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!!!!!

Friday August 28th 2026 "Women, eh! Are YOU one? Or is there one in your life? There's a lot of them about!!! "

Yes, Friends, women, eh!!! There's a lot of them about, that's for sure, and they're 'making waves' in the press these days demanding all sorts of things, no doubt about that! Just take some of the headlines in this morning's Onion News, if you want 'chapter and verse' (!).

And browsing all these stories this morning certainly brings a wry smile to the lips of me and my wife Lois, here in semi-rural Liphook, Hampshire, that's for sure!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Anybody who knows us will tell you that Lois is very much 'the active one' in our marriage, but today, for a change of pace, Yours Truly actually seizes the strategic initiative for once, would you believe (!), taking on a kind of a 'trad-hubby' role, setting to work to plan two of our outings, selecting places for Lois and me to stay next month (a) in Bournemouth to see Lois's cousin Brian, and (b) in October, when I meet up with my, like, billions of cousins in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, for our annual "cousins' get-together", hosted by my cousin Jeannette. 

And after much thought, and fitful agonizing, I decide to book Lois and me a room in the two places where we stayed last time, just to be on the safe side (!).

Lois, meanwhile, is taking up more of a 'trad-wife' role today, busy in the kitchen doing a mountain of laundry, before whipping up one of her courgette-and-tomato 'thingummybobs', and apple-and-blackberry crumble - yum yum, what's not to like haha!

(left) Lois showcasing her latest delicious apple-and-blackberry crumble,

 and (right) Yours Truly on the receiving end of it - yum yum!!!!

[You lazy swine, Colin! It's poor Lois I feel sorry for !!! - Ed]

14:00 And before we get into bed for the afternoon, Lois also somehow finds time to collect the washing from our rotary washing-line in the back garden, which is fortunate, because we find that our "statutory nap-time" this afternoon is later soundtracked in the most dramatic way by the most enormous thunderstorm - something we haven't seen or heard for a while in this drought-affected summer of ours, which is mad!

However, this unexpected meteorological 'bombshell' is going to be a problem for us, because we've currently collected, like, a billion plastic buckets and watering-cans full of our "waste water", for use in watering our plants and veg, and now, suddenly, our tiny garden has been 'deluged' by the storm, and our stores of water suddenly aren't needed any more, which is weird! 

Yours Truly showcases just 3 of our, like, billion buckets of waste water, 

(left) in the kitchen, and (right) in the garage - what madness, isn't it !!!!

Drop me a line (postcards only!!!) if YOU need, like a billion gallons of water, won't you, and we'll let you have some of ours at a reasonable price - on a 'collect' basis only haha!!!! And you'd better hurry, because 'waste water' quickly loses its effectiveness for irrigation purposes, so get it now, while it's still (vaguely) fresh (!).

21:00 Thunderstorms don't happen only in the UK, however, as we find out when we finally settle down on the couch to watch the last-ever episode of the Canadian TV series "Schitt's Creek", which we've been binge-watching over the last few weeks. 

The series is basically a "riches to rags" story of a billionaire, Johnny, who's cheated out of his fortune by a crooked associate, forcing Johnny and wife Moira, and their 2 useless grown-up kids David and Alexis to leave their billionaire mansion and live in 2 rooms in a seedy, rundown motel in the backwoods town of Schitt's Creek.

As the episode opens, we see David, on the day of his planned marriage in the motel garden to "squeeze" Patrick, being rudely awakened by his family, with some items of meteorological news, threatening to ruin the two men's "big day", would you believe!

David's sister Alexis, however, is putting the blame fairly and squarely on David himself, for his poor planning, and asking him why nobody thought of hiring a tent as a Plan B, which is probably a fair point!

Oops!!! 

Somehow, however, David and Patrick's wedding goes ahead, despite the thunderstorm, making a nice happy ending to this series, first broadcast during the six years 2015 to 2020, but on some pay-to-view channel that Lois and I are too tight-fisted to fork out money for, I'm sorry to say! And we only latched on to the series a month or so ago, when the BBC reprised it on their so-called "yoof" channel BBC3, which was handy, to put it mildly!

The two men's same-sex relationship would have been controversial to some of course, but was just accepted as normal on the show, not once questioned, "no big deal", and not even commented on really at all. It was just treated like an everyday thing, making the show what the cast call "a ground-breaking homophobia-free area". 

David's proclivities were first hinted at in this scene with steely motel receptionist Stevie.

Needless to say, the underlying significance of this scene went completely over the heads of Lois and me, who are nothing if not literal, taking the scene as just being included as background information about David's drinking preferences. Oops (again) !!!!

And as we find out tonight, in the closing retrospective on the series, the show was welcomed by LGBTQ activists, and apparently many gay teenagers etc were emboldened to "come out" to their families, as a result of watching the show, and also parents encouraged to accept their teenage kids' gayness, after seeing how Johnny and Moir accepted their son's sexuality without question, no doubt increasing the general sum of happiness in the world, which is heart-warming!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Thursday August 27th 2026 "Are YOU going to the cinema or theatre today? Don't 'miss out' haha!!!

