Danskcolin: Saturday August 9th 2025 "Brush up your Shakespeare- start quoting him NOW!"

Yes, friends, remember the words of song-writer Cole Porter in his famous "Kiss Me Kate", based on Shakepeare's "The Taming of the Shrew": "

"Brush up your Shakespeare, and the women you will wow!"

a typical scene from Cole Porter's musical "Kiss Me Kate"

Remember Porter's immortal lines from the score?

And while you're about it, why not brush up your Icelandic at the same time? It won't wow any women, so you may have to resort to Viking tactics and carry them off on your shoulder (!).

However you literally never know when a knowledge of Intermediate Icelandic might come in handy, like it did for Yours Truly and "Mrs Yours Truly" today, would you believe!

flashback to earlier this morning - I showcase

my faithful Icelandic primer for the cameras!

This is how it happened.

My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I had started on one of our daily walks in the Hampshire countryside this morning - we're newcomers to the county, moving to the little town of Liphook last January, so there are lots of interesting places to explore, uncomfortable bushes to struggle through and get stuck inside, muddy ponds to stumble into, and massive tree roots to fall over etc etc (!) - you know what we two "noggins" are like!

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me

- a recent picture

Today we thought we'd explore a new bit of Hampshire "jungle" (!), and just see what the terrain is like on the other side of the mighty A3 dual carriageway, which links London with Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy - as you do (!).

The walk started off quite innocently, as we struggled along the footpath under the mighty roadway, fumbling our way through the trees and crossing to the other side with the roar of traffic thundering above our heads, towards the tiny village of Bramshott.

Lois, looking fetching in her stylish "bucket hat" explores the seamy underbelly

of the mighty A3 dual carriageway linking London with Portsmouth

But what should we light upon, after making our way to the mysterious "north side" of the A3, and entering the gate to the old churchyard, but this unexpected sight: literally hundreds of graves of brave young Canadian boys, who had come to Britain's aid in two world wars, and had never made it back home to Canada and their grieving parents.

Lois and I knew that many of those Canadians had lived in barracks in this area in both world wars, but we had been unaware of the presence of these many hundreds of graves.

(left) Lois entering the old Bramshott churchyard and its old church dating from 1220,

and (right) the unexpected sight of hundreds of war graves of young Canadian soldiers

The graves are immaculately maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and each one of them hints of a personal tragedy for one Canadian family or other, from faraway places with names like Maple Creek or Indian Head in Saskatchewan, or Innisfail, Alberta, places so different from their final resting-places here in Hampshire.

And the biggest tragedy is that so many of these boys were killed not by enemy fire, but by the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak, and so ended their days in the tiny Bramshott Hospital.

we read the heart-breaking epitaphs - the stone on the right, for example, commemorating

Pte Duncan Alexander Campbell of Innisfail, Alberta, who died in tiny Bramshott Hospital in 1918

One gravestone in particular catches my eye, because the epitaph is partly in Icelandic, which is a surprise, so I guess the guy was the son of Icelandic immigrants to Canada. But all in all, what can we say, other than a big "Thank you, people of Canada". They didn't fail us in our hour(s) of need, that's for sure.

(left) the grave of Pte S. Austfjord, of the 15th Reserve Battalion, Canadian Infantry, who

died on October 3rd 1918: the inscription reads "Sofdu i Guds Fridi, Elsku Leigi Sonur"

(English: "Sleep in God's peace. I love you, my dear son"), and (right) a plaque

commemorating the help given us by our brave Canadian allies in two world wars

13:00 We get back from our walk, feeling humbled but also refreshed by the exercise, and after a hurried lunch we hop into the shower and then into bed. Well, wouldn't you, if you had the chance haha!

It's warm today in Liphook, but not too warm, I can exclusively reveal (!), with a high of 75F (24C) which is just the way we like it!

On the continent, however, things aren't so pleasant, according to an email that comes in from Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, which gives me a chance to brush up on my Hungarian, another language that maybe won't wow women (!), but is deliciously challenging to put it mildly!

(left) me, showcasing my old Intermediate Hungarian Primer from the early 1990s,

and (centre, right) some terrifyingly hot canicula-style forecasts

on my Hungarian pen-friend Tünde's phone today - yikes !!!

You may not understand the Hungarian on Tünde's phone, but here it is in Spanish, which will give you a rough idea (!)

Yes, it's "Scorchio!!!"

There's a yellow heat advisory and health warning in place in Budapest with a forecast temperature at 6pm this evening in Tünde's suburb of Békásmegyer of 36C (97F), with similar forecast highs for the next few days.

What's the Hungarian for "Yikes!"???? Oh yes it's "Yikes!" in a Hungarian accent haha!!!

flashback to 2008: Lois and me with Tünde (left), my Hungarian penfriend

in the café of the Pump Room, Bath, on Tünde's last visit to England

Luckily, here in Liphook, it's just comfortable warm with a nice breeze coming in through the bedroom window, and please note!!!: by staying in bed all afternoon, Lois and I are not being as QUOTE UNQUOTE "unstylish" as you might imagine, because it's also what all the posh people do, as we learn tonight from a fascinating documentary about the Ritz Hotel in London, would you believe!!!

The Ritz, founded in the 1920's for a super-rich clientele, was once a by-word for stuffiness, but like the rest of us, it started to "loosen up" a bit in the 1960's, we hear, which was nice!

A 1969 article in "Queen" magazine - where else? - gives the following advice: