Mystifying mumbling

After breakfast this morning, I walked to the Co-op to do the week's grocery shopping live, to spare Clare the hassle of doing it on-line as she's done since lockdown started. A little bit of the old normality resumed for pleasure. There was quite a queue at the checkout after I'd gathered my purchases. Just on of the five tills was working. I noticed a Deliveroo rider leaving with a heavy pack, someone's on-line order. It occurred to me that several of the counter staff were out in the store behind the store picking and packing ol-line orders. The regular staff must still be under a lot of pressure.

After cooking and eating lunch with Clare I walked over to the museum, my first visit since I met Laura Ciobanu for a coffee there on her visit from Romania three years ago. The museum re-opened a couple of months ago with all the necessary safety procedures in place but with several exhibition galleries out of action, as major roof repairs are still in progress. I didn't realise you still had to pre-book on-line, until I reached there, but the stewards on the door kindly registered my contact details on the spot, since they weren't all that busy and had room for more visitors. 

The main feature at the moment is a biographical exhibition about the life of Welsh actor Richard Burton, with photos and artifacts as well as texts telling of his up-bringing in the Afan Valley and his career as a Shakesperian actor and film star. In later life he lived and died a resident of Celigny (GE) where my friend Valdo was pastor when I was Chaplain in Geneva eight years after Burton's demise. I remember being shown his modern house at the edge of the village which he named 'Pays de Galles'.

I took my Sony HX300 with me into town and took some photos before visiting Cardiff Camera Centre to see if it would be worthwhile having it repaired, as it has developed a permanent error message, and the manual ring which alters telephoto length no longer works. For the time being, with a simple workaround it still takes good photos, but I think it's days are numbered as my HX50 developed the same fault and died on me three years ago. It turns out the cost of fixing it is more than the camera is now worth, so I'll just have to keep using it as it is until it packs in. It's a shame I can't repair it myself but it requires specialist tools to dismantle it.

After supper I watched yesterday's first part of a new story in a new series of 'Silent Witness' on BBC iPlayer, then the second one live. A complex plot with a confused crisis type ending, made unintelligible by mumbled dialogue. I'll have to watch the last five minutes again with sub-titles to understand how it actually finished. I've had the same trouble also with newer episodes of NCIS, reduced to guessing what's being said, even with the volume turned up. Am I that deaf or is this some new style of acting aiming to keep the audience in the dark?