Tag Archives: roger moore

Wednesday 20th May 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a really good, if rather strange idea.

One of the reasons why my Welsh isn’t progressing as much as it should is because I’m not talking to anyone Welsh outside the class, and outside the class, all I’m listening to is the football, but, of course, only when the football is being played and filmed.

But in the Welsh class on Tuesday, one of the subjects that we were discussing was artificial intelligence. Someone came up with the question Sgen ti ffrind dychmygol? – “do you have an imaginary friend?”. She’d heard of lonely people who would invent characters on AI on one of these mini-chat programs, just to have someone to talk to or maybe even to have a romantic relationship.

That got me thinking … "and that’s dangerous" – ed … “why don’t I use an AI app to create a Welsh character who would speak to me in Welsh?”. So this afternoon, I spoke to an AI chat program in Welsh, and it replied in Welsh, so now I now know that that works. And of course, I know that it’s possible to create characters with their own personalities, so this weekend, I might give it a try and see how it all works

A character popping up unexpectedly when I’m working on the computer, asking beth ywt ti’n wneud? – “what are you doing?” – would certainly encourage me to dig deep in my memory in order to be able to reply.

That’s really about the only idea that I’ve had just recently. Of course, I’ve had plenty of ideas about going to bed early, but it never seems to work out in real life.

Take last night, for example. I came in here relatively early to write out my notes and do everything else that I need to do, but when I went to take my medication for the night, it was already 23:03 according to the microwave in the kitchen, and it was probably at least ten minutes after that before I climbed into bed.

However, once in bed, after the usual lengthy period of waiting time, I went to sleep and that’s the last that I remember until the alarm went off at 06:29.

It was the usual struggle to rise to my feet, and on hearing no sound at all from those in the next room, I staggered over to the computer and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was another rambling dream last night about, well, it started off with some kind of shop. The boss had gone to a market or something and there were very few people actually serving in the shop. His wife, whom he had left behind, she had a heart attack and collapsed at the building. There was no news about what happened afterwards, whether the supermarket had been looted or not by the local residents. Going on from there, what then happened was that at work, everyone was discussing it and wondering what had happened. I was far too busy because not only had I my office work to do, but there was plenty of private work that I was doing too. I was checking a book for someone, two books in fact, because they were full of the most outrageous libels against this person, who just happened to be Roger Moore. He’d asked me if I’d go through it and make a list of what was wrong. There was another book where I was doing a similar thing. There was also someone’s Mercedes on which I had to change the oil. I knew where and how to lay my hands on the oil, but every time that I had to change the oil in his car, it meant going down with a bucket, filling it with oil from some kind of charitable station, then finding the spare parts and then fixing the car so that I was invisible. This went on for several weeks like this and I was hardly at my desk in the office at all, being far too busy with this.

What a strange dream this was. Nothing in here seemed to make any sense … "so what’s new?" – ed … There were claims that at one time Roger Moore lived near Nantwich, and there was someone who lived in a big, posh house near there who owned a Volvo P1800, but the matter is a subject of much debate.

And I can still see the person to whom the Mercedes belonged in the dream, and although I actually did work with him for a while, he never owned a Mercedes in his life. In fact, I wonder if it wasn’t the blue W123 Mercedes 240D that I had for a while in Brussels.

Then after this, I had to go to one of the smaller banks where the Open University funds were held to draw some cash, but I wondered if I had my cash card with me. When I arrived there, there was a guy trying to use the machine. He walked away in disgust and went to talk to the manager about how his accounts were always being mixed and merged up and his wife, who had “preferred customer” status, it never showed anything for her, and could she deal with it? While they were arguing like this, I went through my pockets but couldn’t find my fuel card, which made me think that I’d left it at the office or something.

This is another quite meaningless dream, although the bank did remind me of one of the old newsagents near the Sugar Loaf in Shavington. And I did once lose my fuel card, and that caused me quite a lot of embarrassment.

While I was doing a few other things, I heard movement from the other room, indicating that people were up and about. I went to join them and found, to my delight, that the coffee was en route. What a way to start the day!

