Ill met at a party afternoon tea
DEAR Uncle Norm,
Real women quickly learn that single men who are neither gay nor useless are as rare as hen’s dentures. However, Reginald, who I met at a NZ First afternoon tea, seemed a fairish prospect. He still has some of his hair, is fat but not technically obese, and receives an acceptable pay cheque.
We went out for a few weeks, then I decided to invite him home to dinner. No big fuss, as he didn’t yet merit one. I lit a couple of candles, defrosted a readymade coq au vin, and opened a modest French wine with an impressive label.
It went pleasantly, and Reginald gave no hint of beastliness, opinions, or inappropriate behaviour. But I haven’t heard from him since.
Should I ignore him as he deserves (he wears brown shoes with his navy blazer), or phone and give him a piece of my mind?
Daphne Prim, The Cottage, Kew.
Daphne — you could have done worse. Some choose fluoro Nikes. I believe this man has had a narrow brush with disaster, and suggest you read the letter below.
Dear Uncle Norm,
Having remounted the Helvetian Triangular page of my stamp collection — the trick is to display them at 30degree angles — I went to a political meeting to find their party’s position on issuing a commemorative Covid stamp. (A $1.40 Ardern, nonlick, I should think).
The candidate’s response was clueless, but I was compensated by meeting a rather nice woman. Daphne is neat, well ironed, and wears earmuffs that match her cardigan.
We tried several ‘‘dates’’ at unsanitary bars and poorly wiped cafes, and — just as I went to invite her to a lecture on The Great Stamps of Poland — she asked me home to dinner.
Daphne maintains a tidy house, and served an excellent chicken stew, with a pricey burgundy. I helped her clear up, but when I opened her dishwasher, what I saw dismayed. This seemingly responsible woman was a disordered sloven. She had randomly mixed knives, forks and spatulas in the cutlery section. And stuffed saucers and a lemon squeezer on to the same rack as her dinner plates.
What will I find next? Hankies in her underwear drawer? I see no future with Daphne, but should I visit, and demonstrate how decent people stack dishwashers?
Reginald Penny.
Some claim the first to own a mechanical dishwasher was Joseph Stalin, who freighted anyone who racked butter knives with teaspoons to the Gulags. But this may be wrong. Don’t contact Ms Prim. She too has had a narrow escape. (But does all this make you wonder about voting NZ First?)
Dear Uncle Norm,
I’m amazed by the naive incompetence of NZ’s mask policy. First we were instructed ‘‘don’t wear them — it’s risky;’’ next officialdom seemed unsure; and now they are stout advocates of covering the snozzle.
It ought to have been clear from the start — Lord, a chimpanzee should have seen this — that masks would reduce sneezers spreading the virus.
Christopher Blow, Sumner.
Our Health Department makes its decisions based on science. My understanding is that following the mask fiasco, the department will establish a multidepartmental committee to review the mask consultancy supplied by the Royal Society of Chimpanzees.
Dear Uncle Norm,
The audience’s patriotic bellowing of Rule Britannia
and Land of Hope and Glory
has long been the joyful finale of the BBC’s Proms concert series. I read the official British broadcaster will now ban these anthems’ words and play only the music, because Rule Britannia includes the lines ‘‘Britons never, never, never will be slaves.’’
A BBC executive producer publicly opined that since British ships once transported slaves, Britons chorusing Rule Britannia is akin to neoNazis singing hymns of praise to the dear old gas chambers. Truly.
How crazy do the great culture wars, and official ‘‘wokeness’’, get? No wonder the BBC has caused outrage in the British media.
James Thomsen. (UK emigrant).
The Proms finale will be held — as ever — at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The number of patriots who will lose the opportunity to chorus these hymns to Britain is — well, it’s zero, actually. Covid bans, no live audiences, etc.
The media is enjoying some huff and puff at the expense of notoriously Leftish BBC execs. But a second Rule Britannia Proms Scandal in 2021 is now a racing certainty.
If we agree the start date of your Great Culture Wars was (say) the publication of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch, then we’ve been hacking away at them for exactly 50 years. Each decade they become wider and sillier. No peace talks are in sight. There shall be no stone unthrown.
Slavery’s cancer was everywhere. The Romans took Britons home as slaves, preferably exhibited in cages. Perhaps the BBC should ban the operas of Verdi. Not only was the bounder Italian, he has slaves galore in Nabucco.