Wednesday August 27th 2025 "Do YOU tend to postpone tackling your very biggest dilemmas?"

Yes, Friends, do YOU sometimes put off sorting out a problem - maybe because you say, "I've got better things to do right now"? 

Am I right? Or am I right! It's a temptation - but it all ended badly for local man Michael Reeves this week, and he ended up on page 94 of the local Onion News for his pains (!).

Poor Reeves !!!!!

And punctured with cries of "later later later (!)" and "No, not now, not now, NOT NOW!", today proves to be one of those kinds of days for me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois. Scheduled callers and visitors keep postponing; and worst of all, our afternoon in bed for "nap-time" first gets put off and then, when it starts kicking off, it gets interrupted - talk about "nappus interruptus", today is more "whole shebang-us interruptus" if you ask me! Oh dearie me, yes!

me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois (and friend!) - a recent picture

At the end of the day, however, we can chalk up some successes. We're trying to improve our fitness and flexibility, inspired by those Angela Rippon TV adverts for smart meters. 

After doing regular exercises, and with Lois perfecting her "poses" through her weekly online yoga sessions, we've started to notice a difference in our flexibility and today, after several postponements, our new "task-rabbit", local handyman William, finally arrives to assemble that exercise bike I ordered off Ebay recently. 

(left) flashback to yesterday: Lois showcases her lower-body flexibility 

in nearby Radford Park, and (right) me in the garage, pretending (for the cameras!) 

to cycle on our shiny-new exercise bike, assembled just today by local handyman William

I'm about 5ft 10, and Lois is about 5ft 4,with shorter legs - thankfully. With that critical 6 inch difference, she'd look a bit odd with my length legs, to put it mildly. But  luckily this shiny-new exercise bike turns out to be easily adjustable for height and speed, resistance etc - a bit like Lois herself haha!

included for comparison purposes: those now-famous Angela Rippon TV adverts 

for smart-meters - the ads that, for Lois and me, kicked off all this rumpus about "flexibility" (!)

Ex-BBC news reader and comedy show guest Angela is 80 these days, so a year older than Yours Truly and "Mrs Yours Truly" (a.k.a Lois!!!), would you believe! Angela likes to demonstrate her flexibility in her kitchen and garden, but we're planning to do it in the garage: it's only been 7 months since we first moved into our current home here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, and we're still rearranging things, but at the moment our garage looks set to become our new "gym", which will be nice. 

If our "bike experience" goes well, we may buy a second one, which will mean (1) no faffing about moving the seat up and down, and (2) we can do it at the same time, maybe watching a video - we have the technology!

a typical couples on their "his and hers" exercise bikes

Things always seem to go better when Lois helps me - you would not believe what a "noggin" I am sometimes!

[I don't have any problem believing that one, Colin! - Ed

There's a case in point today. Since we moved into this house in January, our new water company South East Water appears to have been overcharging us for our water, and a few days ago I drafted a text to the company, complaining about our first real bill from them since moving in. 

(left) flashback to Saturday: our editorial session at The Devil's Cafe, 

and (right) my draft complaint to South East Water about our water bill,

showing the key "edits" that Lois recommended

After I showed my draft to Lois, she recommended certain key 'edits', effectively taking out my two so-called jokes (!), which I had included, with the best of intentions, merely to "lighten the mood". And hey presto, today we get a call-back from a nice Asian man called Richard at South East Water, and he's sending an engineer round on Friday to look for possible leaks, and also to check our meter.

Result!!!! Back of the net!!!

21:00 We feel like something a bit light and "frothy" tonight so we go to bed on a  Channel 5 documentary on supermarket clothes.

Presenter Nick Ede poses the question, and gives us its obvious answer (!).

There are problems with some of these jeans, however, as is made clear when they're modelled in front of the programme's panel of typical shoppers.

Ah! So ruching bad, whiskering good -  what madness !!!!

What about the classic white shirt that a woman might wear to the office?

On the other hand the Sainsbury's one is  £145 cheaper, so what the heck!

Lois says she never wore shirts to work, because, she says, unless you're Twiggy or in other words "built like a stick", you've always got the problem of "gaping", ie "gaping" between the buttons that is!

So there you have it - "ruching" and "gaping" are bad, but "whiskering" is good: that's all you need to know!

However, when it comes to knickers, it's "rubbing" that does the damage, as these tests showed:

Lois never buys clothes in a supermarket, however, for the simple reason that you can't try them on. And in these days of "sustainability", and trying to get full value out of your clothes before you throw them away, you want to try them on and make sure you won't just wear them once - makes sense to me! 

After all, as the programme makes clear, the fashion industry accounts for an incredible 10% of global carbon emissions.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

[That's enough madness! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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