Yes, Friends, there are just too many rock-bands in the world! And supplies of crazy-looking guitars are not the only things now in short supply, according to a shock report in today's Onion News, to put it mildly!!!!!
However, reading the Onion report today, alarming though it may be, brings a short, but vibrant, moment of amusement to me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-aquatic Liphook, Hampshire - that's for sure!
flashback to 1956: (left) my old paternal grandpa Edgar, aged 76, and (right) me, my dad
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
Elon was born in Pretoria, South Africa, back in 1971, and he is of mixed British and Pennsylvania-Dutch ancestry. And for Lois and me, it's particularly nice tonight to hear reminiscences of Elon's childhood from his old Canadian-born mum Maye, who, unlike Elon, still speaks with a South-African accent, which is nice to hear!
And Maye, Elon's mum, was anxious to get little toddler Elon into nursery school as early as possible, so that he could talk to people other than herself all day. The school, however, were a bit 'iffy' about this idea, as little Elon was only 2 days over the minimum age for entry, and they thought he'd be a bit baffled by his older nursery school classmates, would you believe!
Maye wasn't having any of that nonsense, however, and she told the school that her little boy was a 'genius' (!).
my wife Lois and me today, as we sit in Lois's church waiting for the meeting to start
Our amusement comes from our regular weekly 'catch-up' zoom video call with our daughter Sarah, who lives 9000 miles away, in Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 12-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
my wife Lois and me talking today on our weekly video zoom 'catch-up' call
with our daughter Sarah, her husband Francis and their 12-year-old twins
Our son-in-law Francis, who rarely appears on screen during these calls, but who takes part as a kind of disembodied voice-over (!), reveals today that he's got a bunch of cousins up in the north-east of England who formed a young sibling folk group back in the folk music revival movement of the 1960's.
our son-in-law Francis, seen here in 2025, with our twin granddaughters
Lily and Jessica on the beach near the family's home in Australia
Francis's cousins, the Wilson Family are still together, apparently, now as an "old codger" sibling folk group (!), and they must have patented their name - the Wilson Family - a long time ago, presumably, which must have annoyed other singers with the Wilson name - the Beach Boys for instance! And they sing acapella, or as I (jokingly) call it "acapulco" (!).
[You are a wag, Colin! - Ed].
'The Wilson Family' - a bunch of young sibling folk music revivalists
in the 1960's, now still singing, but as an "old codger" group, would you believe!
And 'The Wilson Family' tend to sing old coal-steamer shanties from the coalmining districts and harbours of County Durham, and suchlike - you know the kind of thing!
They even found time recently to collaborate with worldwide pop sensation Sting, who's also from the north-east of England, when he was putting together his 2013 play and album "The Last Ship", would you believe. Here's Sting introducing them at the Public Theater, New York, back in the day, when the album had just been released.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
Francis's news takes Lois and me by surprise today, because we are really calling to see whether our daughter Sarah had a nice Mother's Day - yes, surprisingly the Aussies celebrate the US Mother's Day instead of the British one, would you believe! Which makes another challenge for Lois and me, having to remember to send her a card in the 'wrong' month haha!
And it's nice today to see on zoom, also, the incredible seascape painting that Lily did for her mum, for Mother's Day. She's made it "XXL size", presumably with an eventual hanging in London's Tate Gallery in mind, or in whatever the Australian equivalent of the Tate is, 'Tatie' perhaps haha !!!!!
But "Kudos, Lily !!!!!", that's for sure!!!!
(above) the lovely seascape painting our granddaughter Lily has done
for her mum to celebrate Australian Mother's Day, and (below) the card that Lois and I
thankfully remembered to buy and post, during what's obviously the 'wrong' month haha (!!!)
Families eh!!!! They will often stick together through thick and thin, like those Wilson Family folksingers, but sometimes they drift apart, as happened in one instance in my own family.
My old paternal grandpa in Salisbury, Edgar, was sadly widowed, at the age of 59, in 1939 just before the war. However he quickly caused a bit of a stir, within a short period of time, by marrying his young housekeeper, Ruby, who was only 23 at the time.
(left) flashback to the 1920's: my old dad Ken, as a cheeky schoolboy, outside
a seaside boarding house with his old dad Edgar and old mum Kathleen,
and (right) flashback to 1938, the family's young housekeeper Ruby (22),
seen here in Basingstoke, Hampshire, the year before Kathleen sadly died
Tongues were wagging, that's for sure, when Edgar married his young housekeeper Ruby, soon after he was widowed. My goodness yes!!!
I expect, however, that it was all totally innocent. Lois says that in those far-off days men couldn't survive without a woman in the house to do the cooking and cleaning, and generally look after their needs, so fair enough!
And a couple of years after they got married, this 'cross-generational' couple had a baby girl, Margaret. My old dad Ken and his brother Eric had mixed feelings about their father re-marrying so quickly, but when Margaret was young, my siblings and I got to know her. She was, after all, our 'step-aunt', but one who was only a couple of years older than me, which was weird!
and my then siblings and Edgar's daughter Margaret - left to right: my sister Kathy (8),
Margaret (13), my old dad (42), my brother Steve (4) and me (10) at Sandown, Isle of Wight
In later years, my parents, siblings and I went to Margaret's wedding in Solihull in 1965, but, after that, we kind of lost touch with her. So imagine my surprise, on a visit to a museum in nearby Basingstoke, Hampshire, just a couple of weeks ago, to be speaking to somebody called John in the museum coffee-shop, who knew both my grandfather, and his second wife Ruby, and their daughter Margaret, for heaven's sake!
What are the chances of that happening, eh!!!!
And this week John emailed Lois and me with pictures of Margaret's 4th birthday party in Salisbury, Wiltshire, back in 1947, from his actual family album !!!!! What kind of madness is that !!!!
pictures from John's photo album of Margaret's
4th birthday party back in 1947 - she's the one on the little
kiddy bike in picture 3 - what utter madness !!!!
Later today Lois looks Margaret up on the Ancestry website, and finds out that Margaret sadly died in 2021, in Salisbury. Let's hope it wasn't COVID, or anything else horrible. Margaret's mum Ruby died in 1997.
Families are important to all of us, though, aren't they.
And that's even the case with the world's richest man, the incredibly annoying Elon Musk, no less, as Lois and I see from the fascinating first programme in a three part series about the man.
[That's enough madness! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
