Thursday August 13th 2026 "You My Friends, were you ALL total 'duffers' at school? Well, bad luck!!!!"

Yes, You My Friends, were ALL of you "duffers" at school, like 1960's singer Sam Cooke? I suspect you were - am I right? Or am I right!!!

Poor Sam!!! Although, on the plus side, I think that "slide rules" aren't as useful as they used to be anyway, in the academic world, so that's one department, he can relax about, which is nice!

And Sam's song is very much on the lips of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire - no question about that!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

As far as Lois and I are concerned, today belongs to our 18-year-old granddaughter Rosalind, who got her A-Level results back today soon after 8am, and it turns out that she couldn't have done better: three A-stars, and her place at UCL (University College London) confirmed - wow, Rosalind!!!!!

(left) Just 8 am and sixth-formers all over the UK are getting their results,

and (right) our 18-year-old granddaughter Rosalind, her future assured - wow, Rosalind!!!!

Yes, our dear Rosalind will be spending the next 4 years studying for a Politics and International Relations degree at UCL, with a minor in Danish and a study year in Denmark included - a fabulous option, because Rosalind loves Denmark, and already has friends there, from the time her family - our daughter Alison, husband Edward and her two siblings Josie and Isaac - were all living in Copenhagen, from 2012 to 2019. Awwwww!!!!!

flashback to 2013: Lois (left) standing next to little Rosalind (5) and her

siblings and parents, on our first trip out there to see them - awwww!!!!!

Yes, awwww!!!!

And who knows what the next 4 years will bring to our Rosalind, almost certainly defining some of the crucial path that her world will follow for the rest of her life, both the earlier part that Lois and I will see, and the later part that we won't see, realistically speaking (!),  sob sob!!!! Awwwwww (again) !!!!!!

Rosalind's results certainly make mine and Lois's day today. We know that Rosalind spent a wretched day yesterday fretting about the results to come, so it's so nice to hear that she got everything she wanted to get.

Apart from that, Lois and I don't do much again, apart from completing, like, a billion crosswords - more, probably! - and "hunkering down" on the 2nd day of this predicted 3-day heat-spike, today's forecast high being 95F (35C), as well as trying to follow all the BBC's tips for staying cool - yikes!!!!

Phew! What a scorcher !!!!!

We also somehow find time to hear the latest updates from Clacton, where Nigel Farage is standing in the by-election today, but we're rooting for Binface, like archaeologist Alice Roberts was, in her 'clarion call' to voters yesterday - dub us hopeless idealists if you like haha!!!!

Kudos, Alice haha!!!!

20:00 Farage may be a populist, but he's a bit of a pale imitation when it comes to the arch-populist of all time: step forward Adolph Hitler, no less!

And Lois and I relax tonight watching the second programme in a fascinating 3-part collection of archive interviews with people who knew Hitler. Tonight's episode covers the 1930's when Hitler came to power as Germany's Chancellor,  and ending with the abortive 1938 Munich Agreement with UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

And in this second programme in the series, we hear further fascinating archive and live interviews tonight from people who actually knew Hitler in person, and lived to tell the tale, starting with the mysterious Reichstag Fire in the German Parliament. Hitler turned up at the scene suspiciously early, and wasted no time pinning it - totally without evidence - on his Communist opponents, and using it as an excuse to jail his political opponents and assume dictatorial powers. Later he used the same tactics on a hundred of his rivals in his own Nazi Party, such as Ernst Rohm, all just summarily executed, without trial.

Why did the Germans fall for Hitler's methods?  And why did nobody speak up about what was obviously going on? And we hear about the power of his propaganda, seen in every newspaper, with no alternative source, making everything Hitler said, somehow, impressive, and making it so hard to be critical.

Long-time critic of Hitler Ewald Von Kleist explains, saying that if you've never lived under a dictatorship, it's really hard to appreciate what it's like.

In a fascinating segment we hear from one of Hitler's classmates as a boy growing up in 1920's Austria. Little Adolph's favourite subjects at school were history, geography and German, and "he worshipped the 'old Germans'", a classmate, Josef Keplinger, recalls. 

Hitler's charismatic history teacher, Dr Leopold Potsch, inspired little Adolph particularly, and was a big influence, with his clarion call for all German-speakers to be united in one state, and claiming that the Germans were "the strongest of all peoples". 

