When I was in high school in southwest Dallas in 1980–1981, one of the PBS Evening comedy shows my Dad watched incessantly and enjoyed for so long was the hilarious weekly show, “‘Allo ‘Allo” with Gorden Kaye (as René Artois, cafe owner during WW2), Carmen Silvera (as Edith Artois, wife of René and jealous of all beautiful women), Vicki Michelle (as Yvette Carte-Blanche, pun intended), Kirsten Cooke (as Michelle Dubois head of the French Resistance), Kenneth Connor (as Monsieur Alfonse, Undertaker; “Swiftly and with Style”), Sam Kelly (as Captain Hans Geering), Ken Morley (as General von Flockenstuffen), Guy Siner (as the gay Lieutenant Hubert Gruber), Arthur Bostrom as Officer Crabtree the bad French-speaking policeman), and several other wonderful actors and actresses. I came to love this show because the writers, Jeremy Lloyd, David Croft and later Paul Adam, created an exceptionally entertaining 30-minute British sitcom. Dad and I always laughed non-stop.
I have also come to love many other British comedy shows such as “QI – Quite Interesting,” also “Travel Man” with Richard Ayoade, “Gadget Man Stephen Frye,” and “The Graham Norton Show,” and of course “The Benny Hill Show” and even more so “Fawlty Towers” with John Cleese. All of these shows Dad and I thoroughly enjoyed weekly, well, barring Graham Norton that I later discovered and fell in love with. So my followers and readers…
What were or are some of your favorite British comedy shows? Share them below in comments. 😁
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
I am in a mood this evening and these Korn jams sum up how I feel these past few days. Enjoy and understand where I am at in this effed up state of Texas and this Disunited States of America, it is all appropriate! 😁 They definitely sum up where I’m at with this country and it’s present direction…
Bang and bob that head up and down and dance crazy like a wild-man or wild-woman and let it LOOSE! It is such a good thang to go wild and let your inner beast out! 😁😈
During these times of great sociopolitical distress, unknown national or global pathways caused by the last several months and since 2016, I have been forced to find some type of solace, some level of pleasure and joy to keep at bay my nagging depression for this nation called the Disunited States of America, and more so my native home state of Texas. What have I found, discovered to temporarily relieve my torment the last decade or more?
My lifelong passions of football/soccer, World War II aviation, and the history of Antiquity, specifically the Roman Empire of the 2nd-century BCE through its decline and fall. Sometimes, more often lately, these “escapes” have kept my sanity in tact; or rather, in tact as is possible these very trying years. Given my age and declining health due to my living situation caring for my Early Alzheimer’s mother, vodka and tequila are no longer viable options or escapes (lots of cussing under my breath for that).
Therefore, I have been forced to find other alternatives to relieve my chronic sadness, my chronic pain, and my chronic frustration from where my once great home country is now headed. As some of you might remember, I am a fanatic for these three areas of interest: footballing/soccer, WW2 history/aviation, and Antiquity and the Roman Empire. I love these areas of interest so very much! And I always look for an opportunity to immerse myself in all three as many times as possible given my time restrictions at home. So…
Are any of you, my followers, my visitors, a kindred spirit in these three areas? I’d love to know. And if so, let’s sometimes chit-chat about them. I get immense pleasure diving into these subjects and how profoundly they changed our current world and all of our lives, particularly in the West. Are any of you gamers? Or are you just well read in these areas? Please let me know. 🙂
Here are some YouTube videos on these three areas I am passionate about:
Football Manager 2024 —
DCS World WW2 —
Rome 2: Total War —
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
It is November 5th, 2024 and American voters are out in droves to vote for the future survival of true democracy. About half of American voters, approximately 167.5-million, are voting for the two Republican candidates. The other half are voting for the other two Democratic candidates. Who are the Republican candidates? Here are their portrait-photos:
Presidential candidate Bernie Madoff and Vice-Presidential running mate, Ted Bundy
What are Bernie Madoff’s qualities? First and foremost is Madoff’s financial genius and empire he created through his Fonzi-Ponzi Fund. He promises Americans millions in economic returns. Second, he is an expert in wall constructions. In fact, he will soon be on the cutting edge of small cell-like confinements for any criminals that try and cross his Madoff Wall system! And third, Bernie Madoff promises his mega-wealthy investors Carte Blanche in environmental change opportunities on unprecedented scales, done in less than 20-years that Earth won’t be recognizable to even the most astute observers. I mean, who can’t vote for this fine gentleman and future leader of the world?
Bernie Madoff’s Vice-Presidential running mate is the one and only Ted Bundy of Burlington, Vermont. Bundy is best known for his diplomatic prowess and quirky charm so much so that his foreign and domestic guests would die for more time with him! Another top quality Bundy possesses for role of Vice-President is his family values, especially women’s rights, or rather no rights. Finally, VP candidate Bundy has vast experience in presidential campaigns; he worked for Nelson Rockefeller’s unsuccessful presidential run as well as Arthur Fletcher’s state and federal career and campaigns for, yes, you guessed it, Affirmative Action as the Revised Philadelphia Plan for more equality across genders and social equity, primarily for women since Bundy’s natural gift was diplomacy with women.
These Republican candidates are a very strong ticket for the Party which is exactly why about half of American voters are casting their precious voice with these two fine, upstanding men. If the Madoff-Bundy Republican ticket wins this presidential race, our country will be in very good hands with a fabulous future in store that the rest of the world will envy! No doubt about it.
Vote Right – Vote Party – Vote Progress – Vote Red
While searching strenuously in Mom’s chaotic (Alzheimer’s) bedroom and study-desk and boxes of files everywhere for the 2007 Toyota Avalon maintenance file/history of receipts, etc., I came across nine pages of a correctional driver’s test for motor vehicle offenders. Who was the offender? None other than my own Mom. Yes, “Say it isn’t so Nellie!” 😧
My Mom apparently was a modern, yet tamer, Bonnie without—or maybe with—some unknown “Clyde.” My draw dropped as I read this traffic offender’s 9-page test for my own flesh and blood: Mom. Should I read on? Should I not? What to do.
I browsed. I read page one, then two, and three and so on until I reached the end of the Offender’s Reprogramming Test. Mom!? She needed reprogramming for the safety of the general public!? “Say it isn’t so Nellie!” Not my own Mom! No way!
Now I knew of two different traffic citations issued to her between 2015 and 2019 when she was still driving with a license. But I am quite unsure if there were more than two pullover citations during those two or five years when she drove a lot. Reading this Traffic Offender’s Reprogramming Test after a 1 or 2 week classroom course, I was perplexed by many of the multiple-choice questions. Of the two, maybe three, traffic courses I ever took in my 43+ year driving lifetime, never was I tested with THESE sort of questions! I was stunned, flabbergasted by the direct questions and what they implied about the traffic offender… my own Mom! “Say it isn’t so Nellie!” Or rather Bonnie Parker!
For instance, Section II, question #2: What are the five leading causes of motor vehicle CRASHES in Texas as identified by the Dept. of Traffic Safety?:
Excessive alcohol and/or drug use
Unsafe high speeds (or well under the speed limit)
Flagrant disregard for stop signs or go signals
Failure to yield the right of way to other motorists
Following too close (tailgating) or up their arse
Or Section II, question #3: What are the two leading causes of traffic FATALITIES in Texas?:
Excessive alcohol and drugs
Attitudes, emotions, aggressiveness, drowsy driver, and bad driver habits
Or Section III, question #4: What factors demonstrate the lack of knowledge and understanding of traffic laws and proper procedures?
License plates on both the front and rear of vehicle
No one under the age of 18-yrs in Texas can ride in the rear bed of a pickup truck, except for unsecured house pets.
The proper or improper speed limit inside a flashing school zone
At night with oncoming traffic on a two-lane or four-lane remote highway or inside city limits, high-beam headlights are recommended or not recommended?
All of the above
Or Section IV, question #1: Describe proper passing procedures on Texas highways when…
Passing in the left lane
Passing on the right on a multi-lane road or highway if the car in front is slowed or stopped to turn left
Passing a slower vehicle (below speed limit) in the left lane when signs everywhere indicate “Slower Traffic Keep Right”
Giving courteous signals to other drivers so they know your intentions
And then Section X, questions #1–#5, but specifically #4:
Psychological factors of unsafe driving:
Attention span
Short-term memory
Unstable emotions
Overly aggressive behavior
Intolerance and impatience
And finally, Section XI, questions 1 thru 4: Proper legal carrying of firearms inside a moving vehicle
When stopped by law-enforcement on roads or highways, if you carry a concealed weapon or weapons, show the legal permit(s) first, not the weapon(s)… Bonnie Parker. 😉
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼
What was more shocking for me was that today Mom confessed two more things to me about her two (maybe 3-4?) Texas Traffic Offender’s Reprogramming Courses.
One, her parents named their very first child Bonnie. She died 2-4 months old as Bonnie Bonnet (or Bonet in French). Mom explained to me that her father Felix Bonnet was “fascinated” with Bonnie and Clyde. Riiiiiight. 🤔
Two, my maternal grandparents were also (apparently, at least in public) very Pentecostal faith-goers from a very long line of Waldensians! WHAT!? Hang on a minute! I had to completely readjust my initial maternal parent and grandparents. Was my world based upon falsehoods? Based on lots of little “white lies”? Oh the locked up family secrets in buried locations and inside sealed, boarded “closets.” What’s a man like me supposed to think about my family heritage? 😕😄
P.S. A smidge of slight embellishment may or may not have been utilized in this family story.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett
The Professor's Convatorium 