Thursday July 23rd 2026 "Have YOU ever had to modify YOUR hair-style in a supermarket car park?"

Yes, Friends, have YOU ever had to modify YOUR hair style in a supermarket car park?

It's happened to most of us, at one time or another, hasn't it! And with good reason! There's even a story about it in today's Onion News, so check it out - see page 94 !!!

Kudos, that woman! And let's hope she finds that one of those large-hatted males, attracted by her "display", turns out to be "Mr Right", or at least "Mr Right-Enough-For-A-Month-or-Two", let's say!

And, certainly, reading about Platt's "parking nightmare" this morning, here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, brings a wry smile to the normally-neutral faces of me and my wife Lois, no question about that!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Today we have one of the fortnightly online meetings of the little "U3A Intermediate Danish For Old Codgers" group, which we jointly lead, "for our sins" (!), and parking problems even rear their ugly heads during our meeting today, which is a total surprise!!!!

flashback: me and Lois trying to control a recent typically rowdy

meeting of our U3A "Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" Group 

Our group is currently reading a Danish murder mystery, "Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss) by Danish writer Anna Grue, and yes, even the normally cool-headed Danes have their parking issues, would you believe, seemingly, would you believe!

The novel we're reading is all about a young Danish romance scammer, Jay, who operates by getting into bed with menopausal Danish female lottery-winners, before emptying their bank accounts, the little scamp!!!

a typical young Danish romance-scammer in bed with 

a menopausal female lottery-winner

But fun fact - even romance-scammers have problems with car-parking, now and again - and perhaps not enough attention has been paid to the issue (?). 

I wonder....!

Young Jay is anxious to get to know his latest victim, a menopausal Danish woman called Bente, and he is trying to engineer a first encounter with her outside the block of flats where she lives. However, he's currently being frustrated by Bente's fellow residents, who are objecting to Jay parking in their "residents-only" car park, which is annoying Jay no end!!!!

a typical Danish "residents only" car park sign, the picture

carrying an implied threat that your car may be 

towed away by a truck, which is intimidating to put it mildly!

Here's an extract from our current Danish novel, which I've translated into English, for your convenience! Jay has parked his car and then gone to the apartment block entrance to see if he catch his menopausal victim coming back from the shops and going into the building. While he's waiting, however, he turns round to see a couple of residents obviously angry about where he decided to park his car, in a "residents-only" spot, would you believe!

Poor Jay!!!

Yes, even romance-scammers can have problems, it seems, and today Jay has them "in spades", to put it mildly!!!! And - talking point - should apartment blocks for elderly people incorporate a few "scammers only" slots for people like Jay, who are only trying to do their jobs, when all is said and done haha!!!

I wonder.... (again!!!!!)......!

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

Well, our "Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" group-members all have a jolly good laugh over that extract today, but there's another serious point here too, isn't there.

Are the Danes more fanatical than us laid-back Brits in enforcing societal rules? It's certainly been the experience of Lois and me during our many visits to Denmark.

flashback to 2017: Lois and me during one of our many visits

to "babysit" our 3 grandchildren, then living in Copenhagen,

during one of their parents' absences in Hong Kong

We have quite a discussion on this during our group meeting today, and googling the question we turn up some interesting points:

Fascinating stuff, isn't it !!!!

[If you say so! - Ed]

But your comments welcome - postcards only haha !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Wednesday July 22nd 2026 "Friends, do YOU have an unforgiving boss who keeps you 'at it'? It's the pits, isn't it!"

Yes, Friends, do YOU have an unforgiving boss who keeps you 'at it', 9 to 5? 

Isn't it the worst? Luckily there are some more enlightened bosses these days who are bucking the trend, according to this morning's Onion News, which brings some comfort, to put it mildly!

Kudos, that man!

And, reading Billings' enlightened manifesto this morning brings a tearful smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, here in semi-idyllic Liphook, Hampshire,  - no doubt about that!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

We're suffering our own mini-breakdown ourselves this morning, due to being confined to our home, having been detailed to "stay in", for an important delivery from Royal Mail. Yes, the delivery is our 15-year-old rockstar grandson Isaac's present on the occasion of his forthcoming 16th birthday, the present ordered by his parents: our daughter Alison and her hotshot lawyer-husband Edward, currently on a well-earned holiday in Mallorca, in the Spanish Balearic Islands, would you believe!

our daughter Alison, who with husband, hotshot London lawyer Edward, is currently

on holiday in Mallorca with their 3 teenage kids: Josie, Rosalind and Isaac

Young Isaac's excitement at his approaching 16th birthday is perhaps tempered by anxiety - his boy-girl rock band New Horizon has had to appear this week without him, just over the county line in Surrey, at Guildford's iconic "Boileroom" venue, where internationally-known artists such as Ed Sheeran made their debuts long ago! 

