Wednesday March 25th 2026 "Are YOU a 'DIY-freak'? Well, don't OVERdo-it-yourself, will you haha!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU a 'DIY-freak'? If so, there's always a temptation to 'overdo-it-yourself' isn't there! And it pays to pace yourself a little like this smart guy who's all over this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire - turn to page 94!!!!

Kudos, Mackay! That's what I call smart! And if you've trying to hold down two jobs, (1) as a DIY freak and (2) as a fraudster, it's particularly smart not to overstretch yourself and end up in hospital, to put a "worst-case scenario"!!!!

Mackay's story, however, puts a bit of a semi-jagged smile on the lips of me and my wife Lois, here in rural, semi-professional Liphook, Hampshire, to put it mildly!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

It's a bit of a coincidence, but I think we ourselves may have had an email from a fraudster this week, And you've got the admire the guy's "no frills", "minimalist" approach, just setting up what I assume is a real insurance company fake email-address", and then emailing the company's clients to tell them their payments are overdue. Then the guy can just sit and watch the money "roll in", thus financing maybe a nice holiday with his current "squeeze", in the Algarve or elsewhere in the sunny Mediterranean, maybe?

Kudos, that guy!!!! And so polite - "we kindly request" !!! His parents obviously brought him up right, that's for sure!

The guy even went to the trouble of phoning me - twice (!) - to make a "personal" approach, although I didn't accept the calls, partly because I was "too busy", which is a pity. Also, however, I don't normally accept calls from 0800 numbers, but I regret this now. I would have liked to have got to know the guy better, and maybe become his friend, dare I say. And later I google his 0800 number, and get a bit of an insight into what makes him "tick", so that's some consolation!!!!

What a guy!!!!

The downside to getting a connection with this smart-but-polite fraudster, however, is that it gives me ANOTHER job to do to add to my already "bulging" to-do-list (!) - i.e. researching my insurance back-payments - which is something I need like a hole in the head, to be frank!!!

I've already got two "biggies" on my to-do-list, thank you very much! Job number one is to hoover the whole house, in advance of my 80th birthday when Lois and I are expecting a visit from our daughter Alison and two of her three teenage offspring - Rosalind (17) and Isaac (15) for a cup of tea and a slice of my birthday cake at the end of the kids' school day.

flashback to January: our daughter Alison and husband Edward,

with their 3 teenage offspring, on their recent skiing trip to Sweden

And if that weren't enough (!), job number two on my already bulging "to do list" today is simply to keep out of Lois's way while she ices my official 'top secret' birthday cake, the cake which I'm not allowed to see till my "big day" dawns, which is exciting!!!

my hectic day - (left) hoovering the whole house, and also (right) 

somehow finding time to keep out of Lois's way while she ices 

my 'top-secret' birthday cake, now wrapped in tin-foil in the garage (!!!!)

So, busy busy busy, yet again! And it's almost as busy for poor Lois herself, to be fair!!!! 

But what madness!!!!!

21:00 At last we can relax on the couch, with another "poncey" arts documentary on the free-to-view Sky Arts channel, which is a comfort. We've missed the first of the two programmes, about Goya, but manage to catch the second one, about Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights, so all is not lost!

The message of Bosch's painting is a simple one, we hear, from pundit Sian Walters:

The end of the world has rarely looked so vivid, to put it mildly! And over there, in hell, judgment isn't just delivered, it's imagined. And at the centre of the picture is the artist himself, Hieronymus Bosch, a painter of visions.

It's a painting like no other of its time, or of any era. It was painted around the year 1500, when many people believed, as they did in 1000 AD or 2000 AD, that, as it was a round number, the world could be coming to an end. And it's like a warning to worshippers as they leave church on a Sunday, not to fall victim to temptation, because the end truly is nigh.

