Oh what a beautiful morning
Oh what a beautiful morning – Oh what a
beautiful day – I’ve got a beautiful feeling – Everything’s going my way !
Getting out of bed this morning just after
five there was snow on the ground. Leaving home at 6.45am to head to Morrissons
Supermarket so I could pop out SMILE envelopes for next week into the Dreamsai
box the snow was almost gone, the heavy rain was washing it away. Within West Bletchley, where I live, our
estate has all its roads named after rivers, the rain and snow was turning them
into literal rivers.
Running into Morrissons, eager to get home
for breakfast, the staff were all there SMILING and welcoming customers. The
security guard on the door has a thick beard over which he has his mask. You
can hardly see his face but it is obvious he is SMILING.
Last week I sent an e-mail to Morrissons head
office thanking staff for all they are doing and called Morrissons the SMILING
supermarket. Now that has given me an oing to be idea, several actually which I
will share later on in today’s diary. Add to that my 4am moment where ideas
burst into my head while I am still asleep began at 3am today and ideas right
now are fighting to find a corner of my head in which to sit down. This IS going
to be a beautiful day.
SMILE OF THE DAY: SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED SOMEONE TO TELL YOU YOU’RE
So how many words did I write yesterday
? How many towards my million challenge
? I was a good boy: 8,182 bring my total
half way through the first month of the year to 179,997. A lot of those words
were for my book WHO NEEDS A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ. I was planning to publish this
in April but I think it will be some time next month. The SMILE envelopes I
dropped off to Dreamsai contained the quiz sheet Animal Crackers. Yesterday, I
put a selection of quiz sheets into an envelope to post to residents at Flowers
Care Home. Today I will sort our NHS quiz for staff at Great Ormond Street
Hospital and Quiz For Teachers at Oakgrove school.
In my letter to Flowers Care Home I said that
for next week I would write a series of decade quizzes one each covering 1940’s,
1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s. 1980’s and 1990’s. My 4am moment told me to add in 1930’s
! At 4am so many questions came into my
head. Here are a few for you to try out:
DECADES 1940’s:
In a phone box what happened when you pressed button A ?
In a phone box what happened when you pressed button B ?
In that same phone box what were the PIPS ?
DECADES 1950’s:
Which 1950’s conflict was featured in a 1970’s
TV series starring Alan Alder ?
What did HRH Prince Philip The Duke of Edinburgh
found on 1st September 1956 ?
Who was the first person to stand on the summit
of Mount Everest ?
Which organisation celebrated its 50th
anniversary in Sutton Park in 1957 ?
DECADES 1960’s:
In which US city was president J F Kennedy
assassinated ?
It was nicknamed Hippie Park but what is the
real name of this San Francisco location which hosted The Summer of Love ?
What TV soap was first broadcast on 9th
December 1960 ?
DECADES 1970’s:
Who was President of The United States on 1st
January 1970 ?
What did America celebrate on 4th
July 1976 ?
Plant a tree in ’73. What were you supposed
to do in ’74 ?
What was D Day ?
If you dialled 192 on a phone what service
would you connect to ?
DECADES 1980’s:
Who was the British Prime Minister on 1st
January 1980 ?
Who was
President of The United States on 1st January 1980 ?
And the same again for 1990’s.
So another question ? Did you skip those questions ? Are you still with me ? That’s two questions LOL.
Time now for
our regular feature ON THIS DAY:
16th
January 1969: Soviet
spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform
the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit,
the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only
time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk. That I remember.
16th January
1979: The last Iranian Shah flees Iran with his family for good
and relocates to Egypt. That I remember and look
what has happened to the country since this date.
16th January 1991: Coalition Forces
go to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War. One of my former students fought in that war.
16th
January 2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia takes
off for mission STS-107 which would be its final
one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on
re-entry.
16th January 1963: James May of Top Gear was born.
Yesterday 48,628 more cases of china virus were announced in the UK and 1,248 more deaths. I am trying to encourage people as they lay down their heads on pillows at night to spend a few moments before sleeping think about the real people represented in the figures, the real people and their families, real people and the NHS staff who cared for them. The numbers are so big it is not and easy task but while the pandemic continues I will always do this.
Where I live we have BIN BAG THURSDAY. Collection was postponed to
Friday. Now on Saturday the sacks are still outside houses. That is a constant
reminder that TWO of our binmen team have died of the virus and 40% are off
sick. I have always praised our binmen, the hardest workers in the borough.
Long may the sacks remain as a reminder of this sad loss.
Back to yesterday’s writing. One thousand, one hundred and seventy-nine
words were used as I rewrote the opening introduction for my book BY THE
PRICKING OF MY THUMBS. I needed to make the opening chapter far darker and
sinister. I think I achieved that yesterday but things were not going to turn
out into a full length crime novel. I started to prepare myself for a short
story which really not going to even closely approach being of interest ton read.
Then last night three words came into my mind: Neuro Linguistic Programming.
They remained in my mind as I slept, I dreamed a new plot for the story which I
believe will enable me to write a good little crime novel.
Back to Morrissons The Smiling Supermarket. On 11th April 2017 I published an e-book THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TEENAGE ENTREPENEUR (Failed) When I left school I embarked upon a management training course with a giant department store. The word (Failed) means I suddenly changed career direction. My ambition as a management trainee was to become The King Of The High Street. I dreamed of owning a nationwide chain of supermarkets which
I was going to call Sunshine Supermarkets. That’s fifty-three years ago but my plan was to put a giant SMILING face over the entry doors of every branch. Somewhere within my one million word challenge I am going to write something for today’s SMILING Supermarket and all who are going the extra mile in these hard times.
Oh what a beautiful morning – Oh what a
beautiful day – I’ve got a beautiful feeling – Everything’s going my way !
Tomorrow I will tell you just how beautiful
today is.
Speak again then
Dave
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