Today in Inversneckie - Troubles afoot!

Well today I seem to have what I believe the Germans call a ‘worm’ in my ear, or they call it something like that.   It is the repetition of a tune.    My worm is saying or singing:

“Oh I love to climb a mountain,    And to reach the highest peak.   But it doesn’t thrill me half as much as dancing cheek to cheek.   Heaven!   I’m in heaven,    And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.   And I seem to find the happiness I seek.   When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek."   

Shades of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.   God knows who I think I’m dancing with but I keep on singing along to it.   What a sad ass I am.

Why I should be so happy I do not know because I have had a few bad experiences this week.   Worst was in the hateful Inverness main post office.   There I arrived at 3.25pm on Friday with a small parcel to post.   A queue of about 20 people snaked in a double line around the room.   There were seven (of the nine)  stations with numbered lights above them and voices which called you forth when they were free.   So I waited although I am not good at standing for long periods.   It won’t be long I thought.   After a few minutes five clerks or clerkesses had left their positions never to return.   So two people were left to service the queue.   One of the windows was staffed by a female who was attending to travel money.   So that left  one woman for the rest of us.   The upshot was that 30 minutes later I along with about two dozen others,  from young mothers with toddlers to age 86 were still queuing like sedated Martians awaiting the favour of the authorities.  

After at least sixty years of using Scottish post-offices in many different towns, this is the worst service I have ever had.   Are we becoming a third-world country?   I will write to the manager, as I told the woman who eventually appeared, still chewing her afternoon biscuits while she deigned to serve me. 

I read an article in the Mensa Magazine, actually it was a letter to the paper replying to a piece about how we desire to have children to reproduce our genes. The old “Selfish Gene” story.   This person’s idea was that this was untrue because the off-spring of a male and a female in turn passes on only half the genes of each parent and that in new combinations.   So this person maintained that this process allows for the evolving improvement of  humanity to changing conditions on earth.  EVOLUTION, not the “will” of the genes is the driving force, he said.  Deep stuff!   Also the thought was expressed that those who decided not to have children were taking an intellectual decision, and were right and intelligent to do so.   Well, now you know!

My thoughts turned to the old U-tube “Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie” to be found on Google under “Dinner for one – youTube”.   It is VERY funny if you are in the mood for it.   Especially if you are having a cocktail or two.  (It’s shown on television in Germany and Austria as a ritual every New Year).  Me, I am off to have my roast carrot soup and smoked haddock and mashed potatoes.   Must keep the old vitamins and calories going!  

Good luck to all the runners in the 10k run around Inverness tomorrow (Sunday) morning.     If you see two oldies supporting each other in Dores Road, who have come out to wave to you, then you know that is the well-fortified M&G worthies from Lochardil.   Cheers!   And as they say in Glasgow  -  Go on Yourselves – or more likely: Gaun yersells!!

YOU NEED A SENSE OF HUMOUR IN 2012

Is the age of fifty, the new thirty?  Today for lunch we had two fifty-somethings   who had just finished a ten-kilometre-run followed by a seven-mile bike-run.   This was a practice-run for the real event in a couple of weeks.   They were both having a day away from their regular jobs, and were totally bright and lively after their exertions.   They ate a hearty lunch with us, and were off to plant some hundreds of bulbs and do general gardening, and so on and so on!   By the way, you may know them as Laura and Gordon C.  Perhaps, if fifty is the new thirty, then eighty is the new sixty.   I think I will buy roller-skates for Gerald and myself.

It seems that soon there will be more and more people aged 85 or over in Great Britain.   I suppose it’s the same all over.    We’ll all be up close and personal with our neighbours soon if this goes on!   You need to have a good sense of humour in the modern world, ready for any wild news that comes over the media!   It really is very strange.   

The other day, the leader of the Lib/Dems, Nick Clegg apologised for his broken promises regarding university tuition fees, and how they would never be increased if his party had anything to do with it.   Of course, when in power with the Tories, this promise was ignored as everyone knows.    Now fees are higher than ever - £9,000 per year in many cases.   Well, Nick has apologised.   Some pranksters on the internet have taken the speech, and they have dubbed it with a funny singing voice repeating his “sorry” remarks over and over.   They say that the tune is going up the charts.  Maybe it will be No. 1 by Christmas.    God!   What a crazy country!

Postcard this morning, a bit late, from Calum and Fiona, from holiday in Croatia.   It looks a lovely place.   Maybe they will bump into Jerry and Mari while they are there.   Anyway this part of the world is becoming very popular for holidays.

