Monday August 31st 2026 "Have YOU ever been 'sick'? Or maybe 'sick of' being sick, or sick of something completely different?"

Yes, Friends, have YOU ever been sick? Or 'sick of' something, maybe? It's been called 'the modern disease', hasn't it, and with temperatures dropping all over the UK as autumn approaches, so-called 'sicknesses' of one sort or another are dominating the press today, no question about that! Just pick up your copy of this morning's Onion News print edition if you want to get the full 'low-down' !!!!

"Makes you sick", doesn't it, haha!!!! And today's headlines about our modern so-called "sick world" are certainly helping to bring a weak smile to the lips of me and my wife Lois today, here in damp-affected Liphook, Hampshire - so that's all good!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

Poor Lois has herself been feeling QUOTE "not 100%" UNQUOTE  for the last couple of days, but it's difficult to get the correct percentage down to more than a few decimal points, so I'm not going to put the "numbers" too much under the spotlight here, which is probably for the best!

The 'bottom line' is that Lois is determined not to let her reported 'sore throat' symptoms stop her enjoying herself, and she insists on 'powering through' with our usual morning walk over the 'hallowed turf' of local soccer specialists Liphook United. And she is also being irrepressibly spirited and boisterous, both during our morning walk and even during afternoon 'statutory nap-time', and so, fingers crossed, this 'tough medicine' is going to 'see off' her threatened full-scale cold, so we'll see. 

Watch this space, over the coming hours, for any last-minute 'news updates' !!!!

Lois and me this morning, with Lois insisting on doing our morning walk

over Liphook United's 'hallowed turf' despite her sore throat etc, and (right)

us passing the ground's iconic children's playground, deserted for the Bank Holiday (!)

It's certainly very quiet  on our walk, but maybe that's because (a) the weather is damp and miserable, and (b) it's a Bank Holiday (!) - a combination of factors that, over the years, some experts have linked, by the way: some even calling it  'causal', and certainly the stats don't lie! However, it's the last such holiday until Christmas, so we might as well enjoy it, damp or no damp - that's what Lois and I say !!!!!

And it's nice to know that today's UK Bank Holiday is bringing joy to at least one other person, 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia, would you believe! Yes, step forward our daughter Sarah, whom we call "Sarah Two-Jobs" (!). She's not just a busy accountant for a firm in Perth, but she's also continuing to do her former accountancy job in Evesham UK. And Lois and I always let Sarah know if there's a UK Bank Holiday coming up, because it makes her 'visibly less stressed' to know that her Evesham co-workers won't be at work today, allowing some of her 'UK deadlines' to slip 24 hours, which is a great comfort, and a significant 'morale-booster', she tells us, which is nice !!!!

(left) our daughter Sarah with colleagues at the accountancy firm in Evesham UK,

and (right) leaving her office in Perth, when Lois and I picked her up on our last trip there

Poor Sarah !!!!!

20:00 Evening fallas, and, at last getting a moment to collapse on the couch, and with Lois still reporting that her sore throat seems to be going away, we get the chance to 'kick back' and relax at last, and not before time!

At least on our screens tonight, noted film actor Richard E Grant is on hand to "spirit us away" from England's dampness  to sunny Mediterranean skies in the last programme in his celebrity literary travelogue series, "A Very Modern Odyssey", on Channel 4. 

There's admittedly only a very thin justification for Grant's series, which is supposedly based on the route taken by Ancient Greek hero Odysseus, after he left the Trojan War and 'took the scenic route' back to Ithaca, and back to the welcoming arms of wife Penelope. In his absence, "Penny" was then being 'courted' by, like, a billion horny 'suitors', all trying to convince her that Odysseus wasn't going to be coming home any time soon, so why not have a little fun 'between the sheets' with one or other of them., as they explained to her (!).

What madness, though, wasn't it!!!!

the 'scenic route' taken by Greek hero Odysseus, leaving Troy

at the end of the Trojan War, and eventually finding his way back

to his home in Ithaca, and to his long-suffering wife Penelope

Despite the programme's rather 'dubious' link to Homer's great epic "The Odyssey", the series still has lots of fascinating bits to it. 

