Celebrating Fish, Chips and Four Goons

Hi Everyone

Events this week included the National Day in Denmark, Volunteers Week in the UK, and Fish and Chip Day again here in the UK. I mention the National Day in Denmark as our grandaughter is coming to the end of a memorable year at the University of Aarhus, Denmark's second city. It is reputed to be one of the happiest places to live, and from the experiences and friendships she has formed, it certainly seems to bear out that claim. Volunteers Week certainly deserves a mention, as without them, this nation would be in a sorry state. As a volunteer at our local library, I met up with my newfound friends together with volunteers from other libraries for a buffet lunch and a big thank you for our efforts. To celebrate Fish and Chip day, we had chicken casserole for our evening meal. Now I love fish, but sadly, our traditional meal is under attack from the high price of fish, the kebab, the pizza, and a curry, not forgetting that the air fryer in the comfort of your own home produces a good quality alternative. Nothing, however, beats sitting on the promenade seawall on a sunny summer day with a paper full of fish and chips while fighting off a bunch of hungry seagulls. I cannot imagine celebrating a national curry, kebab or pizza day, but amazing as it might seem, judging by the number of places selling them in comparison to the number of fish and chip shops, it is very much a possibility. 

This week, I came across a poem. These are the first and last verses of the poem. It reads

Smiling is infectious 

You catch it like the flu

When someone smiled at me today

I started smiling too

So if you feel a smile begin

Don’t leave it undetected

Start an epidemic

And get the world infected 

The poem was written by that wonderful, off the wall, lovable, and very funny man, Spike Milligan. He was the co-creator and main writer of the radio show The Goon Show, which those of us with a strange or surreal sense of humour tuned into every week in the 1950s and 60s. The poem reminded me that in 1958, the Main Contractor, although at that point she was not yet the Main Contractor, and I were on holiday in London. On the Sunday, we stopped at Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames Embankment to take some photographs with my Kodak camera and black and white film. After taking two photos, a man approached us, suggesting that we should save some film as the Goons were coming to do some filming. Five minutes later, a large black Rolls Royce drew up with the three main goons, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, and Spike. Harry and Peter both wore dark suits, white shirts and shiny shoes, while Spike was dressed in a woolly jumper, corduroy trousers and a pair of slippers. They were there to film their version of There’ll Always Be an England, and for the next half hour, the film crew struggled to get any sense out of them as they bounced crazy ideas around with Harry laughing throughout, Peter trying to be serious, and Spike throwing out the crazy ideas. I am not sure whether the film crew got what they wanted or just gave up, but we had a memorable and very funny experience, and a few black and white photos too.

This week J D Vance blamed an horrific killing here of an eighteen year old student on “Our flood of immigration”. Of course, we have problems, but coming from a country who are nearly all immigrants, who have staggering gun laws, who are trashing the world's economy, and who are losing the war against Iran, my answer is that JD and his cronies have much bigger problems than we do.   

Just a Thought:

My friend once dated a Turkish woman. Her mother was Tunisian and her father was Canadian. Her grandparents were Albanian and her brother was Danish. He soon broke up with her, too many red flags.  

Two priests decided to open a fish and chip shop. One was the fish Friar, the other was the chip Monk.

Of all your opinions, the one I value most is the one you keep to yourself

Brian