Bosch's masterpiece is painted in three adjoining panels, in the then common formula of a triptych. The first panel is all about innocence in the garden of Eden, when man meets woman for the first time, under the calm gaze of God;  the central panel is all about the vibrant chaotic world of self-indulgence, sex and drunkenness etc, but with a fragility beneath all the pleasure; and the third panel is all about the consequences of that self-indulgence, a raw vision of hell itself: twisted figures, mechanical devices, flaming landscapes, torment with no escape - oh dear!

The painting is thus showing three distinct phases, but the landscapes are kind of the same in the three: if you look at the horizon behind all the crazy "goings-on", it's a continuous line.

Another link between the three panels is that each panel has a body of water in it: a lovely 'perfect' lake in the first one, another lake in the second one, with bathers all "sinning" in it, and in the last one it's a frozen lake - hell has literally frozen over, to quote the usual phrase - yikes!!!!

So there are elements that separate the three panels, but elements that unite them as well.

It's noticeable also, that the animals, birds etc in the picture are all a bit weird, and even the fruits: 

It's often been thought that Bosch invented some of these weird concepts, but apparently they were common in religious works at the time, called "drolleries", and designed to be amusing.

A lot of the weird details and figures in the painting are difficult to interpret today, but the programme's experts say tonight that Bosch's message was a simple one: "if you sin, you become a beast".

There are a lot of images of weird-looking musical instruments in the painting, and music is conventionally seen as an element of harmony and peace in art. However, researchers at Oxford University tried the experiment of making some of Bosch's instruments, and they found that, either the instruments wouldn't play, or if they did play, they sounded really horrible - oh dear!

The most bizarre musical images occur in the third, "hell" panel, where we find actual musical notation etched across the exposed backside of a tortured figure.

And surprise surprise, the notes forms a coherent, performable piece. So you have this evocation of a cacophony of this really distorted sound all around you. And this, together with the nearby image of an ear being sliced with a knife completes the idea of a sound that's an assault to the ears.

Not such a weird image as it seems today, because in those far-off times, you could get your ears cut off if you were caught stealing. And a lot of the images are of various sins, deadly or otherwise, like this woman looking at herself in a mirror, depicting the sin of vanity.

And don't be fooled by those cuddly owls you see everywhere in the painting. They're not even symbols of wisdom, because in those crazy far-off times owls were seen as the image of the devil, who's watching you all the time. 

So nothing new about today's intrusive security cameras, so-called "workplace monitoring" etc,  after all!

don't be fooled by the cuddly owls in Bosch's painting

- it's the devil watching your every move: yikes !!!!

See? Horribly, it's all beginning to make a lot of sense suddenly, isn't it!

Fascinating stuff !!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Tuesday March 24th 2026 "Do YOU love a 'cake day' at YOUR workplace? Well, who doesn't haha!!!!"

Yes, Friends, do YOU love "cake time" at YOUR workplace? It's the best time, isn't it, but only if it's properly organised! Look at this story in today's local Onion News for East Hampshire, and then quickly get your coat on, and pop down to local firm Highwood Insurance's plush offices, and hurry, hurry !!! 

You'll see why when you read the news!!!

See what I mean! And Highwood Insurance is "just down the road" for most of us, so don't waste any time. Just get down there while there's still a bit of that cake left!!!

You'll have to be quick, however, because, predictably perhaps, the story was soon picked up by "the nationals" - the Times, the Telegraph etc, and was even the lead story on the BBC World Service's early bulletins today, so you may find a bit of a pretty mixed international group of cake-lovers making their way down to Highwood's break room, so take your phrase books with you! Just saying!!!!

You have been warned!!!!

Oh, and "Good Luck!" haha !!!!!

The story, however, brings a knowing smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, here in rural Liphook, Hampshire, as we embark on our near-daily local walk, which this morning takes us over the "hallowed turf" of local soccer giants, Liphook United, to put it mildly!!!!

(left) my wife Lois and me this morning, taking a walk over local soccer giants

Liphook United's "hallowed turf" and past their deserted so-called "clubhouse"

and (right) the local birds that we hear singing in some of the nearby trees (!)

Lois and I are laughing because it's going to be a bit of a "cake day" today for Lois and me ourselves, although in a quiet way - we're doing our best to keep the story out of the papers, so please treat this news as strictly confidential haha!!!

