Saturday May 23rd 2026 "Do YOUR family and staff still respect you, no matter what you do?"

Yes, Friends, are your staff,  or your family, happy to still respect you, no matter what you decide to do? 

And I ask that question because it's easy to lose that respect by poor decision-making, isn't it, as happened to local manager Robert Crawford recently, according to this morning's Onion News - did you see the pictures? They're better than a thousand words, or better than 300 or so, anyway!!!!

Poor Crawford !!!!!

And reading about Crawford's poor decision-making in the 'wardrobe department' certainly brings a wry-ish smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, to put it mildly!

With the temperatures in Liphook again due to pass the 80F mark - 82F or 28C to be precise, we've made the possibly rash decision to 'dust off' our own shorts for the first time this year, the shorts we've selected to do today's 'poncing about' in (!). And unlike old man Crawford (see Onion story above) we're not afraid of losing our 'clout' with each other: as partners in an 'equal marriage' we don't need to exercise discipline over each other in the same way, and here in this house at least, it's "Liberty Hall", which is nice!

[Who do you think you're kidding, Colin? I always go to Lois if I want a decision! - Ed]

us today, 'poncing about' in our shorts for the first time this year,

thanks to a sudden heatwave hitting South East England, which is nice!

Not only that, but we've decided, for the duration of the heatwave, to just keep the duvet cover over us at night, or in the afternoon for 'statutory nap-time', so that's all good!!!!

It's crazy weather for May, that's for sure, but then we live in a crazy country, don't we, even if it takes one of our friends from 'The Continent' - my Hungarian penfriend Tunde - to make Lois and me fully aware of just how crazy we Brits really are! To 'see ourselves as others see us' can be a bit of a wake-up call sometimes! Look at this shocking story from Hungarian news website telex.hu, and if you're British, and, also, fluent in Intermediate Hungarian (!), better go a deep red in the face!!!!

According to the article, the City of London still has to pay an annual rent to the King, a rent dating back over 800 years to the year 1211, whereby the city has to make a payment to the King's "Remembrancer" (the oldest judicial office in the country), a payment consisting of a blunt pruning knife and a sharp axe, plus 6 jumbo horse-shoes, and 61 nails (see picture above!). Apparently our so-called 'Parliament' hasn't yet found time to repeal the old laws that require this.

What madness!!!!!

the so-called 'Ceremony of the Quit Rents' (left) as it looked in the 13th century,

and (right) how it has looked in more recent times - what madness, isn't it!!!

This ancient ceremony, called the Ceremony of the Quit Rents', has somehow managed to keep going after 800 years, even though nobody knows any more the location of the two areas that the rent applies to: a blacksmith's workshop and a piece of marshland, believed to be somewhere in Shropshire, a county literally 'miles away', somewhere near the Welsh border. 

What a truly crazy country we live in !!!!

And don't think for one moment that that craziness was confined to the 13th century, as Lois and I find out tonight when we settle down on the sofa - still sporting our shorts, which, after another hard day of 'poncing about' (!), are now looking distinctly more crumpled!!!!

us this evening, still sporting our shorts, after another day of hard 'poncing about' (!)

And we're on the sofa to watch the latest 'celebrity travelogue' programme by former Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo, "Great Continental Railway Journeys", in which tonight, confusingly, Michael is on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Lois and I didn't know just how many times Corsica has been invaded by outsiders: the Greeks in the 6th century BC, then the Etruscans and Carthaginians, then the Romans and the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Lombards, the Moors, until the Pope gave the island to the Italian city of Pisa for 200 years, and then the Italian city of Genoa took over for 500 years. But this chequered history has toughened the islanders no end, and built up a culture of resistance, we hear.

Also, Lois and I hadn't heard of Corsican hero and patriot, Pasquale Paoli, who studied at the University of Naples before returning to Corsica and writing the world's first modern democratic constitution. Sovereignty was to lie with the people of the island, with due 'separation of powers'. Paoli's constitution was then approved by a vote by all adult Corsicans, including the women. And the constitution lasted for 14 years, until 1769, when the French invaded, and put a stop to it - what madness!!!! 

Paoli had to seek refuge in London, where he remained for 20 years, before returning to Corsica to organise resistance against the French, eventually having to 'lock horns' with the new French Emperor, Napoleon Buonaparte.

In the end, Paoli had to ask Britain for help, and the British responded by sending in the Navy, as this local Corsican historian explains to Michael:

So for those two years, before the next French invasion, the British monarch, George III, was also King of Corsica, and the kingdom's democratically-elected parliament used to meet in a chapel in the island's then capital of Bastia. This 'Brotherhood Chapel' had an organ, on which the MPs could hear the playing of 'God Save The King'. 

