Tuesday March 25th 2025 "Got YOUR new 'look' for 2025 yet? Just how "'2025' ARE you? (!!!!)"

Yes, Friends, have you got YOUR new 2025 "look" yet? Most of us have settled on something-or-other, haven't we! Here's the astonishing photo that  one hard-working local Onion News journalist took of popular area man Steve Jensen this week:

And, if you see Steve propping up the bar at local pub and popular Middle Wallop watering-hole The George, why not help him out in his new "first year in the rest of his life" by buying him a pint (or two, preferably!). The guy will certainly need the support of his friends and neighbours if he's going to stay on the straight and narrow in the coming hard months, or should I say "stay on the curvy and wide" (!).

The George Inn, Middle Wallop, Hampshire

- area man Steve Jensen's local "boozer"

Just kidding, Steve, if you're reading these words, by the way! We're all behind you, especially at the bar, hoping you'll buy us one too. And good on you, mate: more power to your "elbow", especially the one that has to lift those "heavy bevies" !

11:30 And most of you, I know, will have settled on your own "new look" for 2025, I know. Your Truly is a little "behind the curve" on this one - as per usual (!). However, I think I've done it this morning when I pick up my new "specs" from Liphook Eye Care opticians in our sleepy, semi-rural East Hampshire town of Liphook.

before and after; (left) my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me, 

sitting in Liphook Eyecare, where I'm waiting to be "done", and 

(right) relaxing at home and adjusting to my startling, and softer "new look"

Quite a "new me" isn't it! I expect you've guessed too, that like a lot of older men these days, I've gone for the "Portillo look", in honour of mine and Lois's hero, TV's Michael Portillo, currently doing celebrity railway travelogues simultaneously in both Portugal (Channel 5) and Switzerland (BBC2), narrowly avoiding "bumping into himself" at the ticket barrier as he changes trains in Paris (!).

Not to mention appearing occasionally on Nigel Farage's favourite channel GB News, to comment on the latest political story. That Portillo guy is one bundle of energy, no doubt about that!

ex-Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo and travelogue presenter Michael Portillo

sporting his new "specs" look, (left) on the train either in Portugal or Switzerland,

and (right) commenting on politics for Nigel Farage's channel GB News.

With my own new "specs", I'm for the first time, I'm trying out "trifocals" or "varifocals", whichever - that kind of "malarkey" anyway. So far, I can report no serious problems, although for now I'm still using my old glasses for driving, till I've got fully used to the new trifocal pair in the house. 

me, delighted to find that I no longer need to

change "specs" to work on the computer, which is a nice change

In the recent past, I've been carrying around 3 glasses cases with me wherever I go: one pair for distance, one for reading, and one for computer work, and at the moment, when wearing my new "trifocals" I keep thinking "Damn, I must have got the wrong pair on!", until I remember that I've just got to tilt my head a little differently. 

I'll keep you informed with my progress in this blog, however, so watch this space (!). 

[Don't bother! - Ed]

15:00 Three in the afternoon and Lois and I are in bed as per usual (!), with Lois's Huawei beeping like crazy under the bedclothes, when our idyll is interrupted by a message from Evri, sometimes described as 'Britain's worst parcel-deliverer', to say that they've got my "package", ready to collect at popular local convenience store Premier.

(left) Lois's Huawei beeping like crazy under the bedclothes, and (right)

the message from Evri to say that my parcel is ready to be collected - yikes!

Lois and I quite often now ask for our online orders to be delivered to a collection point now, rather than coming straight to our house, because we can see the advantages of that: it means you don't have to worry that they'll deliver it to the wrong address, or worry that if you leave the house that the delivery guy will take your parcel away or put it somewhere stupid. 

If it's going to some local collection point, we're "in control", Lois and I now think, and we can decide when we're going to pick it up. Today, however, we want to get the parcel as quickly as possible, before central Liphook's "rush hour" mayhem - i.e. school run time (!). 

The parcel's got Lois's birthday present to me in it, so she wants to get it in her hot little hands, wrap it up etc in time for tomorrow, so this afternoon is another "nappus interruptus", to give it its Latin term (!).

popular local convenience store Premier, 

delivery company Evri's nearest "collection point" in Liphook

I must explain that Lois and I are, at present, preparing for 2 big days concurrently: (!) my birthday and (2) the UK's (and Nigeria's) Mother's Day on Sunday. And because we're both getting a bit "borderline senile" (!), we're keeping two separate piles of presents/cards for each event, so as not to get them all muddled up. 

mine and Lois's week: busy, busy, busy haha!!!!

For my birthday this week, Lois and I are having a low-key lunch at a local farm-shop followed by a nap, but we're also going out on Mother's Day for lunch with our daughter Ali plus Rosalind and Isaac, two of her 3 teenage kids - we won't have the pleasure of Josie's company, because she'll be on a school trip with her physics class to CERN in Switzerland, would you believe. What madness, isn't it !!!! 

We've asked Josie to bring us a back a photo of some atoms colliding in CERN's giant "collider", and I'll certainly feature her pics in my blog next week, so watch this "vacuum" haha !!!!

Our Mother's Day lunch will be at the Crown, Alford, and we learned today that the pub was a favourite haunt of Fleetwood Mac, who used to live in a big house round here in the 1970's in their early days, and they even wrote a song about it - "Down at the Crown".  

Great lyrics, by the way, and typical "very early Mac", aren't they (!). 

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

(left) flashback to the 1970's: Fleetwood Mac band members at local mansion Benifold,

and (right) me showcasing Benifold as it is today.

Lois and I are very much looking forward to our Mother's Day lunch at the Crown on Sunday - it was even reviewed recently - just 2 days ago - by another local resident, TV's Sandi Toskvig, Britain's favourite Dane, would you believe?

What madness, isn't it! And let's hope not too many of the people round here are Guardian readers. We don't want the pub to be "rammed" with locals who are both Guardian readers and Sandi Toksvig fans  - it could be a lethal 'cocktail' (!).

And it's especially a pity also, that our afternoon "nappus" was "interruptus" today, because we had had a busy morning vacuuming, dusting, cleaning etc, getting ready to host our 14-year-old grandson Isaac overnight tonight - I forget why we're doing it, but it must be something to do with our daughter Alison not being able to drive him to his Liphook school tomorrow morning. If he stays with Lois and me tonight he'll just be able to walk to school, also meeting up with some of his schoolmates on the way.

(left) me today, showcasing one of our spare bedrooms that Lois and I

have prepared for our grandson Isaac's overnight stay with us,

and (right) Isaac on a recent 6 day break in Copenhagen

where the family lived for 7 years from 2012 to 2018

19:30 Isaac arrives at our house, dropped off by his father, our son-in-law Ed, and Lois and I have a nice chat with Isaac until he disappears upstairs to do some of his homework.

Later I notice his elaborate pile of soaps, lotions, "smellies" etc that Isaac has stashed in our bathroom for the morning, and it reminds me that Isaac goes to a co-educational school, and so is potentially "hobnobbing" with girls all day from 9 till 4.

(left) later, I find Isaac's elaborate pile of "smellies" etc in the bathroom

and it reminds me that he's faced with the company of girls

at his school (right, on his recent class trip to China), and 

not just the company a bunch of boys, like I was at his age (!).

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!