Danskcolin: Wednesday April 1st 2026 "Are YOU a fan of TV dramas? Don't they just drive you totally nuts?!!!!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU a fan of TV dramas? Have they taken over your life?!!!!

We can't live with them, can't live without them, can we !!!! And it's hard to those miss those heart-stopping "season finales", if you want to live a really fulfilling life, that is - haha!!!!

Onion News has more......

Ooh - spooky !!!!!

And reading this story this morning here in leafy, semi-translucent Liphook, Hampshire brings a sympathetic smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, as we 'toil' for another half-morning of gardening this week - the second such morning this week, would you believe, which is mad!!!!

my wife Lois and me this morning, toiling for the second half-morning this week,

(above) me mowing and Lois weeding under the front window, and (below)

Lois talking me through the finer points of her work today, which is nice!

"Black gardens, black gardens" - that confounded TV series is all some people talk about (!), and Lois and I have thought of writing to the BBC and suggesting a series called "Messy gardens" which, we think, could steal some of the viewers back from Netflix or whatever.

Nobody at "the Beeb" has taken up our suggestion as yet, but watch this space!!!!

[I'm not holding my breath on that one! - Ed]

It's been a bit of a week of toil all round this week for Lois and me, but there have also been some more pleasurable moments - it was nice to get a video call from my little sister Jill in Ipswich this week and hear about her travel plans and about the doings of our three nieces, Zoe, Maria and Lucy, with Lucy fine-tuning the arrangements for her wedding in the autumn.

my 'little sister' Jill (68) with her three daughters Zoe, Maria and Lucy

Lois and I are planning to visit Jill in May and sample the delights of Ipswich for ourselves, and Jill is now promising us a side-trip to Norwich, a city which Lois and I have driven through, but without stopping - wisely, some would say (only joking!!!!!).

To us, Norwich is mainly famous for its local radio DJ Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan). And also famous for Partridge's heart-warming TV series where Partridge and a group of volunteers visit a local resident with mental-health issues, Gillian, and, make a start on "decluttering" her troubled mind, by "decluttering" her house and garden.

Radio Norwich DJ Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan)

And all this good work is, of course, done in Gillian's absence (!) - to give her a nice surprise on her return. Remember that series? In this case Gillian is away on a coach trip, and neighbours have lent Partridge, and his team, a spare key, so that they can do their generous work in total confidentiality, which is a nice touch!

As I remember, Partridge and his team had to work pretty fast - it was just a two-day, 48 hour coach trip 'getaway', so no time to lose, to put it mildly !!!

And the results were certainly impressive, as I remember. Just check out these astonishing 'before' and 'after' pictures!

Before (left)...and after (right)!!!

And what a lovely surprise was awaiting Gillian on her return from that weekend coach holiday break!!!

Fabulous television, wasn't it! And one thing's for sure - they don't make series like that any more do they!!! [Something to be thankful for there, possibly? - Ed]

21:00 You probably noticed that a key element in Partridge's team of volunteers for doing up that house in Norwich was that gang of warm-hearted painters, who, for no charge, stripped off all that woman's horrible old wallpaper, replacing it with a simple white finish.

And, by coincidence tonight, Lois and I select a documentary about an oldy-worldy painter from the past, a whole different era! You may have heard of him - step forward Italian painter, Sandro Botticelli, creator of 'The Birth of Venus', no less !!!!

The programme proves to be a fascinating study of Botticelli's ground-breaking painting, The Birth of Venus, featuring the goddess rising out of the waters, and the programme's experts point out many things that Lois and I either didn't know or hadn't noticed, about the painting, which is nice!

Venus's nudity was immediately shocking to Botticelli's 16th century contemporaries, but for a slightly peculiar reason - it was shocking because it wasn't a religious painting. Weirdly, nudity was okay if you were painting something religious - Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, for example, but not okay otherwise, which is mad!

nudity was considered okay in paintings, but only if they were religious ones,

which is mad! See above - Albrecht Durer's painting "Adam and Eve" (1507)

But how anatomically correct were Botticelli's nude figures? Critics have pointed to Venus's weirdly out of proportion left shoulder and arm, also criticising anomalies on the nymph, who, with her current "squeeze", seems to be doing a 'fly-by' around Venus, to get a closer look - that nymph's legs look as if they belong to somebody else, which is mad too!

(left) Venus, her left shoulder and arm slightly out of proportion,

and (right) a nymph with legs that seem to belong to somebody else

- what madness !!!!!

Certainly, Venus's nudity isn't exactly innocent, the programme's experts tell us, but it isn't exactly erotic either. It's about sex, yes, but specifically sex for procreation. Venus is coming up on the island to procreate, and Botticelli has deliberately given Venus what, at the time, was thought to be the ideal female body for procreation.

Despite the somewhat lack of proportionality to Venus's left shoulder and arm, which conveniently allows her to cover her crotch without too much of a strain (!), Botticelli's Venus's body was the perfect body to impregnate, according to the views of the time - neither too thin nor too fat, and with long arms and legs. And the 16th century orthodoxy said also that the woman to be impregnated should ideally have long hair, and, for best results, also plucked eyebrows, would you believe - what madness, wasn't it!!!!

That's taking the apparent "checklist" too far, we think!