In fact, we were still drinking coffee when the nurse arrived. The Hound of the Baskervilles was pleased to see him, but he wasn’t quite so keen to see the aforementioned so he didn’t hang about long. Mind you, he did tell us that these grey, wet and windy days may be over by tomorrow and we’ll have warmth and sun. And about time, too. The weather has been miserable so far this year.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

Today, we’ve moved on from pottery to glassware. He mentions that "it is remarkable that the knowledge of the ancients in glassmaking should have been so long … which proves that modern science has added comparatively little to what was practised in this useful and elegant art thousands of years ago."

After breakfast, we chatted for a while and then the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies. I came here and began to research the next radio programme.

When they came back, we continued our chat, and when they left again for walkies part II (which I suspect was to the pub), I carried on in here. The first task once I’d identified who would be featuring in the programme was to find the music. And there was a lot on which I couldn’t lay my hands so I had to cast a wide search net.

There was an interruption when a neighbour came round for a chat, and then I carried on.

When the Hound of the Baskervilles returned (from the pub) with his master, our chat carried on as I continued with the hunt for music, and then later on, I tried that experiment with the chat program.

It was my turn to cook tea again, and there was some vegan pie in the freezer, so we had mashed potato, vegan pie and mixed vegetables in gravy. Luckily, my friend likes Brussels sprouts as much as I do, so I didn’t have to cook some separately.

Once we’d finished and I’d washed up, I came in here to write my notes, do whatever else needs doing and then go to bed. But even as I type, I realise that once again I’ve forgotten my medication for the evening so I’ll have to go back into the kitchen again. But never mind – I’ll soon be in bed and asleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about heart attacks and shops … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember a story about a shopkeeper who had had a heart attack and was on his deathbed with all of his family around him.
"Are you there, my darling wife?" he asked feebly
"I’m here, my darling husband" she replied.
"And are you all here, all of my five faithful children?"
"Yes, father, we are all here, all five of us."
"Then who the hell is looking after the shop?"

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Monday 2nd December 2024 – I HAVE SEEN …

… my first “H” reg car today.

France isn’t like the UK – they simply issue all of the numbers consecutively until they run out, and then move on to the next letter and so on.

It’s about time that I saw one. They seem to have been stuck on GZ numbers for quite some considerable time, but this evening on the way home, parked in the Rue des Juifs there was an HA.

Interestingly, on the radio on the way home there was a talk about what the Press sees as the current financial crisis in France, with the cost of borrowing reaching 2.88% of GDP. That intrigued me because I don’t think that this amount is any big deal. Anyway I had a look, and found that the UK’s cost of borrowing is 4.4% of GDP – over half as much again.

In the USA it’s 2.86% – about the same as in France – and no-one is panicking over there. Interestingly, the USA’s borrowing is without anything even resembling the amount of social welfare that any other country pays out.

The record, by the way, according to the International Monetary Fund; is held by Ghana with 7.49%. In the Western World, it’s held by Iceland with 5.88%.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I was late again going to bed but I didn’t care at all. And once in bed, although it took an age to go to sleep, I slept the Sleep of the Dead once more, all the way round to … errr … 06:20.

Whatever awoke me I really have no idea, but once awake I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I thought but I definitely had my head in the clouds at 07:00 when the alarm went off.

It took a while for me to gather my wits, which is a surprise seeing how few I have these days, and when the room stopped spinning round I alighted and headed to the bathroom.

After a good wash I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone but to my disappointment there was nothing on there. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on during the night.

The nurse came early yet again, which cheered me up because the quicker he comes, the quicker he goes. He’s on duty on Christmas Day, apparently, so I told him not to bother coming here that day. I’m going to have a lie-in.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to tell Isabelle the Nurse not to come on New Years Day either.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK, which I have now finished – at least, part I of it.

He’s absolutely sold on Canada by the way. He lists several really good reasons why one should leave the UK and go West. And while the USA is the preferred destination for so many at the end of the Eighteenth Century, and for so many good reasons too, he goes to great lengths to explain why each of these good reasons is even better in Canada.

He concludes with "From a due confideration of every one of the before mentioned circumflances, it appears evident to me, that there is no part of America fo fuitable to an Englifh or Irifh fettler as the vicinity of Montreal or Quebec in Canada,"

Tomorrow I’m going to start on part II as he travels back to Montréal on the CHEMIN DU ROY but in the opposite direction to that in which I travelled when I wrote my magnum opus.

