The Joys of Getting Old.

I am feeling my age! 11.55am and I am just getting going. (At midnight I am usually quite lively.) Well as lively as a seventy three year old can be.Time is enevitably taking its toll. My wife has recently had explorative surgery for a heart condition and is suffering somewhat. She is waiting, apprehensively to have stents fitted. She has also been diagnosed with glaucoma. I am to find out next week if I am to have knee surgery. I am walking like an old man and I don't like it! This week alone the pair of us are at the doctors, the dentists, the hospital and the chiropodists! Mind you, many, many are worse off.
I am just going to buy some 'cheapo' reading glasses. from Costco. I have around six pairs but can find three pairs. One pair has an arm missing. One pair has part of an arm missing. One pair has screws missing. No pair stays on. I have just counted fourteen empty spectacle cases. I have no doubt there are further cases and glasses. No jokes about making a spectacle of myself please.

Charlie went to the doctor.
'Doctor' he said 'I keep seeing this spinning insect.'
'Don't worry' said the doctor, 'it's just a bug going round.'

My friend reckons the bloke next door has a glass eye. I asked him how he knew and he said it just came out when they were talking.

All this reminds me of a very early blog I did.(In April 2008 which would suggest I've been losing it for some time.) Considering I have just done a review for John Godber's play Losing the Plot at Derby Playhouse, all very apt don't you think!

An OAP let loose in the 20th Century

Like a weasel to a rabbit I am transfixed. Hours spent trying to master the technology, mainly unsucessfully yet the urge to continue is overpowering. What was it Albert Einstein said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." My incomprehension is unsurprising when you consider I even find an Idiot's Guide impossible to understand. Please tell me I am not the only one, or am I uniquely stupid when it comes to modern technology. And how strange I find myself posing questions to a screen, a substitite for the real world. An unreal situation akin to making love to a blow up doll or our childhood habit of smoking rolled up walnut leaves in an oakcup pipe. Both unsatisfactory substitutes for the real thing but better than nothing. I hasten to add I am not speaking from experience on the former.
Now I reckon my problems in the main stem from three sources. One, at my age I'm a bit long in the tooth to learn new technologies but I can but try. Two, I have recently been informed I am functioning on half a brain, maybe a bit more to be honest but some missing all the same. More of this at a later date but imagine what I could do it it was all there, so to speak.
And three, I need my eyes testing.
My ninety nine pence glasses from Home Bargains are good value but hardly the result of considered professional examination. But at least you get to try them out. Which is more than can be said for the local Lidl. A fierce gentleman, Croatian I think he is patrols the isles, and can spot from over twenty yards a customer opening the goods. As their glasses are packaged you therefore buy pot luck, so to speak. Their car park is full of wrecked cars or at least it deserves to be. Any day now they'll be selling white sticks.
I've thought my eyes needed testing for some time but a family function in The Devonshire, a posh pub in Baslow, Derbyshire finally made the fact inescapable. After a pint or two, or three, or four the need for the toilet was dire. Not surprising but at least it would suggest the old prostate is still working, if nothing else. Panic over and a might bit relieved so to speak, and, educated by frequent notices exorting us to 'Now wash your hands' I did as ordered and visited the hot air hand blower. Only posh as the pub was, the machine was totally ineffective, pathetic in the extreme. No rush of air, hot or otherwise. As I pondered so useless an apparatus and contemplated my next move I noticed a young man quizzically eyeing me from the urinal. Fearing I was about to be propositioned, I hastily withdrew my still wet hands from the machines orifice. It was only then I made out the wording on the machine, blurred in my case but cringingly embarrassing. The immortal words read 'Contraceptives, all colours and shapes, two pounds for three'.

Blast from the Past no 1. (See blog dated 23rd Jan.)

Reasons For Choice.

It was only the sixth blog I ever did. I have chosen it because it epitomises so much of my blogging 'career' to date. I came into blogging completely ignorant with no preconceived ideas, and little prior knowledge, just the desire to write; a lifetime ambition mainly on hold due to other commitments that life inevitably thrusts upon us. At sixty eight ( sixty nine now) years of age I realise time is no longer on my side.

I had no real idea as to what I was about. I have no desire to become a 'sage' or to show others how clever I am. I suppose in a way I see it as 'thinking out loud' and if it amuses or entertains, so be it.

I have few technical skills. Thus my early efforts were unparagraphed, until others put me right. Indeed I still find much of the technical side frustrating and virtually impossible to fathom. I am not helped by TGA (see blog 18th May, Hooray for the NHS) and I suspect increasing senility. I still do not know how attracting new readers really works. (This was yet another blog from my early days that gleaned no response whatsoever.) In other words I am still not too far removed from the clueless geriatric of nine months ago. All this I hope is reflected in this early blog. What is not reflected is the generosity of spirit, encouragement and kind help of many I meet along the way. I have plans for the future, God willing. The words that come to mind are long time favourites but drive my youngest daughter to the point of distraction. I shall still aspire to gradual mastery of this blogging phenomenon, but it's 'Softly, softly, catchee monkey'.

(By coincidence my last blog was my 100th blog.)

Sunday 27th April 2008

An OAP let loose in the 21st century

Like a weasel to a rabbit I am transfixed. Hours spent trying to master the technology, mainly unsucessfully yet the urge to continue is overpowering. What was it Albert Einstein said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." My incomprehension is unsurprising when you consider I even find an Idiot's Guide impossible to understand. Please tell me I am not the only one, or am I uniquely stupid when it comes to modern technology. And how strange I find myself posing questions to a screen, a substitite for the real world. An unreal situation akin to making love to a blow up doll or our childhood habit of smoking rolled up walnut leaves in an oakcup pipe. Both unsatisfactory substitutes for the real thing but better than nothing. I hasten to add I am not speaking from experience on the former. Now I reckon my problems in the main stem from three sources. One, at my age I'm a bit long in the tooth to learn new technologies but I can but try. Two, I have recently been informed I am functioning on half a brain, maybe a bit more to be honest but some missing all the same. More of this at a later date but imagine what I could do if it was all there, so to speak. And three, I need my eyes testing. My ninety nine pence glasses from Home Bargains are good value but hardly the result of considered professional examination. But at least you get to try them out. Which is more than can be said for the local Lidl. A fierce gentleman, Croatian I think he is patrols the isles, and can spot from over twenty yards a customer opening the goods. As their glasses are packaged you therefore buy pot luck, so to speak. Their car park is full of wrecked cars or at least it deserves to be. Any day now they'll be selling white sticks. I've thought my eyes needed testing for some time but a family function in The Devonshire, a posh pub in Baslow, Derbyshire finally made the fact inescapable. After a pint or two, or three, or four the need for the toilet was dire. Not surprising but at least it would suggest the old prostate is still working, if nothing else. Panic over and a might bit relieved so to speak, and, educated by frequent notices exorting us to 'Now wash your hands' I did as ordered and visited the hot air hand blower. Only posh as the pub was, the machine was totally ineffective, pathetic in the extreme. No rush of air, hot or otherwise. As I pondered so useless an apparatus and contemplated my next move I noticed a young man quizzically eyeing me from the urinal. Fearing I was about to be propositioned, I hastily withdrew my still wet hands from the machines orifice. It was only then I made out the wording on the machine, blurred in my case but cringingly embarrassing. The immortal words read 'Contraceptives, all colours and shapes, two pounds for three.'

It's All in the Mind (Forever).

Some may consider Harry Lorayne's book naff, but it's got me thinking. I believe everything we have ever experienced stays in the mind forever, at least whilst we draw breath, so to speak. The brain is cleverer than any computer and seems endless in its capabilities. Its merely a matter of recall; but easier said than done sometimes. Beyond that I have no idea, there again I never was a threat to Albert, Einstein that is. Nevertheless I'm going to conduct a little experiment over the next four days. I'm going to try and recall four events, unconnected, of little importance, but events hopefully I've not recalled for some considerable time. Unscientific, of no value to anyone but, heck it may interest me!

Number 1 Tuesday

I remember visiting Skegness as a child and being fascinated by an exhibition concerning Japanese atrocities towards British and Commonwealth troops in WW2. Cost, sixpence, showing hangings and decapitations. The exhibition ran for several years. Who ran it, I wonder and when did it finish. Presumably it was done so that people would not forget what happened during the war. I remember as children we would inflict cruelty on insects, spiders, ants and the like. We would pretend they were German or Japanese soldiers. Remember we were children brought up in the aftermath of war. It's surprising in a way that we finished as normal as we seem to be. Though some might disagree concerning our 'normality'. One final thought. Fighting between Georgia and Russia is constantly in the news at the moment. Has this prompted this recall I wonder.