Gloaters Elbow?

One of the chefs on The Great British Menu said that he was "Removing the spice out".  "As opposed to removing it IN" I screamed, hurling my rubber brick at the telly (yet again).  I am well used to doing this every time they say they are "reducing the sauce DOWN", but if this goes on I will soon need a new brick. 

Among the sad headlines is news of a large earthquake which has hit Myanmar and Thailand. There are some frightening pictures from Bangkok.  We have emailed our friends there, hoping they are OK.

So I was thinking about heading this blog with a photo from one of our Thai trips, but they do not appear in Col's photo gallery - unless I can find one of a Thai butterfly.  You will know if I did or not by now.  For the first time I am regretting we don't post pictures of our meals on facebook, as I could have used one of those to head the blog, given I started of with Chefs.

The Great British Menu is finished now, with a fine flourish.  Mind you, I watch all these wonderful chefs with their brilliant varied dishes, but continue cooking the same rather ordinary food day after day. I was much more adventurous in our Expat days. 

The Thai butterfly, taken on one of the lanes off Sukhumvit on our first trip to Bangkok, is a Painted Jezebel.  That earthquake looks devastating as we see it on the News, with likely more problems to come as it has left so many buildings, bridges and dams damaged.

And this earthquake has shown up a new problem - well, new to me.  It seems that a lot of these high rise apartment blocks have swimming pools on the top of them. And suddenly there were floods and waterfalls everywhere as these pools tipped, or cracked, under the pressure of the quake.

It does now come back to me that in The Towering Inferno there was a pool at the top of the building, and - spoiler alert - it came in very useful.  But I had not realised it seems to have become a routine feature of so many buildings.  Will they need to rethink this?

We both had a bad night last night. I was up with shoulder pain etc, as usual.  And poor Col had such a painful elbow that it kept him awake. We took painkillers and watched the last bit of the The Steeltown Murders.  And we did manage to get some sleep, in spite of the sadness of Steeltown, a true story about three young teenagers killed by a serial killer, who went undiscovered until after his death.  Those girls were so young and they did not stand a chance.  The programme did at least take murder and its awful ramifications very very seriously.

I Zoomed to the Special Talk this morning.  It was titled: CAN TRUTH BE FOUND, which is very timely in a world system so full of spin.  I was hoping Col might give himself a day off metal detecting to give his elbow a rest, but no, he was off at the crack of dawn as usual.  I do have my own theory about what is wrong though.

Every morning we play the Ordles - Wordle, Quordle, Octordle.  I am aiming for a draw, he is aiming for a win.  When he does win he pumps his arms in victory.

I have had a few bad Ordling days and lost consistently.  So I think he might be suffering from Gloater's Elbow.