Saturday February 7th 2026 "Men, honestly! 'Can't fold a shirt for toffee', as we used to say!"

Yes, Friends, is there a man in YOUR circle who has trouble folding his shirts? There are plenty of these 'bozos' around, aren't there, including Yours Truly, if I'm honest!

And 'watching a man fold a shirt' is said to be one of the oldest entertainments in the world, and it's still happening, would you believe, that is, if you can trust this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire! 

Poor guy !!!!!

It's a pretty general failing with us men, isn't, but with one honourable exception. Step forward Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory sitcom, who famously was able to even show women, if you please, exactly how it's done!

a typical episode of the Big Bang Theory sitcom: Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons)

shows housemate Penny (Kaley Cuoco) how you fold a shirt

Kudos, Sheldon!

However, reading that Onion News "shocker" today brings a knowing grin to the faces of my wife Lois and me, here at our lovely home in leafy, semi-suburban Liphook, Hampshire, I have to say! 

my wife Lois and me - recent pictures

The reason for that knowing grin on our faces? Well, we're bound for an outing this morning to nearby shopping-hub Petersfield,  where we're sure to end up finding ourselves in one of the town's many clothing stores taking clothes off hangers and out of piles on counters, and then, later, putting them back (!), and finally buying something or other for Lois - a 'reduced' skirt perhaps -  to put it mildly!  

I can't blame Lois for seizing the opportunity - Petersfield's clothes shops are pretty seductive, with their subdued lighting and their well-turned-out, menopausal female servers. 

a typical Edinburgh Wool Mill outlet - there's a 

handy branch in Petersfield, Hampshire, which is nice!

And it's a good chance, admittedly, for Lois to stock up, whenever we're in Petersfield, because, needless to say, tiny, semi-rural Liphook doesn't have a single clothes shop, unless you count the minimal stocks in a small corner of Liphook's Sainsbury's supermarket, or ordering from a catalogue in the store's miniscule 'Argos concession'. 

What madness, isn't it!

Lois this morning, in nearby Petersfield's bustling Edinburgh Wool Shop,

(left) choosing a jumper, and (right) trying on an attractive, reduced skirt 

(only £10, which is crazy!) in one of the store's poorly-lit fitting-rooms

Our main worry this morning however, is not to forget, amid all this skirt-buying madness (!), the real reason why we're in Petersfield today - to take along the home-made Nutella cake that Lois baked yesterday to her church's "drop-in centre", or "pop-in centre" as it's called. It's the first Saturday of the month, and the church is holding its usual coffee-and-cake morning: these sessions advertise the church's presence in the town, as well as raising money for third-world charities.

Lois's church's drop-in centre in Petersfield, 

or "pop-in centre" as it's dubbed, which is nice!

We have to get there early before the "pop-in centre" opens for business, so that Lois can deliver her cake and cut it into slices etc before the "punters" "pop in" later. It's nice and quiet when we arrive, and we get a chance to sit with a coffee and a cheese scone in a bit of peace, for once! And it's cheese scones on our plates, not Nutella cake, because of Lois's current dietary restrictions: and Yours Truly is "going along for the low-sugar ride", to help lose some of the pounds I put on over Christmas: oh dear!!!!

So see if YOU can guess who that poor little old man in the 30-year-plus old cloth cap is, in the third of these three following revealing photos!!!! No prizes offered haha!!!!!

us this morning, before opening time, at the drop-in centre organised

by Lois's church in bustling Petersfield, Hampshire, delivering Lois's home-made

Nutella cake while restricting ourselves to some low-fat cheese scones - what madness!!!!

Poor little old man haha !!!!!

[You old fraud, Colin. Isn't that a "chocolate crunch" on your plate there? - Ed]

And I really don't know how old my cloth cap is. 'Thirty years' is almost certainly an underestimate. I certainly used to wear it to work, and come March 2026, Lois and I will have been retired for exactly 20 years, so that cap is certainly older than that!!!!

