Saturday October 10th 2026 "Brrrr!!! Yes, Winter's coming early this year, I'm guessing!!!!"

Yes, Friends, has YOUR house been noticeably colder this week? It can only mean one thing - that those stories about "Winter Coming Early" are coming even earlier this year, and filling the pages of our national press before they're supposed to - no question about that!!!

Onion News has three such "doozies" this morning, and it's only mid-October, which is mad!!!!

Oh dear! It's all madness, isn't it! 

But this "avalanche" of "early winter stories" (no pun intended!!!) certainly brings a flush to the cheeks of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-picturesque Liphook, Hampshire - that's for sure!!!

With the temperatures this morning locally plunging to as low as 52F (11C - brrrr!!!!), Lois and I are determined to "hunker down" and wait for spring! We've even brought in some early emergency measures - little electric heaters, (1) one for the living room for our evenings, and (2) one in the bedroom for our afternoons - is just the first stage in our "winter 2026-2027 plan". 

And we're even thinking about trying to remember how to put the central heating on tomorrow morning, so we definitely mean business: no question about that!!!

[You old skinflint, Colin! - Ed]

(above) temperatures plunging in Liphook to a cool 52F (11C) this morning - brrrrrr!!

and (below) the two electric heaters we've brought in, as an early precaution

And it's not even the middle of October yet, which is crazy!!!!

For Lois and me, however, it's yet another crazy day, with our biggest job being getting our annual pre-winter COVID and flu jabs at our local NHS surgery, which turns out to be a delight! They've certainly streamlined the procedure - no queues of 'old codgers' snaking round the outside of the building any more, which is nice! 

flashback to autumn 2023 and the bad old days (!): the "old codger queue" for COVID and 

winter flu jabs finally snakes its way to inside the building, but when these pictures were taken, 

Lois and I were still about 16 old codgers away from the nurse's room  - oh dear!

This morning, by contrast, we just walk into the surgery, pick up our pre-prepared "forms" from reception, after confirming our names and dates of birth, and then we're ushered through by a volunteer to a room with 2 nurses, one doing the jabbing and one working the PC, and then, before we know it, we're out the door at the back. The whole thing only takes 2 minutes, if that! 

It's totally crazy !!!!

(left) our local NHS surgery, and (right) a typical jab being administered by a nurse

And here's another novelty....for the first time ever Lois and I find ourselves "doing it" standing up, which (obviously!) saves time too, which is a good idea! There's just a slight pause while we decide which way round to do it - eventually opting for flu in the left arm and COVID in the right. 

However, you probably have your own ideas about that conundrum (!), so we don't want to influence you one way or the other! But you might want to start thinking about YOUR decision in advance, if you haven't had YOUR jab yet - just saying!!!!!

14:00 Another peaceful afternoon in bed, to recover from this morning's "jab-trauma" (!),  and nicer then ever today, because we've got a cast-iron guarantee of not being disturbed by delivery guys ringing our doorbell this time, which is nice! 

a typical delivery guy ringing the doorbell, with [inset] poor Lois and me 

trying to get some rest during "statutory nap-time" - what madness, isn't it!!!!

"But how- come you're guaranteed not to be disturbed by delivery guys this afternoon, Colin?", I hear you cry!

Well, seeing as how you're interested (!), you see, our door-bell is a crazy modern "stick-on" one, which works by "wifi" or some-such nonsense (!) and, somewhat randomly, our stick-on bell came off this week and fell into the bushes. We stopped by Liphook's only hardware store this morning to get some "superglue", but, due to pressure of other work (!), we haven't got round to sticking it back on yet, which is mad! 

But that can wait haha - it's a low priority! And the delivery guys can just leave our packages on the doorstep, so that's all good!!!!

Liphook's only hardware store - on Station Rd: see far right of picture,

where we buy some super-glue this morning, to stick out stick-on doorbell on with (!)

While in the hardware store, I also somehow find time to buy the latest Fackelman jar- and bottle-opener, in the store's special "old codger" department: look for the aisle on the left !!!! 

