Bedspreads and Counter Pains

Last week I reported that, at the quiz which took place seven days before the Charity Quiz, we all bought raffle tickets. As far as I know, none of these has proved to be productive of anything, but as Eleanor Bron once said in a very funny monologue sketch, "the prizes are not what count", which is just as well, evidently.

I only mention it again because I have long been bemused by the counters which I have now managed to get into the same column on the right hand side of this page. And if I am going to write about them, then Counter Pains makes a good punning title, but apparently not for much longer.

The raffle tickets were sold, as they usually are, using the system whereby the purchaser writes personal details, like a phone number or email address, on what Mush referred to as the 'stub', but which I called the 'counterfoil'. Mush was quite pleased with 'counterfoil' as a word, as he had forgotten about it, and we proceeded, for a few minutes, to play around with other 'counter' words - 'counter-productive', the American 'counter-clockwise' (anti-clockwise) 'countervailing' and so on, and I chucked in 'counterpane'. Mush, John and Sam looked bewildered. "Well, it is what is also known as a bedspread", I explained, "though 'bedspread' is supposed to be unspeakably vulgar".

The bewilderment did not abate. They didn't know what a bedspread was either, so I explained that it was a piece of material which is the topmost covering of a bed, once it has been made. Obviously in these days of throws (exactly the same thing, perhaps?) and duvets, they aren't as common, but I would have thought that three guys in their thirties would still have at least heard of them, but seemingly not. So I have to accept that the depth of artifice in my punning title might only be visible to our older readers (and why not?).

Mush, who, in common with all of the team, likes to know things for their own sake, demanded to know why 'counterpane' was supposedly all right, but 'bedspread' was vulgar. I replied that I had no personal experience of this - I think my aunts used 'bedspread', anyway, but that if you read the novels of Nancy Mitford, then it is quite clearly stated, and indeed the fact that one character customarily used the word 'bedspread' was something another character had to promise never to mention to a third (irascible) character, for fear of said character bursting a blood vessel with rage. (The novel is called Love in a Cold Climate, and is highly recommended.)

Anyway, having some time on my hands, as I have been avoiding social occasions on account of an upset stomach, I finally got down to studying a bit of rudimentary HTML yesterday evening. At last I discovered why the counter which is now lying in third position in the column on the right, which is where I always wanted it to be, persisted in jumping right off to the bottom of the entire page.

I have also added a mission-type statement, like those so beloved of 'managers' everywhere, who fondly believe that if the statement is good enough, then no actual work need be done at all. This lists the teams that I support, although the formatting is by no means complete, and I have forgotten to include Lancashire County Cricket Club. This now occupies the foot of the page, but as I say, it is 'work in progress'. I am keeping all three counters as I have become utterly fascinated by the discrepancies. The bottom one was 100 ahead of the upper one at one stage three weeks ago, while the middle one, now very close to the top one, was about 40 ahead of it. I haven't altered any of them, but it almost like watching football teams climbing, or plumbing the depths of, league tables, or pop singles careering up and down the charts, as they used to be called (are they still?), and is acquiring an interest of its own. Though I will try to get them all into a tidy line, and maybe up at the top above the autobiographical notes, that is if I decide to keep them (the notes, that is).

Watch this space.

PS. I always compose my writings outside Blogger, and then paste them in. This gives me a localised version of what I have written, but also safeguards me against Blogger losing the whole thing while compiling it to the page, which happened to me once, and has happened to other bloggers I know more often than that.

While pasting this in, I noticed that they are now offering a new, simplified means of getting pictures on to the page, a practice I abandoned towards the end of 2004 as it was far too complicated and sometimes threw all the margins out. I am minded to give it a try, so if I can find a picture of a bedspread counterpane, then you will all soon be able to see one for yourselves (for younger readers) .