Moral: never trust any teacher who tries to tell you that your people or your nation are the greatest in the world - we're all of us just human after all. 

Be fair !!!!!

Young Adolph even enjoyed sorting his classmates into two groups, we're told, according to how 'Aryan' they looked - Hitler wasn't blonde, but he was blue-eyed and his hair was light brown as a child, and so he counted himself as 'Aryan'.

Good grief!!!!

Many people in tonight's programme testify to Hitler's personal "charm", something which Lois and I have always found puzzling, when you see him barking his tirades out in German, in countless, manic, speeches to stadiums, packed with his adoring masses. 

In private situations in particular, however, it's clear that Hitler undoubtedly could show genuine charm. There's an interesting segment tonight from the time when Hitler was even reaching out to British liberals in the 1930's, including former UK Prime Minister David Lloyd George, of all people. In 1936, Hitler went out of his way to give Lloyd George a warm and affectionate welcome at his mountain retreat, the Berghof, presenting him with a signed photo of himself, which touched deeply the veteran Welsh campaigner for human rights.

Now that's what you call real "madness", no doubt about that!!!!

And perhaps it all goes to prove the old adage, that "there's no fool like an old fool" ?

I wonder.....!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Wednesday August 12th 2026 "Friends, had you perhaps planned to play a round of tennis today, but called it off?"

Yes, Friends, had YOU planned to play a round of tennis today, perhaps with your current "squeeze", but then called it off because of the heatwave? 

A lot of us had, so no need to feel embarrassed, let me reassure you haha!

And I imagine that it was a scenario maybe Cole Porter had in mind when he wrote his song, "It's Too Darn Hot" - remember that one?

Poor Adam!!!  But night tennis (see picture above!) is never very satisfactory anyway, is it, due to the number of so-called "lost balls", so maybe it was no great disappointment for "Mister Adam" after all. Let's hope so!

I wonder....!

The song, however,  is firmly planted on my lips and that of my wife Lois here this morning, in leafy Liphook, Hampshire, as we contemplate the next 3 days with some alarm due to the alarming weather forecast. 

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

And in my blog today, I can exclusively reveal that we're more or less deciding to just "hunker down" and pretend we're on a 3-day holiday, and just do the minimum to keep going - eating, washing up etc. You know the kind of thing - you probably do a lot of that kind of thing yourself: go on, admit it haha!

One thing we won't be doing, however, is complaining about it, unlike 1950's radio comedian Tony Hancock, who came out with one of his usual somewhat negative "diatribes", recalled today on social media, which is a bit of a "reality check" (!).

(left) weather forecast for Liphook for the next 3 days, with highs of 90/93/87F (32/34/31C)

and (right) 1950's radio comedian Tony Hancock with one of his trademark diatribes (!)

No you won't hear me complaining! When you're given the chance of not going out for 3 days, just relaxing and not feeling guilty about it, what's not to like haha!!!! 

And Lois and I don't do a lot today, although we do make a feeble attempt tonight around 7pm, in our tiny back garden, to capture, on a piece of paper, tonight's advertised partial solar eclipse, both using a home-made piece of card with a hole in it, and also one of our kitchen colanders, but without being as successful as we would have liked, to put it mildly!

Do these pictures capture the moon encroaching on the sun? We're not sure - but your comments welcome, so start looking for a postcard and a stamp - and do it now! We know you've got one somewhere, perhaps lurking in a forgotten drawer haha!

If not, well there's always next time, but these eclipses are not going to happen for ever, apparently!

Scientists have worked out that, at this point in time, we are able to see partial or total solar eclipses precisely because the size of the Sun's disc and the size of the Moon's disc look similar from a human vantage point on Earth. But now we know that the moon is actually moving very slowly away from us, at 1.5 inches or 3.8 cm per year, which is a possible worry!

And scientists have calculated that the very last total solar eclipse will occur in approx. 580 million years time – good grief! Better get busy haha!!!!

So.... if we could somehow do something about the Earth's ocean tides, maybe we could stop the process of losing the moon, and keep it "in our orbit" (no pun intended!!!) for a while longer perhaps? Canute, England's last Danish king, famously tried, and failed, to do anything about the tide. Can Burnham succeed where Canute was caught short? I think we should be told, and quickly!

Yes, something for new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham's already "choc-a-bloc" to-do-list maybe?