You see, Lois will be baking my birthday cake today - because I'll be greeting the day of my "big eight-oh" birthday later this week. Yes, I'll be turning 80, and today Lois is baking what will be my "official cake". 

And later today, this afternoon, hopefully,  Lois and I will be having some of my real birthday cake, a smallish shop-bought coffee-and-walnut cake, which is my favourite! My birthday guests, especially the 3 of our 5 teenage grandchildren who'll be visiting us on "the big day", don't like fancy cakes, hence what Lois and I are calling our "double cake solution" - see? Simples!!!

our "double cake solution": (above) my 'official' 80th birthday cake, which Lois 

will be icing tomorrow, and (below) the shop-bought coffee-and-walnut cake

which is my real, top-secret birthday-cake-for-two that we start sampling, on the quiet, today (!)

Yum yum!!!

Well, we don't feel guilty about "stealing" an early piece of my "real" birthday cake - the coffee and walnut one - because, predictably enough, Lois and I have both had a bit of a hectic day again, would you believe, even though we've both been retired for exactly 20 years !!!!

Yes, busy busy busy again!  Not only have we had a bit of a walk this morning, but also Lois been baking a cake, under my supervision (!), plus we even found time this afternoon to chair another rowdy online session of the local U3A's "Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" group, which we jointly-lead, "for our sins" (!). 

Lois and I picked up a bit of Intermediate Danish when our daughter was living in Copenhagen between 2012 and 2018. However, after moving to Hampshire 15 months ago, Lois and I found that local levels of Intermediate Danish are appallingly low, and especially amongst old codgers "in these here parts", as people say "in these here parts" (!) - hence our public-spirited desire to try and popularise the language among local "crinklies", or "old crows" as the Danes call them (!) [Danish: gamle krave"], through our popular online classes.

(top left) us leading another rowdy online meeting of our local U3A "Intermediate Danish

for Old Codgers" group, and (top right) Lois with our daughter Alison and her 3 kids,

and (below) us on a day trip with Alison to see "Hamlet's Castle" at Elsinore, back in 2017

Happy days!!!!!

But what a day (yet again) !!!! Talk about busy, busy busy !!!! [You lazy so-and-so's, Colin! - Ed]

And by 8 in the evening we feel we've earned the right to a bit of relaxation (finally!!!) on the couch with a bit of "telly" - another fascinating programme in Scottish comedienne Susan Calman's eighth series of "Grand Days Out With Susan Calman", which is nice!

A nostalgic programme for Lois and me tonight, because we see Susan boarding the 160-year-old Victorian steam yacht Gondola on Coniston Water, just as Lois and I did ourselves after the wedding of our other daughter Sarah back in 2013, after her wedding to her fiancé Francis, in nearby Brantwood House, home of Victorian polymath John Ruskin.

Susan's mother, she recalls, always said that one of Susan's biggest faults was that you could look at her face and tell immediately what she was thinking, which could mean she would be particularly good at one of the local sports played in the English Lake District area.

"Which local sport is that, Colin?", I hear you cry! And Susan tells us in this sequence:

Yes, and there's a further surprise - the town's annual "Crab Fair", during which the "world gurning championships" take place, has nothing to do with sea-food, would you believe - what madness!!!!

Kevin, one of the Crab Fair's organisers, explains that the fair's name stems from the notoriously sour crab-apples. It all started back in 1267, when the local Lord of Egremont distributed his harvest of crab-apples to local residents, sparking what is now one of the oldest fairs in the world. 

It all started back in the 13th century, when a bunch of farmers, initially delighted by the lord-of-the-manor's kind gift, were having a few beers, and one of them said, "I think I'll have a bite of this apple!".

Oh dear - bad call haha!!!!!

And in tonight's programme, Susan is treated to a special exhibition performance of gurning by one of the two local families who together are joint-champions of this difficult sport, which is nice!

What madness!!!

And what a crazy country we live in !!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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