Prosopagnosia.  Let me repeat that.  Prosopagnosia.  Rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?  Rhymes with ambrosia, the food of the gods though without the divine effects.  It is in fact face blindness or the inability to recognise people’s faces and is suffered among others by Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry and Brad Pitt.

The Mrs is back from France and the French were so upset they rioted for five days.  Luckily no such eruptions have occurred here since her return though I of course have had to adjust my lifestyle.  Whilst she was away I was able to return to my own ways – leaving cupboard doors deliberately open, having only four chairs round the table at KI rather than the usual twelve.   I have never worked out why we need to have twelve chairs round the table.  They seem to breed.  They are a considerable impediment for diners to actually sit at the table as they fight for a place with the chairs.  Twelve of them and only six of us.

Somehow shopping, and the delights thereof, seem to have crept up on me recently.  My wife dragged me to Aldi, which is the new love of her life. 

Having bought 10 bottles of washing liquid, 5 trays of baked beans and three jumbo-sized jars of vegemite, all of which are surplus to our immediate needs (but could be useful if we were stocking a nuclear bunker), we then stumbled on the non-food section.  Aldi seems to be covering all the bases.

Recently I had a friend to stay. In the 1980s I had stayed with him in Kitzbuhel where I learned to ski.  The last time I was there was in the mid-1990s when I took a fund manager to visit Austrian companies.  Sounds a bit obscure but they do have companies in Austria and a stock exchange.  Said fund manager of Low Countries extraction managed money for a British insurance company and I once visited him in his offices.  He was wearing something closely akin to a waiter’s uniform and he was getting some very peculiar looks from his ever-so conservative colleagues.  Luckily he left his waiter’s uniform at home on the Austrian trip.

This week I went to the dentist and the usual mask sign had changed: ‘Masks not required but encouraged.’  Frankly I have had enough of all this mask nonsense especially as it has been proven to be ineffective.  If I was the dentist the sign would have read: ‘Masks permitted but actively discouraged.’

Last night struggling to find anything to watch on TV, my wife and I plumped for ‘Cunk on Earth,’ a mockumentary or spook documentary series on the history of earth.  Think of a history series like Simon Schama’s ‘A History of Britain’ with facts a minor consideration as in ‘1066 and all that.’  Now think of its presentation as in Borat where he interviews serious people, politicians in particular, and asks them stupid questions.

A few days ago someone said ‘as smooth as a bag full of wet mice.’  A choice epithet and one so appropriate to the recent Harry & Meghan series: ultra-smooth and most probably one-sided.  The never-ending royal saga, which is hyper-ventilating the world’s media, needs to be ended asap for my sanity and that of humankind. 

We are at that time of year again, the festive season of goodwill, cheer, more parties and frothing mouths. 

The first cab off the rank for this merry season was lunch with my mother-in-law, her nearly nonagenarian friends and my wife.  Just seven women and me.  There seemed to be a slight frisson of excitement at having a ‘young’ man in the room and I seemed to pass muster in handing round wine and pork scratchings.  Meanwhile the conversation, suitably for Adelaide, focused on the property market and other people.

Day 1

Day 1 of the six-day lockdown.  Met Kirsty in the kitchen at 7am and she was already bored.  She has a long list of things she wants to do.  By the end of the day the house is cleaned and all the linen has had two washes.  Even the cat has been in the wash.  Not a good experience.  Have you ever seen a cat when let out of a washing machine?  Not happy Jan.

Some of you may know that I recently went into hospital to get my other knee replaced after having got the first one replaced in February. Clearly a man on a mission I got my name down on waiting list for the second knee and my name was called early and I grabbed the window of opportunity.