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

21:00 We go to bed on Alice Roberts' latest (!!!!) archaeological travelogue series, this one being about the Roman Empire, starting in Pompeii. Yes, I know, Alice has got at least 3 series going on concurrently at the moment, this one on Channel 4, as well as her "Holy Grail" series on Sky, and her "Digging for Britain" series on BBC2.

All these Alice programmes, are a blessing for Lois and me, however, because we don't much care for sports, or for game-shows, so if you're like us, you're pretty much "stuffed" for TV choices most of the time. But what a crazy world we live in!!!

We notice that, when Alice is walking through towns in the Middle East or in Mediterranean countries, she seems to be able to slip around unrecognised, whereas her TV archaeology rival Bettany Hughes is constantly being greeted with smiles and requests for selfies etc. 

Lois and I have the theory that people in those countries like their women big and busty, like Bettany, whereas Alice cultivates the slim, waif-ish, dyed-hair, "biker-chick" image, which doesn't have the same appeal over there. But your views welcome!

rival archaeological travelogue series presenters, and their polar opposite styles:

(left) Alice with her waif-like biker-chick image, and (right) Bettany

I wonder.....!

But "Not another programme about Pompeii, Colin!", I hear you cry! But Lois and I think that Alice is amazing at picking up on some of the extraordinary details that are often overlooked by other presenters. Like, for example, the fact that many of the skeletons and casts of people found in the act of running from the 79AD eruption of nearby volcano Mt. Vesuvius, were actually carrying their house keys on them, no doubt expecting to return home later after the "fuss" was over. Heart-breaking isn't it.

And the incredible thing about Pompeii is that, over 400 years since the ruined town was first discovered (in 1594), Pompeii was such a large city in Roman times that a whole 54 acres of it (22 hectares) still hasn't been dug up and examined.

Recently work began on a totally new area, containing a massive 750-acre mansion and grounds belonging to an as yet unidentified wealthy individual, as Alice discovers in this sequence:

The mansion contained a huge banqueting hall  - Donald Trump, eat your heart out! And this banqueting hall was adorned with frescoes depicting the story of a wealthy woman. Although wealthy and "respectable", the woman in the frescoes has been tempted into joining a feminist cult - the so-called 'maenad women', devoted to Dionysus (Bacchus), the god of wine and revelry, who indulged in so-called 'Bacchanalian' orgies.

The Roman Empire was alive with diverse cults and religions at this time, and the cult of Dionysus was just one, attracting women in particular, called maenads, mythologised women to be seen everywhere in these newly-discovered frescoes.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it!

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

Will this do?

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

Friday February 6th 2026 "There ARE new worlds to discover! Come back, Columbus, all is forgiven haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, it's all over today's news! The age of Columbus is not dead! And nor is his spirit, according to a heart-warming story in this morning's Onion News!

Kudos Ryan, for going "where no man has gone before" !!!

And kudos, too, for accepting mysterious stranger Kevin's offer of leftover food and cake! Cake is the great leveller, isn't it, and always seems to draw people together, not drive them apart, which is nice!

typically diverse co-workers "bonding" over a birthday cake, 

which is nice!

Did Christopher Columbus offer a slice of cake - a "sponge genoise" maybe (?) - to those first native Americans that he encountered back in 1492, after he famously "sailed the ocean blue? 

It's perhaps symbolic that Columbus is suddenly back in favour again, with Donald Trump arranging for Columbus' statue, thrown into Baltimore Harbour by racial justice protestors back in 2020, to be scrubbed down and re-erected in the grounds of the White House, according to the Washington Post.

And, closer to home, the remains of English explorer Edward Colston, whose statue was thrown into Bristol Harbour also in 2020,  as part of a "Black Lives Matter" protest, could be dug up and perhaps re-interred somewhere more suitable (?) GOOD LUCK WITH THAT ONE!!!, as part of a "healing process" in a church and churchyard currently being refurbished, according to an email from Steve, our American brother-in-law.

flashback to yesterday's headlines in the Guardian newspaper

As part of the Black Lives Matter campaign, recall that Bristol's leading theatre The Colston Hall, was renamed "The Bristol Beacon", and that the schools that my dear brother and sister 'Our Steve' and Kathy attended, back in the 1960's - Colstons Primary School and also, for Kathy, Colstons Girls' School, were similarly re-branded. 

