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!!!!!

Monday March 9th 2026 "Nothing's more charming than an Italian village wedding, do YOU want one haha?!"

Yes, Friends, do YOU want an Italian village wedding - you can stage them anywhere, even in the UK if you just open your wallet and import a few essentials, like a roasted pig and a donkey cart etc etc - although now, in the US, there's just a small problem of a 40% tariff slapped on them by you-know-who - no names no packdrill haha!

However, probably the best place in the world to have an Italian village wedding is in an Italian village - shoot me down in flames if I'm being too much of a 'purist' here haha!!!

[That's enough haha's! - Ed]

Even when the wedding's in Italy, nevertheless, there are sometimes problems, which is a pity. This story was all over Onion News this morning - you must have seen it!!!

Poor Lombardo !!!! 

But marrying that the Pavesi widow isn't really an answer is it!!! Signora Pavesi has "buried" quite a few husbands already, if we're to believe the rumours!!!!

The Onion story, however, brings a bit of an comfortable smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois today, here in rural, semi-detached Liphook, Hampshire, to put it mildly! 

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

We're due to be having, not an Italian wedding but just an Italian lunch at Adriano's on Wednesday this week, not in Italy ("no time for the travel", would you believe!!!), but over in nearby Beacon Hill, Surrey, where, admittedly roasted pigs and donkey-carts are a bit "thin on the ground", let's say! 

Adriano's, the atmospheric Italian restaurant in nearby Beacon Hill,

conveniently situated next to Domino's Pizzas, which is a bit unfortunate!!!

The reason for this "bold new lunch move" (!) of ours is that, at 12 noon of Wednesday, we'll be trying out a new "foot woman" in the village, Janice, after our previous foot-woman, Zoe, closed her clinic last week.

Nothing says "You're old" like having to pay somebody to cut your toe-nails for you, does it! And until we try Janice we don't know whether or not she's going to be gentle or rough with us, so a slap-up Italian lunch at Adriano's after the appointment will maybe be just what the doctor ordered - that's what we're hoping. Call us cock-eyed optimists if you like haha!!!!

Janice, our new "foot-woman" - we'll be trying Janice out for the first time

this Wednesday. Will she be gentle with us - watch this space haha!!!!

As newcomers to this area, Lois and I have only been to Adriano's Italian Restaurant once before, for Lois's 79th birthday in June last year, but when we mentioned to the waitress that it was Lois's birthday, they kindly "rustled up" a small birthday cake for her, which was a nice touch to finish off with before we high-tailed it back home for our usual "nap" (!).

flashback to June 2025: we lunch at Adriano's for the first time

for Lois's 79th birthday, would you believe - hence the little "cake" haha!!!!

"But how come you and Lois look so young and fit, Colin?", I hear you cry!

Well, seeing as how you're asking, we do one or two "physical jerks", if we're "in the mood" (!), that is! And we also try to do a 4000-step walk every day, weather permitting - and in Liphook it doesn't "permit" as often as we'd like, to put it mildly!

Today is no exception, but there's also an extra treat for us on our mist-and-fog-affected walk this morning, which is taking us over the "hallowed turf" of local soccer heroes, Liphook United. 

Liphook United, "the lads in blue", seen here in happier times

with their charismatic ashen-faced flat-capped manager, Ron Knee (59) 

And as it's a Monday, it's nice to linger awhile in the car-park to watch the local young housewives "getting down and dirty" there on their exercise mats - always a joy to witness other people having to "sweat it out" for once, isn't it haha!

If you want "chapter and verse", here's the relevant page from our daily 'fitness diary'...

flashback to this morning: on our daily walk we stop to cheer on 

the town's sweaty young women going through their paces in the car-park!

Honestly, Lois and I have so much to fit into our day again today, which is mad, you would not believe!

14:00 So it's with great relief that we get back into bed this afternoon for "statutory nap-time", no doubt about that! And today is a special day for "nappers", according to my Facebook feed, which is nice, because it means that, for once, Lois and I are fully "on trend" - whatever that means!!!

17:00 We struggle out of bed for a cup of tea and one of Lois's delicious home-made peppermint butter cookies, and then manage a quick "tea" before it's time to get back on the sofa again for this evening's ration of "telly" - busy busy busy!!!!!

And there's a special treat for us tonight - the last programme in mathematician Hannah Fry's new series "AI Confidential" on BBC2, which we've been looking forward to, ever since last Monday. Well, it's been a quieter week than average haha!!!!!

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

Perhaps due to our super-healthy life-style [??? - Ed], Lois and I have mostly avoided major hospital treatment for anything life-threatening so far, but this is maybe a good programme to shock Lois and me out of our complacency, to put it mildly!

In tonight's programme we hear that, if you're ill over in the States, but being nursed back to health in one of the care facilities run by health insurance companies, it may be that it's not a doctor, but a algorithm in a computer program, that decides when you're fit enough to be discharged. 

So you may get a nasty shock one morning when you wake up in your hospital bed, to find that the hospital computer has decided that it's time for you to be politely "shown the door". Especially if the algorithm has been designed by programmers with, as its top objective, "minimising the health insurance company's costs", which has been an actual criterion used in some algorithms. 

The problem was the subject of a recent US Senate inquiry.

In some states, apparently, like California for example, when it comes to patient discharge, a final decision by an actual human doctor is mandatory, but not in all states, it seems. 

And one of the dangers of the use of algorithms in medicine is that they're so complicated that it's hard for investigators to "unpack" them, and find out exactly what criteria are being used. You can ask a human doctor why he came to a decision, but you can't ask an algorithm in quite the same way.

This problem was highlighted in 2019 by a researcher called Ziad Obermayer, who also gave evidence to the Senate inquiry. Obermayer looked at an AI algorithm being used in hospitals to identify patients most in need of care, in order to offer them extra help under a special scheme - but he discovered that there was something odd about the patients that the algorithm was selecting for the extra care.

Why the bias towards extra care for white patients? Well, Obermayer couldn't see inside the algorithm, so he worked back from the results, and he found that the algorithm was using a short-cut, with unforeseen results...

The algorithm could see that white patients were having, on average, more expensive treatment than black patients were, so it assumed the white patients were "sicker" (!), so needed the most extra care and attention from the hospital. So, although it predicted the cost accurately, it had an unfortunate result, assigning, to black patients, less care than they were getting already:

Yikes!!!! 

So, the lesson is, beware of algorithms - they may give you results based on who-knows-what!

And that really is madness, isn't it!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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