After breakfast I came in here to finish off my Welsh homework. I had to write an essay on my favourite screen character so I chose James Bond.

If I were to ask people to name the first two Bonds they would inevitably say Sean Connery and Roger Moore. In fact Moore was the fourth. Second was David Niven in the first version of “CASINO ROYALE and third was George Lazenby in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.

Having finished my homework I started to prepare the next radio programme but was interrupted by the arrival of my faithful cleaner, come to fit my anaesthetic patches.

This new series of restrictions on the use of taxis is biting hard. We were three passengers in the taxi down to Avranches today. The other two came from somewhere miles out in the back country going home from a stay at the Centre Normandy and the car was driven by a driver who had no idea where anything at all was in Granville.

We were a crowded clinic today. Every bed was taken and once more I was last to be plugged in. The first pin went in my arm totally painlessly and I didn’t feel a thing. The second hurt like Hades and then they found that it wouldn’t work, so they had to fit a branching pipe to the first. They needn’t have fitted the second at all.

I spent the time studying my Welsh and downloading more literature that I’d been able to find. It turns out that Isaac Weld had a nephew, Charles Weld, who wrote extensively on the Arctic so I downloaded as much of it as I could find.

He also followed his uncle’s steps around Canada and the USA 50 years later and also wrote a book about his adventures. That too is a must-have as far as I’m concerned and it took a while to find a copy that I could download.

As I mentioned the other day, I can now access my LeClerc account from the Dialysis Clinic so I was busy reviewing the site and adding products onto my shopping list. Can you believe that my next LeClerc order will be the last one before Christmas? Hasn’t this year passed quickly?

While I’m at it, I’ll have to work out what other on-line shopping accounts I can access. The hospital’s firewall is quite restricting and using my ‘phone to access the internet isn’t always possible if I’m in the hospital too deep to access a wi-fi signal.

As well as all of that, I was being force-fed orange juice as my glucose level was so low.

My favourite taxi driver brought me home. She was strangely quiet which was a shame because I quite enjoy her running commentaries, especially when she’s annoyed.

Once more, I strode out and climbed the stairs boldly. I’m a long, long way from being able to climb even one of them without dragging myself up by the handrail on the wall, but at least It’s quite a change from how it used to be.

Back in here I had a little rest and then I made tea – a stuffed pepper with pasta. It was quite delicious too. It was followed by chocolate cake and lemon soya dessert.

That’s the last of the lemon soya, and tomorrow will see the last of the chocolate cake that has done me so well over the last couple of weeks. The ginger cake is cut into slices and is in the fridge ready for the next set of desserts

So now I’m off to bed ready for my Welsh class tomorrow.

Talking of James Bond, I once met Sir Roger Moore and I had a chat to him about the character that he played
"That’s right" he said. "They called me ‘Basildon Bond’"
"Why was that?" I asked, rather naively
"Well," he replied. "Since I’ve been knighted by the Queen I have letters after my name."

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Tuesday 23rd May 2017 – AS I PREDICTED …

… last night, I am completely and thoroughly exhausted. To such an extent that I had one of these very deep and total crash-outs this afternoon for about an hour or so where a bomb could have gone off in here and it wouldn’t have awakened me.

It was a late night last night after all, and something of a struggle to rise up and leave my stinking pit. But nevertheless, there I was eventually, having breakfast.

After the usual relax, Caliburn and I hit the streets and headed off for the garage. It’s right out on the edge of town, near the by-pass about 1km further on from LeClerc and round the back of the industrial estate. And that’s where Caliburn might be found right now (hopefully) – having his annual health check ready for the controle technique on Friday.

I’ve no idea how far away it might be from here, but as you know from yesterday I resolved to walk back if I could. And so I set out.

And that was something of a mistake because I ended up going past the BUT – a household furnishing shop something like a small downmarket IKEA. They have a good electrical section however and that’s where I went for a mooch around. And there they had one of these table-top ovens – one that works on a 13-amp plug. It’s quite big, and has all of the controls such as a thermostat, timer, and (more importantly) a diffusion fan for spreading the heat around. It’s an ex-display model and reduced for a quick sale to just … errr … €59.

Of course, I couldn’t resist it at that price, especially as it means that I can get back to baking and making pizzas properly, and so there we are. I don’t have it yet because I was on foot. But it’s all paid for now and I can pick it up when I go to recover Caliburn.

