Post 403. EVERY CELEB HAS A BOOK IN THEM.

AS A PANDEMIC SIDE-EFFECT.

EXACERBATED BY LOCKDOWN.
Every celeb who has access to a television studio has plunged into published print. All are eager not only to be seen in public again, but to emerge in the unlikely persona of a twenty first century Enid Blyton. Most have written a children's book. At the risk of sounding dismissive, I put that down to their probable assumption that you don't need spell (or even know) too many big words to write a children's book. All you need is a member of a publishing house staff to 'guide' you, the facility to be seen on the box for a few minutes to plug your masterpiece, and you're away.
God bless lockdown.

Now they are lining up for a place on a chat show. Any chat show. And it's not that easy. Unemployed actors, 'resting' entertainers, semi-retired television presenters, and the whole of the inexplicably famous fraternity, must be yearning to corner as many guest appearances on television as does the ubiquitous Ann Widdecombe. Somebody has a good agent.
To date I have read nothing plugged by any of the desperate celebrities on my television screen. If any of them with a 'lovely story for children' ever appears on a chat show I am watching and advertises it with the words: "I read D.W. Barnden's 'The Badgers of Deep Wood' and thought; I could do better than that..." I shall read their book, if only to satisfy myself that they couldn't.

The late Christopher Hitchens once famously commented "Look, everyone has a book inside of them...which is exactly where I think it should, in most cases, remain."
Amen to that.
TO CONCLUDE.

THAT'S ALL FOR THIS MONTH.

My Leader has been weekly shopping and I am standing by to help Ellis unload the car.
Y' don't sit around being a bloody author in this house, mate.

Anyway, they've never heard of me on television.

     

Post 402. BUDDY HAS BEEN BACK.

YOU DIDN'T NEED TO KNOW.

BUT I THOUGHT I'D TELL YOU.
Sue, his new guardian, brought him here last Friday: a daughter was getting married on the Saturday so it was all systems go in their house and if Buddy had remained there he would have had to spend long spells on his own. He is no recluse. He likes people.
So he had a break at his weekend retreat.
It was lovely to see him again. I had quite forgotten the delight of scooping up poop off a wet lawn. It was worth the trouble. He still enjoys chasing a ball on that lawn. I get worn out throwing it before he does retrieving it, but we are one man and his dog for as long as the game lasts. Afterwards he has a biscuit and we both have a drink: then he has a nap with his 'baby.'
Daft? Of course it is. It's the English with animals.

He cheerfully went back with Sue and her husband, John, on a damp Sunday morning. His demeanour suggested he still liked our company but was not unduly sorry to be leaving us. That's fine. We shall still see him occasionally and he obviously gets spoiled rotten where he is now. Sue, John, and family are clearly the right people for him. He is happy and so are we.
Oh, the wedding went well and was blessed with ample sunshine.
THEN CAME THE RAIN

ON SUNDAY.

When Buddy departed the weather was unpromising but no more threatening than it normally is in this weather obsessed country during July.

We then received a welcome visit from one of Roz's childhood friends, Wendy, with her daughter Lyla. Wendy and family were over here from Brighton on a short camping holiday. Her widowed father still lives here. A pleasant afternoon was spent reminiscing and our guests departed in similar unpromising but unthreatening weather as that earlier experienced by Buddy and Pals.

Then came the rain.

Our semi-relatives and pals Daryl and Sian - voluntary dog walkers for Buddy when we most needed them - live in Binstead, the next village from us on the way to Ryde. Sian's house was badly flooded, and Daryl's decidedly dampened, in the drain-blocked shambles (pictured) that followed the most damaging downpour ever to hit that nice little village.
Mo has a brother-in-law who still believes there is no such thing as global warming.
But he did believe in Margaret Thatcher.

Yeah, I know.

SLOWLY BUT SURELY.

WE ARE DECLUTTERING.

