Danskcolin: Saturday March 22nd 2025 "Do YOU tell lies online, just to find a new 'squeeze' ???"

Friends, have YOU ever lied about yourself on your online dating profile, in an effort to improve your "appeal" and to make out that you're in some way "charming"? I'm guessing the answer to that "bombshell" of a question is "Certainly not, Colin!".

most popular dating apps by country: US, UK, Germany, France, Brazil

Well, I've got news for you. Believe it or not, some people quite near us, just a few miles from where my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I live, yes, right here in leafy, semi-rural East Hampshire - some people have done exactly that - lied on their online dating profiles! Not only that, but it's been publicised for all the world to read about in the local Onion News.

What madness !!!! And how long now before other people get the idea and start doing the same? This is why I often accuse Onion News of irresponsible journalism - publicising this story just encourages the "copycats", doesn't it, and soon other people will start lying, which will be a bit of a nightmare, to put it mildly!

It was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it, with this kind of a system - the "web", I mean, the so-called "net"- that somebody somewhere would eventually think of "stretching the truth", to increase their chances of "netting" an attractive date - no pun intended, obviously.

And altogether a bit shaming to think that such an unthinkable thing could happen in a village as quiet and respectable as Gobley Hole.

Gobley Hole, Hampshire, once thought to be the

epitome of quietness and respectability

A bit shaming, really, isn't it, to put it mildly.

And I'm thinking of poor near-neighbour Josh's shock discovery here in mine and Lois's "humble abode" (!) in nearby semi-rural Liphook, Hampshire, believe it or not!

It all started when Lois reminded me casually this morning that "You haven't done any of your Danish yet this week, Colin!".

Yikes!

Yes, "for my sins" (!) I lead the local U3A Intermediate Danish group ("as you do" (!)), and it's our next online meeting in only 5 days' time, on Thursday 27th. And, by coincidence we're reading a Danish book all about a "marriage scammer" - something that our group's members all thought was a bit "science-fiction-y", but we'll have to think otherwise after what's sure to become known soon as "Gobley Hole Syndrome".

(right) the Danish murder mystery that our little U3A Intermediate

Danish group is reading - Judaskysset ("The Judas Kiss") and right,

the book's Danish author, Anna Grue (67)

The book's hero, advertising guy Dan Sommerdahl (pronounced "Summerdale"), is an amateur detective in the Danish town of Christianssund. And Dan turns out to be much better at solving the town's constant stream of murders than is the area's rather slow stupid local police force - a massive shock to the system, which makes us all think again about the respect we've perhaps heretofore shown towards our own local "Plods" in the Hampshire County Constabulary.

Danish Dan, advertising guy turned amateur "sleuth",

is running rings round the local police in his quick-witted exploits

solving the stream of local murders in Christianssund, Denmark,

see here in bed with his wife Marianne in the TV version of the story

(actors Peter Mygind and Laurs Drasbæk)

Dan is trying to catch the local serial "marriage scammer": Jay, a young man whose dating app profile says he "likes menopausal women for preference". When he's "hooked" his "older woman", he then "hooks up" [no pun intended] in person with his ageing online date, draining her bank accounts and then murdering her. He then advertises for his next older woman, finds another "sucker", and the process starts all over again.

The local police force is baffled, so Dan decides to take on the case in his spare time. His problem is that when he starts his investigation by getting on the dating app himself, he discovers that almost everybody he knows is also on the app - most of his work colleagues at his advertising agency, and even most of the members of his own family, like his big sister.

"Detective" Dan - discovers that almost everybody he knows

is looking for dates on the local dating app. What madness !!!!

Let's hope Dan doesn't eventually find his own wife Marianne advertising her "wares" (!). Still, this is Denmark after all, so who knows?

Yes, you can't trust anybody these days, especially on the internet. No sooner have I got online to "do my this week's Danish work" this morning than I get a pathetic "sob story" email for real. Another of the U3A groups that I "so-called" lead - the "History of English" group, used to have a member who appears to be sending me a request this morning. It's an obvious scam, but I have to spend time looking for the woman's phone number to tip her off that she's been "hacked".

The scammer doesn't know the woman's name, because her email address only gives her initials, so the scammer has to sign if off as just "B". What a crazy world we live in, don't we.

14:00 After all that internet nonsense, Lois and I have a shamelessly self-indulgent afternoon - shower followed by an extended nap. And in bed this afternoon Lois shows me some of her this week's "best bits" selection from her copy of the "The Week" magazine, which "plopped" through our letterbox yesterday, the magazine which gives a digest of the main news stories this week from home and abroad.

This afternoon Lois is highlighting the popular "What the scientists are saying" page, and she shows me this one: which is her "Lois's doozy of the week".

Those clever scientists at Oxford University have been busy again, it seems, this time looking at tits. It seems that young tits and old tits have their own song favourites, but not the same ones - the older tits stick to their own favourite songs from the old days, while the younger tits scorn these as "old fashioned" and "so yesterday", and prefer to sing their own, newer, and possibly "groovier", tunes, seemingly.

Yes, tits are just like people, when it comes down to it, as I've often suspected. And suddenly it dawns on Lois and me that we're just a couple of "old tits" ourselves, in a way.

[I could have told you two 'numpties' that for nothing! - Ed

Yes, I'm afraid that Lois and I have got this preference for what we call "the good old songs", often telling our children and grandchildren that "they don't write them like that any more".

And "Thank goodness for that!" is our children and grandchildren's standard reply by the way. Just saying. But it's all madness, isn't it.

21:00 Bedtime approaches, and Lois and I settle down on the couch to watch the latest Michael Portillo "TV celebrity travelogue".

Michael's all over the schedules at the moment. He's not only got this new series about Portugal on Channel 5, he's also halfway through a new series of "Great Continental Railway Journeys" on BBC2.

One of these days Michael's Channel 5 "persona" is going to bump into his BBC2 "persona" coming through a ticket barrier in the opposite direction, maybe - and that's an iconic moment that Lois and I would definitely like to see televised, that's for sure!

an iconic moment? Michael's Channel 5 "persona" bumping into his

BBC2 "persona" at a ticket barrier on a railway station somewhere in Europe (!)

Tonight, however, Michael's on his Portugal adventure, and he's visiting the Portuguese island of Madeira out in the Atlantic.

Lois and I didn't know that the ageing properties of Madeira wine were discovered by accident during the great 'Age of Discovery' when ships were travelling to all parts of Asia encountering new lands, like India and suchlike.

Madeira's early wine-makers then tried replicating this warming and cooling process in their own warehouses, storing new barrels on the upper floors, where the wine would heat below the eaves, before moving them, next, to the milder temperatures on the floors below, and so on and so on.

When Michael meets Madeiran wine-maker Francisco at his warehouse, even though it's apparently winter, it's still 27C (81F) up there on the top floor - phew, what a scorcher!

So, to imitate the action of a 17th century sailing ship criss-crossing the equator on its way back to Portugal with a shipload of wine, Francisco simply moves the wine up and down the storeys of his warehouse, as it's being "aged". The wine used to be moved up and down the stairs in big jugs, pots etc, but now they have a system of tubes to do it less labour-intensively, which is nice.

What madness, isn't it.

However, the pipe system certainly makes things easier all round, and it also leaves Francisco more time for another of his duties, which is to test the wine, to see if it tastes okay or not.