Lois and I didn't know (or had forgotten) that the lovely faraway Mediterranean island of Corfu, which was on Odysseus' route home, formed part of the British Empire for almost 50 years, from 1815 to 1864. The Royal Navy apparently kicked Napoleon's forces out of the island in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and the British evidently decided that it was nice enough in Corfu to stay a bit longer (!). 

flashback to around 1830: British troops parading in Corfu

Most of the rest of Greece was then currently occupied by the Ottoman Turks, so I think that the natives of Corfu probably thought that we British were a 'less bad option' if they were going to be ruled by anybody foreign, and the Brits at least had the grace to withdraw from the island eventually, in 1864, when Greek independence in general was becoming 'a thing', so that was all good!

Astonishingly, while 'occupying' Corfu, we Brits somehow also found the time to teach the natives how to play cricket, and the game is still flourishing there, with 6 local cricket teams, Grant reports, some of them 'fielding' the occasional woman-player [no pun intended!!!], which is nice!

"Well played, Sir (or Madam, as the case may be!)!", and "Good shot Sir/Madam" !!!

Before the British arrived in 1815, however, the island had had a long history of foreign occupation, for substantial periods forming part of Venice's Empire, and tonight we see the ever-charming Grant watching a demonstration of a Venetian dance called the Furlana, still popular amongst the "Corfiots", as natives of the island are called.

In a bygone era, the women's exquisite, eye-catching outfits weren't just costumes but also ceremonial dresses signifying social status and marriage eligibility, i.e. whether the woman was a virgin or not, so a big "giveaway" (!).

But wait, there's more! 

The number of ribbons in the woman's outfit told you how big a queue there was to marry the virgin concerned, which was another useful "time-saver" for the Corfiot man-about-town, no question about that!!!! 

So, the moral was that you didn't set your sights on any woman who had too many ribbons, especially if you were short of time, and eager to 'get on with it' (!).

Oh dear, that's a bummer!!!!

Poor Corfiot virgin !!!!!

But what a mad world they lived in, in those crazy, far-off times!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Sunday August 30th 2026 "Got YOUR bank-holiday camping trip over yet? No???? Well, better 'get a wriggle on' !!!!"

Yes, Friends, have YOU got YOUR traditional 'August bank-holiday camping-trip' out of the way yet? If not, better get a 'wriggle on' - it'll be September before you know it! Just saying!

And the papers are suddenly full of 'camping stories' today - did you notice it? Today's Onion News has several of them, all jockeying for 'pride of place' - just turn to page 94, if you've got the strength in your little thumb haha!!!!

Has the world gone camping mad?!!!! All these "shockers" in the headlines, however, are certainly  bringing the smallest hint of a very wry-to-wry-ish smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning - that's a "given" !!!!

my wife Lois and me - photobombing a recent picture

of adorable stuffed toy "Floppy Dog"

And we're still smiling a bit wryly, when we start our whatsapp weekly "catch-up" video call this lunchtime with our daughter Sarah, who lives in Yanchep, a northern suburb of Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 13-year-old twins Lily and Jessica. 

Awwwww!!!!

lunchtime today (Sunday), and Lois and me are once again on our whatsapp 

catch-up video call, talking to our daughter Sarah and twins Lily and Jessica

Awwwww (again) !!!!

The twins are a bit apprehensive today, but excited at the same time, because this coming week they'll be going on their Anglican school's 3-night camping trip along the Avon River, way out in the outback, doing rock-climbing, kayaking and goodness knows what, the little scamps!

the Avon River, out in the outback of Western Australia, where our twin granddaughters

Lily and Jessica will be, this coming week, on their school spring camping-trip. 

Awwwww!!!

[That's enough 'awwwws' ! - Ed]

'The Avon' - the very name gives Lois and me a quiet sob, because it sounds so very English, doesn't it! 

And it gives me the chance to explain to the twins that there are a total of seven rivers called Avon in England, all caused by a misunderstanding. You see, when the Anglo-Saxons first arrived in Britain, they asked the natives what this or that river was called, and they replied, "Oh that's just the Avon" - because 'avon' is just the Welsh word for 'river'. See? Simples!

And I bet those Ancient Britons had many a laugh behind the backs of those 'invasive' Anglo-Saxons when the Britons heard the Anglo-Saxons talking about "the River Avon", which is just 'River River' from the Ancient Britons' point of view, if you think about it! 

It also give me chance to explain to the twins that when the French first crossed the Atlantic and asked the natives where they were, the natives just said "Canada", which the French took as the name of the country, when it actually just means "the village" in the relevant native Indian language. 

What madness, wasn't it!

French explorers cross the Atlantic and call their new country 'Canada'

due to an early misunderstanding during 'exploratory' talks with the natives

- what madness, wasn't it !!!

[That's enough misunderstandings! - Ed]

The twins have been doing metalwork at their school this last week, and so I nip upstairs during the call, to fetch an 'ancient' artefact to show them: the old clock made out of scrap metal that their mum - our daughter Sarah (49) - made back in the 1980's when their mum was about their age, at her grammar-school in Cheltenham. 

Awwwww (again) !!!!

(left) I showcase the clock made out of scrap metal made by our daughter Sarah

at her school in Cheltenham in the 1980's, and (right) Lois demonstrates

the clock to Sarah's twin daughters 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia which is nice!

Awwwww!!! Happy days!!!!

Above all, however, today's call to Australia comes as a welcome chance for Lois and me to relax, which is a bit of a 'change of pace'! We don't do it very often, that's for sure!

Dubbed by neighbours "possibly Liphook's busiest-looking retired couple", we've had another busy morning today - no surprise there! However, poor Lois has come down with a sore throat the last couple of days, so she elects to stay home and not attend her church's Sunday Morning Meeting, preferring to log-in to the meeting online so as not to spread the infection to any of the church's members, especially the 'old codgers' among them, which is probably for the best, we think!

(left) the village hall near Petersfield, Hampshire, where Lois's church

holds its Sunday Morning Meetings, and (right) Lois logging in to the

meeting online this morning, so as not to spread her sudden throat infection

14:00 And in bed this afternoon for "statutory nap-time", we get the chance, on our phones, to catch-up with our other daughter, Alison (51), who lives locally, just over the county line in nearby Churt, Surrey, but is not at home this weekend. 

She and husband Ed, plus the eldest of their 3 teenage kids, Josie (19), have this weekend travelled 300 miles north, all the way up to Durham near the Scottish border. 

in bed this afternoon for "statutory nap-time", Lois and I catch up with our

other daughter Alison, who is spending the weekend 300 miles away in Durham

with husband Edward and Josie (19) the eldest of their 3 kids

Ali, Edward and Josie drove up to Durham yesterday (Saturday) to transport the bulk of Josie's "stuff" to what will be her new lodgings when she starts the 2nd year of her maths degree at Durham - she'll be in a house-share with 3 other girls, which should be fun, no doubt about that!

our daughter Alison (51) is seen in the mirror as she takes these

pics of her daughter Josie, surrounded by all the 'stuff' that constitute Josie's life

- clothes, shoes, knick-knacks, badminton-rackets, screwdrivers - you name it!!!!

What a glorious feeling it must be for Josie, who has all her life ahead of her, all just waiting for her around the corner, a life full of promise and possibilities! Awwww !!!!!  [Second warning! - Ed]

20:00 And it's a fascinating evening on the "telly" tonight, which is a surprise! 

We watch the second half of a stimulating documentary about pop duo Wham's two ground-breaking concerts in China in 1985 - the first Western pop act to perform live in the country - a event which caused a sensation at the time, China being a country that had stayed almost completely closed to Westerners for decades, after becoming an aggressively Communist one-party-state in 1949.