I don't have any trouble opening most jars and bottles, but it's the very small ones I have trouble with, just trying to get a "purchase" on it. I'm cursed with having big hands, as Lois often tells me - more out of sympathy, than disquiet, I sense!

(left) our "non-stick" stick-on door bell with our hardware purchases,

and (right) a typical tiny bottle of Lois's cranberry drink, which I struggle to open, cursed

as I am by one enormous pair of hands - that's my story and I'm sticking to it haha!!!

The perils of old age!!!

21:00 But at least tonight Lois and I can look back with nostalgia, watching BBC2's "1976 night", celebrating all the hits from that year, which is heart-warming!

 

And how fascinating also to see the little snippets of "fun facts" along the bottom of the screen, while those old hits are being played out - fabulous stuff!!!

And nice, also tonight, for Lois and me to remember that year with fondness - and taking our first child, Alison, with her smiley face, down to Somerset for her first ever holiday, and her first ever look at the sea. 

Awwwwww!!!

Awwwww (again) !!!!!

Happy days!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Friday October 9th 2026 "Lakes are just lovely, aren't they! Have you dipped any of YOUR toes in one, recently?"

Yes, Friends, find a local lake today, and dip one of your toes in it - it doesn't matter which lake, or which toe, although, speaking personally, I like everything "writ large", and hence tend to favour my big toe, whenever a lake "hoves into view" - that's just the way I am, and I make no apology for that!

One thing's for sure - you can't keep lakes out of the headlines! See the joyously overflowing Lakes Supplement (no pun intended!!!) in today's Onion News, if you remain unconvinced!!!!

Heart-warming stories, all three! And 'warm the heart' that's very much what lakes tend to do, especially in summer, with their lovely limpid waters washing gently over a quiet sandy inlet! 

[Nice verbal picture there, Colin! - Ed].

[Thanks! - Colin]

And these headlines (and all the 29 other lake stories in today's Supplement, would you believe!) certainly bring an eerie gleam to the eyes of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-idyllic Liphook, Hampshire - no question about that!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture taken near a local lake (background, extreme right)

Certainly, lakes are very much on both our minds today, having heard the astonishing claim that Loch Ness, the UK's most voluminous lake, could, if necessary, fit the whole of the world's population in it 14 times over, would you believe!

What madness!!! But is it true? Who knows, one day the world might need to try it out for real, although heaven forbid! Yours Truly has never learnt to swim, for example, so I would have my reservations - the loch is on average 400 feet deep, we hear today, which is totally mad!

The Loch Ness 'bombshell' is the final story in today's edition of the BBC Radio 4 series, "More of Less", the series which, every Friday, tests the validity of the many fallacious statistics that are "floating around", when it comes to the subject of lakes (again, no pun intended!!!), and also to many other non-lake areas of life, which is nice!

Fortunately, one of the world's leading experts in "crowd science", Dr Keith Still, is on hand, during the programme, to test out the theory behind the astonishing Loch Ness claim, which is nice! Lois and I had privately expressed scepticism about the idea, believing it to be possibly a ruse by the Scottish Tourist Board to bump up the tourist figures, so we're all agog this afternoon, to put it mildly !!!

extract from the monstertheloch.com website

During this afternoon's programme, Dr. Still calculates that an average person has a volume of about 100 litres, while Loch Ness holds about 7,500 trillion litres, so on paper the plan to "flood" (!) the loch with all the world's people could work, potentially, given that the population of the planet is "currently" (!) only about 8 billion. However, to fully test the theory these people would all need to be liquidised first, because, if kept un-liquidised, people don't come in a standard shape and notoriously "bumpy" with lots of bulges - both unsightly and "sightly" (!) - according to Still's research, so fair enough!

(left) the position of Loch Ness in the UK, and (right) an artist's impression of

the scenes we may see if the decision is made to liquidise the world's population

of 8 billion and try to fit them into the waters of the loch

Yes, it seems like a crazy plan, doesn't it - but it might just work, maybe?  And Lois and I are very much hoping that, in the event of an emergency, Loch Ness is the chosen lake to hold everybody - Lake Baikal in Siberia is much bigger, we hear this afternoon, and could hold the world's population 40,000 times over, while the Caspian Sea is bigger still, holding 3 times as many people as Lake Baikal, would you believe. 

