OMG it is over a year since I started the last round of Five Questions. So at long last I bring you another series.
Here in Series 8 we have a slightly more serious group of questions — although I don’t guarantee entirely serious answers. So without more ado …
★★★★★
The five questions for Series 8 are:
Can we understand everything?
Give me an unpopular opinion you have
Is masturbation a homosexual act?
Would you ever admit to being racist?
If you could write a note to your younger self, what would you say in only two words?
Unlike the last series, I will post answers on a regular basis, because I’ve decided to write the answers up front, probably before this post even goes live! Yes, I know it’s cheating. But so what?
As always you’re all invited to sing along — I’d like it if you all joined in! You can either answer the questions, as I answer them, by posting in the comments or by posting your answers on your own blog (in which case just leave a comment here so we can find your words of wisdom).
The answer to Question 1 should appear in a couple of days time and then they’ll be at roughly weekly intervals.
Enjoy!
I love the summer months for the variety of locally grown foods, and some from warmer climes, are available and at their best. And May is when one of my favourite foods — asparagus — is in season here in England. With summer fruits like strawberries hard on its heels.
As Noreen often observes, to our 19th century (and earlier) ancestors we must be living like the gentry because here are …
10 Foods I’ve Eaten in the Last Week
(some of them more than once!):
As last month’s Ten Things was places I have no desire to go, I thought we should redress the balance with places I want to visit. So here we have … 10 Places I Want to Visit:
Sweden
Norway
Japan — from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south
Holland (again)
Iceland
The Amazon
South of France
Italy
Bruges
Antarctica
So why haven’t I been to these places? Well it’s a combination of …
Laziness.
I hate the hassle and stress of travel.
The cost; every time I look at maybe visiting one of these places I’m horrified how much it costs.
Several of these places have environmental policies of which I disapprove — see mostly attitudes to whaling in Japan, Norway and Iceland.
The general environmental damage we’re doing visiting these places, both in terms of long-haul travel and damage to their environment; I’m thinking here specifically of the Amazon and Antarctica.
All of which means I may never get to see these places.
Apologies, everyone, for the sudden and less than desirable change of appearance hereabouts. My previously carefully hand-crafted theme has been well and truly borked by the latest version of one of the standard WordPress plugins. It had been threatening this for a while with various bits of silliness which I couldn’t’ pin down, but today it was total. The site displayed OK but I couldn’t get access at all and had to resort to reloading an old version of the plugins.
I will, I hope be able to fix the appearance and make it more readable, but for all sorts of reasons this isn’t going to happen for a at least a couple of weeks. And during this time posting may also be somewhat more intermittent and erratic than usual. So please bear with us. Normal service will be resumed as soon as we work out which broom-cupboard is the lurking place of sanity.
Thank you!
There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian which bears out something I have long thought. It begins …
I shower once a week. Here’s why you should too.
Daily showering is expensive, polluting and unnecessary. The old-school weekly bath or shower — with a brief daily sink-wash — is healthier for the environment, and for us.
When I was a kid, bathtime was a once-a-week affair. We weren’t an unhygienic family — this is just how most of us lived in the 1960s, and I do not remember any horrific body odours resulting from it. By the time I was an adult, I was showering every day. With hindsight, I should have stuck to the old ways.
Indeed so, although in my family bathtime was twice a week, at least for me. If nothing else heating water was inconvenient and expensive in the days before ubiquitous central heating.
As a student I did shower every morning, and often more than once a day as I was playing lots of cricket, squash etc. Otherwise I actually have stuck to my childhood regime. Although it’s a bit more flexible now (partly down to lifestyle and partly as there’s easy hot water) I seldom shower more than a couple of times a week. And even then one seldom needs to spend more than 5 minutes in the shower (according to the article the average shower lasts 10 minutes).
(Now I’m not working, I also seldom shave more than every few days. I can’t stand more than 5 or 6 days beard, but shaving every day gives me far more skin problems.)
Did anyone notice? No of course you didn’t. Most of us don’t lead very dirty lives. Few these days work in dirty industry, down the mines or shovelling muck on the farm — when I concede that a daily bath or shower, after work, would be essential.
Yes, I like that nice, clean, scrubbed and pampered feeling a shower gives you; especially if you can then dive under lovely crisp, fresh bed-linen. It’s pleasant. But it isn’t essential. And on its own it isn’t a good reason for a daily shower (or two).
This is one area where we could go back in time without actually feeling any inconvenience. It would save massive amounts of water; and you would save on the cost of heating that water — both of which would be good for the environment as well as your wallet. On top of which you would probably save some time; and it might actually be better for your skin. That sounds like WIN-WIN to me!
Oh and here’s another take on the question from a plumbing supplier.
There’s an old curse which goes “may you live in interesting times”. But of course that can work both ways; we always do live in interesting times, but not necessarily for the negative reasons the curse implies. Sometimes the interestingness is goodness.
As a reflection of this, and because in the last month I’ve become a state-registered geriatric, I thought we’d have an historical “ten things” this month.
So here are 10 UK Historical Events in My Lifetime:
Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female British Prime Minister (1979)
Death of Winston Churchill (1965)
Accession of Elizabeth II (1952)
Britain joins the European Economic Community (as the EU then was) (1973)
Falklands War (1982)
Roger Bannister runs first sub-4 minute mile (1954)
I’m spending this week home alone as Noreen is doing a week’s consultancy work in Derbyshire. I was originally going to go with her, just to get a week away, but it was decided — for all sorts of reasons — it would make more sense for me to stay here.
We are not impressed. We aren’t used to having to “do for ourselves” these days; we expect our slaves to be there on demand.
As a very minimum we need intravenous tea.
And I keep having to ask questions like “What’s a dishwasher?” and “How do I get into this tin?”.
Well, no, not really. But you get the point.
On the other hand it is sufficiently quiet that I’m also getting quite a bit done, which was part of the intention because, as always, I have mountains of work to do for both the Anthony Powell Society and the two Patient Participation Groups I chair. I managed to kill off lots of jobs yesterday, but there’s still a lot to do.
I’m not doing so well today, though. Firstly I got a phone call this morning summoning me to go to see my doctor as she wants to change my medication. And I also have our friend Tom here replacing some corkboard for us — he’s currently scraping away at the other side of the wall from where I’m sitting.
And while Noreen’s away I’m taking the opportunity to give her laptop the once over — no she decided she wasn’t going to need it so left it behind. (No, I don’t understand how you can survive for a week away without your laptop, either!) Said laptop needs a good clean — both physically and virtually — as well as it needs various updates and changes doing; so this is a good chance. Luckily much of what’s needed can be done between other jobs, otherwise you just end up watching the proverbial paint dry.
What has really surprised me, though, is how quiet the house is. It isn’t as if Noreen is noisy — if anything I’m the noisy one! But without a second person in the house it is just so quiet — I noticed it as soon as Noreen went out the front door before daybreak yesterday morning. You could almost hear a pin drop. Suddenly the house was quiet and different, even before I got out of bed, as if it knows it is alone.
Needless to say the cat is confused too. But then she’s not a creature of routine and often lays low for hours at a stretch — especially with Tom in the house as he’s the bringer of noise and pusser-eating machines.
It all just feels weird.
But, barring intervention by The Kindly Ones, it’s only until Friday evening.
Yesterday my friend Katy posted on her blog about feeling slightly strange.
Once I’d recovered from my initial reaction of “well, yeah, I wouldn’t expect anything less from you!” I realised that it wasn’t just Katy. Because I feel a bit the same. Which is odd.
This year started with me struggling as I had done most of last year. Struggling to do anything other than want to sleep. Which is partly down to the depression and partly a reaction to being overloaded with things to be done — which are actually much the same thing in my brain.
And then about 10 days ago I had a filthy cold. And my lower back was giving the hell, despite having been to the osteopath and had a massage a couple of days before. In fact my back was so bad it was giving me awful guts ache.
Then something odd happened. The cold gradually wore off during last week so that by about Thursday I was feeling human again (well, as human as you would expect me to be!).
But it was more than this. The cold was gone. I had managed to make myself some relief from the never-ending demands of too much to do — it was all still there, and all still needing to be done, but it felt easier; less overwhelming. My head was clearer and everything was brighter. And my back was much more at ease — not right, it never will be, but much easier.
I like this. This is how I should feel. I’m managing to get things done. Probably not much more than I was forcing myself to do before, but there’s a lot less effort involved.
I seem to be sleeping better, which is being helped by being able to wake up naturally most days. That’s generally between 8 and 9 o’clock; and not the struggle for consciousness at 11 as it was before.
I would love this feeling to continue; but, ever the realist, I’m not holding my breath. I’m just enjoying the few days while it’s here and hoping it decides to stay.
And all this despite some unwelcome medical stuff on the horizon, starting today with, I expect, a difficult discussion with my GP about my diabetes — which because I’m relatively relaxed and prepared seems a lot less worrying than it probably should.
As Katy comments (of herself): I think I am experiencing a form of self care. It’s not something I do very often, not properly. I’m not talking all that take a bath in expensive bath oil and light candles bollocks. I’m talking about proper, solid self care.
If that’s what it is, I have no clue where I caught it; it certainly wasn’t conscious. I don’t know how to feed it properly so it wants to stay. But stay it certainly may.
Please!
RIP Harry the Cat
gone to join the great rat-hunt in the sky
This photo from 2005 when he was in his prime; larger views on Flickr
Off to vet this morning for a scheduled thyroid op, but the vet did an x-ray and found a cancerous lump in Harry’s chest. Not unexpected especially as the valiant old boy was 18, he’d been losing a lot of weight and was generally on a downward curve with deteriorating quality of life.
Definitely the end of an era, especially as today I become a state registered geriatric.
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
