Ronnie By The Sea

Constructing the vidaXL Washing Machine Pedestal stand  with  drawer is difficult & time consuming. The user manual is close to useless. This detailed guide & close-up photos will save 2 hours. Two things you will definitely need to put together the washing machine stand that are not included when you unbox are: A Dry Bar of Soap, and A Philips Head Screwdriver Once you have successfully built the washing machine stand it works great, so disregard reviews that say the drawer falls out or rattles... they just assembled it incorrectly. Here are the stages you should use: Stage 1: Assemble the basic Washing Machine Stand (leave the rubber feet to the side for now) Stage 2: Assemble the Drawer including affixing the rail. Stage 3: Affix the housing to the legs of the stand for the rail on the drawer to slide into Stage 4: Insert the Drawer into the Stand (note this step is more easily done with everything upside down). Stage 5:  Finishing Touches - Affix the Squar...

If there is one thing I love, it is words: I love their sounds, their meanings, their double and triple meanings, and their etymology, which is just a classy way of saying “their derivation!” But I have discovered the word that describes me: logophile, from the Greek logos meaning “speech”, and the ending – phile meaning friend or lover. I don’t know that I’d go quite as far as to claim “epeolatry”, the worship of words, first coined by American Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1860. Literarian? … an educated or lettered person? … maybe. I hope I usually give an opinion only on things I know about, rather than be accused of ultracrepidarianism! And yes, I love books, am therefore a bibliophile, but not necessarily book-bosomed, because I don’t carry a book at all times. Am I a bibliobibuli? Mary would need to answer whether I read too much. Reading a few books at a time, as I sometimes do, would render me a bibliophagist! But I’m sure I am not the only one who is bibliosmiac – surely the...

We are not supposed to tell jokes about ethnically-grouped people, people of faith (any faith), persons of other gender or sexual orientation etc etc etc. A comedian asked the audience if there were any Irish in the audience. Hands went up, and he said he wouldn’t tell any Irish jokes.  He asked if there were any Jews in the audience and hands went up again, so no Jewish jokes.  Similarly, no Polish jokes, Catholic jokes, Canadian jokes, blonde jokes, trans-sexual jokes etc, etc, etc, and so on ... Finally, when no further hands were raised, the comedian was able to say, “Two Etruscans walked into a bar ....!” … and so, a blonde joke which, I’m sure you will agree is acceptable: A blonde walks into a big city bank and asks for the loans officer. She says she’s going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so the blonde hands over the keys to a brand new, hot-red Porsche...

Marjie and I have twice seen “We Will Rock You”, the musical based on the songs of the British rock band Queen, with a book by Ben Elton.  The musical tells the story of a group of Bohemians who struggle to restore the free exchange of thoughts, fashion, and live music in a distant future where everyone dresses, thinks and acts the same.  Musical instruments are forbidden, and rock music is all but unknown. Similar themes are explored in “The Hunger Games”, where the citizens of Panem are ruled by a totalitarian regime in The Capitol. Creativity, at its core, is the productive activity of the human mind that cannot be completely formalised. The piece which follows reminds me how creativity can be subtly stifled, and soon become conformity. Once a little boy went to school. He was quite a little boy, and it was quite a big school, but the little boy found that he could go to his room by walking right in from the door outside. He was happy, and school did n...

I am attached to words. I especially dote on witticism, conundrums (conundra?) double meanings, aphorisms (aphora?), word play, quips and puns. I heard this story when I was about 13 … Chairs in the Ceiling There once was a King of a tribe in Africa. He lived in a huge, round house made of grass, typical of all the others in the village, except that his was the largest. By day he sat on the stump of a tree, which had been brought into his hut, and covered with animal skins. Everyone else sat on the floor, some on skins, some on the dirt. No one sat on anything which raised them higher than the King. One day, an English explorer chanced upon the village. The explorer was carried aloft by a group of bearers. He sat on a small bentwood chair, which sat upon a light platform which the bearers carried on poles on their shoulders. This enabled the explorer to see across the landscape, above the tall grass. As the group entered the village, there was much consternation. Who was th...

How many times in a day do you hold a pen or pencil in your hand? Despite all the technology at our disposal, we still need to write, even if it’s just a jot, or a note, or a quick list or a phone number.  In our home, I guess we have hundreds of pens and pencils.  Some we have bought, like the beautiful set of Derwent coloured pencils with the initials “MnR” inscribed in gold.  Some we have picked up in hotels, or banks, or doctors’ surgeries, or have received, unsolicited, in the mail from fundraisers.  From time to time we will rummage in the various containers – small bins, pots, pen holders, pencil cases – and try out every pen, and chuck out the ones which have dried out, and put aside the pencils for sharpening.  I am handwriting this at Yealand Conyers in England – Mary will type it – with a Columbia Exam clutch pencil.  The leads are a nice soft 2B, and are rectangular, 1.2mm x .6mm.  They are marketed as “exam...

Big Ben struck the first stroke of eleven o’clock. A cannon boomed somewhere behind Horse Guards Parade. A bugler commenced the mournful Last Post.  Traffic stopped.  A great silence came over Whitehall in London.  Heads bowed.  We joined some thousands of people in an act of remembrance.  The seconds ticked silently by.  The jackhammers just up the road were quiet.  Pedestrians stopped.  People in cafes stood silently in their places.  Two minutes passed.  The cannon boomed again.  The bugler played The Rouse.  Movement started once again ... except where we were, at the London Cenotaph.  A dozen or so wreaths were laid, a couple placed by small children.  Some elderly folk laid flowers on the stones steps.  Some service people placed wreaths, and saluted.  A chap in a wheelchair was wheeled forward to toss his wreath on the stair....