Tag Archives: The Saint

Shopping and The Saint

We’ve just been to pick up the shopping order from TESCO. There were a couple of things that weren’t available and one substitution.

This was bagged rocket (or arugula if you speak American). Yes, I shouldn’t be buying it, for a number of reasons, including expense and ecology, but I try to eat a variety of things and at least you can taste rocket. Well, not this week, because they substituted it fro lamb’s lettuce. They could have substituted organic rocket (though it may have made their price guarantee squeak a little), or watercress (another salad you can taste) or even the “peppery” salad, but no, they substituted it with the lamb’s lettuce. It will do, but it doesn’t look like the obvious substitution to me.

They don’t leave it to the discretion of the packers to do the substitution, they use an algorithm. Heaven help us if the robots ever take over – I cannot even begin to imagine what life will look like once we fall int6om the hands of the algorithm-wielding little metal menaces. That’s another good argument for not living to be a thousand.

The strange thing is that when I check rocket on the website, it is available, and lamb’s lettuce isn’t. Probably because they’ve been fobbing all the rocket customers off with lamb’s lettuce.

Easy answer is to give salad a miss until we can start growing our own again.

I watched The Saint at lunchtime. At the age of 8 I thought this was the best TV show ever made. Today, 55 years later, the tale of a mad scientists breeding giant ants in a Welsh cave system, though dated and not great literature, didn’t impress me quite so much. However, to be fair, it was far from the worst thing I’ve seen on TV recently.

The clock picture is to mark the occasion of me getting round to altering the clock in the car, after the clocks went back at the weekend. I kept meaning to do it but never got round to it. The story of my life.

 

A Day of Education

Today, after packing a reasonable number of parcels, I started loading a selection of maps, went on to empty coin cases and then started on some books. We have a  very interesting book at the moment – and as a result of reading it I now know what arrangements were made for pregnant women, victims of shipwreck and people who made gloves from rabbit skins as a side-line. I can also tell you what arrangements wee in place pertaining to pre-war fabric, second hand goods and fund-raising bazaars. Fascinating stuff – and I mean that sincerely. The administration must have been  a huge task, and that was just one small aspect of wartime life.

All you need to know about clothing coupons

The second book I looked at was, in some ways, more interesting, purporting to be a journalist’s evaluation of German paratroops.  He says they dropped into Poland and Holland in disguise, dressed as regionally appropriate peasants in Poland and, amongst other things, nuns and British soldiers in Holland. My view, as it always has been, is that these were just  stories. Look at it logically – you look up and see a nun on a parachute. Is your first instinct to wonder why a nun is parachuting, or wonder why the Nazi is wearing a dress? It’s bad enough jumping out of an aeroplane and being shot at without having the additional distraction of a stiff breeze blowing up your wimple.

Slightly less educational

So there you go, a day of education.

The advert in the header is from a map of Hampstead. It’s a Volvo P1800 as driven by Roger Moore in the Saint.

The Epitome of Relaxation

I’ve just been to the doctor, which is not something to be undertaken lightly after my recent experiences. Fortunately I emerged with only mild embarrassment and a prescription for antibiotics and ointment.

I still look forwards to the day when I am allowed to keep my trousers on. This was, unfortunately, not that day.

My reward was a nice quiet sit-down in the pharmacy followed by test of willpower (swallowing a large uncoated pill which I suspect of having veterinary origins).

I then sat down to watch a number of obnoxious people competing to be judged as best value B&B. I can understand why people would want to go on such a programme to boost their business. I can’t, on the other hand, see why anyone would want to go on national TV to reveal themselves as the reincarnation of Lucretia Borgia.

Juli just returned from the hairdresser looking gorgeous. She has just changed because her last one, where she’d been going for 10 years, rang her to say they had closed down. Fortunately a new one has just opened round the corner, and it seems to be good. They will even shave my head for £6, which isn’t bad when you consider the contortions and safety aspects of doing it myself.

She just cooked beans on toast, with a garnish of sausage and bacon, plus a few mushrooms and some bubble and squeak (you have to remember the veg!).

Now I’m watching The Saint. it’s in colour and features Yootha Joyce and Tony Booth as Russian agents.

Soon it will be time to read a bit more, shout at some idiot quiz contestants and drink more tea.

Wife, tea, TV.

Does it get any better than this?