Danskcolin: Monday April 28th 2025 "At last - something to keep local teens off the streets! 'Cool' boardgames!"

Have you heard the news? An enterprising local youth pastor who can talk theology with his "church mates" but can also "get down with the kids" has introduced what Hampshire has been crying out for for years - a 'cool' rec room where they can unwind without bothering their parents or pretty much anybody else! Source: Onion News.

It's true, a lot of young people locally have been criticising the new 'rec room' as "so patronising", "insulting" even, I know, but it's just the kind of 'space' that my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I would have jumped at the chance of using in our own teenage years, that's for sure, and I'm certain we would have described it as "just the ticket".

By coincidence, Lois and I were both "oldest kids" in our respective families, and we both grew up being "the sensible ones", each of us being, at the same time, something of a "goody two shoes", and rather shy with it, I'm afraid

Take me for example - please !!!!

me, (left) reading a book on Burnham beach, Somerset, while my friends

and siblings were playing beach cricket, and (right) playing chess

with myself in the back garden of our house in Bristol

Poor me !!!!!

However, after "hooking up" with Lois in the late 1960's, I'm happy to say that this particular "goody two shoes" found his natural soulmate, who also happened to be a "goody two shoes", not quite as bad as me, although at least a "goody one-and-a-half shoes", thus becoming what we call either a rare example of a "goody four shoes", or at least "3.5-goody-two-shoes, as the case may be, which was nice!

Yes, we weren't "rebels", either of us, in any shape or form, to put it mildly!

[Tricky concept but nicely phrased, Colin, if I may say so! - Ed]

{left) goody-two-shoes me, playing solo-chess, (centre) Lois,

a goody-one-and-a-half-to-two-shoes playing solo-tennis

in the park, and (right) us as a "goody-four-shoes"- awwwwwww!!!!

I'm thinking back at all this today, because, sadly, Lois's dear cousin Iris passed away on Saturday afternoon, at the age of 91, and Lois and I have both been looking at our old photos of Iris, and recalling our memories of her.

(left) Iris as a teenager, with her brother Brian and little Lois

between them, and (right) Iris with Lois the last time we saw her,

back in 2019, in a Southport care-home, just before Covid

Iris was much more adventurous than Lois and me in her teenage years, leaving school at 16. No A-Levels or 'poncey' college for her (!).

On leaving school, Iris trained to be a telephone operator, 'bombing' about Oxford on her moped. And Lois recalls witnessing a blazing row between Iris and her father on what she saw as her right to wear make-up, after which Iris "stormed out of the house", Lois remembers.

We find the picture of Iris getting married to Alex (late 50's / early 60's) where, bridesmaid Lois is looking shyly down at her own feet, somewhat true to form (!). I've got tons of pictures of me doing just that on some big occasion [not shown] !!!!

Dear Iris - rest in peace, you've earned it, if anybody has.

And yes, just like Lois, I'm shy and self-conscious in public too - but that's not a crime (yet!). And I'm also an idiot, apparently, another thing hat I've owned up to publicly on my own social media organ, "Colin Social".

For a joke last week, I put up a new Facebook "cover photo" of myself showcasing one of my latest DIY disasters, and I also amended the about-me "bio-section" in my Facebook "profile" to the one-word label 'idiot', which at the time I thought was hilarious.

Now, however, LinkedIn, the networkers' website for professional careerists, is trying to "pair me up" with others who've labelled themselves as 'idiots'. Whether, like me, they're joking or whether they're being serious about it, isn't immediately clear (!). The website's idea is evidently that all us "idiots" might like to "network" with each other - whatever that means !!!

To give you an idea, the following was what the top of my email list looked like this morning - these suggested 'fellow-idiots' just keep on coming - look, there's another one!

Poor Tim!!! Incidentally, I've 'blacked out' poor Tim's last name in the above list, to save him possible embarrassment. There's also, seemingly. another self-confessed "idiot" who's a cinema owner in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, of all places, and whom the website suggests I could network with if I'm desperate (!). What a crazy world we live in !!!

And by the way, don't be too alarmed by the other emails "bubbling up" there in my email inbox this morning (!).

The "Trump Threatens To Defund Beauty Schools That Don't Comply [With MAGA standards]" item in my mailbox is just a spoof-story. thankfully, a bit of what's called these days 'fake news' (!). It wasn't mentioned in tonight's BBC documentary about Donald Trump, anyway (!).

This is the kind of thing the BBC does so well, in our opinion. Although the view of Trump in the UK is overwhelmingly negative to put it mildly, we would say - I've heard the quote (from myself!) "Making the world safe for plutocracy" (!), the programme tonight acknowledges that Trump has very strong and loyal support in large sections of US society, and the BBC gives us a thoroughly impartial analysis, drawing almost entirely on American opinion, both pro- and anti-Trump in equal measure, which is what we want.

There's some UK contribution from Chatham House, however, the UK's premier independent International Affairs think-tank, which is interesting.

On Trump's trade tariffs, Amesha Cross, former advisor to Obama, says that the biggest loser is the American people, because they bought into the rhetoric, but also because "for whatever reason, they believed Donald Trump would allow for more money in their pockets":

On the other hand, Greg Swenson for Republicans Abroad, puts the opposite view:

And finally we hear the UK's Chatham House think-tank's director Bronwen Maddox, giving her view:

Greg Swenson, for Republicans Abroad, sums up Trump's first 100 days in the following way:

Bronwen Maddox, however, for the UK's Chatham House think-tank, believes that the main beneficiary worldwide of the Trump presidency, may in the longer term, turn out to be China.