Also looked up Cairns, Australia this morning because that is where Laura Martin and Lauren have driven to from Darwin.   Isn’t the internet wonderful?    Within two minutes I was reading descriptions of the barrier reef, how it is formed and many more facts to be assimilated if one wished.   Also there were even jobs advertised, at least a few when I keyed in ‘Jobs in Cairns, Australia’.   It is all unbelievable!

Joke 1:    This man says to his friend.    “Well, my wife and I, we have a very successful marriage.   We go to a restaurant two nights a week, soft lights, some music, maybe a little dancing.   It’s wonderful!   She goes Tuesdays.    I go Fridays.

Joke 2:   The pope is talking to his cardinals high above St. Peters Square in Rome.   One of the cardinals looks out of the window and sees Jesus coming up the stairs.   He tells the others and they rush to the pope in a panic.   “What shall we do your holiness?”   Says the pope.   “Everybody look busy!”

ETON MESS FOR SUPPER

I have forgotten how to make Eton Mess.   As I intend to use up the strawberries I bought at the new Asda for supper this evening.  I will now look the recipe up and refresh my memory (I have mislaid the original print).   OK!   According to Delia Smith, you blend half the strawberries.   You whip the cream.   You chop the other half of the strawberries.   You mix a packet of meringues with the cream and the two lots of strawberries, and Bob’s your uncle!

I have a cheek talking about strawberries as if the world was all basically a semi-paradise and I should indulge myself.   Well, that’s what I feel like, so what!   I want to forget about:

a)     The Liverpool Hillsborough football disaster.   Sad!   Sad!

b)    The poor souls being blown up in Libya.

c)      Some politicians. One’s name begins with G, one with O, and one with C.   Also a few more alphabetic disasters, who function in Westminister.

      But I don’t want to forget about, ‘cos I admire, Ed.M.and Ed.B and Douglas Alexander.   Terrific in New York this week at the tennis championships!  I am so proud of ANDY MURRAY!!!   What must his mother feel like?   What a son!”  He makes me feel like taking up tennis myself.

I send love to clever, pretty, laughing Laura Martin.   I saw the birthday pictures of you in Aussie, with the note saying “Kiss me!”   stuck to your forehead.   LAURA and her friend , LAUREN are working and hanging out somewhere around Darwin.   I hear you two have bought a car and are going to drive to Sydney.   You are so-o-o  adventurous!   Miss you lots!   Also, must not forget the two in Sydney already. Hurry home Emma and Kevin!   Scotland needs you!

By the way, Laura, Gerald says to tell you the Salt Crocodiles around Darwin won’t attack you as long as you’re right at the bottom of the river-bed – preferably in a diving suit.   So just remember that!   Get down to the bottom fast – or preferably don’t swim at all in the vicinity of crocks – so said the intrepid divers studying the crocks in their programme on TV.

Good Holiday and Safe Journey is wished by Gerald and myself to Jerry and Mari, our family and guests this summer.   They painted the town red in London and then flew off to Berlin and then on to Croatia.  Intrepid travellers, great organisers, great fun and good company.   Hope you arrive safely back in Whidbey Island at the right time and with your i-pads and puzzle games safe and sound.

Dyed my hair this morning.   It’s beautiful, brown and honey.   Don’t have to pay the hairdresser this month!   Off to meet Mimi Martin and Science Tech and child psychologist Laura Christie at 5pm. at Girvans, Inverness.  Further News Later!

Friday 31 August 2012

NEWS FOR YOU AND ME TODAY.

We have to learn new names today.   Boris Berezovsky – a Russian Oligarch has lost his legal case.   He was suing his countryman. Abromavich, owner of Chelsea Football Club and another Oligarch, through the courts in London for £3billion.    He claimed this as recompense for “blackmail” and for being done out of money from some oil deals in Russia.   Anyway he lost his case we heard this morning.

Also on TV we saw a clip of Neil Armstrong being made a freeman of Langolm, a town in the Scottish Borders in the 1970s.   It appears that his ancestors came from this town, and they are very proud of this fact in Langholm.   Armstrong’s funeral is to be held this week in America.    He is considered to have been a very great man throughout the whole world for being the first to have landed on the moon.   Space travel has never been as adventurous or as mind-blowing since that great event in the seventies.   Apparently Mars is the only other planet on which a man might walk, and the United States have recently landed a nuclear-powered vehicle weighing one tonne on that  planet.

The Paralympics are ongoing and amazing feats of skill and endurance are being achieved every day.   It is such an inspiring triumph!   The history of Sport for people with physical handicaps dates back to the great medical work of Dr Ludwig Guttman at Stoke Mandeville  Hospital.  He encouraged sport to rehabilitate his patients and started the first “Stoke  Mandeville Games” - forerunner of the present-day Paralympics, another wonderful achievement.

