Tuesday July 8th 2025 "Poor old Incredible Hulk - not having much luck is he, to put it mildly!!!"

Did you see the Incredible Hulk's editorial in this morning's Onion News for East Hampshire? If you didn't then don't worry! You can read it here (see below), and it's a real "stonker", so I make no apology for reproducing it right here at the top of Yours Truly's blog! [Why not? - Ed]

Incidentally, forgive Hulk's appalling English - he's still officially in "remedial", I'm afraid, not a million miles away from my own home here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire - just across the A3 dual carriageway, over there at the County Primary School in Cheesefoot Head, Hampshire, although his tutor says he's "making some limited progress this year" - let's hope she's not exaggerating !!!!

And here it is - the waiting is over - yes, it's the Hulk article that's been causing all the rumpus today in this "neck of the woods" !!!!

Poor Hulk !!!!!

But, on a more serious note, did you "clock" what a good film-critic Hulk would make, if only he could learn to "talk proper", just like you and me! Some Sunday paper or other should definitely "snap Hulk up", and give him a job in Fleet Street, that's for sure!!!

I wonder....!

But let me put my cards on the table at this point! [I've told you before, don't keep doing that, Colin! - Ed]

My medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and I are both "hard-core" Incredible Hulk fans, and Lois, as a keen gardener, likes nothing better than to don her shiny-new "Hulk Hands", to carry her "weeds" about with her over to the brown garden waste "wheelie-bin" - Hulk Hands incidentally bought locally at Luff's Garden Centre, Headley - get yours now haha!!!

(left) Lois using her shiny new "Hulk Hands" from Luffs to transport some weeds

to our brown garden waste wheelie bin, and (right) Lois her threatening to do the same 

thing with Yours Truly - yikes, I hate it when she does that (!!!!)

You see, Lois's weeding in our tiny back garden is all part of our mini-campaign to make our house and garden "look nice" or at least "look nice-ish", in preparation for the visit of our dear daughter Sarah (48), who on Saturday will be flying from Perth, Australia into London's Heathrow Airport, together with husband Francis and their 11-year-old twin daughters Lily and Jessica. And they'll be staying with us for a couple of weeks, although also doing some travelling around the UK.

And all this work is making Lois and me pretty exhausted. Well we will be 80 next year, would you believe!!! [You must stop telling us that! - Ed]

us, a very recent picture, like 3 hours ago haha !!!! 

And while Lois is working her socks off in the garden, I'm slaving over a hot laptop arranging trips for our visitors to do with us while they're here, including a visit to the Science Centre and Planetarium at nearby Winchester. They're both bright kids, and we'll need to give them something to "get their heads around" while they're here, that's for sure.

Before Sarah and family moved out to Australia last September, Lois and I used to look at some of the twins' school projects when they were still going to a primary school near Evesham, Worcestershire, including their own "profiles" of themselves and their strengths.

Yikes - scary !!!!

flashback to 2024, before the family moved out to Perth, Australia:

some work Jessica (10) did for her primary school near Evesham, UK 

Yikes (again) !!!! 

Maybe "The Hulk" should try putting down his ideas on "what I enjoy at school", "personal qualities and characteristics", and "things I enjoy doing in my own time", plus their implications for future career options, now that his movie career is officially "washed up", do you think?

I wonder.....!!!!

So, to sum up, it's been another "busy busy busy!" day for Lois and me getting ready for the big visit that will start this weekend. But watch this space (and I don't mean "space" in the planetarium sense!!!). 

[You are a wag, Colin! - Ed]

21:00 We go to bed on a Sky Arts documentary on Gustav Klimt and his famous painting "The Kiss" painted in Vienna, 1907-1908.

Klimt was known, primarily, as a painter of women, and, indeed, he had women to carry out all the essential tasks he needed in order to be known as a painter of them - and his poor old mum did his cleaning, washing  and shopping, apparently.

Poor mum !!!!

Klimt's female models were useful to him too, obviously - the working-class ones that he picked up in his native Vienna made good subjects for his sketches and drawings: usually nude, and very graphic views, to put it mildly. These sketches, however, didn't make him any money, especially the ones that depicted what at the time were illegal acts (!). What made Klimt rich, however, were the upper-class society women who wanted their portraits painted.

So, as Stephanie Auer, curator of Vienna's Belvedere Museum comments,  "[Klimt] always had a woman for every situation". My goodness !!!!

And she continues, " You'd assume that if any woman, [particularly a rich society] allowed herself to be painted, that she would have the desire for her nature, her specific character,  to be appreciated [and celebrated] in some way.

"But this is what's missing from his portraits of them", she adds. "He had no great interest in reproducing character traits, no interest in exploring personality. He subjected women to his artistic will and his stylistic will. He inserted them into his decorative design in the way that he wanted at that particular moment".

And his artistic will wasn't the only will Klimt subjected his models to, in case you're wondering. He is believed to have had sex with most of them, not just the working-class women he drew nude and in suggestive postures, but even with the upper-class women that he made the most money out of.

At his time of death, there are said to have been 14 paternity suits pending against him in the Viennese courts, which must have been a bit of a downer for his relatives, to put it mildly!!!

What a crazy world they lived in, back in turn-of-the-century Vienna !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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