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

However, Loch Ness is much nearer, only about 600 miles from Liphook, so would be far more convenient than the much-touted Lake Baikal option, if I'm honest!

I wonder.....!

It's all a bit crazy, isn't it, but it's been a bit of a crazy day for Lois and me too, with an afternoon appointment for Lois at local opticians Liphook Eye Care starting at 2pm, where a member of the shop's "hearing staff" is set to clear Lois's ears of any build-up of ear-wax, ahead of a test to calibrate her hearing-aids next week, so all critical stuff!

crazy scenes this afternoon at Liphook Eye Care, where Lois has a 2 pm appointment

for the clearing of any build-up of ear wax, prior to a hearing test next week

The timing of the appointment - 2 pm - is unfortunate because Lois and I are normally in bed at this hour, for "statutory nap-time", but luckily the ear-wax malarkey at Liphook Eye Care turns out to be a quickie job, and we're back home and in bed by half past two, so plenty of napping time still to be had (!), which is nice!

Plus, because she takes her hearing-aids out before getting into bed,  I can fully test out Lois's "unaided" hearing during our statutory 2 hour "session", and it seems much improved, I can exclusively reveal, so that's all good!

(left) some of Lois's early, relatively large, hearing aids, and (right) her current 'petite'

ones, here shown being charged up on our bedside table - what madness, isn't it!!!

21:30 Just to be on the safe side, however, we ensure that 'subtitles for the hard-of-hearing' are definitely switched on for our evening's viewing. This is a feature Lois and I both appreciate, due to the fact that people today will insist on "mumbling".

us watching TV - a recent picture

Either that, or, crazily, people on TV don't sensibly "up their volume" and never take the trouble to shout, even during passages of intrusively loud background music, which seems an odd decision to these two  'Lip-hookers', at least, as local residents have been dubbed (!).

Tonight we decide to go to bed on a smile, so tune in to this week's episode of Lee Mack's sitcom "Not Going Out".

An amusing episode. It's Lee's birthday, and his long-suffering partner Lucy decides to surprise Lee with a video message from his comedy hero Nigel Planer of 1980's sitcom "The Young Ones", a service offered by the Cameo website. The snag is that Lee assumes, from the video message, that Nigel actually wants to get to know him, which, for Lee, is a tantalising idea, but it all goes wrong when Lee accosts Nigel in a restaurant, introduces himself, and tries to take their "relationship" further - bad idea, Lee, because, of course, Nigel is totally mystified, of course !!!!

Lucy should have listened to her mum, who was dubious about the plan from the very beginning, suggesting to Lucy that she'd do better to go for the "sexy underwear" option to please Lee on his birthday. Here's Lucy sitting at a restaurant table, talking on the phone to her mum just before the "big event" (!).

Oops! Naughty Lucy's-mum-and-dad haha !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Thursday October 8th 2026 "Are YOU spending Hallowe'en in China? It's perfect, if you don't like Hallowe'en haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU thinking of spending Hallowe'en in China? If you aren't a big fan of Halloween "shenanigans", it may be the perfect place to be, because they don't even 'do it' in China, which will come as a relief to some!!!!! And searching the UK press this morning, and their iconic "China supplements", you certainly won't find a Hallowe'en story to shake a stick at, even, which makes a pleasant change!!!!

Here's Colin's selection of today's China "doozies" - reference Onion News's popular 'China Today' news column on page 94 of the print edition, if you're short of time and just want a quick 'overview' !!!!

And there you have it!!!!

Strangely, however, today's somewhat 'routine' flood of Chinese news brings a hint of a smug smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-rapacious Liphook, Hampshire - no question about that!!!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

And the reason for our apparent 'smugness' is a visit from our daughter Alison, who drops round to see her "aged parients" [sic!] with news of her family's doings, including her 16-year-old son Isaac's forthcoming visit to China with a group of classmates from his school here in Liphook - all of them studying Chinese for A-Level - the cheeky young scamps!!!!

for Lois and me, a visit from our daughter Alison brings us a touch of

excitement with news of our 16-year-old grandson's forthcoming visit

to China, with schoolmates all studying Mandarin Chinese for A-Level - the scamps!!!!

