Thursday March 12th 2026 "Grandparents, do YOU view with suspicion your grandchildren's sudden interest in you?"

Yes, Friends, do YOU view with suspicion your grandchildren's sudden apparent interest in you?

We've all been there, haven't we - unless we're not grandparents! And Onion News has at last brought the problem to world attention with their today's front page "splash", to put it mildly!

Poor Grandma!!!! And reading the story today, here in rural, semi-automated Liphook, Hampshire, brings a certain sympathetic smile to the lower part of the faces of both me, and my wife Lois, as we trudge through the mud of local soccer heroes Liphook United's "hallowed turf" this morning.

Luckily Lois and I are completely on our own when our laughing starts in earnest. Nobody else in Liphook - bar none - is apparently willing to brave the incipient drizzle and 50 mph winds today to enjoy the pastures of the semi-disused "recreation ground" where so many dreams of soccer glory have bitten the dust, which is a pity!

Lois and me this morning on our drizzle-affected windy walk this morning

over local soccer heroes' Liphook United's "hallowed turf", where

so many dreams of soccer glory have bitten the dust, 

and come to a very muddy end, to put it mildly!!!!

At least, "the lads in blue", as Liphook United's players are known in these here parts (!) scored a creditable, and nail-biting, goalless draw away last Saturday against Hampshire Premier League top-of-the-table giants Locks Heath, which has lifted "the lads" from second-from-bottom to third-from-bottom in the table, and confounded a lot of the local doubters, and surprised a lot of other local "Moaning Minnies"  (!), as they all downed their pints in the local pubs last Saturday night, no doubt about that!

Still, it's going to be a long climb up the table if "the lads" want to ever get to play in Europe before they retire! Just saying!!! 

But a journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step, "as Confucius say" haha!

flashback to last Saturday: a nail-biting moment in Liphook United's exciting

goalless draw against league leaders Locks Heath. Go the lads !!!!!

You'd never believe it to look at us, but Lois and I are fully-paid-up "old codgers" and grandparents to five, but, at 79 going on 80, we're well past the age of being used by those grandchildren of ours as "homework fodder" - see Onion Story above, if you want "chapter and verse" (!!!!).

Lois and I are still, however,  just about able to do our job as leaders of the local U3A Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers group, "for our sins" (!), and it's the group's fortnightly meeting at 2:30pm today, which, if nothing else, keeps Lois and me out of bed this afternoon, a complete "change of pace", to put it mildly!!! 

me and Lois trying to keep control of another rowdy online

meeting of the local U3A Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers group,

which we lead "for our sins" !!!!

The group actually boasts a Danish grandmother, Jeanette, in its serried ranks, which is useful in many ways, as she guides us painfully through the torture of pronouncing the language, an experience which has often been described as "trying to talk with a potato in your mouth" (!).

(left) Jeanette, the Danish grandmother in our local U3A "Intermediate Danish

for Old Codgers" group, and (right) some YouTube guidance on 

what best to have in your mouth when trying to talk the language (!)

Lois and I first took an interest in the Danish language during the 7 years our daughter Alison and family were living in Copenhagen (20012-2018), during which period Lois and I visited them several times.

flashback to May 2013: Lois and me larking about 

in the "dressing up room" at the Viking Museum, Trelleborg, Denmark

Happy days!!!!!

20:00 Strange though it may seem, a lot of Danish was being talked in England, over a thousand years ago, especially in the north of the country, as Prof. Robert Bartlett makes clear in the second programme in his fascinating series "The Normans". In the series Prof. Bartlett describes how William Duke of Normandy invaded England in 1066. The Normans seized control of not just England but, eventually, also the rest of the British Isles, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, changing them all for ever.

After William defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he met with growing resistance as his plans to transform the country began taking shape, and the strongest resistance was in the north, where it erupted into open warfare, Prof. Bartlett tells us.

In 1069 King William marched on York and crushed the rebellion, and just to ram the point home, on the third anniversary of his coronation in Westminster Abbey, William donned his crown and robes again, this time in the ruins of York Minster, as a symbolic gesture of triumph over the rebels. 

What madness!!!!

In all the public offices of Anglo-Saxon England - the bishops, the county sheriffs, the land-owners, anybody with any authority - Anglo-Saxons were replaced with French-speaking Normans.

It's fortunate, perhaps, that we're not all talking French today, over a thousand years later, but our dear English language was preserved in the end, thanks to the Normans' one critical mistake: they mostly didn't bring their lovely Norman womenfolk with them - which was a bit of a rookie error, as Prof. Bartlett stresses.

Kudos, those Anglo-Saxon mums and wet-nurses!!!!

[That's enough Normans! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Wednesday March 11th 2026 "Be careful who you get your pizza from! You may get a call, later, from the police, no less!"

Yes, Friends, choose your pizza-supplier wisely! It may not be just the Chinese who are adding your preferences to their file on you !!!!

And if you want "chapter and verse", this morning's Onion News has more....

Yikes!!! And yet reading the Onion headline this morning, here in leafy, semi-articulated Liphook, Hampshire, this morning, brings a nostalgic smile to the lower faces of me and my wife Lois, that's for sure!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

It's the mention of "Hawaiian Pineapple Pizza" that is sending us into a kind of a nostalgic ecstasy. You see, that old classic has disappeared off menus "in these here parts", as people say "in these here parts" (!). Possibly the local county police or even the People's Republic of China no less, has decided it's too "dangerous" an option, "seditious" even? I wonder....!

In short, we're not sure - but if you know why, please drop me your "take" on this contentious issue - postcards only haha!!!!

Certainly, a Hawaiian is nowhere to be seen on the menu this afternoon, as we treat ourselves to a latish 1:30pm lunch at nearby Italian restaurant Adriano's today!!! And if you're good (!), I'll tell you later in this blog exactly why we're lunching so late today, so just mind your Ps and Qs, that's all !!!!!  [I can't wait! - Ed]

And after demolishing "two soups", but before demolishing "two tiramisus", in the predictable absence of our Hawaiian "fave", Lois, who's feeling especially adventurous and capricious today, decides to plump for the Capriccioso - no pun intended!!!! - while I stick with the safe choice, the Margherita, which is always "yum", to put it mildly!

[Thanks for telling us! - Ed]

Lois is in a capricious mood today, so goes for the "Capriccioso", which is apt (!), 

while I stick with the safe choice - the Margherita [not shown]

"But why are you and Lois lunching so late today?", I hear you cry! 

Well, it's because, during an earlier, exciting, but uncomfortably late, 12 noon appointment, we've just been getting to know our new "foot-woman", Janice, who handles her patients (physically as well as commercially!!) in a conservatory in her back garden just a quarter of a mile away from Adriano's, which is super-convenient, to put it mildly!

Janice is just doing Lois today, but she'll be doing me later in the month - and nothing says you're old quite as much as having to pay somebody to cut and file your toenails and then massage your feet with an assortment of mysterious creams, that's what we always say!

However, we come away from this first appointment today feeling we've known Janice all our life, including her marital history and medical history etc, plus details about her family members, including her dear 91-year-old mum, which makes us feel really relaxed. Janice is a really lovely person, we can tell, and a good "find" for us. I think we've really struck lucky here, which is nice to know!

our feet - a part of us that so often gets overlooked

Yes our feet are so often overlooked, aren't they - literally in many cases (!). especially if you're tall (!), and yet they're so so so important! 

Remember tall singer Bernard Bresslaw's famous "paean to feet" in his 1950's classic tear-jerker "You Need Feet"?

They don't write songs like that any more, do they! 

[That's one thing to be thankful for! - Ed]

15:00 Lois and I get home at last, feeling pleasantly full after our soup-pizza-tiramisu lunch, ready for a slightly delayed late afternoon in bed, but it's nice to put your feet up once in a while, isn't it! 

[You lazy so-and-so's! - Ed]

21:00 And there's another chance to put our feet up again this evening, to watch another programme in veteran TV actress Penelope Keith's new series on "Saving Country Houses", which is also relaxing, strangely enough! Well, we both love work - we can watch people doing it all day haha!!!!

Tonight we also find ourselves again in Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire, the UK grand house with the longest ever ownership by a single family, the Mainwarings, going back centuries - 34 generations in all.

Since 1600, all the couples who've owned the house have had their portrait painted and hung in the hall. And recently it was the turn of the present owners to "bite the bullet", and have theirs done. 

What a bore haha!!!

What madness!!!!

As regards many of those paintings in their hall, Edward and Heather aren't 100% sure who they're supposed to be. But there's one particular picture that they know a lot about, and that's the portrait of Rear Admiral Roland Mainwaring (1783-1862), because he took to keeping a diary every day of his life, including the day he died (!), as Edward's mother and his sister Fleur explain here:

Poor Rear Admiral Roland !!!! 

But he had had "a good innings", living to the grand old age of 78 or so. As a 14-year-old midshipman he had fought the French at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, and after that, he enjoyed a long, distinguished career in the Navy.

I myself feel a slight connection with Roland, as I write a blog every day, which is, like, the 21st century equivalent of a diary of the kind Roland made sure to fill in, also on a daily basis. 

But is it too late for me, now, to get a job as a Rear Admiral? I wonder....!

[That ship sailed a long time ago, Colin - no pun intended!!!!! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Tuesday March 10th 2026 "Don't give up your writing! Even Charles Dickens had to start somewhere!"

Yes, Friends, don't despair if you've just received, like, your billionth publisher rejection slip for your latest masterpiece!!!

Look how even award-winning author Charles Dickens struggled in his early efforts, as this article in today's Onion News makes painfully clear, let's say !!!!

Poor Dickens!!! But, as we know now, he eventually "came good" and became a world-beater, and you can do it too!!!!!

The story, however, brings something of a "Dickensian" grin [no pun intended!!!] to the faces of me and my wife Lois here in rural, semi-mechanised Liphook, Hampshire this morning, as we tramp our way over local beauty spot Old Man Lowsley's Farm, to put it mildly!!!

(left) us this morning, chuckling over that Onion story against a stark backdrop of

winter landscape, and (right) Lois showcasing signs of spring emerging

in one of Lowsley's prize exhibits of 'naked pussywillow', which is nice!

"But why such wide grins today, Colin?", I hear you cry!

Well, you can't tell it from our faces (see photo above!), but when my phone-camera catches us unawares on our daily walk around noon this morning, we've just emerged, together with a bunch of other "old codgers", from one of the worst lectures on Dickens that we've ever attended, and we've attended quite a few, as you know!

us this morning, in company of a bunch of other "old codgers", attending

an "extremely poor" lecture about local writer-made-good Charles Dickens, no less!

Why was the lecture so poor? Well, it wasn't because our lecturer this morning, Dickensian-bearded Tim, knew too little about award-winning local author Charles Dickens, it was just he knew too much, which was a pity!!!

Although booked for a one-hour "slot" at Liphook's iconic Millennium Centre, our lecturer, poor Tim, spent 50 minutes of his allotted hour telling us about the houses where Portsmouth-born Dickens' parents, lived, mostly before little Charles was even born. 

What madness!!! 

slide: one of the many streets in Portsmouth where Dickens' father John,

a Royal Navy pay clerk, lived with wife Elizabeth before their son Charles was born

Finally, at around 11:20am, after being warned by the chairman, "Beaming Barry", head of the  U3A's "Intermediate Local History for Old Codgers" group, that he only had 10 minutes left to 'wind up' his lecture, poor Tim did do his best to "gallop through" some early Dickens classics, getting as far as his third novel, Nicholas Nickleby, but by then it was too late, to be brutally honest!!!

All in all, a missed opportunity, no doubt about that!!!!

And Tim's last 10 minutes were all uncomfortably reminiscent of Monty Python favourite Eric Idle's short-lived TV game show series, where contestants had to summarise Proust's epic 4000-page French novel "In Search of Lost Time", in just 15 seconds. Remember that?

a typical episode of Eric Idle's short-lived TV game show series "Summarize Proust",

with (left) Eric introducing the show, and (right) hapless contestant Harry Bagot from Leicester

(left) the show's gong marks the end of Bagot's gallant, but ultimately unsuccessful

 summarising attempt (right) - pictures from the award-winning Czech version of the show

Poor Bagot !!!!!!

In the last analysis, both (1) the hour-long Dickens lecture that Lois and I attended this morning and (2) Bagot's classic attempt to summarise a 4000-page classic French novel in 15 seconds, suffered from the same fatal error...

....inadequate planning, and "in spades", to put it mildly!

20:00 "Inadequate planning" is not, however, an accusation you can level at Lois and me, that's for sure! 

Each evening, we take our copy of the Radio Times and ring, in advance, all the programmes we want to see, whether tonight or on "catch-up", carefully avoiding Channel 4's latest current winter Olympics "sportsfest madness", needless to say !!!!!! [You don't say! - Ed]

me, showcasing our this week's copy of Radio Times,

with the best programmes carefully "ringed", to 

to maximise our viewing pleasure tonight (!)

Our star programme tonight is a wonderfully nostalgic re-run of historian Simon Schama's 26-year-old but beautifully-summarised, epic "gallop" through 5000 years of British history. And tonight's episode, deals with "that ducal Norman", William the Conqueror's mould-breaking conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066, which is nice!

Lois and I didn't know that William the Conqueror found the south of England very much ready to just "swallow its pride" after defeat at Hastings in 1066, and just "get on with the job" of getting used to the country's new Norman rulers. They had gone through the same process a few decades earlier, in 1016 with Danish king, Canute. In Canute's case, however, he had taken the throne but then left the English to pretty much get on with their lives in the way they had always done.#

William was different, however.

Unlike the south, however, the north of England apparently wasn't ready to break its former close ties with Scandinavia and the Vikings, just like that, to put it mildly! They even invited the Danish king, Sweyn, to come to England to be their new liberator from the Norman yoke.

Yikes - what madness!!!!!

Yes, William certainly wanted to show us English who was the boss now, who was our new "CEO" (!). And the same went for his Norman underlings, to whom he assigned the various English towns and cities.

Again, Lois and I didn't realise that the Anglo-Saxons didn't use fixed and permanent, formal family names, or surnames, as such. This was another Norman innovation, and, because their family names were based heavily on the names of the English towns that they've been made the new rulers of, the practice served very much to emphasise that they were the country's new bosses, to put it mildly!

So the local lord would be a Beaumont, and if children later moved away the would still be Beaumonts, including the daughters till they got married. 

The Normans also standardised, for the first time in England, how property was handed down from generation to generation, all done according to the new Norman law of "primogeniture".

Yikes (again) !!!!

But what a crazy world they lived in, in those far-off times!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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