Friday May 22nd 2026 "Phew - what a scorcher!!! And has it knocked YOU off your 'trolley' haha!!!!"

Yes Friends, have you noticed how it's so much warmer suddenly? Bet it's taken you by surprise!!! 

But there's one notable exception among us, isn't there! Yes, step forward local man Martin Rivers - at least if you believe today's local Onion News! Because, once more, Martin's face is "all over" that esteemed organ's page 94, yet again !!!!

Kudos, that man! 

Well, at least he's consistent - that's what my wife Lois and I say, here in semi-productive Liphook, Hampshire, to put it mildly!!!!

Unlike with Martin, this gradual, but semi-meteoric rise in temperature this week has really 'knocked us sideways', after a lovely, action-packed few days up in Ipswich, Suffolk, staying with my 'baby sister' Jill (68!). And with us looking to have a quiet day today to recharge our batteries, it's been a week that's seen the temperature make a relentless rise from a high of  55F (13C) on Monday to a high of 81F (27C) on Friday. 

What's gone wrong with our weather, all of a sudden !!!!

What madness!!! And if you visit us today, you'll see Lois in a summer dress, and me 'poncing about' in shirtsleeves and reading Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, instead of shivering under my trademark two layers of thick pullovers !!!! And with our bedroom windows both slightly open for this afternoon's statutory nap-time, would you believe, all in all today is total madness!!!!

Phew - what a scorcher!!! With Yours Truly 'poncing about' in my

shirtsleeves, reading Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, 

and even throwing the bedroom windows open a few inches

for 'statutory nap time' - what utter utter utter madness!!!!!

It's a crazy day, no doubt about that! But manfully, and womanfully (!), we manage to achieve very little today, which was always the objective!

And on this crazy day, by the time evening falls, it seems only natural to get back into bed to watch the follow-up programme to last week's "The Elon Musk Show" series tonight - that man 'does craziness in spades' (!), Lois and I always say!!!

One of Elon's classmates from his high school days in Pretoria, South Africa, Rudolph Pienaar gives us some insights to start tonight's programme.

Rudolph Pienaar, one of Elon's classmates from his

high school days in Pretoria, South Africa

The two boys used to play video games in Elon's bedroom, which was where his computer was. In those days, Rudolph recalls, everybody was playing text-based adventure games, like Dungeons and Dragons, in which each player has a group of characters who go and explore a dungeon.

What was interesting, Rudolph recalls, was that Elon named all his characters after himself. So his Warrior would be 'Elon the Strongest', his Wizard would be 'Elon the Most Intelligent', his thief would be 'Elon the Most Agile', and his Archer would be 'Elon the Most Accurate'. This struck Rudolph at the time as just being very odd.

Over  the following decades, one of Elon's many surprising career moves was, in 2022, to buy Twitter, which he did on a whim, before getting cold feet, but then finally going for it anyway.

Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki, one of the early investors in Musk's Tesla car business, has been one of Elon's friends for the past 11 or 12 years,.

Elon, seen here with Ross Gerber, one of the early investors in Tesla

Gerber initially tried to challenge Elon on his takeover of Twitter, which seemed like a crazy move for the business  - launching itself into social media. And Gerber said to Elon, "Elon, what are you doing? Is our mission tweeting? We shouldn't be doing that, and I fear you'll be wading into an area which will cause a lot of damage to your brand."

On TED, however, Elon said, "My strong, intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted, and broadly inclusive, is extremely important for the future of civilisation", and he claimed that he didn't care about the economics of it at all.

And this proved to be a light bulb moment for Elon's business friend and partner, Ross Gerber.

Don't imagine, however, that Elon's eccentricities are just the madcap extravagances of a tech-crazy schoolboy who never grew up.

Fast forward to 2024, when Donald Trump, after winning the presidential election, tasks Elon with leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with the aim of 'taking a chainsaw to government bureaucracy'.

And Elon's old Pretoria schoolfriend Rudolph, now a scientist in the US, judges Elon's work in DOGE to have been an unmitigated disaster for science in the country.

Rudolph recalls how DOGE went through, willy-nilly, just killing programs, right left and centre, ending up destroying much of the American scientific community.

Worst of all, the US State Department subsequently killed 83% of the foreign aid programmes at USAID, something which Rudolph finds particularly shocking.

Worst of all, says Rudolph, Elon casually joked about the decision on his own social media platform Twitter / X:

And Rudolph comments, "When you callously impact people's lives and don't even care, to me that's almost a definition of evil".

Fascinating stuff, but it sends a chill through Lois and me, no doubt about that.

What a bastard!!!!!

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Monday May 18th - Thursday May 21st 2026 "Have YOU ever returned from vacation almost like a new person?"

