Friday March 27th 2026 "Ever wondered why YOUR Chinese takeaway is suddenly out of meals?"

Yes, Friends, have YOU ever wondered by your local Chinese takeaway is suddenly mysteriously out of food? We've all been there, haven't we!

And by coincidence a possible answer to this, one of life's biggest mysteries, has been uncovered this week by a team from Columbia University, which is a relief - at last! Onion News has more....

And reading this story this morning here in rural, semi-professional Liphook, Hampshire brings a smile of relief to the faces of me and my wife Lois, as we take our near-daily walk, which today takes us through the mud-affected paths of pleasant, nearby, Radford Park, which is nice!

Tonight, by coincidence, we're going to be meeting up with "our son-in-law the hotshot London lawyer Edward" (as we always refer to him!), so we'll be able to get his angle on the Onion story! He's offered to take us out both for a Thai meal tonight with his family, to celebrate my turning 80 yesterday. That won't be till 6:30pm tonight, however, so Lois and I have to somehow "kill time" with a 4000-step walk followed by an afternoon in bed, before the big night starts, something we're particularly good at haha!!!!

to help kill time before the big meal tonight, my wife Lois and I take our daily walk

through nearby semi-leafy, mud-affected Radford Park, which is nice!

As you can see from my "bird log" (see above - top right!!!), all my very dearest bird-friends - the robin, wren, jackdaw, blackbird, blue tit, great tit, song thrush and goldfinch, have dropped by, some of them coming from as far away as Europe and Eurasia, just to wish me well, in their tiny bird-voices, on this, my official "80th birthday-plus-one day", the start of my new life as an semi-professional octogenarian, which is touching!

The day passes, somewhat hectically (!) - Lois and I have been retired for 20 years as of yesterday, and we always say we don't know how we ever managed to find the time to go to work back in the day! 

[Still waiting for evidence to back that statement up, Colin - just saying! - Ed]

18:15 Our daughter Alison arrives to pick Lois and up to take us into nearby Haslemere for tonight's meal, at the Thai restaurant in Wey Hill. Lois and I always try to avoid driving at night these days. There's nothing wrong with our eyesight - we blame the modern overly dazzling headlights. That's our story and we're sticking to it!!!!!

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

Edward is coming separately, with our three teenage grandchildren: Josie (19) who's on the first year of a maths degree course at Durham, and is now home for the Easter break; Rosalind (17) who's doing her A-Levels and hoping to do an international relations degree (with Danish) at UCL London; and Isaac (15), who's taking his GCSEs this year including Mandarin Chinese, and weighing possibilities for studying in China, either for his A-Levels or for a degree.

Lois and I are treated to a dinner at a local Thai restaurant tonight by

our daughter Alison, son-in-law Edward and their 3 teenage offspring

Josie (19), Rosalind (17) and Isaac (15)

The family lived in Copenhagen for 7 years from 2012 to 2018 - hence young Rosalind's desire to study Danish with her International Relations degree, that is, if she gets her expected A-Level grades and UCL accepts her. She'll get a study year in Denmark as part of her degree course, which will keep up the family's connection with the country, where they still have several good friends. All three children attended International School there.

flashback to 2017: Lois and I drop our 3 grandchildren off at 

their school in Copenhagen. We were spending a week there

looking after them, while their parents were away in Hong Kong

Tonight the talk turns to this week's inconclusive Danish elections, which has produced a hung parliament. We briefly discuss the efforts of veteran Danish politician Lars Lokke Rasmussen, dubbed "the Kingmaker" by the press, who's currently trying to sort out the mess, so that some sort of coalition government can take office.

Poor Lars !!!!!

If anybody can sort out the mess, however, it's Lars, Lois and I think!

Lars is the only senior Danish politician that both Lois and I have shaken hands with. Sitting at a table outside a restaurant in the centre of Copenhagen with our daughter Alison during Denmark's 2014 election campaign , we were taken by surprise when Lars suddenly appeared from around the corner with his entourage of supporters, plus demonstrators and a Danish TV camera crew - quite a 'circus'!

