Monday August 3rd 2026 "Friends, do YOU lose your wits when the temperature goes sky-high?"

Yes, Friends, do YOU start to lose your wits (and everything else!) when the temperature goes sky high? Cole Porter expressed it best, in his 1948 musical "Kiss Me Kate", with its stand-out number "Too Darn Hot" - check it out on YouTube: do it now haha!!!

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

[Something to be grateful for, there, perhaps! - Ed]

And certainly it's the song being hummed, albeit half-heartedly, by my wife Lois and me today, here in semi-tropical Liphook, Hampshire - no doubt about that!

me and my wife Lois - latest picture!

Not to any degree 'fazed' by the forecast heat, and with temperatures set to possibly climb as high as 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32C) - madness!!! - we make the decision early on in the day to "hunker down", not go out of the house, order a bunch of things off the internet, and, crucially, concentrate on getting our plans ready for an afternoon in bed on the "cool side of the house - in our so-called "guest bedroom". 

Job done!

Yes, we've certainly got a bunch of things to order on the internet - just little things, mostly to do with our current policy to minimise our water usage. 

Some weeks ago, we started using our waste water to irrigate our plants and vegetables. We've got 2 plastic buckets and 2 watering-cans for storing water in, but we've been thinking that it wouldn't do any harm to buy another of each, and then we'll be really "set up" (!).

The following are our current water-saving measures, by the way, but your input welcome - postcards only!!!

(1) For our once-a-week and only-once-a-week shower, we stand under the shower-head with a bucket, collecting the water till it gets hot, turning it off when we're "soaping up" or "shampooing up"

(2) For a simple "stand-up wash", positioned in front of the washbasin, we again collect the water till it heats up, before having what my dear late dad, Ken, used to call a "once-over", when he was teaching me and my siblings the basics of life back in the 1950's (!)

(3) When doing the washing-up in our double sink, we always save the water we use to rinse the dishes.

And, um that's it!!! Simples, isn't it - and you can do it too: do send me your results, however, and I promise to publish them in my blog, if that's an incentive!!!! [Who are you kidding, Colin! - Ed]

(above) Yours Truly, surrounded by an "array" of buckets and watering-cans,

saving waste water for irrigating our plants and vegetables - simples!!!! -

and (below) the crucial 3rd bucket and 3rd watering-can I order today, which is nice!

And this morning, when I'm ordering our shiny-new bucket and watering-can, I somehow also find the time to order a new "spider-catcher", to replace the one that went missing when we moved to this house in Liphook, back in January 2025, and which we're sorely missing during this 2026 bug-ridden summer - no doubt about that!

It's a spider-catcher that's very much of the environmentally-friendly kind, because, when you've caught the spider or bug, you can just release it in your garden with a triumphant cry of "And away.....!!!!", so that's all good! Spiders are man's friend, as the guy said, although I'm not so sure about wasps !!!!

Also today, Lois and I are taking steps to keep our brains in top form, starting the feared "Puzzle 88" out of the 100 "stinkers" in the 2018 Times Book of Cryptic Crossword Puzzles - again your help needed. 

See how many of these 'doozies' YOU can solve!!!!

So get those brains going and send me your answers when you can, but preferably today, perhaps delivering them to Liphook by hand, which would suit Lois and me best (!).

My dear late dad, Ken, once said that Lois and I make a good team, and that's certainly true when it comes to crosswords. My brain is, if anything, perhaps marginally more twisted than Lois's, although only slightly, and so we're both great at decoding the cryptic clues. Where Lois really scores is in her fantastically broad general knowledge, partly thanks to her career as a librarian back in the day, during which time she was, on a slow day in the county library, able to "dip into" a huge range of books - a lucky chance that is finally paying off, now retired for 20 years, and is doing so "in spades", which is nice!!!!

And today we can even keep our brains "on the boil" when evening falls, because it's "BBC2 quiz night" on the box, fortunately!

And on the "Mastermind" specialist subjects, we even beat the so-called experts on a couple of questions, would you believe!!!!

The guy who picked "Charles I" as his specialist subject didn't know the answer to this "doozy": "In December 1648, the Commons was purged of MPs who were thought to support the treaty that Parliamentary Commissioners had negotiated with Charles in which town on the Isle of Wight?"

The town concerned was, of course, Newport - uh aw!!!!

And the guy whose specialist subject was "Roger Moore's tenure as James Bond", and who went on to win tonight's heat, couldn't answer this next "doozy", would you believe, which seems incredible!!!!

Uh-aww!!!