You’re probably wondering why I’m buying all of this really cheap electrical rubbish instead of some decent stuff. There are in fact a couple of good reasons for this

  1. Most importantly, I need a lot of stuff (more than I anticipated in fact) so the idea is to buy it as quickly as possible. If it doesn’t last long and breaks down, it’s no big deal and I can replace it with decent stuff. But bit by bit of course, which will spread the expense out better. It won’t all break down at once (remember that I said that).
  2. You’re probably thinking that this cheap stuff won’t last all that long. But the truth is, neither will I. You know my medical prognosis, so there’s no point in me buying expensive stuff that will last 20 years, because the probability is that I won’t

So having spent yet more money, I set off slowly home. And despite my comments yesterday about there being plenty of cafés along the route, I only stopped twice – once to check the train times and the railway station and the second time to buy a baguette. And it was a very weary me that finally crawled up the stairs to crash down on the sofa.

It took me just under 2 hours to make it back (including my time in the BUT) and I knew that I had done it too. IT was a good half-hour before I could summon up the effort to make a coffee.

At lunchtime I went out with my butties to sit on the wall overlooking the harbour in the beautiful sunshine. I had a book and the idea was that I would sit out there for a couple of hours. But it wasn’t to be because I could feel myself dropping off (to sleep, not the wall, although that would naturally have followed). And so I came back here to crash out.

Tonight’s tea was excellent. Not baked of course, but microwaved spuds, microwaved peas and carrots (out of a tin) and a microwaved vegan millet-and-bulghour burger smothered in vegan margarine. That was fit for a King.

Now it’s an early night and I’mm go and watch an episode or two of the Saint in memory of Roger Moore who died today.

And tomorrow? It’s going to be a difficult day. I’ll seize up overnight and that’ll set me back for a couple of days. But at least I now have an over, which is a big sign of progress.

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Wednesday 21st December 2016 – HAPPY SOLSTICE EVERYONE

It’s hard to believe that after today, the nights start to become shorter. We’re at this time of the year already. Hasn’t the second half of the year gone by so quickly?

It’s also the first day of winter, so the least said about that, the better.

I was in Central Scotland with someone whom I knew back in my University days. We were attending college lectures and so seeing that I was with him, I followed him off to the public library for some books. He found everything that he needed, including a couple of books that I thought were largely irrelevant, but I took copies nevertheless. However for one course, I couldn’t find a suitable book, so I told him and some of hi friends, that I would share with him when it came to it.

That wasn’t all that I did during the night, but we had the early morning performance again, 06:15 this time, and much of the stuff melted away immediately.

And I didn’t have my early night either.

Well, I did, but just as I was settling down under the covers, “The Saint” came on the radio.

We all know Roger Moore and Ian Ogilvy from the television. And we all know Vincent Price and Tom Conway from the radio. But how many of you know Paul Rhys?

In the mid-1990s the BBC commissioned three 55-minutes radio plays of The Saint, starring Paul Rhys in the title role. And firstly, whoever wrote the scripts for the broadcasts deserves a medal because they really are excellent. And secondly, the voice of Paul Rhys has a hypnotic quality and I could even listen all night to him reading something quite banal, like the telephone directory perhaps.

And as I said, one of these programmes came onto the radio just as I was settling down.

I’ve no idea why the BBC didn’t extend the series because just three of these programmes is nothing like enough the explore the full range that the scriptwriter and the actors could offer.

I had another early breakfast and then did some stuff on the internet for quite a while, totally carried away with what I was doing. So much so that it was midday when I stopped. The weather had brightened up by then so I nipped down the road to Caliburn and came back with more stuff, including some clothes. I need a change of outfit and I’m running short of undies too.

Seeing as I had a free hand, I brought back His Nibs and now he’s ensconced on a corner of the bed where he’ll stay for a while.

After lunch I carried on with what I had been doing, but crashed out for an hour or so later on. I’m definitely getting old, aren’t I?

For tea tonight I had the second of my two pies with potatoes, carrots, leeks and gravy. And it was just as nice as last night. Now that I’m using the small table-top oven, it’s cooking quite nicely and i’ll have another go with a pizza in due course.

I’ll try again for another early night. But it doesn’t make much difference. I don’t seem to be able to last the pace these days.

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