As William Nearly Once Said, 'Much Ado About Nothing in Particular''.

    Made a visit to Home Bargains. Always favourite when life's a bit fraught; guaranteed to lift your spirits!
    Saw an old gentleman being 'instructed' by his daughter concerning pushing the trolley. I commiserated with him, 'we' geriatrics are used to the instructions of the young! (I talk to all and sundry when I'm out and about. Folk can always tell you to 'bugger off' but seldom do so. Thus you meet many interesting people. (People are far more interesting than inanimate objects!)
It turns out 'Edward' is Polish and a surprisingly sprightly eighty seven years of age. Edward settled in this country in 1947 and had apparently served with the Polish Air Force in the latter part of the war. (and was injured on occasion) He would be very young to do do but I have no reason to doubt his words. After the war he was a tailor by trade for many years. His mind was lively, and he was small in stature like myself. We have also in common,  including evidently the necessity of taking around twenty tablets per day to keep us alive! Edward, old friend, I salute you. Two old codgers together; ignored by the scurrying young passing by Rather useless we are now, but to hell with it, we've both done our bit for the world!
    Fifteen minutes out of my life, an unimportant fifteen minutes but interesting nevertheless. 'Look, listen and learn.' Even in such an innocuous place as Home Bargains. The couple who passed by, for instance. The young man whose conversation revealed that 'He needs to be careful, otherwise he will be 'done' for receiving and be sent down again'. How intriguing is it listening to other people's conversations!' But how frustrating when you only get half the story.
    Neither is Home Bargains in the best part of town, Not long ago, in the car park a young foreign gentleman' was trying to sell me a rather modern mobile phone for twenty pounds. I haven't got a mobile but manage quite well without one, thank you very much. Plus I bet you someone in the pub round the corner is wondering where he mislaid his phone!
    Interesting, the Home Bargain set up. A discount chain, founded by Tom Morris from Liverpool approximately forty years ago. It now consist of over four hundred shops, employing over 10,000 people, turning over a billion pounds a year.
    I think back to my Woolworth days. I worked for them from 1957 to 1959. At that time they had close to  one thousand shops but it had taken them many years to get to that size. Then in later years, bang and Woolworth's were no more. Wouldn't have happened if I'd stayed with them. (Only kidding!)
    I have many, many memories of those years. Crazy, mad years. An innocent abroad; a seventeen year old boy amidst many older, wiser, experienced women. I wince at the memories yet wryly smile. Memory of ' He 'ad me over the kitchen table before he 'ad his tea' springs to mind.' Lewd, rude, often crude yet 'ladies' whose presence was far more valuable to my education than my often boring years as a Grammar School schoolboy.
    Ruminating, (what a lovely word) I have realised, often that my mind, and presumably the minds of others have stored within, millions and millions of memories covering life from our early days.      I'm not a technical type; but I can just about appreciate that a computer stores information on what's called a hard drive and my mind is similar to the hard drive of a computer. The following information is NOT from my memory bank. Consequently I only HALF understand it all!
 Its all measured in bits (bytes?) Evidently there are around a 1000 terabytes (?). Around 1,000,000 gigabytes storage capacity. Someone else, far cleverer than me reckons the brain is capable of holding over a trillion gigabytes of memory. BUT whatever, its not an endless figure. Thats why, presumably unimportant stuff gets lost/deleted sometimes. All a long, long way from a visit to Home Bargains!
    MOST, not all of my brain is still working. Whilst that is the case, I will continue to trawl for long lost memories. It amuses me, I hope for you likewise. And a happy Christmas to you all! Its only just around the corner. At least to QVC that is the case. They have periodic offerings of Christmas goods and have done so since JUNE! They also have a compete day of Christmas advertising on the 25th of each month. Life is often mad but always interesting.

Heartiest Congratulations.

Monday was my birthday although we celebrated with a party on Saturday (7th Nov) Quiet day, Monday, after hectic Saturday, including a visit to the chiropodist. (What, on your birthday!)

Which is probably why I found myself wide awake, at three in the morning thinking about toes, or one toe in particular. My big toe, the left one if you're interested. No, oh please yourself! Evidently the joint is showing signs of wear. Now this is a nuisance but hardly terminal. And after all, it's rather an old toe when all is said and done.

Now I've reached seventy, that means my toe, my original and only left toe is around 25,567 days old. If my maths are right, that would come to well over half a million hours. And where else in my life am I going to achieve a figure of half a million plus of anything. (Answers on a postcard please.) So the old toe has not worn too badly by my reckoning. So I lay there and metaphorically contemplated my naval.

By now going back to sleep was out of the question. Then it got real deep and interesting. My knees are in a right state but they've done some work over the years. Plus they've had bits and pieces done to them to keep them going. My left hip joint has long since gone, replaced by modern ceramics. Gone too, my tonsils, no ceramic replacement necessary. (With it has gone some, go on then, most of my hair.) One eye never did work properly, the other is backed up by modern technology, £3oo spectacles for long distance from the opticians, reading glasses, £0.99 from Home Bargains. My joints in general are passable if arthritic, my lungs work within reason and my brain is almost completely intact in spite of the old TGA. Plus one or two other items have dwindling powers but we won't go into that! All this relying from day one, minute one on that wonder of science, the old ticker called the heart.

We seldom think of hearts until they go wrong; its bumping along as I write this. Unnoticed, no attention since that day in 1939 when first required to power this other wonder of science christened Kenneth Allan. Think about it. If we had been given a battery instead of a heart, what number battery would we be on by now?

A few 'heartfelt' observations. Your system of blood vessels concerned with the heart (arteries, veins and capillaries) is over 60,000 miles long. Long enough to go round the world more than twice. An adult heart pumps more than five quarts of blood each minute. That's around 2,000 gallons of blood each day. Plus it beats around 100,000 times each day. For a seventy year old that means it's done around 2.5 billion beats so far. And it weighs around ten ounces. A female adult heart only weighs around eight ounces but there again it doesn't have so much work to do. (Only kidding, ladies, honest, only kidding!) Every minute, every second, thump, thump, thump, amazing! Asleep, awake, its all the same to 'old faithful' 'cos if it doesn't, that's it, end, of story, end of Kenneth, 'Goodnight Vienna'.

So from now on, when you wake in the morning, and last thing at night, say 'thank you, heart, you unsung hero, you.' (But not too loud, eh, you don't want the neighbours talking.) I never did get back to sleep, instead I just got up and had a cup of tea. I'm sure old ticker approved.

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.'

'Eye, eye'

I had an uncle who had one of the earliest cataract operations in the country, not many years after the war. I only remember him having one contbut act lens. It was the size of a ten pence piece with one part raised and always reminded me of a sea shell. But best remembered was the fact that he used to clean it with Brasso, unbelievable true. It must have surely affected the capability of the lens and how his eye never became infected is beyond comprehension. Though I do remember his eye was often bloodshot in the extreme.
I have one good eye, the left has very limited vision and has evidently been so probably since birth. Only I never realised until undergoing an army medical in the late fifties. (The proper army, honest, not the Salvation.) But it would explain why, having no three dimensional vision I was such a lousy batsman at cricket. The ball was often past me before I picked up its flight. (Plus being hit round the ribs frequently does little for your confidence; neither does a low pain threshold help.)
I was fitted, after tests involving space age equipment with a single (left eye)) contact lens by a knowledgeable optician. Eyes at the ready I thanked him profusely and marched out confidently, promptly colliding with the door frame, suffering mild concussion and one hell of an headache.
I persevered for many a month but eventually admitted defeat, having, I fear nearly put several cyclists on the nearside of my car into the nearest available ditches. What happened eventually to the lens I have no idea, it will probably turn up as the loft contents diminish.
Neither is my wife immune from eye problems. She was a young and attractive young lady when we first met, the owner of large round spectacles so befitting of the era. (In case she reads this, you are still attractive, my dear in spite of the passing years.) Self conscious, fashion conscious too, Paulette was talked into being fitted with contact lenses. Then the fun really started.
I often got the impression my wife peered into the distance rather than merely looked, like ordinary mortals. They, the lenses had to be found and inserted before any excursion, however small and even then you were never sure if they were in or out, so to speak. And if they ever did 'pop out' what followed could be stressful, pandemic and sometimes even entertaining.
The earliest search I remember was going on honeymoon. The car full of confetti, thousands of coloured pieces of paper versus one dropped lens. Result, confetti, five thousand; lens nil. One one eyed bride; one one eyed bridegroom.
One once went missing on a sand slide from the sand hills to the beach near Cromer. "Stop, stand still" once again came the plaintive cry, "I've lost a lens." Again ten minutes of entertainment for all, including the children, bystanders and the dog. The latter incidentally particularly enjoyed the digging, spraying sand in all directions. I reckon he thought we were hiding it, not burying it. Result, ten million, million, million particles of sand, lens nil.
I did once recover a lens after yet another of my wife's mishaps. She lost it, in of all places the shower. At least we knew where it had gone, obviously down the plughole. From the drain outside I collected in the region of a dozen jam jars full of foul smelling, black, oozing, putrefying semi liquid filth. I patiently filtered the oozing substance. Every handful contained at least one beetle carcass that felt to the touch unbelievably like a contact lens. And, after an hours patient searching I got the little blighter. Triumphantly I returned my prize to my wife. Only she wouldn't reinsert it in her eye, not now, not never. Rather a waste of my efforts, I thought, but in retrospect who could blame her after where it had been, though not in the same league as Brasso.
Contact lenses, at least the early ones often had the knack of adhering to clothes after they had fallen out. Walk around and you could redistribute them anywhere. The trick was to strip off completely, the wearer not the searcher and place your clothes in a neat pile. Then you could search diligently, the pile of clothes first and then the rest of the room. For under thirties it became a very interesting few minutes that could be stretched somewhat if you spotted the elusive lens but didn't let on, so to speak. If you happened to be in Woolworth's shopping definitely a good time was had by all.
We are older now and neither my wife nor I wear contact lenses. I normally make do, for reading at least, with pairs from Lidl, Aldi or Home Bargains, priced from ninety nine pence per pair. Prescription number 2.5 0r 3.0. You need to know this, Lidl's glasses are sealed and woe betide you if you open a packet to try them on. The Croation employee patrolling the isles of our nearest store has had lessons and can hear the rustle of a packet being opened from all of a hundred feet. I own never less than seven pairs at any one time and can nearly always find a pair when I need them. Strangely enough they are seldom less fragile than the ultra expensive pairs of driving glasses I buy from the opticians. For the arms fall off them all, they don't like you sitting on them and I seldom have both bridge pieces after a week or so.
So life goes on and we go along with it. But just occasionally I miss those searches for the elusive lens! There again we were young and foolish. Perhaps we had better stay with spectacles. What do you think.

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 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'.