What does the Doctor think this month? - January

WHAT DOES THE DOCTOR THINK THIS MONTH?

Although this article will not appear until January, I am writing it at the beginning of December as Management and I shall be away on our Ship's Doctor and Lollipop routine from 9th to 20th December. Life has been hectic as we had to sort out all the Christmas presents and cards by the beginning of December (7 children plus wives and husbands plus 17 grandchildren = 31 presents for starters = a spreadsheet!)

We are fortunate this year in that they are all coming to see us over the Christmas period. Happily, they have spread themselves out a bit and the first family has already been. You may remember me writing about Oliver,  Sam and Milo, who lived in Melbourn near Royston. I used to take Oliver, aged nearly three,  into Royston market quite a lot and you may remember the shortbread episodes at the WI stall. The first time, we established that Oliver was hungry, bought some shortbread and put him off his lunch – mental note not to do that again! Next week, “Grandpa, there is a hole in my tummy, should we buy some shortbread from the WI stall?” How could I refuse? He had half a piece and promised faithfully to eat his lunch and not to tell his mother. He failed to eat his lunch and he did tell his mother! The other article about the family concerned the time when we baby sat for a week and the only crises occurred just before the times when the parents rang from Italy to confirm that all was well.

Oliver is now six and the family lives in Spain (Dad works in Gibraltar with another of our sons, who also lives in Spain with his family). They visited last week and a riotous time was had by all. I had bought new batteries for the sit-on electric cars and they all tore about on these outside. Every day, on my Email, I receive offers from Wowcher.com; some weeks ago, an offer was for remote controlled helicopters reduced from £49.99 to £14.99. Wowcher are very reliable and the offers are genuine so I ordered nine, one for each of the seven male grandchildren, one for me and one for Duncan, one of our sons who enjoys such things. Before Oliver, Sam and Milo arrived last week, I thought I had better try one out. I fitted the batteries into the control unit, charged the helicopter from my computer USB port and “had a go” in the hall and kitchen. The helicopter was hitting everything in site so I took it outside where it flew vigorously until it suddenly dropped like a stone. Read the instructions, Nisbet, the control range is only seven metres and, if the helicopter is airborne when it goes out of range, the motor stops and it falls down. I then discovered that it was intended for precision flying while hovering indoors over the dining room table.  I took Oliver in there – although the helicopter box says 14+, he is a very bright 6 year old and would probably be better at flying the thing than I was. Sure enough, he was quite good and caught on quickly. There were problems, like when he ascended vertically through the chandelier, but the biggest problem concerned Head Office's prize plant, an enormous cyclamen in full flower, with pride of place in the centre of the dining room table. Yes, you've guessed it, during one particularly spectacular low level run at six inches above the surface of the table, the powerful little helicopter scythed through the cyclamen. Leaves and flowers flew everywhere and the helicopter, undaunted, flew on. Oliver and I agreed that, having cleared up the mess, we would never refer to the matter again and, somehow, we forgot to mention the matter to Deannie. However, she has been looking rather oddly at her plant over the past couple of days.

A ventriloquist is touring Sweden and puts on a show in a small town. With his dummy on his knee, he starts on the dumb blonde jokes. Suddenly, a woman in the fourth row stands up and shouts “I've heard enough of your stupid blonde jokes. What makes you think you can stereotype Swedish blonde women that way? What does the colour of a woman's hair have to do with her worth as a human being? It's men like you who keep women like me from being respected at work and in the community, and from reaching our full potential as people. It's people like you who make others think that all blondes are dumb!  You and your kind continue to perpetuate discrimination against not only blondes, but women in general, pathetically all in the name of humour!”

The embarrassed ventriloquist begins to apologise; he has only spluttered two sentences when the blonde shouts at him “You stay out of this! I'm talking to that rude fool on your lap”.

On a bitterly cold day, a husband and wife heard on the radio “There will be a lot of snow today – you must park your cars on the even-numbered side of the street so that the snow ploughs can get through. The wife moved her car. Same again a week later but the radio told them to park on the odd-numbered side of the street. She moved the car. A week later, the radio warned of snow but interference prevented them hearing which side of the street to park on. The wife panicked – what to do? - the husband said “I should leave it in the **** garage today”.

Best wishes to you all                                                                                                                                    Ian Nisbet