Thursday April 9th 2026 "Is YOUR doctor always frank with you, i.e. absolutely no 'sugar-coating' of the sometimes unpalatable?"

Yes, Friends, is YOUR doctor always frank with you, no matter the gravity of the diagnosis? And most important of all, does he never 'sugar-coat' sometimes unpalatable health-facts, and really face up to the sometimes horrible truth?

Local physician Dr Peter Grimes has an impeccable record on this front, according to this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire! Just turn to page 94, if you want 'chapter and verse' (!).

Poor Grimes!!!! But at the same time, "Kudos!" for facing up to the truth on this issue, which was nice!

And, here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, Grimes's heart-warming story brings a bit of a knowing smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois , as we embark on our near-daily walk, which today takes us over nearby Old Man's Lowsley's Farm, where we're also regaled by numerous birdsongs, not to mention the quiet "yeeeeearmm!!!" of a passing TUI Airways flight from London's Gatwick Airport to Montego Bay, Jamaica, filling our thoughts with dreams of faraway tropical beaches, which is exciting! 

And please note mine and Lois's delightfully light-to-lightish attire in our pictures this morning, as we take advantage of the slightly raised temperatures: Lois even dispenses with her coat, while I am wearing my so-called 'summer jacket', with only one pullover underneath instead of the usual three - call us crazy 'madcaps' if you want to !!!!

Doctors and medical services are very much on mine and Lois's minds this morning, as we've just witnessed one of the traditional signs of spring - our annual spring 'Covid jab' invite, which is nice!

(left) our COVID-jab invite, and (right) flashback to April 2023, as Lois and I queue up

behind a bunch of other 'old codgers' to get our own personal springtime 'shot in the arm' (!)

Nevertheless, it's certainly good news that we haven't "dropped off" the NHS lists of older patients, and they're not abandoning us just because I myself have turned 80, and Lois's own 80th birthday is just a couple of months away!

And there's more potential good news reaching us later today, with an email from Tunde, our Hungarian penfriend, reminding us about Hungary's forthcoming General Election this coming Sunday. Liberals are hoping that the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his far-right Fidesz party will finally, after 26 years, be unceremoniously "turfed out" at the polls. Hungary is a country Lois and I visited a number of times in the 1990's and 2000's, and it's a country of which we both have fond memories.

flashback to 2002: (left) Lois (56) with Tunde, our Hungarian penfriend, when we visited

her Budapest flat, and (right) the lovely Union Jack cake she baked in our honour

US Vice-President JD Vance flew into Budapest this week to bolster support for the current Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

At one point, while standing at a podium addressing an audience there yesterday, Vance took his phone out of his pocket to ring President Trump in person, so that his Hungarian audience could hear Donald's voice, encouraging them to vote for Orban. Apparently there was an amusing moment when the White House appeared to reject Vance's call, although Donald finally 'picked up', when Vance persisted, so happy ending there! 

(left) US Vice-President JD Vance, at the podium in Budapest, Hungary, attempting 

to call his boss Donald Trump, a call initially rejected by the White House,

and (right) opinion polls still predicting a win for the opposition Tisza Party,

in the Hungarina elections set for Sunday April 12th

Opinion polls are still predicting a victory for the opposition Tisza party, so we'll have to see what happens on Sunday - watch this space! 

Viktor Orban, the current Hungarian Prime Minister, has used his 26 years in office, not just to enrich himself and his family, and all his 'cronies', but also to establish more and more control over the public media there, and to bend electoral rules in favour of his own party.

Hungary's Prime Minister for the last 26 years, Viktor Orban, and his

so-called "modest" family estate, once owned by Europe's royal Hapsburg family

Orban still has a bit of a way to go, however, to catch up with the Chinese in this regard, as Lois and I are reminded tonight, watching the third and final part of TV adventurer Ben Fogel's new series on the country, to put it mildly!!!!

the western sky as seen from our living-room this evening, as Lois and I

settle down on the couch to watch Ben Fogel's final programme about China today

During this final programme in the series Ben visits Hong Kong and talks to a brave local journalist Lam Yin-Pong. Lam reminds  Ben that when the UK handed over the former British colony to Beijing back in 1997, the Chinese agreed to keep the colony's UK-style freedoms - freedom of speech, independent courts, free elections, political comment and satire etc - for the following 50 years, although most of that came to an end within about 5 years or so of the handover.

So much for Beijing's promises!!!!

flashback to July 1997: the UK hands Hong Kong back 

to China after 156 years of colonial rule

But Beijing's real crackdown on Hong Kong began in 2019 after mass demonstrations, when 10,000 protesters were jailed, including many of Lam's colleagues in the newspaper business, accused of distributing "inappropriate" articles. 

And Hong Kong is now just a police state, like the rest of China.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it.

flashback to the 1980's: Hong Kong, seen here in happier times,

when UK Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher toured the then

colony with husband Denis, in a double-decker tram 

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!! 

Wednesday April 8th 2026 "Sausages! They're the latest victim of climate change, apparently!"

