law and order (hope you are all appreciating the seamless segues - is that how you spell it… pronounced seg ways if you aren’t a pop music buff - in my blogs) I woke up this morning thinking of Harvey Weinstein. I supposed that’s better than dreaming of him. Anyway, what I was thinking was that the sleaze-bag has got a real result in these difficult times. There he was dreading a lengthy prison sentence without a casting couch and wannabe starlets to sit on it. But, now he’s locked up and probably isolated, he has no visitors so he’s kind of in the same boat as all the rest of us shut-ins, with the exception being that he’s getting 3 meals a day guaranteed - even if they aren’t up to his usual standards. If they want to increase his punishment maybe they should let him and out and allow him to take his chances shopping at Whole Foods.
When he was last seen being taken away to jail in chains, I couldn’t help but think that his hair looked a mess. That’s becoming a common theme in messages I am getting from female friends. The world is going to hell in a handcart (well it would if the handcarts weren’t being used to wheel victims away to hospital), there’s no live entertainment (except for women of a certain age stealing shopping bags in car parks) and they’re worrying they might not look their best. For who (or is it whom?), for heaven’s sake. They’re not seeing anybody and nobody’s seeing them except on Facetime or Skype (speaking of which my son and daughter in law set up an elderly neighbour with skype so she should be able to communicate with her family… also take a bow Rachel and Paul…). Just stick a hat on ladies when you go on air and give yourself a chance of winning the Bad Hat Award. Don’t you just love my cross references back to previous blogs. If you are just joining me, past episodes are available as box sets.
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So, staying on the hair theme (and at least I have no concerns in that department, though am hoping that if I also can’t get to the hairdresser for six months I might at least be able to attempt a Bobby Charlton like comb-over), my thoughts turned to Bojo and Donald Trump. Now, how are they going to cope if their hairdressers can’t get to them? Are we going to learn that Bojo isn’t a natural blonde? Is Trump finally going to be revealed as a wearer of a wig? If either of them have their hair too long are they just going to be turned upside down and be used as brooms. I mean they both promised that they would be new brooms didn’t they? I suppose Trump will be ok as this whole virus thing is just fake news anyway, according to him. Whatever route they choose tonsorially (my dad was a barber and described himself as a tonsorial artist and had a red and white pole outside his shop with a sign that said “Stop! I need your head in my business“) it’s going to be worth watching the news just to see that. Actually, at the moment nothing is worth watching the news for. The Sunday Times today had no sports section at all so am thinking of asking for a rebate as, together with Culture, they are the only two sections I read.
Think that’s probably enough for now. I’ve got a big day ahead. Probably the biggest yet. Or the biggest ever. So much to do and so much time to do it. Sam, my grandson is reading this now on a daily basis (by the time this is all over you will know my family better than I do) so just for him (and my friend Colin who is, if anything, a worse punster than me) I leave you with this thought. If there is a Vir(us) is there also a Vir(you) and a Vir(me)? I think I can hear the groans from here and Sam just gave me minus ten billion out of ten.
See you all tomorrow and hope I’ve brought a glimmer of a smile to your faces. Be safe.