It's nice to know that Bristol's diverse local communities are being fully consulted on the sensitive issue of the exhumation, and are now also re-bonding, perhaps over a slice of cake, as always the "great leveller" (see Onion story above !!!!). As far as I know, unlike Columbus's "sponge genoise", there is no specific cake named after Bristol, although "Bath buns" come pretty close. Cheers !!!

And reading all these cake-related news stories this morning, here in rural, semi-forgotten Liphook, Hampshire, brings a particularly satisfied smile to the lips of me and my wife Lois.

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Today is most definitely "Cake Day" for us too, this Friday, because Lois has been asked by her church to produce a cake for the church's monthly drop-in coffee morning, to be held, as usual, in the town centre of nearby Petersfield Hampshire, specifically to attract local people to try visiting their church on a Sunday.

(left) the cake Lois makes today for her church's "drop in coffee morning", and (right)

Lois and me sampling a cake or two at a recent drop-in session

So it's very much "Cake Day" for us - and it takes up much of the morning. We can't go out anywhere anyway, with Liphook's "monsoon season", after yesterday's downpours,  still in full spate outside - no surprise there!!!!

I usually describe this kind of weather as "dismal", but until today I never knew where the word "dismal" originally came  from. Luckily, with good timing (!), Susie Dent, of the Radio Times' "Dictionary Corner", steps up to fill in some of the blanks in my mind on this very important question (!).

The word "dismal" actually comes from the Latin "dies mali" meaning "bad days", and as a response to this idea, the Church designated two days each month on the calendar as "dies mali", when doing anything challenging was not officially advised. 

However, poor old medieval writer Geoffrey Chaucer got it wrong, bless him. He thought that the word 'dismal'  came from the French "dix mals" (English: ten evils), as a "nod" to the biblical "ten plagues of Egypt". What madness, wasn't it !!!!

What a crazy language we speak !!!!

However, with today's absolutely "dismal" weather, and Lois busy in the kitchen today making her cake, we can't do any of the usual things we do together. So the bad weather today is a good opportunity for me also, to "get ahead of the curve", as regards next week's online meeting of the U3A group, the Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers Group, which Lois and I "lead", for our sins!!! 

Our group is currently reading Danish murder mystery "Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss), by Danish crime-writer Anna Grue, and it's my job to produce the fortnightly "vocab lists" for our group's members.

(left)  Lois and me trying to control another rowdy online meeting of our local 

"Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" group, and (right) the Danish murder mystery that

our group is currently reading, "Judaskysset" (the Judas Kiss), by Anna Grue (centre)

Our group meetings are only fortnightly, and a lot of fun, but they also involve me in a ton of work, to put it mildly! Today, by preparing in advance all the vocab lists we'll need at next Thursday's meeting, as I say, I can at least "get ahead of the curve", but I'm slowed down by a mysterious "curvaceous" character (no pun intended!!!!), who pops up in the story, being interviewed by police detective Flemming Torp. 

Danish detective Flemming Torp (Andre Babikian) in the TV and film version

ot Anna Grue's Danish murder mystery Judaskysset (The Judas Kiss)

The mysterious curvy woman, who's just popped up in the story, is called Kamma Mortizen, and she's obviously been in the story earlier, but neither Lois and I can remember who she is - what madness, isn't it!!!! 

In the chapter that our group is reading this week, this Kamma, who's being interviewed by Danish detectives, has apparently concealed her voluptuous curves [Danish: yppige kurver] under a crochet'ed poncho with long fringes, which must have been disappointing for Flemming, the detective who's interviewing her. Old Flemming likes his women "curvy", to put it mildly!

extract from our Danish murder mystery Judaskysset (The Judas Kiss)

But who is Kamma? Your help needed, if you've read the book! Postcards only of course haha!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Thursday February 5th 2026 "Actors jumping off stage into the audience: it's the pits, isn't it !!!!"

