But off we went using our OPBP (as mentioned before). Buses took us from Lyminge to Folkestone (still a dump) and then from Folkestone to Dover and then Dover to Deal. On the way back we went Deal to Canterbury and Canterbury to Lyminge - a good old round trip.
At Deal they were building houses - a kind of New Deal (boom boom) to turn the town into a Big Deal (boom boom).
Mentioning Deal or No Deal reminded me of quiz shows that are no more. It is seven years ago yesterday that I recorded my appearance on The Weakest Link (yes I know it's back with celebrities but I'm referring to the original quiz with Anne Robinson). It was a bit of a nerve-racking experience. Attached with this blog is a picture of me with the other contestants in the Green room before the recording. Anne Robinson was fiery. We didn't see her before the quiz or meet her afterwards. In fact they recorded three shows each day and we were the middle one.
The programme paid my train and taxi fares to and from the Elstree studios and would have paid for an overnight stay but I preferred to do it all in one day. On the way back we asked one of the staff whether he got on with Ms Robinson and he replied along the lines of "She's a lot easier to get on with than Noel Edmonds who is really up himself." Perhaps I will leave that thread there.
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There are some interesting place names in Kent of course. I saw a signpost once that had Ham on one arm and Sandwich on the other. The distance between Ham Sandwich is very small as another photograph shows. It's a good job there isn't a town in Kent called cheese and pickle although I believe there is a little known place by the name of Tuna Melt.
So here's a simple question. How many Cinque ports are there. Remember your French and the answer is obviously five. But no. There are six - Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover, Sandwich and Rye and then there are seven limb towns which are part of the Cinque Port federation. These are: Lydd, Folkestone, Faversham, Margate, Deal, Ramsgate and Tenterden. As usual nothing is what it seems.
My favourite mix of towns comes from the USA. There are two small places in Pennsylvania. One is called Intercourse and the other Paradise. There is a photo opportunity between them and you can actually get a photo of yourself with the captions "I am (we are) between Intercourse and Paradise". These places are in Lancaster County and smack bang (if you'll pardon that word in this connection) in Amish territory. I might share details of our stay around Amish land in a future blog.
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I see that the Australian soap Neighbours is coming to an end in the UK unless another channel takes over from Channel Five. It started in 1985 and I remember the first episode. In those early days I watched it avidly and my sons were brought up with Neighbours. I vividly remember the wedding of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan (soap wedding that is). But eventually it went the way of all soaps in my world (apart from Corrie). I stopped watching it years ago once I felt the goodness had been sucked out of it. Whether it goes or survives is an irrelevance to me. Same goes for the other Australian soap Home and Away which I also watched regularly and which came along three years after Neighbours and which never quite had the same appeal.
Many years ago we visited Australia and our guide on a trip was a former crew member on Home and Away. Can't remember exactly what position he held but it might have been make-up artist or something like that. He had a coach full of people, asked us all to stand in a circle and tell him our first names. There were some very unusual ones. He than asked us to move positions and reeled off all our names. A brilliant example of memory. I have been known as Deidre ever since. I have looked into this and tried it myself. In my case it was to remember a pack of playing cards in the correct order.
When it comes to names you associate the name with an imagined story or characteristic of the person. Take my name - Peter (and not Deidre). It could be that I am imagined dressed as an Apostle, hence the name Peter. Or it might be that he imagined me being eaten by a giant fly. So that when he saw me I would be at the mercy of the Peter Eater. With playing cards and many other things it's a different process. One way of doing it is to think of a walk from your house around the local area. You think of things in the order they come and need to have 52 scenarios such as walking through your gate, crossing the road etc. You then look at the cards and again associate them with the walk e.g if the first card is King of Hearts you imagine a King kissing you as you go through the gate. The second card could be a five of spades and so you imaging five digging spades crossing your road. In other words you build up a mental picture for each card. It does take some practice. Best thing is to start with 10 cards and then progress until you can do an entire pack. It does impress people and is an excellent party trick. The main problem is when you do it a second time you have to erase the five spades crossing the road and replace them with seven diamond rings crossing over. The other problem is you have to remember 52 locations in order and even that takes some doing. I would love it if any of my readers could try this out and let me know how you get on.
That reminds me of a stupid trick I played on the grandchildren one Christmas and one they still point out to be potty. I put a glass of water on a table in the lounge and said: "The next time I walk into this room the water in that glass will have disappeared. They were amazed at that thought but not at the way it was done. I simply crawled on all fours into the room, drank the water and crawled out again and then walked back in. Now I know some of you will try that one and blame me when people just groan! I got the idea from a 1920s murder mystery - the name of which eludes me. Perhaps the person murdered was the idiot who tried out the trick. Perhaps he or she was bumped off by an annoyed four year old.
But back to soaps. In my time I have watched and given up on all of them (apart from Corrie). I watched Brookside, Eastenders, Emmerdale when it was Emmerdale Farm, Hollyoaks and many many more. Fell in love with them and fell out of love with them and would now celebrate with great abandon if Eastenders came to an end so I wouldn't have to listen to the characters shouting at each other (which is just about all they do).
I do stick slavishly with Coronation Street though and also enjoy Doctors as it's much more light-hearted in its approach to things.
Thinking about Neighbours made me muse on actors/artists who can easily be identified by using just one name. Say Kylie and everyone known who you are talking about. Then there's Delia, Prince, Madonna and probably many more.
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The cost of living is sky rocketing and it seems to me that companies etc are just saying "well everything is going up so we may as well join in." It might be refreshing to hear from somebody who is lowering prices. Can't see that happening as they all jump onto the bandwagon.
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Whilst in Deal we dined at the King's Head -an historic pub. It had lots of Media cuttings on the wall about flood levels through the ages.
But there was another one about the day Ed Milliband (the leader of the Labour party at the time) called in. Apparently he was in Deal many years ago and was desperate for a wee and so called into the King's Head only to find UKIP politician Nigel Farrage having a pint. You will all remember that Farrage is rarely photographed without a pint in his hand underlining the fact that he is a man of the people - either that or an alcoholic.
Apparently, according to the article, the King's Head is one of Farrage's locals (it doesn't say exactly how many local pubs he frequents). Made an interesting read. There's a new biography on Farrage that sound interesting, although I don't fancy shelling out money to read it.
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As I was writing this blog, ideas and thoughts kept going through my mind. One was really good and I thought I would put it under the title of "Things I learnt today." Only thing was it was so good that by the time I had written the title I had forgotten what the thing I had learnt was!!!!!