He shook all our hands but moved swiftly on after we told him we were foreigners and didn't have a vote.

flashback to 2014: Lars Lokke Rasmussen, seen here in happier times, on the election

trail in Copenhagen, stops to say hello to Lois and me, sitting at a table outside 

a cafe, until he realises we haven't got a vote, and he moves swiftly on (!)

It was certainly a memorable moment for Lois and me, and we like to think that that was reciprocal, and that Lars often remembers his little chat with us, perhaps regretting that he didn't take the opportunity to get our phone number.

I wonder....!

While we're sitting here tonight in this Thai restaurant in Haslemere, Edward gets one of his AI bot friends to compose a Elton John-style song for the occasion, "Lemongrass and Lime", which is a nice touch!

Just click on the picture, to hear the song - you'll be glad you did haha!!!

Told you!!!

Just play it over and over, and I guarantee that eventually you'll start to love it - suggested minimum: 2 hours haha!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Thursday March 26th 2026 "How to be eighty, by a local expert haha!"

Yay!!!! A lovely day for Yours Truly's 80th birthday, with blue skies and some sunshine, although temperatures not ideal - brrrrr!!!! 

It doesn't really feel quite real to be actually 80, but it happens to a lot of lucky people these days, and I'm certainly not grumbling!

To celebrate, Lois and I drive 10 miles down to Petersfield to take a walk round the lake - the locals call it "the heath pond". It looks sunny but you can tell from our coats that we're battling a chilly breeze, but no matter, because it's my birthday, yay!!!

Those pictures above make it look like it's just Lois and me and a bunch of ducks and geese going out and about this morning, but actually the whole "heath pond" is throbbing with life, including "new life", especially round the tea-shop, which is nice! 

Local couples have obviously been busy making babies (!), and today we see, like, a billion of these babies and toddlers etc, more probably, together with their mums, grannies and grampas, walking round the lake and saying hello to the ducks etc. 

What madness!!!!

Even the local wildlife has been "at it", and on our walk, Lois and I find time to greet a couple of geese with their 5 or so little chicks - awwwww, bless!!!!!

After our walk, there's just time to have a snack lunch at the aptly named Plump Duck Tea-room, a coffee and a bacon-and-brie panini, before it's time to go home for a lovely afternoon in bed, which is nice!

Then, around 4pm, we get a visit from our daughter Alison and her three teenage offspring, Josie (19), Rosalind (17) and Isaac (15). Our son-in-law Edward can't be here - he's in London on business, but we'll see him tomorrow when they take Lois and me out for a birthday meal at a local Thai restaurant, which will be nice!

Josie, a first year student at Durham in the far north of England, is home for the Easter break, but the big news is that Rosalind, who's taking her A-Levels this summer, now has University College London (UCL) as her first choice for university in September, and earlier today, she even visited her potential bedsit in a student residential block in the Bloomsbury area of London.

Rosalind hopes to be taking a degree course in "international relations", but including a subsidiary course in the Danish language, with it, like! And she'll get a study year in Denmark as part of her degree, which is nice.

flashback to earlier today: our daughter Alison

in London with Rosalind (17) checking out her 

potential student bedsit if she's accepted

to do a degree course in International Relations

and Danish Language, which will be nice!

This is very good news, because it'll maintain the family's links with Denmark. Alison and family lived in Copenhagen for 7 years from 2012 to 2018, and Lois and I visited them there several times. 

All 3 kids went to school there and they still have a lot of friends in the city. Plus, it will tempt all the rest of us - even Lois and me "if we're spared", as Lois's old dad Dennis used to say (!) - to take the short flight over there, just to check that Rosalind's keeping to the straight and narrow, and not getting up to any Scandi-mischief while she's out of the country haha!