Mari and Jerry got here on time on Wednesday 29^th August only their luggage did not arrive with them.   Luckily luggage arrived on Thursday, so that was not so bad for them.   You won’t believe this but Jerry has an app on his iplayer which gives him great glee.   He tells you he has taken a photo of you, and when you look an orangutan looks back at you, speaks and repeats what you say ad infinitum.   Is he a school-boy or what?   At first I thought I ‘God I look a fright today!”   Much to his amusement.   I think he also has an app that is a cat that talks.   God Almighty!

Hilarity this morning when a package arrived from Thompson & Morgan.   I had ordered this from the Radio Times advertisement.   It was twenty-four plantlets of viola which I thought would make good ground-cover for Gerald’s border.   He is always complaining about all the weeding he has to do.  Well, Jerry insisted that they were marijuana plants.   They were NOT!   We were scared of what Gerald would say when he saw the package.   He loves to shout abuse at me about any minor infringement of his authority.  So-----after about 4 minutes the plants became his.    His business entirely.   He managed to enlist the help of the ever good-natured Mari, and within quarter of an hour, the plants were re-potted and sitting in the garage window.   They look amazing!

We go to Skye tomorrow, and so the men are poring over a map of the famous island.   Let’s hope it is not pouring with rain for our one day visit.   Keep smiling!   More news in due course!

THE STARS LOOK DOWN

Gerald caught eight mice with his new trap in the garden this week.   He adds that he  also caught two giant slugs.   Well, he is a bit of a boaster!   He said he could tolerate them in the garden, but come winter they would come into the house.  The mice were never seen by me in the garden, but daughter, Laura stared at one for minutes.   It was not afraid of her.   We have had few strawberries from our plants this year, due we think to over-fertilising them.   Any that did show up were eaten by the MICE.   A friend says we are cruel to kill them.   She has a trap which catches mice without killing them.   Then she takes them to the woods and sets them free.   G. used the word “justifies” today in another context from mice, but my mind ran to Robert Burns’s lovely poem, “To a Mouse.”    It was a mouse which he had just turned over with his plough.

TO A MOUSE

We sleekit, cowran, tim’rous beastie,    

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!    

Thou need na start awa’ sae hastie

Wi’ bickerin brattle,    

I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee

Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion

Has broken Nature’s social union,  

An JUSTIFIES that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle,    

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

An' fellow-mortal.

……..

………

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,    

In proving foresight may be vain:    

The best-laid schemes o’ MICE AN’ MEN

Gang aft agley.    

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

            On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see

            I guess an’ fear!

Not bad to quote this famous poem (mostly) from memory.

Anyway, grief and pain are all behind us two oldies now.   We luxuriate in leisure time, and any work we do is all of our invention.   Well, aside from cleaning the house, toilets etc.  Showering and dressing each morning.   Battling with weeds in the garden.  Sometimes even writing!  We’re sometimes slobs!   Shh---   keep it a secret.

Jerry and Mari are arriving tomorrow.   They are crossing from Whidbey Island, Washington State, to Houston, on to Newark, on to Edinburgh, and then the Megabus to Inverness to stay with us for a week or so.   Great fun will be had by all.   Oh, and we are going for one night to Skye where the Cuillins are calling us away.  

Finally, I quote Michael Brooks from the New Statesman who cites a scientific discovery about the Neanderthal genome and the fact that humans and Neanderthals may have had sex together, and that we may be the result.   “We didn’t get where we are without genetic programming that makes us value eating, drinking and having sex.   Add to that an inbuilt compulsion to tell stories and draw lessons from them and you have a heady mix.”    Well, I admit to the inbuilt compulsion to tell stories!   More news soon!                         

ON MY RADAR THIS FRIDAY, 24^TH AUGUST

Read about Lionel Fanthorpe, author and member in Mensa, in the Mensa Magazine last night.   He has published 250 books in 60 years.  I think, a world record!      By the way, he dictates his stories with a blanket over his head.   Must try it.    He writes mainly Science Fiction, books like “Mind Forcer” and “Time Echo”.   Amazingly, he was born in the same street in England as famous Sci-fi writer, Brian Aldiss.   Among other things, this Mensa member believes in, and has seen, a ghost, and this ghost spoke to him.   It was at a funeral of a man called Bill where Fanthorpe was conducting the service.  Suddenly appearing among the congregation was the ghost of the dead man who said to Fanthorpe, “Tell Ian (the local vicar)  that Lady Juliana of Norwich was absolutely right.”   When Ian, the vicar was told of this he was gobsmacked.  He had been discussing with the deceased Bill how Lady Juliana in the Intensive Care Ward of the hospital,  had said only a few evenings before that Heaven was a place of great happiness,.    Mystery!   Mystery!   And this is a story from a normally sceptical Mensa person.   Straight up!   It’s in black and white.

Saw a shadowy picture of Prince Harry on the Internet.   Radio presenter said that anyone with half a brain could find the picture on the Internet, so I had to try.   I have seen only, I think, two men naked in my life, so it was not much of a surprise.   Their bodies look all the same at a cursory glance.  What a fuss about nothing!

“I will never forget the wall of noise from the crowd at this Olympics.   70,000 people roaring seemed liked 170,000, roaring my name".   That name is Oscar Pistorius, a runner with two metal legs.   He will be running again in the Paralympics which is, I am told, completely sold out.   How wonderful!   Saw Claire Lomas, the lady on crutches who ran the London Marathon, it took her 16 days.   She lit the flame for the start of the Paralympic Games.  What determination and strength of character some people have!”

Italy’s tax-hunters are shouting from helicopters at luxury yachts.  On the occasion the reporter saw them there were about fifty of them, off the coast of Sardinia, the Costa Smeralda.   “You are in a forbidden area.   Please move on.”   The billionaires and millionaires are anchoring in these beautiful waters where they can luxuriate in the sun without paying any tax due to the Italian government.   Italy is suffering great austerity and the Prime Minister, Mario Monte is organising a crack-down on the tax-avoiding super-rich.   Good News!

Jessica returned from her travels on Tuesday.   She looks a little jet-lagged and the usually tireless girl could be said to look slightly exhausted.   She is twenty-one and my grand-daughter.   She has been studying in Hong-Kong as part of her course of International Business at Glasgow University.   From there she got a place as an intern in New York in an International Insurance Office.   She has been to The Grand Canyon a few weeks ago (the bit she liked best) and I know to San Diego, San Francisco and Las Vegas.   Then, suddenly she HAD TO COME HOME!   Quite right, Jessica, Scotland’s the best!   And the Black Isle is hard to beat on a sunny day. 

SEA-SICKNESS AMONG THE FLOWERS.

It all started when we finally got the Water-Feature to perform its charming little fountain of trickling water down several levels of fake wrought iron.   G. and I loved it.   And we loved the little patio that Peter had constructed around the summer-house.   So of course we had to take a photograph.   And, of course, with Gerald having new skills on the computer, the photograph had to go on Facebook.   More than this, the photograph turned out to be a Video of things in our garden.

“Leave the cooking, and come out and be in the photo!”  he shouts.   Dutifully I seat myself in the open doors of the S.H. and while awaiting his jiggling with the camera, I look about the place in a grumpy manner, occasionally eyeing the tinkling W.F. in front of me.   The result was horrific.   In the video I look like H.M. the Queen on a bad day, as she wishes people would stop singing “God Save the Queen.”  Only worse as I have no make-up on and am wearing an old summer dress with unlovable fat bare legs on display.   “My God!”   I plead “you can’t publish that on FB.   It goes all round the world!” (a bit of an exaggeration, but you know – we know grandchildren, for example and others abroad who look at these things on occasion.   So we did it again, this time with a quick application of slap on my face, a stylish gypsy scarf hiding my hair, and an Indian shawl covering my legs.

 

The risible result has to be seen to believed.   The camera swivels shakily around the Water Feature.    And I am seated with an open book dressed like an idiot and smiling spookily at the camera.

Well, after Gerald’s efforts to find out how to work the placing of a Video on Facebook, accompanied by despairing curses at the lack of help from the computer, we were sort of dismayed to be told by my sister in the wilds of the South of England that his video made her seasick – the shakiness of the film I suppose.   My daughter said it was the weirdest video she had ever seen – my strange outlandish smile she meant I suppose.   G’s brother in America says “it makes him want to………… a pause.   Does he mean “to pee” or “to commit suicide.”   After a thousand dots, he says “want to visit!”      For myself, I cannot look at it without dissolving into uncontrollable giggles of laughter.   It’s surreal.   But then so is life.

We soldier on.   We await the great show we will have in town soon, that is the resumption of parliament and the march of political chicanery.   For the retired, like the two of us, it’s a fascinating scenario.   Great Britain, Europe, U.S.A.,  the Middle East, Africa.   You name a country in this weary world, and you will find fascinating things going on.

Now reading in bed at night “HANIF KUREISHA COLLECTED STORIES”—Absolutely Brilliant!”