Hilarity about the 3G Kili climb is spreading to all parts of the British Isles – yes, thankfully we are still united in many things. Last Friday, we were chatting with some friends – admittedly over some rather pleasant red wine. I was telling them about Sheila, Jae and Oscar’s venture and it was obvious that they couldn’t quite get their minds round the purpose, especially why Sheila, Jae or assorted family and friends were producing daily postings in various social media. I explained about collecting sponsorship – for three different charities, especially for Catching Lives, which is very close to Sheila’s heart. That impressed everybody – that a retired lawyer was giving so much of her time to cook for the homeless. So we started talking about ways to raise more sponsorship without really coming up with any ideas.
So we moved on to other topics of the day. My hubby Jim produced that day’s edition of The Scotsman, the rather douce and proper morning paper serving Edinburgh and mainly the east coast. One particular article had had him laughing, which is probably quite unusual for the Scotsman, catering as it does for a sensible, quite conservative (note the lower case ‘c’) section of the population. It is very easy to offend people from Edinburgh – and people from the west coast have a hoard of anti-Edinburgh jokes – where the ladies ‘wear fur coats and nae knickers’, while living behind prim and proper ‘lace curtains while eating kippers’ (kippers having once been the cheapest form of protein).
The article causing such hilarity among us was about China, so coming from a neutral area, it passed the Edinburgh ‘good taste’ censors. In China, it is vitally important to have a large gathering of mourners at any funeral; the deceased gains kudos in the afterlife proportional to the attendance. Sadly, in China, respect for the dead in the here and now is diminishing and funeral attendances falling. So families have taken to hiring strippers to appear at the funeral, or they arrange a lewd show – no explanation given by the Scotsman of what constitutes a lewd show for fear of angering readers. These funerals are a total sell-out. However, the Chinese officials do not approve – just as they WOULD NOT APPROVE in Edinburgh. Hubby kept insisting that there must be an idea for Sheila and Jae’s drive for sponsorship in the article and said that we would throw in some more money if they came up with anything.
Now Sheila is a dear friend and I would never suggest that a respectable wife, mother, grandmother – and retired lawyer – did anything as ‘lewd’ as a striptease – but how about a ‘Calendar Girls’ moment? I’ve had a go at starting a calendar off for you!
Note from Jae: Wow Jean – that is quite some guest-blogger commitment! You look amazing. We have had nakedness on the mountain mentioned in a blog post before, and the Calendar Girls appeared in reference to “Fishy Buns”, but this is the first naked photo I think! I’m seriously hoping they’ll be no striptease challenges though – the challenge to get cornrows is leaving me feeling quite uncomfortable enough about my appearance.