Not mentioned in the 'blurb' above was the thing that most struck Lois and me about this programme - the totally different atmosphere that the two concerts were held in - the first in Beijing, and the second down south in Guangzhou. The atmosphere for the boys' concert in Beijing was very tense, with the authorities being palpably nervous and jumpy, while the concert in Guangzhou was a much more relaxed and laid-back affair.

In Beijing, the authorities were noticeably uptight about the scheduled concert. And they decided to station police and security guards all over the auditorium to make sure the audience stayed calm and sitting in their seats during the concert there, and any audience-members who stood up or got over-excited during the performance were 'seized' (!) and duly marched away to who-knows-what fate (!).

However, the second concert, way down south in Guangzhou, was, in sharp contrast, a totally relaxed affair, normal by Western standards, with all the Chinese kids in the concert-hall given free rein to express their excitement and enthusiasm. 

Being near the then British colony of Hong Kong, the Guangzhou area had been "infected" (in a good way!) by the liberal atmosphere of the colony, and most of the audience were frequent listeners to Radio Hong Kong, so knew all the Wham hit songs already, and were singing along with gusto.

No wonder, comments Lois, that the Chinese authorities were so pleased to take Hong Kong back when the British lease ran out in 1997 !

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Saturday August 29th 2026 "Have YOU tried a microwave ready-meal today? And did it come out all wrong? Well, haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, today's news is dominated by microwave ready-meals mysteriously "going pear-shaped" all over the UK, particularly pies, which is weird, for reasons not totally clear at this point!!!!!

This slightly "spooky" story, and others of a similar bent, were all over Onion News this morning - you may have seen the headlines!!!!

And the stories certainly bring a hint of a wry smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-picturesque Liphook, Hampshire - no doubt about that!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

And we're laughing because we too find ourselves struggling with a microwave "ready-meal" today, which is weird! 

Today, Saturday, turns out to be a day dominated by wet weather, but more importantly, dominated by Lois feeling she is coming down with a cold, with a nasty sore throat as its "harbinger", which isn't good! And we dodge the storms today but make a quick trip out this morning to the local Co-op mini-supermarket to get some ready-meals in, plus a bunch of other stuff that we forgot to include in our weekly Ocado delivery - silly us!!!!

(above) our local Co-op mini-supermarket seen here in sunnier times, and

(below left) our receipt for today's purchases including meatballs, shepherd's pie, 

coq au vin and cod mornay, and (below right) us shopping here in unhappier times, 

after a freezer failure, during this year's first heatwave, had forced staff 

to clear some of the shelves - what madness!!!!

Yes, poor Lois comes along to the Co-op, despite her sore throat. And the sudden rainstorms today certainly aren't helping, with even more of "the wet stuff" forecast for tonight, would you believe! 

What a crazy country we live in!

What madness!!!!

Lois getting a cold is a bit of a surprise, because she and I have been extraordinarily healthy on the whole ever since we started getting the COVID jabs a few years ago, and this one is only Lois's second cold in 6 years, which is amazing, and I myself have been almost cold-free too, which is weird.

Nevertheless the ready-meals, soups etc that we buy this morning will make things easier in the kitchen this weekend, that's for sure! Even accident-prone Yours Truly can manage to look like a superchef with one of these little beauties in my hands, no question about that!!!!

us this evening enjoying a CookShop ready meal of cod mornay - yum yum!

As has been widely reported (in my blog (!)), neighbours have recently dubbed us "possibly Liphook's busiest-looking retired couple", but today, "trapped" inside the house most of the day by the atrocious weather and Lois's burgeoning cold, we both get a welcome chance to "kick back" and catch up on the week's news, via the radio and by Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, which gives us a digest of the week's top stories from home and abroad, which is nice!

And as the town's flagship busy-looking retired couple, we have responsibilities galore, including keeping ourselves "down with the kids" (!), and (as a minimum!) understanding the basics of the new "Gen Z" 'lingo'. That 'malarkey' is a top priority for us, because of our 5 teenage grandchildren: our daughter Alison's three in nearby Churt, just over the county line in Surrey, and also our other daughter Sarah's 13-year-old twins, 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia.