Apparently the shops are running short of stock again and that seems to be down to thousands being pinged by the latest NHS App (another disaster) and a 'let's grab more of everything than we need or some other bastard will have it' attitude that re-emerged in this country during the Thatcher years and will not go away. There is no end to some people's selfishness. You just have to live with it.
Decluttering our house might also be described as selfish. We are gradually parting with Roz's collection of footwear and clothes. Quite a lot of her furniture and household gear has gone to family and friends. We want to see the remainder gone as quickly as possible. While it is here it is a constant reminder. We shall pass on the residue to cancer charities. That will be what she would have wanted. Perhaps we may then be less starkly saddened. Sadly there is no end to deep-rooted grief, either. You just have to live with it.
A SENSE OF HUMOUR HELPS.

WHY AM I THINKING WESTMINSTER AGAIN?
We just have to live with it.
Cheers.  

    

Post 401. THAT ELUSIVE NEW BLOG FORMAT.

HERE AT LAST.

THANKS TO GOOGLE
A couple of years or so back we found ourselves ringing a 'specialist' firm at a cost of £30 ($40.82) - payable in advance - to find  out whether the couple of my prescription drugs that the dog Buddy had purloined, in my momentary absence to fetch a glass of water, would cause him any harm.
Transpired they wouldn't.

My Leader later related the story to a dog owning friend whose instant response was: "Don't ever get caught like that again. Any problem of that sort I ever have I just Google it. They give me the answer without rifling my bank account on the way."
What a sensible lady.

So, not for the first time (I've been having a problem printing posts in the old blog format for what seems to be forever), I sought Google advice. You never get to speak to anybody. Hell, with all the people who use Google they'd never get off the phone. You just click onto them and read very carefully their response to your problem and, sooner or (in the case of this ancient Englishman) later, the solution will be presented to you.

And here it is.
I like it and think it might provide an answer to an irksome problem I have experienced when printing the old layout - sentence spacing.
I have run it past the computer lifeboat captain (our Neil) and he says it looks fine.
I don't suppose you care and I don't blame you. A blogger fussing over post layout is about as important as an assistant film director worrying over whether an actor was wearing a white silk or a white cotton shirt in the last shot. Nobody else except, perhaps, the director (or a pedantic actor) will give a shit.

It's not like paddling a tin tub across a busy shipping channel to be seek asylum in England, is it?

What?

Ah yes...

THE WEATHER,

THERE'S BRITISH FOR YOU,
Two pen'orth of sun and we're banjaxed! My Leader is acting like somebody who has been abandoned by a camel train in the Sahara. Not me. From age 18 to 21 I was stationed in Cyprus, mostly living in tin Nissan huts that would have horrified the health and safety lobby today.
Warm weather doesn't bother me.
Mo's outlook has not been helped by the car breaking down again, Happened yesterday in Marks and Sparks car park. The staff there were lovely, she says: but it looks like her Dacia Stepway will be going nowhere for her until sometime next month. One of its failed parts has to come directly from France.

So now she is busy making cushions for Jess and worrying lest I wander into the garden and get sunstroke. Yeah, that's nearly sixty years of married life for you.

Good, ain't it.

Stay cool you select few.

 

Post 400. Index 8 Posts 352 - 399

Allen, Dave: 380 Angel. the cat: 357, 367,390, 395 Appleton, John: 371, 374, 376 Appleton, Sheila: 374 Aristotle: 396 Atlas, the cat: 395 Attenborough, David: 384 Bakewell, Joan: 380 Barenboim, Daniel: 384 Barnden, Jac: 365, 374, 381, 389, 395 Barnden, Kym: 360 Barnden, Mo: 354, 359, 368, 371, 375, 384, 398, 399 Barnden, Neil: 375, 395 Barnden, Pauline: 375 Barnden, Roz: 352, 357, 359, 362, 363, 364, 366, 368,374,386, 387, 389, 390, 391, 392, 397 Barnden, William: 396 Barrow, Clyde: 366 Bean, Sean: 399 Beard, Mary: 357, 396 Berenson, Saul: 353, 356 Bhaskar, Sanjeev: 388 Biden, Joe: 374 Bolton, Michael: 357, 390 Booth, Webster: 365 Branagh, Kenneth: 381 Brightman, Sarah: 384 Bronson, Charles: 385 Brown, Johnny Mack 353 Brown, Wally: 368 Brown, Claire: 368 Bryson, Bill: 381 Buddy, the dog: 357,367,390, 397, 398 Butler, Phil: 371, 376, 381, 384 Byrne, Gabriel: 353 Campbell, Alistair: 360 Carter, Joelle: 375 Catz, Caroline: 399 Chan, Catherine: 385 Charles, HRH Prince: 359 Child, Lee: 367 Churchill, Winston: 356 Connolly, Billy: 374 Considine, Paddy: 371 Costner, Kevin: 366 Cotton, Billy: 353 Craven, M.W. 387, 391 Creasey, John: 375 Cummings, Dominic: 359, 360 Curtiz, Michael: 362 Daheley, Tina: 362 Danes, Claire: 353 Davison, Peter: 369 Dayer, Ellis (grandson) 357, 359, 368, 374, 390,392, 395 Deam, Jack: 399 de Havilland, Olivia: 362 Dench, Judie: 388 Derham, Katie: 383, 396 Diamond, Anne: 373 Dillow, Ian: 352, 371, 376,386, Dillow, Jean: 352,386, Donohoe, Peter: 356, 359, 384 Durante, Jimmy: 279 Eastwood, Clint: 358 Edwards, Sue: 392 Egan, Peter: 388 Elliott, Harold Charles: 372 Elliott, Fiona: 376 Fields, Dorothy: 399 Fields, Gracie: 396 Flanagan and Allen: 396 Gillen, Aiden: 355 Gnann, Moritz: 396 Goggins, Walton: 375 Graham, Stephen: 399 Gray, Effie: 353 Hancock, Matt: 362 Hanks, Tom: 385 Harding, Daniel: 399 Hardy, Robert: 369 Harrelson, Woody: 366 Harry and Meghan: 358 Herriot, James: 369 Higson, Charlie: 369 Hollywood, Paul: 363 Hynek, J. Allen: 355 Izzard, Eddie:388Johnson, Boris: 355, 364, 374, 382 Johnson, Samuel: 387 Kane, Harry: 398 King Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson: 396 Kuusisto, Pekka: 355 Ladd, Alan: 362 Ladd, David: 362 Lassgård, Rolf: 381 Law, Jude: 371 Lawrance, Brian: 396 Lehar, Franz: 365 Leonard, Elmore: 375 Levit, Igor: 399 Lowe, Andrea: 399 Luke, Thomas: 356 Madeley, Anna: 369 Malofeev, Alexander: 365 Margolyes, Miriam: 374 Mathison, Carrie: 353, 356 McGovern, Elizabeth: 353 Mitchell, David: 388, 391 Mitchell, Victoria Coren: 391 Moore, Grace: 365 Morgan, Hilarie Burton: 389 Morgan, Jeffrey Dean: 389 Morgan, Sian: 390 Mortimer, Bob: 369 Newman, Paul: 366 Ogden, John: 384 Olyphant, Timothy: 375 Parker, Bonnie: 366 Patinkin, Mandy: 353 Patten, Vincent Van: 385 Pavarotti, Luciano: 357 Plant, Jim: 360 Pope, Bill: 363, 383 Pratchett, Terry: 391 Preece, Nat: 368 Preece, Moira: 368 Prince Philip: 389 Pullman, Philip: 356 Queen Victoria: 361 Ralph, Nicholas: 369 Rankin, Ian: 367, 381, 382, 396 Rashford, Marcus: 399 Rawicz and Landauer 353 Rea, Neill: 375 Redford, Robert: 366 Rhodes, Cecil: 383 Rigg, Diana: 369 Robinson, Peter: 399 Rook, Clive: 352 Rowling, J.K. 356, 361 Ruskin, John: 353 Sachar, Lpuis: 356 Saka, Bukayo: 399 Sampson, Nick: 375 Sancho, Jadon: 399 Schama, Simon: 357, 361 Schmeichel, Kasper: 398 Schmidt, Joseph: 365 Schotz, Susanne: 381, 382 Serkis, Andy: 385 Shadow, the cat: 368 Simply Red: 352 Southgate, Gareth: 399 Soward, Pat: 368 Spark, Muriel: 396 Spike, the cat: 357, 367, 368, 390, 395 Shenton, Rachel: 369 Statham, Jason: 362, 385 Sterling, Raheem: 398, 399 Stott, Ken: 367 Sturgeon, Nicola: 382 Sutherland, Fern: 375 Tauber, Richard: 365 Taylor, Pana Hema: 375 Thompson, Emma: 353 Timothy, Christopher: 369 Toksvig, Sandi: 371 Tommaso, Freddie De: 395 Tompkinson, Stephen: 399 Trump, Donald: 355, 374 Vine, Jeremy: 362, 373 Vogt, Lars: 359 Walker, Nicola: 388 Wall, Kim: 381 Walsh, Barney: 374 Walsh, Bradley, 374 Waterston, Katherine. 371 Webber, Andrew Lloyd: 384 Wesley, Mary: 356 West, Samuel: 369 White, Daryl: 390 White, Jessica: 375, 390, 392, 395, 397 White, T.H. 356 Whitehouse, Paul: 369 Whitfield, David: 395 Woodman, George: 356 Woodhouse, Callum: 369 Woods, Mike: 389, 395 Zengel, Helena 385 Ziegler, Anne: 365 