Isaac's group is flying to places Lois and I are not sure we've ever heard of - flying from London to Xiamen, where they'll be doing some educational tours, visiting the city, the university, the 'Nanputuo Temple' (?), and even the beach - although that presumably is a bit chilly this time of year, surely !!!!

our 16-year-old grandson Isaac [inset] and his forthcoming school trip

to Xiamen, China with his Mandarin student classmates - the young scamp!

Then the group will be travelling on to Gulangyu (?), reliving its history, and visiting the Botanical Gardens, rain-forest and science-and-technology museum, and that kind of "malarkey" (!), before meeting some primary school kids, with whom they hope to chat informally, in Intermediate Chinese. Then on to Guangzhou (?), which is also a real place, Alison tells us, where the group will even be attending school lessons, would you believe!

What madness!!!!

To be frank, it's all a bit of a shock to Lois and me this morning,  - and it's not even Isaac's first trip to China: he went there with his school group in 2024, so he's becoming a real "old China hand", as they used to call it!

flashback to 2024: Isaac's first ever visit to China, with schoolmates: (left) Isaac [inset]

also to be seen bottom-right, half out of shot, on the school bus-ride to

London's Heathrow Airport, and (right) the group arriving at their destination in China

Imagine !!!! And a real shock to Lois and me today, because when we first brought Alison home from Cheltenham's St Pauls Maternity Hospital back in 1975, we never imagined that one day she'd be in her fifties and have a 16-year-old son visiting China.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

(left) flashback to 1975: our first ever picture of our daughter Alison, now 51,

and (right) little Alison in the arms of my dear late mother Hannah (Nan),

so obviously delighted to be cuddling her first ever grandchild

And that picture of my dear late mother Hannah ("Nan") holding little Alison (see above, right) reminds us that today would have been her 107th birthday. Below is her first ever picture, at the age of 3 months, in the arms of her mother Gladys, in Bridgend, Glamorgan, a picture taken by one of the town's photographers.

Weirdly, in my Facebook feed today, there's also, somewhat randomly, a picture of the town's "County Cinema" taken in 1919, from the 'Old Bridgend' website, which I follow.

(left) first ever picture of my dear late mother Nan, 3 months old,

in the arms of her mother Gladys, at their home in Bridgend, Glamorgan,

and (right) a picture of the town's "County Cinema" which appears, 

somewhat randomly in my Facebook feed today

What a very long time ago, it seems now - 1919 !!!

And today, Friday, is altogether a weird day for Lois and me. It's our first day out of the house for a week, would you believe, after Lois put her back out last Thursday night. Since then I've been helping her move around the house, and also getting my hands on anything she wants to get hold of, if it's a a bit 'out of the way' - either too high up or too low down, basically, if you know what I mean !!!!

[Good summary, Colin! - Ed]

Yes, Lois today is almost completely back to normal, I can happily, and exclusively, reveal, and after a week indoors, we celebrate this morning with a quick trip out to the local Co-op for some much-needed essentials, which is nice!

What madness (again) !!!!

19:30 These days, if you want a quick joint of beef, say, you can just go along to the Co-op (other mini-supermarkets are also available !!!!), and pick a joint up, from the meat aisle - not rocket science is it !!!!

It wasn't so easy in the olden days, however, as we hear, through the magic of the Internet, from a lecture about the old-time "drovers" from Scotland and Wales, who used to drive sometimes hundreds of cattle through English towns, to satisfy the English people's insatiable desire for beef - what a madness it all was (again again) !!!!

us this evening, watching a lecture on the internet about the Scottish and Welsh 'drovers'

who used to drive hundreds of cattle through English towns to satisfy

the English people's crazy, insatiable desire for beef - what madness!