Isaac assures us, however, that the band's first "Isaac-less" 'gig' went off without incident anyway, and that not many people were there in the audience, this being the first week of the school summer holidays, which is reassuring to hear! So that's all good haha!!!

(left) Isaac's boy-girl band New Horizon has had to appear this week

without group-leader Isaac, currently on holiday with his family in Mallorca,

and (right) the band seen here in happier times, with Isaac on vocals,

opening up this month's Haslemere Fringe Festival on the 'big stage'

Go Isaac !!!!

Meanwhile Lois and me, confined to our house here in Liphook, awaiting Isaac's crucial Royal Mail delivery this morning, make the best use of our time here, with some small victories in the house, and, as the crucial delivery comes around noon, there is no disruption to our afternoon in bed, for 'statutory nap-time', which is a nice bonus!

Yes, today is very much a productive day again, I can exclusively reveal! I manage to put back our crazy larder door onto its hinges with my 'killer' screwdriver (!), and Lois and I even manage somehow to find time to cram all our family-history data - like, a billion files and pictures, more probably (!) - onto a tiny memory stick, which means we can now safely 'de-commission' our obsolete desktop and two obsolete laptops, which is nice!

(left) me with my 'killer' screwdriver, a crucial aid in my putting our larden

door back on its hinges, where it belongs (!), and (right) the tiny memory stick

onto which Lois and I manage to cram, like, a billion files and pictures

from our family history studies - what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Yes, what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

These little triumphs, however, are balanced by a setback when ordering our groceries from Ocado, our usual source. I spend about 45 minutes inputting our order, and then find that the Ocado website (a) won't let me check out, and (b) won't let me empty my trolley and start again. Plus their stupid customer service chatbot isn't accepting queries at the moment, for unexplained reasons, leaving me with no choice but to abandon my "trolley", with 38 items in it, worth £100 (!!!!), and just order all the same things again from Ocado's bitter rival, Sainsbury's. 

And because my Ocado 'trolley' is a purely digital, I can't just, irresponsibly, dump it in a river, or lake, for example. My trolley is going to be there, polluting the internet for all time - what madness (again) !!!!!

some typical supermarket trollies dumped irresponsibly in some river,

can be cleared by supermarket staff, if with a lot of difficulty, whereas my trolley 

being purely digital, is doomed to pollute the internet for all time,

which is a pity - although I'm powerless to do anything about it!!!!

What a day of ups and downs, to put it mildly!!!!

And there are more ups and downs tonight as we watch a weird film about a Japanese woman, who loves calligraphy, which she thinks looks at its most beautiful when painted on her skin, so she gets her lovers to have a go on her with their brushes - what madness (again) !!!!

It's all about a Japanese woman, Nagiko, who acquires an early taste for "body-calligraphy" and poetry, and also for keeping a diary, modelled on the classic Japanese novel "The Pillow-Book of Sei Shonagon", diary of a medieval Japanese noblewoman.

Nagiko espouses her heroine's motto: "I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable: the delights of the flesh, and the delights of literature. And I have had the good fortune to enjoy them both equally!"

It all goes wrong for young teenage Nagiko, however, after her parents cajole her into an arranged marriage, because, unfortunately, Nagiko's "arranged husband" refuses to take part in her body-painting shenanigans, calling them "trivial" and "a waste of time". What madness!!!!

young bride Nagiko - her 'arranged husband' calls her

body-painting shenanigans 'trivial' and 'a waste of time' - what madness!

As a result of her husband's attitude, Nagiko decides to dump him and fly away to colonial Hong Kong, where she meets a nice English boy - Jerome, or some-such name, who shares her tastes, or at least is ready to go along with them. 

Jerome can't understand Japanese characters and poetry, so Nagiko makes do on him with some English-language favourites like "The Quick Brown Fox.... etc etc", which is a good compromise, we think!

Nagiko's new "squeeze", Jerome, can't read Japanese characters,

so she substitutes some classic English phrases, which is nice!

We see the couple making a real mess writing on each other with paintbrushes in their newspaper-strewn bed and in their bedroom bathtub, in their Hong Kong apartment.

Lois and I can't help feeling sorry for the couple's long-suffering maid, however, who is constantly having to change their messy sheets and towels, and give them all a jolly good wash, to put it mildly!

Poor maid !!!!

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

Lois and I have never been tempted to go in for any of this body-calligraphy "malarkey", as we call it! We haven't got a maid, but we certainly wouldn't want to expose our poor washing-machine to all the consequent, repetitive work that this kind of hobby, of necessity, involves.  

Call us dyed-in-the-wool conservatives if you like - NO PUN INTENDED!!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Tuesday July 21st 2026 "Wondering why scientists aren't finding any fossils these days? Well, wonder no more!!!"