Of course the answer is John Wells, which Lois and I both knew. Who could forget the famous scene from the film, when Maggie-impersonator Janet Brown played the then British Prime Minister, with satirist John Wells appearing as Maggie's long-suffering husband Denis. As the couple stand in their kitchen at No.10, doing the washing-up together, Bond comes through on the "Maggie-phone" - remember?

A classic, wasn't it haha!!!!

And on tonight's edition of "Only Connect", the quiz that tests lateral thinking, could YOU have told presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell, the connection between these 4 apparently unrelated 'things' ?

I think you've "nailed" this one, haven't you - go on, admit it haha! Yes, that's right, if you touch any of these 4 objects, it will bring you good luck, which is nice!

However, it turns out that the 4 objects are all just statues, which presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell is quick to stress, calling it particularly important to note that fact in the case of the first clue - Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo's groin.

Calm down, Victoria !!!!!

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

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed, you pair of 'clever clogs' !!!! - Ed]

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

Sunday August 2nd 2026 "Is YOUR life too busy for making jokes these days? Well, join the club!!!!"

Yes, Friends, is YOUR life so busy these days that you miss opportunities for making classic one-liners?

It's the fate of many of us isn't it, and there's a real "doozy" of a story plastered all over the page 94s of today's Onion News - I expect you saw it, but if not, here's my handy summary, for your reading pleasure, which will save you time, and maybe put a harassed smile back on your face at the same time, if only for a few seconds!!!!

Poor Whitford!!!!!

Whitford's sorrow, however, is mine and my wife Lois's joy (!) this morning here in semi-tropical Liphook, Hampshire, as we read the story while at the same time rueing sympathetically, not just on Judge Whitford's "lost moments of mirth" but also on poor housekeeper Ortega - apparently "too busy to make wisecracks". 

What madness, isn't it! As the man said, "What is life if full of woe-about-it, we have no time to joke, then crow-about-it!" - how true those words seem today, centuries after they were first written, to put it mildly!!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Our own day is busy enough, let me tell YOU! Starting with a 10-mile drive down the bustling A3 "artery" to attend the Sunday Morning Meeting just outside Petersfield, Hampshire, with poor Lois having her turn on the rota to supply the "emblems" - the bread and wine for the communion, and then having to bring the little individual plastic communion cups back home afterwards, for washing and drying etc etc.

No wonder, neighbours have dubbed us "possibly Liphook's busiest retired couple", but that's just the so-called "modern world", really, isn't it!!! 

(above, left) the village hall near Petersfield, Hampshire, where Lois's church

holds its meetings, and (above, right) us in the back row waiting for the meeting

to start, and (below) the plastic communion cups that Lois has to organise

And, certainly, the real world, and its troubles impinge on us hugely today, no question about that!

We rush back from the meeting and eat a hurried lunch, because at 1:30pm we've scheduled our weekly catch-up zoom call with our daughter Sarah who lives in Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 13-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.

flashback to last month: Lois and me, with our daughter Sarah and family 

sampling "the view from the Shard" - Europe's tallest building,

during their recent visit to the UK to spend 3 weeks with us

13:30 Today, however, logging into "zoom" at the appointed time, Lois and I find that there's no sign of Sarah, and later we discover that she was distracted by a "work nightmare" that she had to sort out - on a Sunday, would you believe!!!! 

We call her "Sarah Two-Jobs", because she is somehow combining her new accountancy job in Perth, while somehow still doing her old one in Evesham UK. Even her recent visit to the UK to spend 3 weeks with us, was punctuated by her having to sort her company's problems out. What a crazy world we live in !!!!

flashback to last month: Lois and me having fun, doing jigsaws and watching TV,

while for our guest, our poor daughter, Sarah "Two Jobs", it's "business as usual",

sorting out the company's problems online  (!) - what madness !!!!!

14:00 Lois and I eventually just give up trying to do the zoom with Perth, and, on this further "scorcher" of a day in the current heatwave, we just collapse thankfully into our guest double-bed for "statutory nap-time". We're using the guest bed in the afternoons this week, because, although it's narrower, it's in the bedroom on the cooler side of the house, and we can throw open the windows to get a bit of a breeze blowing onto us, which is nice!

flashback to last week - I showcase our guest bed, ready for its rollout

as our "go to" refuge for the afternoons, which is nice

Today, however, it's another case of "No peace for the wicked" (!), even in our guest bed, because we soon find ourselves experiencing a horrible smoky smell coming in from outside, so have to close the window. We suspect that some neighbour is having a barbecue, maybe, but later we find out that it's a big fire in a field on the nearby Haslemere Road - yikes!!!! 