Yes, Friends, don't you just hate it when actors jump off stage and continue the play or the song in the middle of the audience, maybe just inches away from you - it's the pits, isn't it, and I'm not just talking "orchestra pits" here haha!

There was another worrying incident just the other day, according to this morning's Onion News.

Poor audience!!!

Reading the story this morning, however, here in semi-automatic Liphook, Hampshire, brings a faintly suggestive smile to the lips of me and my wife Lois. The story brings to both our minds a nasty incident - famous in our family - that occurred at the Everman Theatre in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, back in the 1970's, in the early years of our marriage together. 

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

Lois and I, a typical young married couple, were sitting innocently in the front row of the theatre watching the musical Godspell, when one of the female dancers jumped off stage and onto my lap, pulling at my tie, and wrapping her feather boa round my neck - all with Lois sitting right there next to me!!! I tell you, no man is safe at the theatre these days - you have been warned!!!!!

(left) poster for a Godspell performance in Cheltenham, back in the 1970's, when

a female dancer jumped off stage and onto my lap, wrapping her boa around my neck

- what madness !!!!

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

Hopefully, however, nothing remotely similar to that ugly incident (!) will happen this coming Sunday afternoon, in nearby Haslemere, when Lois and I have tickets to see "Legally Blonde - the Musical", being staged by a local Performing Arts group, in which our 15-year-old grandson Isaac is taking a key part. 

flashback to September: (left) Lois and I waiting outside Haslemere Hall

to pick up our 15-year-old grandson Isaac from an early rehearsal of "Legally Blonde"

Isaac will be playing "the UPS guy", one of the romantic leads, who catches the eye of ditsy blonde manicurist Elle, played in the film by actress Jennifer Coolidge.

one of the key scenes in Legally Blonde film version, in which hunky

UPS delivery guy (Bruce Thomas) calls by the nail bar run by ditsy blonde 

manicurist Elle (Jennifer Coolidge) with a package for her

The scene famously ends badly when Elle tries to execute the traditional "bend and snap" routine, designed some years ago especially for women wanting to attract men's attention to their legs. In the film, Elle "muffs" the manoeuvre spectacularly, by coming up from the floor too quickly, breaking the UPS guy's nose. A warning to young women everywhere, if one such ever were needed, to put it mildly !!!!

the scene just seconds before the nasty incident when manicurist Jennifer Coolidge

mis-times her "bend-and-snap" manoeuvre, breaking UPS delivery guy Bruce Thomas's nose

And let's keep fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly on Sunday, and that Isaac won't need any first aid after this key scene (!). 

I know that Lois will be taking a bunch of band-aids in her handbag, and  I've already practised saying "Don't break a nose!" to him as we drop him off at the stage door on Sunday, in place of the normal "Break a leg!" cry, traditionally said, somewhat ironically (!), to performers before they go on stage! 

That information is strictly confidential, by the way until after Sunday - I want to be sure to get a good laugh when I make the remark!

[You are a wag, Colin! - Ed]

Isaac's last big role was in July, when he played the Tin Man in his school's production of the Wizard of Oz, performed at prestigious private boarding school Bedales, just outside nearby Petersfield, Hampshire.

flashback to July: our 15-year-old grandson Isaac taking the part 

of the Tin Man in his school's production of "The Wizard of Oz"

But wait - there's more! Isaac's mother, our 50-year-old daughter Alison, drops by at our house in Liphook this morning for a "catch-up", and she offers to take Lois and me for another performance by Isaac, coming up at his school next Wednesday, when he'll be performing a couple of monologues.

It's certainly a busy life being grandparents to what we're calling the "future star in our family", and Lois wastes no time on putting this new "engagement" - abbreviated, because of space limitations, to "Isaac monologues - school" - right there on our wall calendar! 

flashback to this morning - our daughter Alison (50) drops by for 

a catch-up, and more exciting engagements to scribble onto our wall calendar!!!!