There's a crazy story this week about the new Gen Z version of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations", a development, which, to Lois and me, is, as young people say today, "seriously cringe" - no question about that!!!

What madness (again) !!!!  And call us hopeless 'dinosaurs' if you like, but Lois and I firmly prefer our Dickens served up in its original language, if you please!!!!

And youngsters north of the border are even getting into Scots Gaelic these days, we hear this afternoon on BBC Radio 4, in this week's first programme in the latest season of Michael Rosen's fascinating "Word of Mouth" language series, which is a totally heart-warming story on this rainy day in Liphook, so all is not lost!

Gaelic is one of the few surviving languages from the Celtic language-family, once spoken pretty much all over Europe and even in Turkey. The rise of the Roman Empire more or less stamped these languages out, with the exception of Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic, Manx and Cornish, which clung on in the British Isles, with Cornish later being 'exported' back into Brittany in Northern France. 

And now, young people in cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow, are getting back into Scots Gaelic thanks to handy language apps like DuoLingo, which they can get on their phones. 

kids learning Gaelic in a Scottish school

And today we hear more about the language from expert Roddy Maclean. Unusually there are no words for 'yes' and 'no' in Gaelic so you're asked "Do you speak Gaelic", you have to reply with the equivalent of saying "Speak" or "Speak-not", which is weird! Another oddity is that you have to put the verb first in any sentence so that a sentence like "the cat sat on the mat" becomes "sat the cat on the mat", using whatever the Gaelic words are.

Also, the language has, like, a billion words for hills depending on their shape e.g. the equivalent of "nose" for a nose-shaped hill, "tooth" for a hill that looks more like a tooth, also shoulder, heel etc - you name it! Gaelic also has another billion words for types of bogs, all neatly classified - fun fact: we got the English word 'bog' from Irish in the first place, would you believe (!). But what madness!!!!

A fascinating programme, although Lois thinks they should have included a section on Gaelic's crazy spelling, which surely makes it, like, a billion times harder for English speakers to master. Who would guess, for example, that the Irish name "Siobhan", is pronounced "She-vaughan" - it's total lunacy!!!

21:00 At least Gaelic, as an Indo-European language, is distantly related to English, which is something that can't be said about Chinese, to put it mildly! And tonight Lois and I decide to go to bed on the first half of a fascinating documentary about the ground-breaking visit of British pop group Wham to China back in 1985 - the first ever live performance by a Western pop group in the country, and a tour that captured headlines around the world.

And we text our 16-year-old grandson Isaac over in nearby Churt, who is studying Chinese, to be sure and see the programme too, so that's all good!!!

flashback to 2024: (left) our grandson Isaac (front, right, half out of shot) on the bus to

London's Heathrow Airport with his Chinese-learning classmates, and (right)

his student-group on arrival at the city in China where they spent much of their study trip

Lois and I find this programme fascinating. We knew that "Wham" were already big stars in the UK, but we didn't know that the main purpose of the tour, from the point of view of Wham's manager, was to create the kind of publicity that would launch the group in America and around the world. 

And that plan  certainly worked, with "the boys" - George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley - having to take part in press conferences in Beijing packed with representatives of the world's press, as well as coping with live-by-satellite interviews by American journalists on some of the top-rated morning news shows in the US. 

Here's one such interview conducted by Phyllis George on the CBS Morning News, on the day after their live show in Beijing.

Oops - yes, the time difference !!!!

The two boys were completely unknown to the public in America at this time, so Phyllis gave her CBS audience some useful pointers for identifying who was who, which was helpful, but her descriptions also gave some merriment to George and Andrew, no doubt about that!

Phyllis joins in the laughter, however. And Lois and I later google her and find that she was actually a former Miss America (1971).

Good to know, Phyllis haha!!!

Lois and I were also impressed by the boys themselves - unexpectedly a well-spoken, intelligent and sensitive pair with a good sense of humour, who, while not enjoying all the attention, and, at times, looking completely exhausted, nevertheless managed to keep their feelings private and to put on a brave face, which is touching!

Fascinating stuff !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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