Sunday August 10th 2025 "Don't YOU just hate to have to 'save a seat' at a concert for a late-running friend. It's 'the pits', isn't it (no pun intended!!!!!)"

It's embarrassing, isn't it, when you arrive at a concert in good time, but you have a friends who are running late, and you have to save seats for them.... perhaps laying out items of your clothing on each seat - your hat, coat, shoes, trousers etc depending on how many friends you've got (!). And not only that, you then have to defend those seats against potential seat-stealers! 

There's nothing new about this phenomenon, however, as my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and I discovered as we read our copy of Onion News print edition in bed this lovely Sunday morning - see page 94 for full details !!!

Quite a game-changer of a discovery isn't it! And one that's of topical interest to Lois and me, living, as we do, here in semi-grassy Liphook, Hampshire, because we're hoping to see a local ancient amphitheatre in just 6 days' time, would you believe. And armed with this knowledge we can keep a sharp look-out for tell-tale signs of similar Roman "pratts" (pardon my French!) - maybe a cast-off centurion's helmet still sitting there, on row A, say, or similar, that nobody's ever noticed !!!

my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Not a lot of people know this, but semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, our new home town as of January this year, is close to the old Roman road between Silchester, Hampshire and Chichester, Sussex, and Graham, a local archaeologist and also member of Lois's church, has offered to give us and a few other interested church-members a guided tour of Silchester's ruins next Saturday, which will be nice.

(left) the major towns of Roman Britain, showing the central location of Silchester,

and (right) a reconstruction of what the town's amphitheatre might have looked like,

just outside the town's old Roman walls (visible at the bottom left of the picture)

Lois and I have actually visited the Roman ruins at Silchester before -  in 2005, just before we retired, when we were (allegedly) "spritely" 59-year-olds. We're looking forward to seeing it again, although we're a bit concerned about the arrangements, which we hear about when we visit Lois's church this morning for the Sunday Morning Meeting.

We're now afraid that the visit to the ruins will be overshadowed by some sort of big preparatory lunch that's being prepared in some couple called James and Hazel's house, who live nearby. We've even been asked about our dietary requirements and shown a menu to choose from, whereas all that Lois and I just want to do is look round the ruins in the morning, have a sandwich or two, and then beetle off home to bed (!).

What madness, isn't it !!!! But watch this space - I'll let you know if we ever actually see anything remotely Roman or not, or whether we just spend the day feasting on Hazel's "delicacies"!!!

[I can hardly wait! - Ed]

flashback to 2005: Lois and I, just before we retired, as two spritely 59-year-olds (!),

visiting the remains of the Roman amphitheatre at Silchester, Hampshire

Whether we'll find a cast-off Roman helmet on the amphitheatre seats or not (!), it's sure to be a visit to remember, we feel!

And I bet that that centurion spent the rest of the day wondering where he'd left it, because you aren't properly dressed without a helmet, or at least some kind of hat or head-covering, are you - that's what Lois and I say, and we often wear something stylish on our heads, even around the house, and feel slightly odd when we don't. 

Call us hopeless slaves to fashion if you like!

flashback to 2023: us in two of our stylish headwear accessories - (left) Lois all dressed up 

for a night on the town, and (right) me in the kitchen preparing one of my signature lunches 

"Get ahead? Get a hat!", is what we used to say, wasn't it. And people are still very much defined by their headgear, that's for sure. 

And none more so than my lugubrious namesake Colin Crompton, flat-capped club chairman and "turn-manager" at the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club, that working men's club somewhere in the north of England, one of whose 1970's Saturday night shows Lois and I watch a re-run of tonight on the "Talking Pictures TV" channel.

(left) the programme's listing on the "Talking Pictures TV" channel, and (right)

grim-faced club chairman and "turn manager" Colin Crompton giving one of his 

interminable so-called "announcements to members", wearing his trademark 'flat cap'.

What madness !!!!!!

Tonight's star act is 1970's big-band throw-backs, Syd Lawrence and his orchestra, who wow the audience. And at the end of their "turn", grim-faced club-chairman Colin, to give him his due,  does pay the band some sort of grudging tribute from his customary stage-side table.

Syd Lawrence in that last picture looks slightly flattered by Colin's "faint praise", although also a bit puzzled, I have to say, and who could blame him!!!!

A pity, also, that the so-called "club committee" couldn't be more generous to the band's members than the rather perfunctory "reward" Colin promises them they'll get at the club's bar after the show.

 

Big deal !!!!

Incidentally during the band's encore number, Lois and I noticed Colin dancing with an attractive blonde woman, half-hidden in the shadows next to the lobby leading to the club toilets. 

during the band's encore, Lois and I spot lugubrious

club chairman Colin dancing with an attractive blonde

next to the exit to the toilets - was this Colin's lucky night?

Did YOU notice? And it came as a bit of a surprise to us, because Colin's grim demeanour over the years is said to have put a lot of women off him. He's not the type, Lois tells me, to attract the average sex-crazed 'groupie'. 

But maybe tonight, however, was there some woman who had actually been "turned on" by Colin's lugubrious expression, do you think? Was this Colin's lucky night? Lois says Colin "looks quite sweet" on the rare occasions when he cracks a smile.

I wonder....! 

Did some misguided woman actually "throw her cap at him" (no pun intended!!!!).

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

[That's enough unfunny puns! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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