I'm so glad that we are retired or tomorrow night's party to celebrate Josephine's Perfection (last episode of current series tonight BBC2 4.30pm) would have been impossible. We've had two people around for dinner plenty of times and we've had ten at the table before (although on that occasion we hired a chef). But this is the first time that we'll be cooking for that many ourselves and it's taken a hell of a lot of organising. Yesterday was spent shopping, today has been spent getting the house clean and tidy, the table set, selecting the best episodes of the show to watch and printing some prize entries for our guests. Tomorrow we'll be cooking and preparing the food (apart from the dessert which we've ordered from a local patisserie). It's a good job that the diet is over as the lady on the cheese counter at Waitrose was a brilliant salesperson and, every time she suggested that we try a taste of a different one we ended up buying a piece.
And talking of diets, David, the owner of our local news agents the Bon Ton, asked me if I was getting better when I went to pay for the papers this morning. "Better?" I asked. "Yes" he says "I noticed your face looking thinner and thinner and thought you were ill". And to think that people go on diets to make themselves look better (not me I hasten to add).
One thing that we didn't take into account when choosing the date and time for our do was the day's sporting fixtures. With two passionate rugby fans and an Everton season ticket holder on the guest list, we've pretty well cocked up their day's sport for them with our 5pm start. It will have to be good now.
As the door closes on this series of Perfection another one opens and, next Friday, son Paul's creation A League Of Their Own returns to Sky1HD and Sky1 at 9.30pm. We won't be having a party to celebrate this one as we've already had a League party but we will be going down to Elstree on Wednesday for the filming of one of the episodes. It will probably be our last visit to a recording of A League Of Their Own as Paul is starting with the BBC in just over two weeks.
When we've finished watching Perfection tomorrow we might have time for some party tricks. I think I'll get everyone to have a try at this. Marion has just popped out for some distilled water.
There's a big celebration planned for Saturday when eight friends are joining us for a party to celebrate daughter in law Josephine's success in devising and developing the hit BBC2 show Perfection. The show, hosted by Nick Knowles, is a great quiz which brings up fascinating statements that the contestants have to decide are true or false. I've learnt some very interesting facts since the show launched (eg it is true that Sam Cameron has a dolphin tattoo on her ankle). The evening will start at 5pm with champagne and canapes and when we have broken the ice we will watch one game from the show. We're then going to have a great dinner which has been planned to perfection by Marion and we will be watching more games between courses. We've got some good little prizes for anybody who completes a final round with a perfect score and we're hoping to get Josephine to make an appearance by Skype if she's not too shy.
Wines have been provided by the excellent Whalley Wine Shop. This wonderful off license is over twenty miles away from here but it's well worth the journey as it is highly unlikely that on describing each course to the assistants at Tesco we would get the perfect recommendations that you get from the trained sommeliers in Whalley. We've got an excellent Perrier Jouet champagne, a super Chateau Ste Michelle Pinot Gris for the starter and a hearty Brolio Barone Ricasoli Chianti to accompany the main course. We've nothing for the dessert as last time we all got together I ended up flat on my back and this time I need my wits about me for Perfection as I've deliberately not watched some episodes so that I can join in the fun although being a family member I'm barred from winning a prize (just like my thwarted appearance in Antiques Master).
My retirement reading spree continues and I'm flying through the novels. Yesterday I finished What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. This was Catherine's debut novel and I loved her original style. The book rotates twenty years in the past with the present and centres around life at Green Oaks, a modern shopping mall. I loved the opening where ten year old Kate Meaney sets herself up as a detective carrying out surveillance at the shopping centre a little like the kids in the Secret Seven books (albeit more streetwise and savvy than Blyton's children). In fact I could see the character continuing the story into a full blown children's novel but before I got the chance we were taken to the future where life at the Mall is dark and bleak for security guard Kurt and store manager Lisa. Although ultimately tinged with poignancy, the book has a good deal of humour and is an excellent read. I particularly enjoyed the unusual vignettes in italics that ended a number of chapters. Running to a little over a page each, each was a self contained short story which, though parallel to the plot, developed the atmosphere of Green Oaks in an unusual and highly effective way.
What to read next is the big question. I'm just starting a novel that my mum gave me which should fill the next few days but although our IKEA Billy bookcases are sagging under the weight of books piled two deep on some shelves I've not got many left unread. Any ideas? We could do with going to one of those book swaps we keep reading about on @meandmybigmouth's Twitter feed (see blog link to the right) but they are in Windsor and the cost of the fuel would somewhat outweigh the benefit.
I'll leave you today with French prankster Remi Gaillard. I've not heard of him before but it seems that he is France's very own Dom Jolly.
It's been a beautiful day here in Southport today and it gave Marion a couple of free hours to check over the garden for the first time since the snow. There was a huge disappointment in store for her as she discovered that shrubs and bushes that she had been cultivating for ten or more years had found the snow too much and given up the ghost. Tree branches had snapped from the weight of the snowfall and it looks like we'll have to get a man in to perform major tree surgery. On a positive note a rosemary bush that was beyond rescue has cut been up to add to the fire which should give the lounge a fragrant aroma tonight.
I had a customer satisfaction survey to complete from Liverpool FC today. I thought that this might be a initiative from the new owners but it appears to be from a department set up by the last lot. I'm always willing to respond to surveys especially in areas that affect me but, after reading my responses I don't think they will be asking me again. Amongst the survey were questions on the catering. I can only speak from my experiences on the kop but, after working in the catering industry for over twenty years, the use of the words "catering" and "kop" in the same sentence is something of a joke.
We've been out most of the afternoons this week so we're having a big catch up on our daughter in law Josephine's Perfection on the Sky Plus. Here she is on the set of the show that she created. Although the game looks very simple on the face of it, Marion and I have failed to get a perfect score in the end game once so far (and we've watched a lot of episodes today) so if we were to be contestants (which we obviously can't be) the BBC would be sure to save its money. If you haven't seen Perfection yet, set the Sky Plus for BBC2 at 4.30pm every weekday and play along. It's a great game show.
People have asked me why I do this every day. I don't have a massive readership and it takes up a fair bit of time. The reason is that I want to be a writer and I want to get into the habit of writing something every day. I wrote a novel (unpublished) in 2009 and want to write another after I've taken a creative writing course. If anybody reading this can recommend a good part time course, I'd be very grateful.
Meanwhile others have asked me how I am doing recovering from my new hip.I'm walking completely without crutches now. My gait is still not perfect. It's a bit like this.
With apologies for the paraphrasing to Bjørge Lillelien who uttered the immortal "Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana--we have beaten them all. We have beaten them all. Maggie Thatcher can you hear me? Maggie Thatcher, I have a message for you in the middle of the election campaign. I have a message for you: We have knocked England out of the football World Cup. Maggie Thatcher, as they say in your language in the boxing bars around Madison Square Garden in New York: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating." Well tomorrow afternoon it's time for Noel and his Deal or No Deal to be knocked off his perch at the top of the teatime ratings with the launch of Nick Knowles' Perfection the brand new quiz show developed by my daughter in law Josephine.
Instead of watching a group of contestants who don't seem to understand the laws of probability reject perfectly good offers for their boxes and then see their potential prize evaporate before their eyes you can watch a quiz show that everyone can play at home. You'll have a fifty fifty chance of getting each question right as the whole show is based on "true or false" but can you achieve perfection and get every one of those answers right? The questions are fiendishly tricky and the answers are often not what you would expect at all. It's a great show, the questions have been brilliantly researched and the very likable Nick Knowles is doing the presenting. Tune in to BBC2 at 4.30pm and exercise your brain cells. Deal? It's a no brainer.
I love this photo. Our eighty something mums came round this afternoon for a spot of lunch and then to watch the football. I paused the match at the kick off while we finished our puddings and was enjoying Liverpool's half time lead when disparaging tweets from my son led me to think that the second half was not running quite so smoothly. That's the big problem with sporting events and Sky live pause. You basically have to go incommunicado until its all over when the Twitterati and people like Bjørge can have their say.
One of the joys of parenthood is supporting your kids and taking an interest in their interests so tonight I will be ensconced in the spare bedroom watching the New York Jets play New England Patriots in the second round of the play offs for the Super Bowl. I know the basic rules but I won't have much of a clue as to what is going on. At least I will be able to console Paul when I speak to him next (or, who knows, discuss who they're playing in the next round).
We're going on a bit of a film pilgrimage tomorrow as we head to Carnforth to the Brief Encounter tearooms. Carnforth was the setting for the fictional Milford Junction in the classic weepie and we're off to soak up the atmosphere and perhaps a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. I'm practicing my lines "I love you, Marion. I shall love you always until the end of my life. I can't look at you now cause I know something. I know that this is the beginning of the end. Not the end of my loving you but the end of our being together. But not quite yet, darling. Please. Not quite yet."
I was delighted to reach over a hundred readers of yesterday's blog (I like to think small), a minor milestone. I haven't had many comments though. Please feel free to add them.
If you work, whatever you do next week you must set your Sky Plus box for Perfection (BBC2 4.30pm on Monday and add a series link) . If you don't work settle down and watch.
Presented by the excellent Nick Knowles and running every weekday afternoon, this great new quiz show was devised and developed for 12 Yard Productions by my lovely daughter in law Josephine. Marion and I had a sneak preview when we went to a recording last year. It's a super play along at home sort of show and I'm sure that it will be a big hit. Congratulations Josephine.
My heart sank when I read this week that celebrities were being paid to mention certain products on Twitter. How would I know for sure in the future that Liz Hurley's recommendation of Estee Lauder cosmetics came from her heart or that that book that Lord Sugar kept banging on about was as good as he said? Sadly every tweet must now be treated with suspicion. When I tweet that a restaurant, a hotel or a book is excellent you can be assured that, with only 40 or so followers, I am hardly likely to be in the pay of the subject but who else can we trust? It's a pity because Twitter is a brilliant platform for shared experiences and reading your Twitter feed with a degree of cynicism and fear of commercial exploitation will sully the experience.
But celebrity endorsement and product placement are with us to stay. We will soon be seeing similar shots on our screens to that above as product placement is soon to arrive here in the UK. In reality it's been around for some time. Last year I had an email from a TV researcher asking if I would like to provide catering equipment for a new show. I was assured that the kitchen would get prominent coverage on screen and it was a great opportunity for us. I declined. The show bombed (who knows how much better it would have done with our equipment) but there was no mention of product placement when it screened. How many cars have been provided for cop shows in a similar way?
I know that there will be strict guidelines and viewers will be told in advance when a programme is using it but will the producers be tempted to embellish their scripts and instead of just positioning a box of Frosties on the kitchen table add in a line to the effect that "they're great"? Whole plots could be transformed by the desire to keep the advertisers happy. I can see the planning meetings. "Doctor Who has been using that Tardis and Sonic Screwdriver for donkey's years now. How about giving him a B&Q self assembly shed and a tin of Ronseal?"I'm looking forward to it.
I heard on Radio 4's Today this morning that residents of a Southwark housing estate have had this glossy leaflet pushed through their letterboxes warning them against going to the police and grassing up their neighbours. Apart from the bad spelling and grammar what struck me most about the leaflet was the extremely sinister link. If you type www.stopsnitching.info into your browser it takes you to... Well just try it. Heres a link www.stopsnitching.info Nasty eh?
I think that if I lived in Southwark I'd be buying myself one of these guard hamsters. I would feel a lot safer then.