It's something to do with Isaac's preparations for his upcoming Drama GCSE exam later this year, under the auspices of LAMDA, "The London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art". But Lois and I don't really understand the details, as per usual !!!!

a typical LAMDA performance from members of the 

London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) 

11:00 It's so nice to get this "catch-up" this morning with our daughter Alison, because it's proving to be yet another day of relentless, driving rain here in Liphook, effectively "imprisoning" Lois and me in the house yet again. (!). I think the weather in Liphook must have been better in Edwardian times - at least according to this early Liphook picture postcard from the early 1900's, that pops up in my Facebook feed today, with cruel irony !!!  

(left) the appalling weather in Liphook today, and (right) Liphook

seen here in happier (and balmier!) times - what madness!!!!

And Alison this morning brings us up to date on her other two offspring, which is nice! 

Josie (19), who's having the time of her life in her first year at Durham University and has made the soccer team; Rosalind (17) who's now got two offers for when she starts "uni" next September - Bath and Durham: will she go with "big sis" and choose Durham, or will she choose Bath, much easier to get to, just zipping along the M4? And Isaac, who's currently preparing for his Mandarin Chinese GCSE has also got a school trip to London coming up, when he'll be able to find out about the availability of Mandarin degree courses from existing students. 

our granddaughter Josie, (left) leftmost and (right) rightmost, having 

fun with fellow students in her first year at Durham University

So it's all happening! What a crazy world we live in !!!!!  [That's enough madness! - Ed]

20:00 To get a bit of sanity back in our lives, Lois and I settle down on the sofa tonight to watch the latest programme in archaeologist Alice Robert's new series of "Digging for Britain".

A few years ago, on the island of St Michael's Mount, just off the Cornish coast, a local gardener, Darren Little, who knew nothing about archaeology, and who was just busy doing his ordinary gardening work, stumbled on one of Alice's co-presenter Dr Tori Herridge's "finds of the century": a Bronze age hoard of metal objects including many examples of armour and weaponry never seen before.

the mysterious island of St Michael's Mount, off the Cornish coast,

where, a few years ago, a local gardener stumbled on a spectacular metal hoard

"Was your heart racing when you found the hoard?", co-presenter Dr Tori Herridge wants to know, when she questions gardener Darren Little, who made the chance discovery. 

Poor Mrs Little !!!!

And Lois knows how Mrs Little must have felt, to put it mildly! To my shame, I leave virtually all the meal preparation in our house to Lois, apart from a handful of my very basic "signature dishes" - "poached egg surprise" and the like. 

flashback to April 2022: I serve one of my signature

dishes - my critically acclaimed "poached egg surprise" -

to a clearly delighted Lois

However, as a result of my admitted deficiencies in the culinary department (!), Lois is constantly having to shout up the stairs to me, to tell me that "tea's ready" - usually I'm up there doing something or other on the computer. Poor Lois !!!!

me, typically wasting time upstairs on our shiny new laptop,

while Lois is downstairs, impatiently waiting to serve tea

Be that as it may (!), historians now believe that it was Cornwall's abundant supplies of good quality tin ore, a rare commodity in the ancient world, that persuaded the Romans to come and force Britain into their worldwide empire. If you melt tin ore and copper ore and mix them together, apparently, you make bronze, which is much stronger than copper on its own, so very good for making swords, shields etc. And it's now believed that the island of St Michael's Mount, off the Cornish coast, was a "hub" for the transportation of Cornish tin to Rome and the Mediterranean all those years ago.

The consequent seizure of Britain, so that the Romans could get their hands on all of our tin without having to pay for it, is eerily similar to Donald Trump's ideas about seizing Venezuela, Greenland etc to get cheaper, more regular, and more reliable, supplies of oil, minerals etc.

Could this be where Donald got the idea in the first place? Is he a fan of "Digging for Britain"? 

Blonde and enthusiastic, Alice's co-presenter Dr Tori could be just "Donald's type", Lois and I suspect. 

I wonder.....!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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