Yes, Friends, have YOU ever returned from vacation almost like a new person, and ready to "take on the world" with your new 'slant' on the world? Most of us have, at one time or another, haven't we, and there's a local story with a big impact in this morning's local Onion News, quickly picked up by the 'nationals', like the Times and the Telegraph, and, on an admittedly 'slow news day' even led the early morning bulletins on the BBC World Service, would you believe!!!

Kudos, that woman!!!!

And reading Egbert's story this morning brings a hint of a vapid smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, here in semi-tree-covered Liphook, Hampshire this morning, no doubt about that! Because, by a complete coincidence, we ourselves have returned home from an invigorating holiday in Ipswich, Suffolk, with a new lease of life after a ton-load of delightful 'vacation experiences' with my baby sister Jill (68) and members of her family, no doubt about that!

(left) us on Thursday morning, bidding a fond farewell to the view of the bustling

harbour at Ipswich, Suffolk from my sister Jill's flat, and (right) waiting 

to catch the Greater Anglia train home, on Ipswich's throbbing railway station (!)

I have to confess, however, that, unlike Egbert in today's Onion lead story, we're not going to be engaging on any headlining work projects, to put it mildly! Happily retired for over 20 years, would you believe, we're just going to have to expend, or "take out" (!), our renewed energy on each other, and no shame in that!!!!

flashback to Monday: Lois and I experiencing a warm welcome at my 'baby sister' Jill's flat, 

both from Jill herself and from her 'flat cat', Billy. And (below) mine and Lois's room

with its stunning view of Ipswich Harbour, where "there's always something happening" (!)

Ipswich is the ideal holiday destination for Lois and me, because not only do we get the opportunity for hours of 'chat' with Jill and also with her charming daughter Lucy and Lucy's equally charming fiancee Rosanna, which is nice, but also, for history buffs like Lois and me, Ipswich is just soaked in history, going way back through medieval England, into Anglo-Saxon and Viking times, as we discover during Jill's highly personalised, and amusing (!), 'walking tours' of the town - so what's not to like!!!!

(left) Lois and (right) Jill and me, absorbing the many medieval sights to be enjoyed

in Ipswich, England's earliest, and longest continuously inhabited, town since the 7th century

The people we meet are all very friendly, even the statues, like this one of the town's most famous sons, Cardinal Wolsey, 16th century statesman from Henry VIII's time, which is nice!

the people of Ipswich, we find, are extremely friendly and always willing to help out

when we stumble to take 'selfies': even this statue of the town's most famous son,

Cardinal Wolsey, somehow finds the time to shake Lois's hand as she passes, which is nice!

Lois and I didn't know that Ipswich was England's first real town, and therefore, also the country's longest continuously inhabited settlement, since back in the 7th century AD, as we learn from the town's many informative displays.

On Jill's 'walking tour', between stops in coffee-shops for a welcome sit-down accompanied by some quick americanos (!), we also have time to have a bit of a chuckle with Jill over the town's less earth-shattering exhibits, the houses belonging to relatives of medieval celebrities, or houses 'next door' to some now-disappeared famous house or other (!). Also, the many memorials to the town's modern-day 'famous son', up-and-coming young pop singer Ed Sheeran, which is a nice 'change of pace' from all the serious stuff, to put it mildly!

some of the more 'underwhelming' plaques: commemorating (left) a house belonging

to the 'relatives' of medieval writer Geoffrey Chaucer, and (right) the house

'next door to' the now-disappeared house (!), of painter Thomas Gainsborough

plaques commemorating the achievements of another son of Ipswich: pop-star Ed Sheeran

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Best of all, the time we have in Ipswich this week is a chance to chat about this and that, and put the world to rights, with my sister Jill, who's still, after all these years, a full 12 years younger than me, a fact that I'm, nevertheless, anxious to confirm (!).

me and my 'baby sister' Jill, (left) this week down by Ipswich Harbour,

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

It's also a chance to chat with one of Jill's three daughters, the charming Lucy, who lives in the same block of flats as Jill, and also to meet Lucy's equally charming fiancee, the Anglo-American Rosanna, actually born in Turkey, to American parents. We dine with all three at a Turkish restaurant, the Kervan Kitchen, on the Tuesday night, and Rosanna cooks us all a delicious meal on the Wednesday night, which we have in Jill's flat, so we don't even need to set foot outside the flat, which is nice!

(above) Tuesday evening's meal out at Turkish restaurant Kerwan Kitchen,

and (below) we enjoy a meal in Jill's flat, cooked by Lucy's fiancee Rosanna

It's so nice to catch up with local lawyer Lucy's latest news, and to meet Rosanna for the first time, especially as Lois and I will be back here in September for the couple's wedding, so watch this space!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed, so-not-Ed-Sheeran (!!!!)]

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