Danskcolin: Monday March 16th 2026 "Friends, do YOU have a somewhat unfortunate nickname?"

Yes, Friends, do YOU have a somewhat unfortunate nickname?

It can have strange effects, can't it! William I of England acquired the somewhat unfortunate "moniker" of "William the Conqueror", perhaps in primary school, which blighted his life, leading him to spend time conquering England and most of Britain in his later years, which was a pity. What might he have become, but that bit of childhood "bad luck" - I wonder......!

And William's other epithet, "the Bastard" caused him to be an especially mean conqueror, historians believe!

William, unfortunate victim of a possible school

playground nickname, here showing his softer side,

belying his reputation as "conqueror" and "bastard" (!)

So be careful with kids and nicknames, it can colour their lives! Like this local man whose picture is all over this morning's Onion Local News for East Hampshire!

And, for my wife Lois and me, it warms the cockles of our heart to get news of "The Dumpster" and his softer side, especially the knowledge that he's been keeping a rooftop herb garden - he's been keeping that little nugget a secret, hasn't he, neighbours!

He's obviously got "hidden depths", or should I say "hidden heights" [No! - Ed} , considering where he's chosen to grow his little herbs - awwww, bless !!!!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Lois, whose veins are already coursing with thoughts of springtime and of the coming planting season, tells me this morning she's got to stock up on herbs herself, hence our trip to nearby Headley to visit the Luff's Garden Centre, the trip that you've probably heard something about, already, if only on the local grapevine (no pun intended!!!!).

flashback to earlier today: (above) our sally into Luff's Garden Centre,

where we buy some potted herbs and a bunch of seeds, and (below)

us later, back at home, gloating over our "sagacious" purchases of sage (!)

and other plants and assorted seed packets - what madness!!!!

And if you know Luff's Garden Centre, you'll know that it's right next to the local Coopers of Ilkley Second-Hand Furniture store - the so-called "Furniture Hospital", which gives Lois a chance to cross another item off her bucket list - a "proper woody" miniature dining table for our sitting room, to replace the plastic garden table that we've been using "temporarily". Well, we only moved to our current home in January 2025, and our lives have been so "busy busy busy" for the last 14 months that we haven't had a moment to breathe, let alone buy a proper dining-table.

What a madness it all is !!!!

(above) the local Coopers of Ilkley second-hand furniture store, and (below, left)

Lois dusting it off and making it look nice, after its delivery two hours later

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

[Is that all you two "noggins" have done today, Colin - bought a few plants and herbs and an old table? - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're "gagging" to know, yes it was all we did today actually, but in our defence, may I say that we're both 79, although "being still quite marvellous for our age" haha (!!!!).

[I'm still waiting for some independent evidence of that statement, Colin - just saying! - Ed]

Tired out after this morning's "shopping madness" (!), we decide reluctantly to spend the afternoon in bed and then "plop" down on the sofa this evening to watch the rerun of an old BBC documentary about the landline phone, which, for us as fully paid-up "old codgers" is nostalgic no end, you would not believe!

Poor us haha !!!!!

Oh those wonderful old landline telephones! Conveniently, we all had one in our homes, plugged into the wall on top of a table or something, somewhere near the front door, in the hallway, at the bottom of the stairs, so you could even hear it from upstairs if it rang!

Happy days!!!!

Astonishingly, however, not everybody welcomed the device whole-heartedly, in the beginning, like this miserable "old codger":

Fabulous stuff, isn't it!

I have to confess, though, that Lois and I, being a couple of poncey "clever clogs" and "smart Alecs", knew a lot of the stuff in this programme already - but there's no point in being modest at our time of life haha!!!!

We didn't know for instance that the bright red colour of the K6-model public phone box wasn't popular in all rural areas, and that some rural communities demanded something "less red" - what madness!!!

And do YOU remember that golden era, when if you didn't know the time, or "couldn't be bothered" to look at your watch, you dialled "the Speaking Clock woman", who told you the time to the exact second?

Lois and I certainly remember going through all that "palaver"! But one thing Lois and I didn't know was that the young woman they picked in a special competition to tell you the time, London telephone operator Jane Cain, was selected more for her 'breeding' and her looks (logically enough (!)), than for her voice - which was a pity, because Jane had an unfortunate slight speech impediment, which the judges hadn't noticed.

Oops!!!!

When Eugene Wender, who had devised the optical disc set-up used by the Speaking Clock system, first heard competition winner Jane's voice, he said, "Can't we use the runner-up?". However, he was told, unfortunately, in no uncertain terms, that there had already been so much publicity about Jane in the press and media that that was out of the question - oh dear!!!!

What madness !!!!!

Lois and I didn't know, also, that in the austerity era after World War II, a time of acute shortages, many would-be telephone subscribers were encouraged to "go party-line", which meant that they would have to have a shared line, a system whereby they shared the same phone number as a close neighbour.

Not everybody, however, wanted a system where your calls might be answered by somebody else, in the next house down the road, say, to put it mildly, as this former telephone engineer recalls: