We've all been there, haven't we, Friends! Sitting in a restaurant, having to cope with a ridiculously long menu, with several unexplained 'choices', and the burning question "What to do?!", or, with punk band The Clash, saying, simply, "Should I Stay or Should I Go ?" !!!!
And Onion News have even, this week, debuted their, I'm sure, destined-to-be-highly popular "Menu News" pull-out Colour Supplement, packed with topical 'menu stories', some heart-breaking, others simply comic! Did you glance through your copy haha! If you didn't have time, here is "Colin's Pick" of today's "doozies" !!!!
But the above stories - and others, in a similar 'vein' - bring the ghost of a deeply ironic smile to the faces or me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-hospitable Liphook, Hampshire, no question about that!!!
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
And the reason for our grins this morning?
Well, we're being faced with the agonising task of submitting our menu choices for Lois's church's Christmas Lunch Outing to that pub in nearby Emsworth, on Hampshire's English Channel coast, a date now coming up fast, in just 6 week's time - yikes!!! And Chjef Elder Richard is calling for menu options to be submitted ASAP, which is mad!!!
It's all a bit frantic, but after wrestling with the options, and with each other (!), Lois and I come up with our choices. Take a look, and think about what YOU would go for, in similar circumstances!!! Go on, you know you want to haha!!!!!
As indicated above, by our frantic "ringing" (!), we've both gone with the
Warm Goat's Cheese 'starter', made from some 'warm goat' or other (!!!!), followed by the
Stuffed Pork 'mains', but we couldn't agree on the dessert, so it's a hung jury on that one, with me going with the
Baileys Trifle and Lois the
Winter Berry Crumble.
We don't know about the "Pork" being stuffed - but we think that we ourselves will be pretty 'stuffed' by the time we stagger out to the pub car-park for the 22-mile drive home to Liphook, that's for sure!!!!!
(left) the 22-mile route to Emsworth, near Hampshire's English Channel coast,
and (right) the pub where Lois's church holds its pre-Christmas lunches every December
But what would YOU have chosen from that menu, if you'd been in our place? Answers please - on a postcard, as per usual !!!!! Richard says we've got till Sunday to finalise our choices, and all your suggestions will be considered, so find that forgotten ball-point-pen and DO IT NOW haha !!!!!
We both had such a good time there, last December, and here are the pictures that prove it!!!!! And, very happily, as a pair of fully-paid-up "history buffs", Lois and I were delighted to find ourselves seated at the same table as church-member and noted archaeologist "Grahame-with-an-E", friend of TV "diggers" Alice Roberts, Raksha Dave and others! Grahame had just returned from a 3-week archaeology trip to Egypt and had plenty of stories up his sleeve about "missed connections" and "unpleasant drinking water" etc, so "What's not to like!", as we both said (in chorus!!!!) !!!!
flashback to last December and last year's pre-Christmas lunch at an Emsworth pub:
as fully-paid-up 'history buffs' Lois and I were delighted to be seated on the
same table as noted archaeologist "Grahame-with-an-E" (pictured above, bottom left)
also getting the chance to peruse one of Grahame's booklets (bottom right)
Happy days!!!!
Meanwhile here in Liphook this "wet Wednesday" (!!!), the weather is far too atrocious to go out, so Lois and I spend the day "tying up some loose ends", as we call it !!!! As well as submitting those Christmas menu-choices to Richard, we somehow manage to find the time to order an electrically-heated clothes airer, and also discuss curtain choices for the sitting-room, would you believe, or should I say "certain curtain choices" (!). [No! - Ed]
Far too wet to venture out of the house for the second day running (see graphic right),
we stay indoors, making plans for "hunkering down" this winter - what madness, isn't it !!!!
It's all part of our plans for "hunkering down" for the winter, when we won't be able to hang wet clothes on our rotary washing-line in the back garden, for example, for fear that they'll be blown away by some gale or other, would you believe!!!
And the winter will be making an early start here this coming weekend, with the forecast "Storm Austen" preparing to casually "blow in from the Atlantic", no pun intended!!!!
What madness (again) !!!!
And Lois and I can't help feeling a bit envious of our 16-year-old grandson Isaac, who's just jetted off this week to faraway, sunny China, in the company of a dozen or so fellow-students from his local high-school here in Liphook, all of them planning to take Mandarin Chinese as one of their A-Levels, if you please, which is mad, too!
The young scamps !!!!
our grandson Isaac [inset] and his route to a land of endless sunshine - the young scamp !!!!
In his first report from China, Isaac says he slept for most of the first Chinese Airways flight from London's Heathrow Airport to Xiamen, because the in-flight movies were mainly of the patriotic Chinese variety, which was a pity, he says, and "a lost opportunity" by the state airline.
And he reports, "They gave us dinner at, like, midnight, which was annoying, and not very good, either, and then breakfast again, like, 7 hours later, which did involve a hash brown and a Yeo Valley yoghourt, so not too bad". Poor Isaac's contact lenses somewhat got temporarily mislaid during the flight so he was walking blind at the transit airport, waiting to board the one-hour flight to the group's final destination, in Gulangyu, believed to be vaguely near Hong Kong.
