For those of you who like cryptic crosswords, the title today is a classic clue. If you don’t know it, read on for the answer (maybe).
I’ve been told that my Haiku effort in the last Post leaves something to be desired. BUT, I have found a new type of poetry called Englyn. It’s Welsh or Cornish, so I guess Celtic, first recorded in the fifth century. There are lots of different types (there may be one more soon). The most common form (according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) is the englyn unodl union, which consists of 30 syllables in lines of 10, 6, 7, and 7 syllables, where the last syllables of the last three lines rhyme with the 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th syllable of the first line. Hmm, this might take me some time. Or maybe I go back to cocktails.
Before I get into my flow, I need to mention something going on in which Debbie from Sydney (mentioned in Post 66 of 2nd January 2020) is participating, starting 16th October. It goes by the salubrious name of the Shitbox Rally and gives us something new to follow, although it won’t take eleven months (even if we get another pandemic I don’t think it’ll take that long). Debbie says it’s about a week.
https://www.shitboxrally.com.au/the-event/
If you look at the teams, there seem to be hundreds, with some good (punny) names. I’m not sure if they are all in this rally, as there are three rallies mentioned on the home page. I’ve just checked, there are 225 cars entered this time, all of whom have to raise a certain amount of money for charity before they are allowed to compete. Our team is Radio Gaga, Debbie and her pal Yvonne, raising money in memory of John’s cousin Glen, who passed away from mesothelioma a few years back. You can see a video of the car being prepared here:
https://spring2024.shitboxrally.com.au/radio-gaga
I only hope JD doesn’t decide that is our next challenge. You have to have two people per vehicle, which has to be a two-wheel drive car and have cost not more than $1500 (Australian dollars). Two spare wheels and tyres are needed (outside the dollar spend for safety). The Saab cost more than that so I don’t have to worry he might ship it overseas. You are encouraged to decorate the car and have special costumes (more pics to follow when Debbie gives them to me). Actually, it looks like quite a bit of fun. The hard part is getting accepted, there are so many people wanting to participate.
We missed many of the Proms this year, I’m not sure why. I turned the radio on one night and (thought) I saw the galactic mass. Aha, I remember, there’s a Doctor Who Prom this year, that must be it. Excuse my ignorance. It was (as I’m sure you knew) Janacek’s Glycolic Mass. No, his Glycolytic Mass. NO, the Glagolitic Mass. Got it. Wretched autocorrect. Glagolitic is a script used in some Slavic languages based on Greek symbols (nice link to my last Post there). It wasn’t used for long, about three hundred years, before it gave way to Cyrillic script. As one of the missionaries sent from Greece to the Slavic countries became St Cyril, I am assuming this is where the name comes from.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Glagolitic-alphabet
At the risk of upsetting some of you, enough culture. Having had an hour’s tango lesson (see post 161 dated 17th July 2024), JD is now watching and judging Strictly Come Dancing. (I see that on the BBC website, this is classified as culture). We’ve managed to avoid it for the first nineteen years, but even though Lauren is not one of the professional partners this year, she is still there. I have to confess to not understanding a lot, a bit like the Olympics. Should their legs be straight, bent, waving around? What about their arms? Do they smile or scowl? It all seems to depend upon the actual dance being danced. Then there’s the dances themselves. I thought an American Smooth (if I’d come across it in a pub quiz) would be a type of Collie dog, or possibly something to drink.
I decided that JD was no longer getting all the exercise he’d had on Clipper (and tango dancing) so gave him a new challenge by buying myself a (non)-winged chariot for when we go sight-seeing. This was two years ago and we decided it was too much like hard work (JD) and not enough independence (me).
In Post 155 dated 4th February this year I went into some detail about my left leg. As I’ve mentioned too many times, I caught polio when I was three years old and my left leg was seriously affected, being shorter and weaker than the right. Those of you who have seen me over the years will have noticed that my walking has deteriorated markedly. When I eventually managed to get scans, it was evident that the knee was in need of replacement. After contacting a number of orthopaedic surgeons, we found one willing to do the job. I had a total knee replacement mid-September at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Stanmore (North London). A centre of excellence and certainly excellent for me. My walking is now much more even and the pain I’ve been experiencing over the last two or more years is gone. However, the limb weakness from the polio cannot be cured, so I’ve invested in my own self-propelled chariot to stop me from falling over (not a good idea when your leg is full of metal). The good part was that George managed to visit. He’s not getting his inheritance yet!
Stanmore is a very odd place to go to. As you drive in, you can imagine you’re about to star in a World War Two film (OK, maybe as an extra). There are small buildings all over that have the feel of old Army barracks. It’s on a steep hill and you have to walk miles to go between places. I was lucky enough to have a great view from my window, which is today’s header. I feel that, if you succeed in getting to your goal, they’ll turn around and tell you that ‘there’s nothing wrong if you can walk this far’. According to the link below, they were built as ‘fully accessible architecture for disabled people’. Ha! This seems to mean that, instead of steps, there are ramps. Yes, and there are buggies to pull the beds from place to place as the ramps are so steep. They were built and designed in 1936 (what, you say, all in one year? Is that possible?). Only look at this link if you have time to spare, there are lots of fascinating historical things to look at in addition to the RNOH history.
However, this is just one part of Stanmore. It was originally the ‘country branch’ of RNOH with 112 acres ‘outside of London’ in the early part of the 1900’s. During WW1 it became an emergency hospital for the military and in WW2, Nissen huts were erected in the grounds to care for civilian cases whose hospitals were too close to military airfields or other installations. In December 1948, the first hip replacement on the NHS took place there.
Our heritage
To prove that things can always be worse, on my trips to see various surgeons, we drove past this Blue Plaque. Sir Frederick Treves was an eminent surgeon who treated Jospeh Merrick (‘the Elephant Man’, who suffered from neurofibromatosis or possibly the very rare Proteus syndrome). Treves also treated Queen Victoria, and in 1902 operated on the soon-to-be King Edward VII, treating his appendicitis by convincing him that there would be a royal funeral rather than a coronation if nothing was done.
https://www.harleystreet.com/why-harley-street/pioneers-past/sir-frederick-treves/
Ooh, I’ve taken a break to read the papers and come across a brand new film called ‘A Different Man’ which features Adam Pearson, a British actor who has neurofibromatosis.
Talking of actors, Dame Maggie Smith died last week. The London theatres dimmed their lights on 1st October as a tribute. A brilliant actress, we saw her live in ‘Lettice and Lovage’, a play by Peter Shaffer premiered in Bath on 6th October 1987, although we saw it in London. Hilarious, if you ever get the chance to see it. Lettice is a tour guide in a stately home (Fustian House). As new visitors arrive, her descriptions of the historical events become more and more outlandish. Every time I go to a National Trust house I think of her and wonder if the stories we hear have been embellished. Here’s an excerpt from the 1990 Tony Awards.
As I had a lot of spare time once I was out of hospital, in between all the exercises to do, I was given some jigsaws. One I started before I actually went into hospital: I’m not sure if this was strictly allowed but used the excuse that my op had been postponed by five days so I would have been recuperating on the first timeline.
A question for all you jigsaw solvers: if you’re getting ready to do a new (to you) jigsaw and you find a couple of bits still attached, do you take it as a bonus or detach them from each other? I do the latter otherwise I don’t feel I’ve done the whole puzzle. And what a satisfying feeling when you break it all up, a very ASMR sensation running them through your fingers. If you’ve not come across this, as it’s a fairly new term, ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and is that pleasurable tingling feeling you get in your neck and spine sometimes when something happens. Well, breaking up jigsaws does it for me.
Have you worked out the answer to today’s title? Think of the knee. It’s patella. I only have one now, not sure if I’ve lost Pat or Ella.
Still no cocktails, the spell in hospital seems to have cured me of the taste for alcohol. No bad thing, although I suspect it could be temporary.
George and John's boating trip no longer 