Visually impaired accessibility advocate, culture vulture & London explorer
Author: Glen
Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.
But she will forever be remembered most fondly for playing the snobbish, candlelight supper-serving, ‘Lady of the House’ Hyacinth Bucket – pronounced ‘bouquet’ – in the wonderful sitcom Keeping Up Appearances during the 90s, written by Roy Clarke. Patricia was perfectly cast and in 1996, the year after it ended, she was voted the UK’s most popular actress at an awards ceremony for the BBC’s 60th anniversary. By that point she had already been honoured with an OBE 3 years earlier, she was granted a CBE in 2004, and ultimately became a Dame in the 2017 New Year Honours list, for her services to theatre and charity work.
Welcome to my latest monthly roundup, I hope you’re doing well.
In terms of my caring responsibilities towards my mother, who is still recovering from her broken wrist, I’ve continued posting separate journal updates about everything that’s been going on, split into Part 1 and Part 2 for this month. So do read those posts if you want to be kept informed about that side of my life. Suffice to say that while we are still finding things difficult in some ways, she is continuing to get various forms of help, and we are now starting to consider the support required for her longer term care needs. Plus we’ve already had a very positive development at the start of October, perhaps the most significant to date, that has the potential to make a huge difference long-term. I’ll tell you about that in my October journal posts in the weeks ahead, and it’s going to be an important transitional month if all goes to plan.
Apart from all that though, I have kept myself entertained in various ways as well, with music, TV shows and an audiobook. So here are the main things I’ve been enjoying, and I hope you find them interesting to read about as always.
Welcome to the next part of my caring journal, which I know has been getting quite a bit of attention recently, and thank you to all those who are taking the time to read it.
The second half of this month has continued to have positive developments overall, with thoughts turning to long term home care for Mum, as well as ongoing help with things like her sleep and mobility. But there have still been difficult moments as well, with Mum having occasional restless nights, sometimes due to sleep-induced confusion as to who I am or where she is, along with moments of general anxiety or panic, as has become the norm in recent months.
Generally though we’re doing ok, as we can see light at the end of the tunnel in terms of Mum’s wrist cast coming off later in October, and we’re looking forward to arranging proper care for her.
So here’s what’s been going on over the last couple of weeks, which I hope you find interesting.
50 years ago the classic hotel sitcom Fawlty Towers opened for business on the BBC. And while it only ran for 2 series, it’s no exaggeration to say that it blessed us with 12 of the greatest half hours of comedy that have ever been broadcast on British TV.
The huge popularity of this BAFTA-winning programme continues to grow to this day as well, most recently aided by the stage show that has just been broadcast on TV to mark the anniversary. It just goes to show that, unlike many old sitcoms which ended up being very much of their time, Fawlty Towers still holds up perfectly well, and still blows all of the modern comedies out of the water, which is a remarkable achievement.
Created by John Cleese with his first wife Connie Booth and set in Torquay (though they never filmed there), and accompanied by Dennis Wilson’s beautiful theme tune, it has an excellent mixture of characters who find themselves caught up in a variety of highly amusing and increasingly farcical scenarios.
While manager Basil (played by John) constantly hopes for a relaxing day with normal guests, and strives to find ways to have a fancier class of clientele visiting his establishment, it never takes long for things to unravel, driving him to frustration. It doesn’t help that his sharp-tongued, fear-inducing dragon of a wife Sybil (Prunella Scales) is constantly nagging him, and that his keen and well-meaning yet confused Spanish waiter Manuel (played by the dearly missed Andrew Sachs) is impossible to communicate with. He does at least have support from waitress Polly (played by Connie), who provides some sanity to keep Basil grounded, but he makes life difficult for her sometimes too, by using her in his attempts to get out of sticky situations.
The show has a solid hit rate of verbal, visual and physical gags, along with plot strands that come together nicely, and a first-rate cast who bring it to life so brilliantly. And such was the amount of action packed into each episode that the scripts were twice as long compared to other sitcoms and had twice as many camera cuts.
