Danskcolin: Saturday August 23rd 2025 "Satanic 'experiences' - be careful, they sometimes end badly!!!"

Yes, friends, satanic "experiences" - they sound like fun, but don't forget to take "precautions" haha!!! Like this local young woman didn't, ahem ahem [pauses to clear throat loudly !!!!!]

Poor Caldwell !!!! And my thanks to the local Onion News (East Hampshire print edition) for bringing that story to the attention of my light-to-medium wife Lois and me, just down the road from Caldwell here in lovely rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, would you believe!

my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me - a recent picture

And it's ironic because today we've planned our morning walk to "skirt" the heights of that amazing local crater known as "The Devil's Punchbowl".

I've warned Lois not to get too "friendly" with the beauty spot's "owner" (!) - in conventional terms, at the ripe old age of 79 she's unlikely to get pregnant by 100% natural process, but the Devil "has ways" for most things. And, frankly, we're both a bit too old and creaky now to have to raise any more demon children - ten years ago we might have managed it haha!!!

the amazing local crater The Devil's Punchbowl, just over the

county line in neighbouring Surrey, about 900 feet deep

Local legend says that the crater was formed when the Devil hurled some gigantic pieces of mud at the god Thor, "just to annoy him", and the hollow out of which he scooped the mud became the Devil's Punchbowl.

The claim has since been disputed by scientists, but who knows? Stranger things have happened at sea!

us this morning taking our morning "constitutional" round the rim of local

beauty spot The Devil's Punchbowl, parking for free, as National Trust members,

but then blowing the profits in the cafe and the second-hand bookshop: what "noggins"!

After our walk we have a coffee and snack lunch at a far corner-table in the Devil's Café (eye of newt and toe of frog is on the "Specials Board" I notice!). This gives us a chance to discuss our "conjugal business" without being "eavesdropped on" (!).

we choose a table in the far corner of the Devil's Cafe

to discuss our conjugal business "un-eavesdropped on" (!)

Items on our agenda this lunchtime: (1) We've got to book 3 nights in Bournemouth next month to see Lois's cousin Brian, now in a care home; (2) it's our anniversary coming up on Bank Holiday Monday, so we're booking a table-for-two at the local golf club restaurant: and finally (3) this lunchtime I show Lois my "edgier" side by showcasing, for her approval, my draft appeal to our local water company South East Water, challenging the inflated bill they've just presented us with:

Lois persuades me to remove my jokey "old codger" reference, and also makes me delete what I think is my amusing stage direction ("takes out onion"). So compromise wins the day (or Lois wins the day, whichever way you choose to look at it haha!!!).

It's all complete madness, though, because South East Water is suggesting that Lois and I are using water at three times the rate we ever used it before we moved here in January, that is, when we first fell victim to the company and its wicked ways.

Definitely the Devil's Work haha !!!!

South East Water staff outside their HQ, at Snodland, Kent: the image that

they try to project appears friendly, but have they been taken over by Satan?

- I think we should be told, don't you !!!!

Well, the Devil may have taken over South East Water - a lot of our water companies now have overseas owners so why not some from the Underworld? And the whole business may have encouraged "the Father of Lies" to put his toe in the water - no pun intended !!!!

But what music does the Devil like to listen to, when he's relaxing in the evenings of at weekends, say, on the couch, whether it's at "Satan Towers" or just in "the Boardroom at South East Water"? I think we should be told, and we get our answer tonight, would you believe! Which is very nice!!!

Satan, relaxing to music in the Snodland, Kent, HQ of South East Water

And we get our answer thanks to the latest entertaining programme in Griff Rhys Jones' tour of the southern states of the USA.

We see programme presenter Griff Rhys Jones walking down the famous Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, where many a singer "sold their souls to the Devil" and came out of the deal with a bunch of new-to-newish sounds like the blues, soul music etc, and eventually rock'n'roll.

In the years following World Wat II, a young Elvis Presley became a close friend here of blues singer BB King:

Teenager Elvis was working as an usher round the corner from Beale Street, and he used to pop into local clothing store Lansky Brothers to buy his items of clothing at rock bottom prices - no pun intended !!!!

[That's enough unfunny puns! - Ed]

And it was shortly later after those days that Elvis got his big break....

Elvis said he wanted to buy some "funky" clothes to look good on the show, but his problem was that he had no money. Fortunately, Mr Lansky Sr offered Elvis credit and the two men stayed firm friends for 3 decades after that, until Elvis' death in 1977.

So Elvis didn't need to make a deal with the Devil - he made one with Mr Lansky Sr.

And presenter Griff's own "brush with the Devil" today certainly ends badly, after he appeals to the current store owner Mr Lansky Jr to find him a nice shirt too, so that Griff too could look a little more "rock'n'roll" himself.

Oh dear!