It's all this so-called "drought" that's the problem - that's what Lois and I keep saying!

the current 'drought map' of England and Wales

First this afternoon there's a 'tweet' from the West Sussex County Fire Service, and later a report in the Petersfield News, talking of 12 fire engines from three counties having to be in attendance - yikes again !!!!

And later, there's more "drought news" from Tunde, my Hungarian penfriend. Apparently record low river levels in the Danube have spelt trouble for the country's power sources, forcing nuclear reactors in Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria offline, as the heatwave drives up power demand.

Yikes (again) !!!

my Hungarian penfriend, Tunde (left), seen here with us,  

in Bath, in happier times, on her visit to the UK back in 2008

Apparently, Hungary's Paks nuclear power plant, which supplies nearly half of the country's electricity, and which uses river water from the Danube to safely cool its reactors, could be shut down for weeks as a result. 

The country's new Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, however, has been very visible on the country's media, however, calling for calm. He has also urged major industries to reduce power and water use, to ease grid pressure. The European Commission say they are monitoring the electricity power situation, while emphasising that there are no immediate concerns about security of supply.

Yikes (again)!!!!! [That's enough 'yikeses' ! - Ed]

15:00 Luckily, this afternoon ends on a happier note, with a visit from our other daughter Alison, who lives just over the county line, in Churt, Surrey, with husband Edward and their 3 teenage kids Josie (19), Rosalind (18) and Isaac (16). And we're delighted that Rosalind is able to accompany Alison to our house and we can spend a jolly hour or two catching up on the family's news.

The family is currently renting a house in Churt, while their real home, a crumbling Victorian mansion in Headley, Hampshire, is currently being extensively refurbished. Ali and Ed spend most of their Sundays back at their 4-bed Headley mansion, gardening and doing bits of DIY, also maintaining the enormous 7.5 acre grounds. And today Ali brings news of a welcome addition - a shepherd's hut, which can be used as for guest accommodation, any time when space in the mansion gets tight (!).

The family's two dogs, Sika and Bjorn have been testing out the shepherd's hut this weekend, and their initial feedback is positive, Ali says - see pictures below, if you want "chapter and verse" !!!!

(above, left) our daughter Ali and her daughter Rosalind (18) on their visit to us

this afternoon, bringing news of their shiny new "shepherds hut" recently delivered

to the generous 7.5 acre grounds of their crumbling Victorian mansion in Headley

and the family's two dogs are giving it a cautious "thumbs up", which is nice!

There's also, this afternoon, exciting news about Ali and Ed's eldest progeny, Josie (20), who's just finished the first year of a maths degree course at Durham. Tomorrow Josie will be starting a summer job at transport consultancy firm Systra in London - dad Edward is on the board of Transport UK, and has had dealings with Systra in the course of his work, and the omens are good for a possible internship for Josie at some point, so watch this space!

(above) the family on their recent Mediterranean holiday in the Spanish Balearic Islands:

Josie (19) is second from left, sitting next to her mum, our daughter Alison

The stress of Josie's first week at work with Systra will be eased somewhat by her parents' generous booking of an airbnb for her in London for the weeki, to save Josie the hassle of commuting to and from the family's temporary home in Churt, which is a nice touch!

21:00 We wind down for bed with another short binge-watch of the recent Canadian series, Schitt's Creek, all about a "riches to rags" story of a billionaire and his wife, Johnny and Moira Rose, and their two useless grown-up kids, David and Alexis. After being cheated of their fortune by one of dad Johnny's  crooked business associates, the family are force to rent two cheap rooms in a seedy motel in the backwoods town of Schitt's Creek.

a formerly billionaire family Johnny and Moira Rose, with their

useless grown-up kids David and Alexis, cheated of their fortune

by one of Johnny's crooked business associates, are forced to

rent 2 rooms in a seedy motel in the backwoods town of Schitt's Creek

In tonight's episode, we see the town mayor - the scruffy Roland Schitt - is again asking Alexis to help out when their baby-sitter lets them down. He and his wife Jocelyn had planned a couple's massage evening with friends.

They ask whether young Alexis and her beau, local vet Ted can step in and fill the gap, but they're otherwise engaged. They then invite Alexis's brother David and his latest "squeeze" Patrick, but ditto, apparently (!).

Dad Johnny is mortified by all this it seems, however, and he expresses his feelings in no uncertain terms after Rolando and Jocelyn finally leave the restaurant, resigned to cancelling the evening they had so been looking forward to - awwwww!!!!

Oops! 

It's hard, though, isn't it, that moment when you first realise that everybody else thinks you're "past it" (!).

Poor Johnny!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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