[That's enough madness! - Ed]

You wouldn't think it to look at me, but, at the grand old age of 80, I'm a bit of a technical 'whizz', and have learnt how to project pictures from our laptop onto our TV screen, so we can see them better, which is nice! In the pictures above, you can see our laptop on our little bureau, and, if you look carefully, you'll see also a little cord that connects the laptop to our TV, and "Bob's Your Uncle!" - why don't YOU try it, it's so "simples" haha !!!!!

Lois, "for her sins", is a member of the Banbury Historical Society - she's an Oxfordshire lass born and bred, and her dear dad Dennis was a scion of the north Oxfordshire town of Banbury - you know, the town in the nursery rhyme "Ride A Cock Horse, to Banbury Cross", a phrase which rhymes in the Oxfordshire dialect, weirdly, would you believe!!! 

(left) map showing the location of Banbury, Oxfordshire, in the very north of

the county, and (right) the town's Historical Society display in a local field,

enthusiastically trying to attract new members - but what madness!!!

The society has this lecture on tonight, in a hall in Banbury, all about the old cattle-drovers,  by local history "buff" - Tim Healey, but obviously Lois would rather not travel there, and, that's why we find ourselves tonight 'tuning into it' via the Internet, which is handy!

"Droving Cattle" - slide of the famous 1565 picture by Pieter Breughel the Elder, 

with (right, inset) history buff Tim Healey as he shows the slide during his lecture tonight,

in a hall in Banbury to members of the town's Historical Society

And what we hear is a most fascinating talk, about all the cattle-droving that went on for centuries through English towns and along country lanes, until the phenomenon started to be killed off by the coming of the railways, with their big cattle trucks, back in the 19th century. It nevertheless continued, in smaller numbers: here's Tim Healey's slide of cattle being driven along the Abingdon Road, Oxford as late as the 1950's.

For markets and butchers in the south of England, the cattle mostly came from Wales, with drovers covering, on average, 12 miles a day, and making a horrible noise, with hundreds of cattle mooing and their drovers shouting - shouting mostly in Welsh because few Welsh drovers could speak English in those crazy far-off times, which was mad!

this English ale-house barmaid wants a ride from a passing "Welchman",

but the sad reality was, few Welsh drovers could speak English, which was mad!

There was a constant threat of attack by cattle-rustlers, even into the 19th century, and drovers, uniquely, were allowed to carry guns - flintlock pistols. And they were paid not in banknotes but in promissory notes from the bank, thus frustrating any rustlers or highwaymen, who just wanted a 'quick win', thinking to just 'take the money and run'.

highway robbery: the threat to cattle-drovers from robbers and rustlers -

uniquely drovers were permitted legally to carry guns in England

The drovers' routes across the countryside weren't always the most direct, but were designed to minimise passage through the tollgates which sprang up after turnpike trusts were set up after 1706, in an effort to raise money to improve the quality of the roads.

The drovers took a string of dogs along to help control the cattle - mostly lurchers but also corgis, which came as a surprise to Lois and me. And when the drovers had got their cattle to the markets in the South and East of England, they just let their lurchers go, and the dogs surprisingly had no trouble finding their own way back to their homes in Wales - without satnavs or any of the modern "gizmos", which was totally crazy!

the dogs most favoured by the drovers were their lurchers, and their lurchers

had no trouble finding their own way back to their homes in Wales, even without satnavs!

And even today, there are still clues in place-names, and in the landscape, which reveal the routes that the drovers took: the names of paths over the hilltops, plus roads in some towns called "Welsh Way", plus pub-names, and road-names and house-names incorporating "Drift" or "Drove", or "Coldharbour", which indicated a route sheltered from the cold. Also merely the town-names such as "Wallingford" in Oxfordshire, which means the place where the Welshmen forded the river. And if you see any clumps of Scots pine-trees, these were often planted by the drovers as way-markers. 

Also, many a "Green Lane" was so called because of the extra vegetation brought about by all the dung from the cattle that went along it.

What madness, wasn't it !!!!

tell-tale signs that drovers had once passed this way: house-names and street-names

incorporating "Drove" or "Drift" or starting "Coldharbour", even clumps of Scots pines (!)

Fascinating stuff, though, isn't it!!!

[If you say so! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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