George III never attended any of the parliament's sessions, but his presence was symbolised by an empty throne, which was a nice idea!

the 'Brotherhood Chapel' in Bastia, where the Anglo-Corsican parliament

used to meet, complete with organ for playing 'God Save The King'

and an empty throne to symbolise the presence of George III - what madness!!!!

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

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Friday May 22nd 2026 "Phew - what a scorcher!!! And has it knocked YOU off your 'trolley' haha!!!!"

Yes Friends, have you noticed how it's so much warmer suddenly? Bet it's taken you by surprise!!! 

But there's one notable exception among us, isn't there! Yes, step forward local man Martin Rivers - at least if you believe today's local Onion News! Because, once more, Martin's face is "all over" that esteemed organ's page 94, yet again !!!!

Kudos, that man! 

Well, at least he's consistent - that's what my wife Lois and I say, here in semi-productive Liphook, Hampshire, to put it mildly!!!!

Unlike with Martin, this gradual, but semi-meteoric rise in temperature this week has really 'knocked us sideways', after a lovely, action-packed few days up in Ipswich, Suffolk, staying with my 'baby sister' Jill (68!). And with us looking to have a quiet day today to recharge our batteries, it's been a week that's seen the temperature make a relentless rise from a high of  55F (13C) on Monday to a high of 81F (27C) on Friday. 

What's gone wrong with our weather, all of a sudden !!!!

What madness!!! And if you visit us today, you'll see Lois in a summer dress, and me 'poncing about' in shirtsleeves and reading Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, instead of shivering under my trademark two layers of thick pullovers !!!! And with our bedroom windows both slightly open for this afternoon's statutory nap-time, would you believe, all in all today is total madness!!!!

Phew - what a scorcher!!! With Yours Truly 'poncing about' in my

shirtsleeves, reading Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, 

and even throwing the bedroom windows open a few inches

for 'statutory nap time' - what utter utter utter madness!!!!!

It's a crazy day, no doubt about that! But manfully, and womanfully (!), we manage to achieve very little today, which was always the objective!

And on this crazy day, by the time evening falls, it seems only natural to get back into bed to watch the follow-up programme to last week's "The Elon Musk Show" series tonight - that man 'does craziness in spades' (!), Lois and I always say!!!

One of Elon's classmates from his high school days in Pretoria, South Africa, Rudolph Pienaar gives us some insights to start tonight's programme.

Rudolph Pienaar, one of Elon's classmates from his

high school days in Pretoria, South Africa

The two boys used to play video games in Elon's bedroom, which was where his computer was. In those days, Rudolph recalls, everybody was playing text-based adventure games, like Dungeons and Dragons, in which each player has a group of characters who go and explore a dungeon.

What was interesting, Rudolph recalls, was that Elon named all his characters after himself. So his Warrior would be 'Elon the Strongest', his Wizard would be 'Elon the Most Intelligent', his thief would be 'Elon the Most Agile', and his Archer would be 'Elon the Most Accurate'. This struck Rudolph at the time as just being very odd.

Over  the following decades, one of Elon's many surprising career moves was, in 2022, to buy Twitter, which he did on a whim, before getting cold feet, but then finally going for it anyway.

Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki, one of the early investors in Musk's Tesla car business, has been one of Elon's friends for the past 11 or 12 years,.

Elon, seen here with Ross Gerber, one of the early investors in Tesla

Gerber initially tried to challenge Elon on his takeover of Twitter, which seemed like a crazy move for the business  - launching itself into social media. And Gerber said to Elon, "Elon, what are you doing? Is our mission tweeting? We shouldn't be doing that, and I fear you'll be wading into an area which will cause a lot of damage to your brand."

On TED, however, Elon said, "My strong, intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted, and broadly inclusive, is extremely important for the future of civilisation", and he claimed that he didn't care about the economics of it at all.

And this proved to be a light bulb moment for Elon's business friend and partner, Ross Gerber.

Don't imagine, however, that Elon's eccentricities are just the madcap extravagances of a tech-crazy schoolboy who never grew up.

Fast forward to 2024, when Donald Trump, after winning the presidential election, tasks Elon with leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with the aim of 'taking a chainsaw to government bureaucracy'.

And Elon's old Pretoria schoolfriend Rudolph, now a scientist in the US, judges Elon's work in DOGE to have been an unmitigated disaster for science in the country.

Rudolph recalls how DOGE went through, willy-nilly, just killing programs, right left and centre, ending up destroying much of the American scientific community.

Worst of all, the US State Department subsequently killed 83% of the foreign aid programmes at USAID, something which Rudolph finds particularly shocking.

Worst of all, says Rudolph, Elon casually joked about the decision on his own social media platform Twitter / X:

And Rudolph comments, "When you callously impact people's lives and don't even care, to me that's almost a definition of evil".

Fascinating stuff, but it sends a chill through Lois and me, no doubt about that.

What a bastard!!!!!

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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