I wonder....!

new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham is looking for your ideas!

Have YOU sent YOUR suggestions in to poor Andy, I wonder? 

If not, why not add the 'tides' malarkey to YOUR list, and do it now haha!!!! Lois and I are going to be putting it at (we think  (!)) as high as no.4 on our list of six "must fix" items for poor Andy, obviously thinking of our billion-times-great-grandchildren who deserve the right to watch solar eclipses every few years, we fervently believe!

[That's enough 'whimsy' ! - Ed] 

Call us hopeless idealists if you like haha!

[Is that all you two 'noggins' have done today, Colin, made a feeble attempt to 'capture' the eclipse? - Ed]

16:00 Well, no actually, seeing as how you're obviously interested (!).

Also today I somehow find time to enjoy a newsy "catch-up" call with my sister Gill in Ipswich. And it helps me with my mission to "get down with the kids", because although Yours Truly is now an incredible 80 years of age, Gill is still a sprightly "68 years young" slip of a girl, which is refreshing, and, as a bonus, she can explain a lot of the mysteries of the modern world to me, which is nice!

me and my 'baby sister' Gill, (left) in May 2026, down by Ipswich Harbour,

and (right) flashback to 1960, us in the back garden of the family home in Bristol

Gill tells me in our call today, that all is going well with preparations for her daughter Lucy's wedding next month to her Anglo-American fiancee Rosanna, which Lois and I will be attending, all being well.

flashback to May: my sister Gill, her daughter Lucy (left)

and Lucy's fiancee Rosanna (right)

Also, there's news that Gill has been writing another of her monologues, and it's going to be performed in a few months' time at London's Glitch Theatre, following the success of her first such monologue, "A Nice Cup of Tea", at the same theatre back in November last year.

(above left) Gill showcasing the performance of her latest monologue

at London's Glitch Theatre, and (above right) Gill with Lucy's fiancee Rosanna,

and (below, right) Gill with members of the all-female Yellow Coat Theatre Company,

who staged the monologue in the theatre back in November 2025

And today there's more big news - Gill will be starting on getting her second MA degree, also in September, at the nearby University of Suffolk: a 2-year part-time course in creative writing. By the time Gill gets the degree, she'll be 70, which Gill seems to think is "old", for some reason haha!!!! 

(left) the University of Suffolk, down by the waterfront at Ipswich,

and (right) some of the typical students enrolled on the course

Rosanna, soon to be Gill's daughter-in-law, is apparently a bit discomforted by the fact that she'll be missing Jill's first day at college, because, by then, she and Lucy will be away on their honeymoon. And, sadly, Rosanna won't be able to kit her mother-in-law out with a backpack and stationery 'essentials', and all the other student "malarkey". 

And she won't even be able to wave her new mother-in-law a tearful farewell at the window, when Gill goes off in the morning, on her first day at college! 

Poor Rosanna !!!!!

some of the necessities for the first-year student - a nice backpack 

and a tearful farewell from mum and dad. Awwwwww!!!!

And in the "small world" department, Lois and I have recently become interested in a local artist, Flora Twort, who lived and worked near to where we live, over in nearby Petersfield, Hampshire. There's an exhibition of Flora's paintings being held locally at the moment, which Lois and I are hoping to visit next week. 

Flora was once the "squeeze" of noted author Nevil Shute, writer of  "A Town Like Alice", and also "On the Beach" (1957), made into a film starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardener and Fred Astaire etc. Shute went so far as to propose marriage to Flora, although she apparently turned him down - what madness!

Fabulous stuff !!!!

And during Gill's call today, I discover that Flora, Shute's "squeeze", was actually a relative of Rosanna, Gill's future daughter-in-law. It turns out that Flora was Rosanna's grandfather's first cousin, incredibly.

What are the chances of that happening, eh?!!!!

(above) one of local artist Flora Twort's many paintings of Petersfield's

bustling market square, and (below) some recent photos I took of 

Lois checking out the local produce in the square on a typical market day

So, Lois and I will soon be related to Flora (although only by marriage, obviously). Maybe, when we visit the Flora Twort exhibition next week, we can drop it into the conversation, all casual-like, and maybe get a 'friends and family' discount on a print or two, perhaps?

[You tight so-and-so, Colin! - Ed]

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

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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