Yes, Friends, did you see this morning's Onion News, and the latest climate change sensation which is 'grounding' so many of the UK's airliners? It's a bit of a wake-up call for climate-change deniers, isn't it, to put it mildly!!!

Yikes! 

But reading the Onion story this morning, here in leafy Liphook, Hampshire, brings a twisted smile - plus a lunch idea (!) - to the faces of me and my wife Lois on our near-daily walk through the neighbourhood and into fully-leafy Radford Park, that's for sure!!!!

me and my wife Lois, on our near-daily walk, which this morning takes us down

through the neighbourhood, and into a mainly-leafy Radford Park, which is nice!

And Lois and I are hoping that there aren't going to be too many "sausage storms" as the Earth gradually heats up, especially now that we've added an exciting and shiny new "app" - Flightradar24 - to the "armoury" of nature study software that Lois and I routinely take with us on our educational health-walks, no doubt about that!

But let's wind the clock back a bit!

Lois and I moved to sleepy Liphook in this part of semi-rural East Hampshire just 15 months ago, back in January 2025, and, since then, we haven't failed to notice the number of planes that routinely fly above our heads, due to the proximity of London's Gatwick airport and other local airports, and also the occasional nearness of the Army's Aldershot 'Hub', as young people call it today (!), which is mad!!!!

Just this last Easter weekend, by coincidence, we got a visit from our daughter Alison and family, who live about 10 miles away, just over the county line in Churt, Surrey. 

And Alison's daughter Rosalind (17) happened to tell us all about the Flightradar24 app, which identifies the plane flying over your head at any given time, which is a bit of a game-changer, to put it mildly, and has led to many new conversation topics for Lois and me, which is nice!

flashback to Easter Monday: Lois and I host our daughter Alison

and family for dinner - and tech-savvy Rosalind (17), who told us

all about shiny new app Flightradar24,  is standing behind and between us 

The app Rosalind told us about has totally transformed mine and Lois's near-daily walks, no doubt about that, and today we can report that, during our walk, not only an astonishing total of 11 birds were heard singing (identified by my 'merlin' birdsong app), but, astonishingly, all those birds were joined today in the pleasantly blue skies above us by what we now know as British Airways flight BAW22G out of Gatwick and bound for some place called "Punta Cana", ridiculously enough!

The plane is flying at 12,000 feet, and going at an incredible 340 knots, which sounds a lot, doesn't it! Obviously in a bit of a hurry!!!!

But where is so-called 'Punta Cana', the place that the plane is, seemingly, so desperate to get to, this morning? It sounds like a made-up name invented by the app so as to look "knowledgeable" (!), but our best guess is that it's somewhere in Spain or something similar. Well, it is the Easter holidays, so perhaps many families with young children are taking the chance to 'get away from it all'. 

It would make sense, wouldn't it!

a typical family waiting to check out, or check in, at one of the UK's many airports

But do let me know if you know where Punta Cana is, won't you, if indeed it exists - and postcards only, please. I don't want a whole doctoral thesis, if only to save any more hassles for our poor, long-suffering local Royal Mail postman !!!!

Oh, and I promise to include details of all overhead planes in my future blogs!

[Please don't! - Ed]

12:00 And after the excitement of our latest app-equipped walk, the rest of the day is no less busy for Lois and me, even though we've been retired for 20 years and one month, would you believe (!), in a 'welter' of 30 minutes compost spreading in our tiny back-garden vegetable beds; followed by a lunch using up some of our Easter and birthday presents - I turned 80 last week, which is totally mad! 

flashback to last month: (left) me admiring one of my birthday cards,

and (right) the lovely cake that my wife Lois baked and decorated in my honour

And for lunch today we enjoy, amongst other things, some fancy little Easter cream cakes from a neighbour, and some birthday gin from our daughter Alison, followed by a richly-deserved afternoon in bed, which is nice! 

our busy day: 30 minutes of compost-spreading in our tiny vegetable garden, and

a lunch using up some of our Easter and birthday presents, followed by an afternoon in bed

Busy busy busy!!!!

20:00 "Well, at least we don't live in China!", is what Lois and I say tonight, yet again, as we watch the second of TV adventurer Ben Fogle's fascinating new series about the mysterious Asian country that's bidding to become the next world superpower, if you please!

I don't know if you realise, but there are an awful lot of people in China, like, a billion - more probably! - and a lot of them live 'in the wild', as we learn tonight, as presenter Ben leaves the city life and ventures into the mainly-rural provinces of Sichuan and somewhere else - oh, Yunnan, that's right!

However, these days, due to the destruction of forests, there are only 2000 pandas left living in the wild in China, a decrease which is concerning environmentalists. However the overall news if good, because a lot of work is currently going on to 're-wild' the young of captive panda parents, using some extraordinary methods, as Ben discovers.

Yes, what's weird, is, that to help solve the problem of the rapidly disappearing pandas, Chinese environmental rangers, incredibly, disguised as pandas, are helping panda parents to bring up their cubs. 