Lois outdoes herself again with the lovely message on top of my jam-sponge birthday cake. Her formula for deriving the number 80 looks a bit random, but TV Countdown quiz presenter Carol Vorderman would be proud of her. Lois literally had just these 5 figures left in her box-of-tricks, one two, two threes and one five, and she somehow found a way to combine them to produce a game-changing formula, now free to use by the general public. 

What a woman I married!!!

TV's Carol Vorderman, presenter of daytime quiz Countdown

Also on the cake, Lois finds the time to showcase her progress in Latin with the phrase "Amamus Te Poppa" (English: we love you Poppa), with musical notes suggesting possibly a Gregorian chant or something similar! Awwwww!!!!

Kudos, Lois!!!!

And finally to the slightly "seamy" side of my birthday. It turns out that my main gift-donors - (1) Lois, (2) our daughter Alison and family in nearby Headley, and (3) our daughter Sarah and family in Perth, Australia, have all, completely independently, chosen to give me gin this year. 

This is very welcome, although it makes me look a bit bad, I feel. A nice gin and tonic, just at G&T o'clock (!) obviously, is my favourite tipple, but it's not as if I'm drinking myself under the table every night -  moderation in all things, that's my motto!

[How can we be sure of that, Colin! - Ed]

 

(top left) Lois's present to me, (top right) Alison and family's gift,

and below my sweet card and present from Sarah and family in Perth, Australia

And that, in brief, is how you do it - becoming 80, that is! But if you're over 80 yourself, you'll know all that already anyway, so "Kudos!" to you!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Wednesday March 25th 2026 "Are YOU a 'DIY-freak'? Well, don't OVERdo-it-yourself, will you haha!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU a 'DIY-freak'? If so, there's always a temptation to 'overdo-it-yourself' isn't there! And it pays to pace yourself a little like this smart guy who's all over this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire - turn to page 94!!!!

Kudos, Mackay! That's what I call smart! And if you've trying to hold down two jobs, (1) as a DIY freak and (2) as a fraudster, it's particularly smart not to overstretch yourself and end up in hospital, to put a "worst-case scenario"!!!!

Mackay's story, however, puts a bit of a semi-jagged smile on the lips of me and my wife Lois, here in rural, semi-professional Liphook, Hampshire, to put it mildly!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

It's a bit of a coincidence, but I think we ourselves may have had an email from a fraudster this week, And you've got the admire the guy's "no frills", "minimalist" approach, just setting up what I assume is a real insurance company fake email-address", and then emailing the company's clients to tell them their payments are overdue. Then the guy can just sit and watch the money "roll in", thus financing maybe a nice holiday with his current "squeeze", in the Algarve or elsewhere in the sunny Mediterranean, maybe?

Kudos, that guy!!!! And so polite - "we kindly request" !!! His parents obviously brought him up right, that's for sure!

The guy even went to the trouble of phoning me - twice (!) - to make a "personal" approach, although I didn't accept the calls, partly because I was "too busy", which is a pity. Also, however, I don't normally accept calls from 0800 numbers, but I regret this now. I would have liked to have got to know the guy better, and maybe become his friend, dare I say. And later I google his 0800 number, and get a bit of an insight into what makes him "tick", so that's some consolation!!!!

What a guy!!!!

The downside to getting a connection with this smart-but-polite fraudster, however, is that it gives me ANOTHER job to do to add to my already "bulging" to-do-list (!) - i.e. researching my insurance back-payments - which is something I need like a hole in the head, to be frank!!!

I've already got two "biggies" on my to-do-list, thank you very much! Job number one is to hoover the whole house, in advance of my 80th birthday when Lois and I are expecting a visit from our daughter Alison and two of her three teenage offspring - Rosalind (17) and Isaac (15) for a cup of tea and a slice of my birthday cake at the end of the kids' school day.

flashback to January: our daughter Alison and husband Edward,

with their 3 teenage offspring, on their recent skiing trip to Sweden

And if that weren't enough (!), job number two on my already bulging "to do list" today is simply to keep out of Lois's way while she ices my official 'top secret' birthday cake, the cake which I'm not allowed to see till my "big day" dawns, which is exciting!!!

my hectic day - (left) hoovering the whole house, and also (right) 

somehow finding time to keep out of Lois's way while she ices 

my 'top-secret' birthday cake, now wrapped in tin-foil in the garage (!!!!)

So, busy busy busy, yet again! And it's almost as busy for poor Lois herself, to be fair!!!! 

But what madness!!!!!

21:00 At last we can relax on the couch, with another "poncey" arts documentary on the free-to-view Sky Arts channel, which is a comfort. We've missed the first of the two programmes, about Goya, but manage to catch the second one, about Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights, so all is not lost!

The message of Bosch's painting is a simple one, we hear, from pundit Sian Walters:

The end of the world has rarely looked so vivid, to put it mildly! And over there, in hell, judgment isn't just delivered, it's imagined. And at the centre of the picture is the artist himself, Hieronymus Bosch, a painter of visions.

It's a painting like no other of its time, or of any era. It was painted around the year 1500, when many people believed, as they did in 1000 AD or 2000 AD, that, as it was a round number, the world could be coming to an end. And it's like a warning to worshippers as they leave church on a Sunday, not to fall victim to temptation, because the end truly is nigh.

Bosch's masterpiece is painted in three adjoining panels, in the then common formula of a triptych. The first panel is all about innocence in the garden of Eden, when man meets woman for the first time, under the calm gaze of God;  the central panel is all about the vibrant chaotic world of self-indulgence, sex and drunkenness etc, but with a fragility beneath all the pleasure; and the third panel is all about the consequences of that self-indulgence, a raw vision of hell itself: twisted figures, mechanical devices, flaming landscapes, torment with no escape - oh dear!

The painting is thus showing three distinct phases, but the landscapes are kind of the same in the three: if you look at the horizon behind all the crazy "goings-on", it's a continuous line.

Another link between the three panels is that each panel has a body of water in it: a lovely 'perfect' lake in the first one, another lake in the second one, with bathers all "sinning" in it, and in the last one it's a frozen lake - hell has literally frozen over, to quote the usual phrase - yikes!!!!

So there are elements that separate the three panels, but elements that unite them as well.

It's noticeable also, that the animals, birds etc in the picture are all a bit weird, and even the fruits: 

It's often been thought that Bosch invented some of these weird concepts, but apparently they were common in religious works at the time, called "drolleries", and designed to be amusing.

A lot of the weird details and figures in the painting are difficult to interpret today, but the programme's experts say tonight that Bosch's message was a simple one: "if you sin, you become a beast".

There are a lot of images of weird-looking musical instruments in the painting, and music is conventionally seen as an element of harmony and peace in art. However, researchers at Oxford University tried the experiment of making some of Bosch's instruments, and they found that, either the instruments wouldn't play, or if they did play, they sounded really horrible - oh dear!

The most bizarre musical images occur in the third, "hell" panel, where we find actual musical notation etched across the exposed backside of a tortured figure.

And surprise surprise, the notes forms a coherent, performable piece. So you have this evocation of a cacophony of this really distorted sound all around you. And this, together with the nearby image of an ear being sliced with a knife completes the idea of a sound that's an assault to the ears.

Not such a weird image as it seems today, because in those far-off times, you could get your ears cut off if you were caught stealing. And a lot of the images are of various sins, deadly or otherwise, like this woman looking at herself in a mirror, depicting the sin of vanity.

And don't be fooled by those cuddly owls you see everywhere in the painting. They're not even symbols of wisdom, because in those crazy far-off times owls were seen as the image of the devil, who's watching you all the time. 

So nothing new about today's intrusive security cameras, so-called "workplace monitoring" etc,  after all!

don't be fooled by the cuddly owls in Bosch's painting

- it's the devil watching your every move: yikes !!!!

See? Horribly, it's all beginning to make a lot of sense suddenly, isn't it!

Fascinating stuff !!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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