Gulangyu, in southern China
Contact lenses retrieved, Isaac boarded the group's second flight, he says, just a one-hour flight this time, again sleeping through most of it, but during which, he says, "a few times nearly resting my head on the shoulder of the fat Chinese man next to me".
Poor Isaac!!!!!
The scariest thing to Lois and me however, was Isaac's account of the group's hotel in Gulangyu, This is, firstly, because of Isaac's description of the toilet bowls, which "open up automatically", and which "warm you, massage you, dry you, and deodorise you" (and more, if you wish!!!). But scarier still is the fact that Isaac says the hotel is partly staffed by robots, moving about the public rooms, and presumably doing the room service (?).
flashback to November 2025: the world's first hotel staffed by robots
is debuted at Shanghai International Airport
Yikes!!!! I don't think Lois and I would like to have anything to do with that sort of "malarkey", to put it mildly !!!!!
Gulangyu has an interesting history, as I discover when I google it, and even we Brits had the predominant hand in administering it at one time, long ago, which is totally weird, even providing an Indian police force to keep order there, if you please!
the British-trained Sikh police force, that once kept the peace in Gulangyu
What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off times !!!!
More craziness awaits us, however, when we open the pages of our copy of this week's edition of "Private Eye", the political magazine, which "plops" through our letter-box, while we lie in bed this afternoon.
this week's edition of political magazine Private Eye, marking the sad death of
disgraced former Conservative Party chairman and novelist Jeffrey Archer,
with a look-back at some of Jeffrey's headline stories from the past 40 years or so
Yes, much of the news in the magazine this week is all about the sad death of disgraced, former Conservative Party chairman and (also) best-selling novelist, Jeffrey Archer, no less!
Many commentators have drawn attention to Archer's somewhat chequered, and perhaps less than honest, relationship to the truth - e.g. repeated lying in his CVs in order to obtain "plum" jobs, plus his conviction for perjury during his law-suit against the Daily Star, which had revealed his secret night with a prostitute etc etc.
Poor Jeffrey!!!
However, it's heart-warming today to see some of Jeffrey's former friends coming out of the woodwork to praise the poor guy, and put the other side of the story, which is nice: (1) Julian Fellowes, creator of TV's "Downton Abbey", and also (2) film star Joan Collins, as told to the Eye's columnist Craig Brown:
Awwww, bless !!!!
20:00 And after another crazy day today, there's just time for Lois and me, before bedtime, to sample an interesting radio programme on BBC Radio 4, presented by geneticist and media personality Adam Rutherford, a programme all about political leaders through the centuries, and their relationship to the wretched "schmucks" - civil servants and the like - who have to implement whatever policies and programmes their leaders "dream up", if you please (!).
There's a distinguished set of "pundits", in the studio, discussing the issues in this week's programme, including historian Andrew Roberts, plus American author and financial journalist Michael Lewis, and also Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government.
Napoleon had some good ideas, historian Andrew Roberts says, ruling France and the French Army through a set of 26 "Marshals", selected on merit - which was a refreshing change after centuries of absolute monarchy, where what mattered for getting a top job was the issue of who your father and grandfather were. Although 5 or 6 of Napoleon's original 26 chosen marshals were actually of noble birth, the others came from sometimes quite menial walks of life, which was nice to see, their appointments dependant solely on merit.
It all went wrong however, years later, when Napoleon fell more and more into appointing favourites, especially men who had married into his family; eventually the marshals started to try and outmanoeuvre each other, to the extent that, by 1814, two of the 26 marshals actually fought a duel with each other, and they somehow found time to do it during an actual battle, which was worse (!).
What madness!!!!
Next up, we have the subject of Boris Johnson and his big 2019 election win, principally commented on by Jill Rutter, from the London-based "Institute for Government".
Jill recalls that, although Napoleon eventually lost the loyalty of his marshals, they never actually "revolted" against him, but in the UK in recent years, there's been a succession of cabinets who have rebelled against their Prime Ministers. Boris Johnson swept to power as a "conquering hero" in 2019, determined to fully implement Brexit, appointing a cabinet of loyalists etc. However, eventually, various scandals - general mismanagement, so-called "Party-gate" etc - led to Johnson being "dethroned" in 2022, after less than 3 years.
And Jill comments that UK cabinet members, being also MPs, each have their own power base, which perhaps gives them the sense of independence that they need, in order to enable them to take stands against their Prime Ministers.
American commentator Michael Lewis then talks a little about Donald Trump. Lewis, who has published books about each of the two Trump administrations, describes how, particularly during Trump's second administration, what he calls the President's "massive power grab" erupted, when he acquired powers never exercised before by US presidents.
Lewis also chronicles Trump's immediate initiatives to politicise the country's 2 million strong civil service. Uneasy that his civil servants had taken an oath to serve the constitution rather than the President, Trump has also, like Napoleon in his later years, assigned big roles to his own family members, Lewis comments.
Fascinating stuff, isn't it, and the discussion is just starting to talk about creepy billionaire tech bro Elon Musk, when we need to switch off the radio to catch one of Lois' favourite detective shows, Shakespeare and Hathaway, based on the work of a private detective agency in Stratford UK. However, we'll hear the rest of the Start the Week programme in due course, I'm sure, so watch this space!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just watch your "whodunnit" and go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