These  rangers wear panda-suits at all times when handling the cubs, so as to avoid the little guys becoming too familiar with humans, prior to finally releasing the cubs back into the wild, which makes sense, doesn't it!

And our Ben, seasoned celebrity travelogue presenter that he is, knows full well that he will have to "try his hand" at this extraordinary 'malarkey' too - no surprise there!!!!

Poor Ben !!!!!!

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

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Tuesday April 7th 2026 "Have YOU voted yet in the big Winchester Zoo contest? Time's running out haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, have YOU voted yet in the big Winchester Zoo contest? If not, better 'get your skates on', to put it mildly!!!! The local Onion News for East Hampshire has more.....

Yes better hurry - from the picture, Ashley looks like she's 'ready to pop' at any moment (!), and good luck to her and Bobo, or whatever haha!

The news about the contest, however, brings a knowing smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in leafy Liphook, Hampshire, not a million miles away from that gift shop over at Winchester, to put it mildly (again) !!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Contests, whether at Winchester Zoo or wherever, are very much on our minds, because the big news today is that, finally, our local U3A "Intermediate Latin for Old Codgers" course is going to be re-starting in 2 weeks' time, after a 3 month break occasioned by group leader Joe's recent operation.

Not only that, but for our very next group meeting, possibly the world's oldest beauty contest will be on the agenda, courtesy of Roman poet Ovid (43 BC to 17 or 18 AD, nobody's quite sure!). We'll be looking at Ovid's account of "The Judgment of Paris", where poor Paris, the Prince of Troy, was manoeuvred into deciding which of the three goddesses Venus, Juno or Minerva was 'the fairest'. 

Here's an early picture of the contest's iconic 'No Swimming Costume' section, when Paris awards the much-prized 'Golden Apple' to the victorious goddess:

three Greek goddesses compete in the iconic 'no swimming costume'

section of the world's first ever beauty contest

Well, good luck with that one, Paris old man haha!!! Greek goddesses were, even in those days, known for being 'bad losers', and the outcome of this - possibly the world's earliest beauty contest - wasn't a good one, leading, in the end, to two very angry goddesses, and to one of the earliest known conflicts, the Trojan War no less!

Why beauty contests, especially between feisty goddesses, weren't, as a consequence, officially banned for all time by the UN, or by its predecessor the League of Nations, is a complete mystery to Lois and me, but, "it is what it is", and I guess we're stuck with them, more's the pity !!!

And now, 4 thousands years later, Lois and I have to spend a lot of our, frankly limited, time getting back 'up to speed' with our Intermediate Latin, a task which we're just going to have to somehow fit in to our busy 'old codger' schedule. What madness !!!!

(above) Roman poet Ovid's poem about the world's first ever beauty contest, and (below)

our Latin group leader Joe, seen here in happier times, before his recent operation

Having said that, Lois and I are, underneath it all, very much looking forward to the resumption of Joe's meetings, but there's no getting away from it. Ovid's epic poem is about 14 lines long, which will certainly give us both a ton of work to do, which we could certainly do without! 

Like many pensioners, Lois and I often wonder how we ever had the time to go to work back in the day,  to be brutally honest!!!!

flashback to last summer when we first became members of Joe's 'old codger' Latin group

And the weird thing is, that, looking back to our own parents' old age, they seemed to have had literally nothing to do all day, so there's obviously been some sort of big 'step change' in the last 20 to 30 years, that's for sure!!!! I wonder what's caused that.....!!!!

Even the weather is against us today, turning suddenly oddly warm and sunny, meaning we have to somehow squeeze in as much as thirty minutes of weeding in the vegetable beds in our tiny back garden - whatever next !!!!

Just our luck! A nice day makes us do a bit of weeding, on top of all our other duties!!!!

[Stop moaning, Colin! You ought to have my job! - Ed]

"Well at least we don't live in China!", is what Lois and I say this evening as we watch the first programme in TV adventurer Ben Fogle's new series about that massive country!

All the time that Lois and I are watching the programme, we're wondering about what Ben and his team's official Chinese Government minders are letting him see, or letting him report on, which is a novel experience!

Those minders obviously don't want Ben to film in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, scene of the infamous massacre of anti-government demonstrators back in 1989, but they do it anyway on these tourist bikes that they've rented. There's trouble, however, when one of Ben's team arouses suspicion and a policeman asks to check through the man's bag.

Yikes! Somehow Ben and his interpreter Chang, seem to get away with it, and ride on into the square, but at least one member of Ben's crew gets turned away by police. And career TV adventurer Ben, who's travelled in some of the wildest parts of the world, says that the level of tension there in Tiananmen Square is something he's never before experienced in his travels anywhere.

There's annoyance later, however, when Ben tries an experiment to check the usefulness of the information available on his phone apps. To do this, he tests out the Chinese equivalent of ChatGPT with a simple question about Tiananmen Square:

Okay, thanks very much, Chinese equivalent of ChatGPT !!!

So no joy there, then haha!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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