There was quite an interesting episode in
Asda this morning. As I walked in to get lunch, it was clear that one of the
operatives was getting a dressing-down from his boss. I walked into the store
just as the arse-kicking was ending. The chap who’d been reprimanded then
walked alongside me, muttering as he went. I was hoping he’d turn off
somewhere, but he matched me pace for pace all the way to the fruit and veg aisle
where he stormed up to another member of staff and started aggressively
shouting at him. It would seem that this second chap had squealed to the bosses
about the first chap’s slowness and general incompetence.
The recipient of the arse-kicking was not
happy, and as he shouted at the squealer, he emphasised every word with a thump
on the squealer’s chest.
I did have plans to spend some time looking
for some fruit which might be a bit more adventurous than my usual apple and
banana, but in the event I couldn’t get away quickly enough.
I had a phone call at work today. Having sent
out the results of my blood test a fortnight ago (!), my quack phoned today to tell me that my cholesterol level was
borderline high. That would come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever seen me.
The quack suggested that I go back to see her (which is much easier said than done) and get my blood pressure
checked. Then, knowing both my blood pressure and my cholesterol level, the
quack will know what medicine to prescribe to lower my cholesterol level.
It strikes me that the obvious medicine would
be a lot less chips, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that….
Home – and more exercise. ‘er indoors TM
had suggested we had a walk round
the park this evening. And what’s the point of having a grand-dog if you can’t
take him for walkies every so often. So we popped round for Fudge and took him
on a stroll round the park.
It has to be said that Fudge hasn’t quite got
the hang of walking to heel: he is still a tad excitable. For some reason he
behaves far better when ‘er indoors TM is walking him than
when it’s me on the business end of the lead. And there’s no denying I wouldn’t
dare let him off the lead.
There was a dodgy five minutes when Fudge
fudged, but in this enlightened era we were equipped with poop bags. We had a
minor squabble as to who got to do the poop picking, and I lost.
But we got a good walk in – and the Internet tells
me that on that walk I shifted 269 calories. Basically about the calorie content
of the sandwich I had for lunch.
My cousin mentioned the other day that she
was joining the twenty-first century and getting a Sky-Plus box. She asked me
if I had any hints or tips about using the thing. I told her that it was a
brilliant toy because you can record programs on it, and then when you watch
them later, you can fast-forward through the adverts. She thought this was
amazing, As did I.
It’s only just occurred to me that I had the
technology to do this over twenty five years ago. The machine I used was a
video cassette recorder, or VCR.
Do you remember them? - They were all the rage, but with the advent of
DVDs, VCRs fell out of fashion. And as they went, so did people’s ability to
record programs off of the telly.
On reflection it’s amazing that people are
seeing the recording ability of a Sky-Plus box as being something
revolutionary. It’s no such thing. It’s a reinvention of something which is
older than my children.
Mind you, something which was never a problem
with the first generation of recording stuff off of the telly was the etiquette
of talking about telly programs. Back in the day it was expected that telly
programs were watched when broadcast, and so were fair game as topics of
conversation. Nowadays with Sky-Plus it would seem that everyone Sky-Pluses
everything. No one watches the telly as it is broadcast any more. An innocent
comment of “did you see on the telly last
night….” is usually immediately met with shushing from an assembled throng
who have recorded said program to watch at some indeterminate date in the future.
So how long can one reasonably give family
and friends to watch a TV program before making comment on it? What is a
reasonable length of time to wait?
Five days ago we recorded “Doctor Who”: we watched it yesterday I
liked it. The first part of this season was decidedly iffy, but these latest
episodes are really good. And then we watched Downton Abbey tonight – I liked
that too. What happened was…
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