Yes, Friends, are YOU going to the cinema or maybe a theatre today? You don't want to miss out, when almost everybody in the world is set to "indulge" (!), at least, to believe the headlines in today's Onion News, to put it mildly!!!! 

And those headlines bring a brief hint of a smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, here in leafy Liphook, Hampshire, no question about that!!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

And, for once, Lois and I realise that we're fully "on trend", because we've got tickets to the local community theatre performance of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat" at local "happening" venue, Haslemere Hall, no less, which is exciting!

We'll be in a mini-group with our daughter Alison, and 2 of her teenage kids Rosalind (18) and Isaac (16), and with the cast dominated by talented local teenagers, we're sure that all these kids' families will be packing out the available seats, and giving the cast an enthusiastic welcome - it's the first of 6 performances in the play's 3-day run, and tickets are discounted for this performance only, so what's not to like haha! Isaac is no stranger himself to the musical scene, having recently played stand-out roles in both The Wizard of Oz and Legally Blonde, so fair play to him!

The audience has been asked not to take pictures during the performance, but I manage to take the following "money-shots" while the audience is filing in and finding their seats, in an atmosphere of barely-controlled total hysteria, which is nice to see!

the scene at fashionable local hotspot Haslemere Hall this afternoon, with

(bottom left) Lois studying the programme, and (bottom right) our daughter

Alison and 2 of her 3 teenage kids, Rosalind (18) and Isaac (16)

In case you can't read the programme which Lois is holding up (see above, bottom left!), there are some amusing photos in it of rehearsals, and I especially recommend the last one below, showing a typical final rehearsal, in which the director, Philip O'Brien, is looking really fed up, which is a nice touch !!!!!

candid pictures of the mostly young but talented, local cast during rehearsals,

with below, director Philip O'Brien looking really fed up - poor Philip!!!

Yes, poor Philip haha!!!!!

The programme also includes some "fun facts" about the musical, which Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote when they were complete unknowns, just for a local school. Isn't it always fascinating to see young writers and song-writers in action, totally unaware that the "fun piece" that they were just playing around with for a local school, would eventually bring them world-wide fame, no less!

And it's also very nostalgic for Lois and me to see "Joseph" again. We first took our then young daughters Alison and Sarah to a community theatre performance of the musical in Ellicott City, Maryland during our 3-year residence in the US, back in the early 1980's. Also, I took Sarah to see the musical again, in London, in her teenage years, when "happening" Aussie soap-opera star heart-throb Jason Donovan was playing the lead. Happy days!!!

(left) flashback to the early 1980's: us as a young family during our 3 years in the States,

and (right) the theatre in Ellicott City, Maryland, where we all first saw "Joseph"

(above) flashback to 1991: the London Palladium production of "Joseph..."

starring Aussie soap-star Jason Donovan which I took our daughter Sara to see,

and (below) Donovan reprising the role for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee (2022)

Yes, happy days!!!!

Back to today, however!  And Lois and I are treated to an enthusiastic and talented performance this afternoon: the cast really putting their all into it, and getting an enthusiastic reception from the audience, which is nice. All in all a great afternoon, and Lois and I, as two of the many 'old codgers' in the house, excelled ourselves by not falling asleep, and not even asking once to go to the loo, despite the performance duration of two hours plus, would you believe!! 

Kudos, us haha !!!!

21:00 Nevertheless exhausted by our little "old codger outing" today, it's with some satisfaction that we can fully collapse on the sofa tonight, all agog to see a fascinating Channel 5 documentary about the Great Wall of China, presented by the intrepid Dan Snow, who, despite his (compared to us!) young-to-youngish years, still looks a bit 'puffed' (!) as he clambers up and down the great monument, in the company of, like, a billion Chinese tourists, to put it mildly!!!!

Poor Dan !!!!

And there's a big surprise waiting for us, right at the start of the programme, because Lois and I had no idea that there's no single Wall of China - there are, like, half a dozen of them, some having been built as long ago as back as 500 BC, would you believe! Who knew!!!!

[I expect a lot of people knew that! - Ed]

The Chinese have obviously had a mania about building "Great Walls" throughout their history! 

Got a problem? Build a wall! Whether it's for keeping out the foreigners, or maybe just to keep people busy, or to give them an interest,  perhaps?

Talented singer-songwriter Paul Simon suggests, however, in one of our favourite songs - his classic 1973 track "Something So Right" - that the purpose was indeed to keep out the foreigners, so let's go with that theory for the time being, okay?!!!!

Also, for us tonight, there's some amusement when presenter Dan talks about the "loess" that was used to build one of the oldest "Great Walls".

Why the amusement? Well forgive us, but we are feeling exhausted, and we are 80, not to mention entering our second (or is it third??!!!) childhood (!!!!).

In standard Southern British usage, at least, "loess" is pronounced exactly the same as "Lois" - they're complete 'homonyms'. So we can't help smiling when Dan talks about "Lois" being "made of clay, sand and silt" (!).

And we're laughing again, when the intrepid Dan talks about ""forcing Lois into a frame.... to build the wall", because we're old, yes, but we're not that old, thank you very much !!!!

How we laughed !!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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