The humour is quintessentially British too, so much so that 3 attempts to remake the series in America and one in Germany all inevitably failed. It has inspired several other sitcoms though, with the makers of shows like Father Ted, Cheers and 3rd Rock From The Sun all acknowledging it as a major influence. And in general it set an incredibly high benchmark that few sitcoms (if any) since have come anywhere close to.
I’ve watched the series countless times over the years, but now is the perfect excuse to watch it yet again and actually write a bit about it to celebrate the occasion. So I’m going to go through the episodes and the extras on the Blu-ray set I have, as well as checking out the stage play on TV, which I didn’t get around to seeing in person in the West End. Plus I’ve put together a Youtube playlist of highlights and bonus material to go with this. So I hope you enjoy!
Here’s the latest update on how my mother and I are doing, as part of my series of journal posts about being a carer. She’s still recovering from her broken wrist, having sleepless nights, and experiencing moments of anxiety and panic. But she’s also regaining some confidence and mobility, which has been great to see, and things are moving forward in terms of the help and support she’s getting from healthcare professionals, which is reassuring.
Hello again, I hope you’re doing well and have been enjoying the summer. If you’ve continued to follow my blog over the last couple of months then (a) thank you so much and (b) you’ll have seen there’s good reason for me not going out much lately, given the issues at home that I’ve now opened up about. Looking after my mother has become a much bigger drain on my time and energy than it used to be, but we are gradually getting help now.
Still, beyond all the disability and care-related stuff I’ve been sharing recently, I’ve also kept myself occupied and distracted with various forms of entertainment, some of which I’ve written separate blog posts on as well.
So here’s a quick roundup of things I’ve written about and entertainment I’ve been enjoying over the last couple of months. I’m still not making videos to go with these posts for the time being, but I hope you find these bits and pieces interesting.
She has now returned home, and naturally it’s been a difficult couple of weeks since then, because she hates being in a cast and unable to do much. But there has also been some help from carers, my aunt and a mental health specialist.
So here’s my latest update on how things have been going during the second half of the month, and I hope you find it insightful.
Now that the most recent series of Doctor Who is out of the way – and I’ve just updated that review with details of its Blu-ray steelbook release – and as there’s going to be a big gap until the next series while the BBC decide what to do, I’m going to continue rewatching the earlier series of the modern era.
I’ve already reviewed all of the series and spin-offs from Russell T Davies’ first stint as showrunner, so it’s time to move on to the fifth series overseen by Steven Moffat, which aired 15 years ago in 2010. Hard to believe it’s that old already.
With a new showrunner, Doctor, companions, Tardis and theme tune, this was another fresh start for the programme, and it worked really well. So I hope you enjoy my deep dive into it, and there are plenty of videos on my Series 5 playlist you can dig through too.
It’s time to bring things up to date in my journal posts about being a carer. Having rambled on at length about my mother’s struggles since the start of the year, including a collarbone fracture in July, there’s been another big development this month, with Mum sustaining another serious injury, resulting in almost a week spent in hospital.
There are thankfully positive signs emerging in the latter half of this month, which I’ll begin to talk about in my next update. But August so far has been our most stressful period yet this year, which isn’t ideal when we’re both meant to be celebrating our birthdays this month! So here’s what’s been going on lately.
Continuing with my catchup of events from earlier this year, in relation to caring for my mother, I’m now going to share my journal from July. And things took a more serious turn this month, as she had her first (and sadly not last) fractured bone as a result of a fall, which didn’t do her anxiety and poor confidence any favours at all. It was the sort of thing that I’d feared coming, hence I also tried to request a carers assessment this month. And we were able to arrange appointments for other forms of help as well that might be useful.
So again, I really appreciate you looking through these diary entries for awareness, even though it’s not an easy read. I’m just glad I’m getting all this stuff out there so people know what’s going on.
Well Eye Never 
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