What's a girl to think?

I'm often amused/interested/persuaded (if only temporarily) by Dr Michael Moseley's Just One Thing programme/podcast, although features of the formula often grate – especially the introductory words, repeated ever and anon: 'We're  bombarded by often conflicting advice':  too right we are – by the good doctor himself.

<excuse>
The series has been going on for several years, and medical advice changes from time to time. So it's only to be expected that exhortations to do 'Just One Thing',  separated by years, will contain elements of contradiction.

<but-hang-on>
Sometimes, though, contradictions aren't separated by years. In May 2022, there was an edition that dealt with naps that concluded "[I]f you can find time in your day for a nap, it really is worth trying."

Just 5 months later, in a mini-series on sleep  ...

<parenthesis>
This mini-series was a five-parter, which avoided some of the more annoying elements of the standard Just-One-Thing format, particularly the vox-pop bit with the tame guinea pig prepared to 'give it a try'. Per contra, it did involve a flamboyant abuse of the word 'elixir', repeated five times (with each repetition becoming more painful of course).
</parenthesis>

... he was saying "Try to avoid napping".
</but-hang-on>

</excuse>

 And at the end of the recent programme on the benefits of tea, the guinea-pig was so satisfied with her 'challenge' that she had decided to replace her regular coffee with tea. Whereon Moseley recommended the programme on coffee. OK, different strokes for different folks; there's no one recipe for the right balance.

And finally

<autobiographical-note> 

In the film business there is... 

<parenthesis> 

(or at least was; although. the gifts may have become less tangible – after his work on The Prisoner in the mid-sixties [it was broadcast from 1967-8, but probably made earlier] Patrick McGoohan gave my big brother a bottle of whisky. Maybe there's a sliding scale, and a clapperboy [or 'Director of Synchronization', as they used to say – geddit?] didn't qualify for the good stuff.) 

</parenthesis>

...a tradition of leading lights, at the end of a shoot, giving mementoes to the camera crew.

When my father ('Daddy', because the last time I saw him I was nine) was working with Anthony Asquith his end-of-job gift was a pair of gold cufflinks...

<tangent>

incidentally, one of my favourite metaphors in Spanish is the word for twins – gemelos (cufflinks); but I digress (so what's  new?)

</tangent>

... inscribed with CK on one end and AA on the other. A door-to-door spiv conned my recently widowed mother out of them for what I imagined at the time was a pittance. But I realize now that selling them made sense.

This came to mind this afternoon, as I was queuing to sell another such end-of-job gift, presented to him by Diana Winyard: 

       

<well-I-never> 

I've only just realized that as Asquith directed Freedom Radio, maybe the cigarette lighter and the cufflinks are related. Talk about provenance (oops – too late; they're sold – twice)

</well-I-never> 

</autobiographical-note>

b 

Update: 2023.10.11.14.15 – Added PS

In the process of looking out that lighter, I found a double acrostic that I wrote for the wedding of a house-mate in Cambridge (whence "CB" in the first line). This is a copy:

With apologies to Christina
and renewed thanks
to Penny Thexton (?),
calligrapher extraordinaire