Yes, Friends, have YOU ever wondered why scientists aren't "turning up" fossils any more, seemingly?

Well, wonder no more, because, according to today's Onion News,  it seems some of these scientists are just "sitting on them" - and let's just hope, for the scientists' sake,  that they're not the "pointy" kind haha!!!

Kudos, that man! And it looks like Terrell's chance discovery could prove to be something of a game-changer for palaeontology - so watch this space!!!!

And reading Terrell's story today, here in partially-picturesque Liphook, Hampshire, brings a near-radiant smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, history buffs extraordinaires(!), that's for sure! 

Like Terrell, we too are taking a little walk of discovery of our own today, not through any dusty old museum, but over the "hallowed turf" of local soccer heroes Liphook United, who once again have avoided relegation from the East Hampshire Premier League to the lowly "burial ground" of East Hampshire Division One", a daring feat which is becoming a bit of an annual 'fixture' of its own - no pun intended!!!!

And what we discover is another possible game-changer: lots of bits of mysterious plastic sheeting over certain parts of the club's "hallowed turf", which is mad! Laid by aliens perhaps? But your views welcome - postcards only, needless to say !!!!

the mysterious pieces of plastic sheeting, seemingly marking 

the quickest route to Liphook United's club bar, sheeting which has 

been laid - by aliens???? - during our recent 3 week absence 

And today is also a bit of a celebration, from our viewpoint, because it's our first "walk of discovery" together for about 3 weeks, would you believe, due partly to the heatwave, but also due to the recent 3-week visit of our daughter Sarah and family from Perth, Australia, which, while being totally joyous, kicked our previous routine life "out of the park", if you'll forgive yet another soccer metaphor!

[That's enough soccer! - Ed]

flashback to July 2nd - Lois and I visit the top of London's "Shard",

the tallest building in Western Europe, together with our daughter

Sarah and her family: (left to right) Sarah, me, our twin granddaughters

Lily and Jessica, Lois, and our son-in-law Francis

What madness it all is, isn't it !!!!

Famously one of Liphook's busiest couples, Lois and I also somehow find time today to get Lois's hair cut and styled by Lois's athletic stylist Anna, and also to get Lois's blood its annual test at our local surgery, somehow managing also to "squeeze in" another afternoon in bed, in between, would you believe!

Busy busy busy!!!!

our busy day - a haircut for Lois from her stylist Anna, with me in the "husband chair",

and a visit to our local NHS surgery for Lois's annual blood test - what madness!

Yes, it's "all go" today, once again!  What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

As Lois and I, retired now for 20 years, always say to ourselves - "How did we ever find the time to go to work, back in the day?!!!!"

And to try and answer that question, we decide tonight to watch a new series about my old workplace, "The Undeclared War", even though it turns out not to be ideal pre-bedtime viewing, to put it mildly!

And star of the series Simon Pegg, when asked by the Radio Times "Have you ever been allowed inside the real GCHQ?", answers, "Several times. They have been really accommodating. I grew up near Cheltenham, my school was about 5 miles away from GCHQ, so we knew we were in the hot zone for a nuclear attack - which, in the mid-1980's was always going to happen 'tomorrow'. So it's a moment of circularity in my life that I've ended up making a show about it". 

Tonight, I can't resist googling Pegg, and I discover that yes indeed, the young Simon did indeed attend the seemingly unremarkable Brockworth Comprehensive School in the 1980's, just down the road between Cheltenham and Gloucester:

(left, centre) film-star Simon Pegg as a young boy, and (right)

Brockworth Comprehensive School, officially opened in 1972.

Awwww, bless his little short trousers haha !!!!!

Lois and I watch most of tonight's first episode, and we both agree that, to us, it's all quite dry, dull stuff, with lots of excited voices shouting about cyber warfare and malware, sandbox computers and other randomised jargon words etc etc, which we suppose will fascinate some people - but what madness! I don't think that Lois and I are going to bother watching the rest of the series - call us intellectual snobs if you like haha!!! 

In this scene Simon Pegg's character gets told by a staffer that they've discovered some Russian malware targeting the White House. He then gets 'on the blower' to the Director of Cybersecurity Operations at NSA, GCHQ's US sister agency, to break the bad news:

And on an "authenticity" note, I notice that Simon Pegg and his staff consistently talk about "the NSA", when in the real GCHQ it's simply known office-wide as "NSA", without the definite article - and I don't think it's breaking the Official Secrets Act to reveal that fact, whether exclusively or otherwise haha!

staff portrayed in the series refer erroneously to "the NSA" (!),

using the definite article, which is a bit jarring to Yours Truly!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to "the bed"! - Ed]

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