Post 399. FOOTBALL'S STILL ABROAD.

MORE SCREWED-UP PENALTIES AND

OH DEAR, ENGLAND...A 3 - 2 loss to Italy.

I looked up from my book (my usual accompaniment to all the tippy-tap passing, professional shirt pulling, falling down when challenged near the penalty area, ditto and rolling in agony when breathed upon within the penalty area, and expostulating with the referee over any decision not in your favour) when I heard the dreaded words:
"So now it's the penalty shoot-out"
"That's it then," I said quietly. "We've shit it."

We had. A penalty shoot-out is a ludicrous lottery. It is no way to end a game. You might as well toss a coin.

Ne'er mind. Gareth Southgate and his team will (as Dorothy Fields once wrote) pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again.
They are a credit to their game and to their country.
The same cannot be said for the horde of bloody morons who gate-crashed the stadium before kick off, or the racist twats who showered abuse on Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho and Raheem Sterling after we lost out in the penalty lottery. Far too many social media arseholes (nameless cowards) masquerade as football supporters.
Sometimes makes you wonder what this bloody country is coming to.
TELEVISION.

The box seems somewhat desolate without Wembley and Wimbledon. What remains is the same old array of tired formats and narcissistic presenters.

There is still some stuff worth watching if you are prepared to go for it though.

Maureen watched Time, the BBC prison drama starring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham (above). She said it was wonderfully acted (with that pair it would be) but ultimately very sad.
I have not seen it and, though I like both actors, may chicken out. I think it could be a bit too realistic for me. I feel queasy  even driving past the prisons on this island. Some very nasty deviants are incarcerated over here.
I recorded the Summer Night Concert from Vienna 2021 (BBC Four) which was broadcast at the same time as the Euro football final was being shown on BBC and ITV. I watched it the following night and it was a harbour of calm after that penalty shoot-out.
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Harding, gave its usual polished performance of works by Bernstein, Elgar, Debussy, Holst, Sibelius and Verdi, and pianist Igor Levit enchanted the audience with a splendid performance of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

All this in the wonderful Schönbrunn Palace Gardens, Vienna. I am so glad I recorded it.
I shall watch it again and again.
You're allowed to be square when you're ninety.
In complete contrast, Mo and I are watching re-runs of  DCI Banks.
Stephen Tompkinson is Banks: his police colleague and sometime girlfriend is played by Andrea Lowe, his disturbingly straight DI no.2 is Caroline Catz, and reliable Jack Deam plays his team's reliable DC.The books were written by Peter Robinson.
I believe five series were made between 2010 and 2016. Not sure what sort of order they are in on this ITV3 showing, but we have thoroughly enjoyed every episode we have seen so far.
Thank you, Mr. Tompkinson and friends

And that's about it for now.

My next post will probably be Index 8.

If you're not in it, don't sue me.
If you are in it, don't sue me.

   

    

 

Post 398. A GEORGE CROSS FOR THE NHS.

 WELL-MEANING TOKENISM.

BUT NOT A DECENT WAGE
The Queen has awarded the George Cross to the NHS for seventy three years of dedicated service with particular emphasis on the courage shown by many NHS staff throughout the COVID pandemic.
I imparted the news to my book reading lady of the manor as we sat in bed with our morning cuppa.
Scarcely glancing up from the book she enquired dryly: "Who is going to wear it?"
I do love that woman.
She was right again though. This gallantry award is nothing more than tokenism. Well-meaning, I'm sure, but mere tokenism. It is not the grateful approach that awarding NHS staff decent pay and free parking within hospital grounds would be. It will not put a cent on the wage slip of any nurse, junior doctor, or ancillary staff member in or around a hospital. It is much the same futile gesture that the recent 1% pay rise to nursing staff was. It will not put a roof over the head of any one of them, let alone buy them the sort of home they could afford if all they did was kick a football about. 
Which brings us to...
FOOTBALL

HURRAY FOR ENGLAND!
A  2 - 1 win over Denmark.
I think they did it fairly enough by modern football standards.
In extra time, the full time score being 1 - 1, Raheem Sterling crashed down in the Danish penalty area.
Did he fall or was he pushed? Who cares (other than the Danes)?
The referee gave England a penalty.
Harry Kane made a bit of a pig's ear of it, but was fortunate in that it rebounded off Kasper Schmeichel to be firmly rebooted into the net.
Then, English euphoria, the game was won.

So it's Italy at Wembley next Sunday.
I expect we'll watch it.

WELL, IT'S VERY QUIET HERE.

BUDDY WAS ALWAYS PRESENT.
Not a noisy dog, but a constant presence in the nicest possible way. He is missed, but we gather that he has settled down nicely in his new surroundings, is enjoying all the  admiration and attention, and is generally living the life of Riley.
Good for him.
And we shall still be seeing him from time to time.
Life goes on.

.  

 

Post 397. BUDDY HAS MOVED.

.TO A NICE HOME IN RYDE.

WITH A BRAND NEW FAMILY.
Our granddaughter Jess took him last Friday night. We thought it was to be  for a trial weekend with his new adopters, but she sensibly pointed out that there would be no point bringing him back here if the weekend was a success, that would only confuse him: so she took his entire bag and baggage and departed in the sudden, certain, factual, way that the young and confident do such things.
Ah well. He didn't need us. We're old. We'll get over it. He is a dear pal who deserves a happy future.  Roz bought him when he was a puppy: was devoted to him and he to her. Other, possibly, than Jess herself (who is currently in no position to keep him), nobody will ever replace Roz in his affections. We did our best, and we have been assured he will be much loved by his new family. We wish them joy with him, and him happiness with them. 
We shall be able to see him occasionally, which is good. 
He has come quite a long way from this.

Now he barks at dogs on the television.

It's a token gesture.
He's a Buddy.

Well you didn't expect football from me, did you?