Thursday July 11th 2024 "Who's the King's nephew's latest "squeeze"? Do YOU know?"

Africa - it sounds like a scary place sometimes, doesn't it. And reading any news about it is strictly off-limits for me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, that's for sure. We have enough trouble digesting the headlines about Worcestershire to be frank - and even after that, to be frank (again), we often need a dose of Rennies ® .

What a crazy county we live in !!! And what's to happen next? Are we all to be murdered in our beds?!! It's all sheer madness isn't it !!!!  

So if life is like that in an allegedly "quiet" county like Worcestershire, and in the quietest part of that county too - "West Worcestershire", just imagine what it must be like opening your local evening paper in some hell-hole  like Kinshasa maybe, or Khartoum. It doesn't bear thinking about.

However, even there, in deepest, darkest Africa there can be born, seemingly out of nowhere, the occasional items of good news, and there's one today [Source: Onion News Foreign Edition] which warms the cockles of mine and Lois's hearts, that's for sure!

"Fair enough about the handwriting point, Brigadier-General!" is mine and Lois's comment on the above, and we suddenly feel strangely relieved, and more positive in general about the prospects for Africa's future as a whole, when even a tyrannical bastard like al-Bashir can show such sensitivity!

It offers a glimmer of hope, doesn't it, and Lois and I need that kind of reassurance, because today, in a phone call from our daughter Alison in Headley, Hampshire, we get confirmation that the eldest of our 5 grandchildren, "little" Josie - not so "little" any more: yes, Josie who'll be 18 in September, will be jetting off to Dar-es-Salaam on Monday. 

She'll be starting her malaria tablets tomorrow, Saturday - yikes!

flashback to Christmas 2018: Josie, then 12, 

demonstrates her jumping skills. Note the attempted 

"photobomb" by family cat Dumbledore (bottom right)

- nice try, Dumbles !!!!

Josie will be part of a group of about 30 kids and 3 teachers from her school near Guildford, Surrey, who will be spending 2 weeks in a Tanzanian village - one week working on local projects, and the other "on safari" in the area, seeing some of the sights.

It's a nostalgic thought for Lois and me, because back in 1995, our other daughter Sarah, who was then about Josie's age, went on a "gap year" 2-3 month overland truck holiday in Africa, starting in Dar-es-Salaam.

flashback to 1995-6: our younger daughter Sarah, then 18,

goes "boating" on some river or other in Africa

And it's incredible to Lois and me to think that it's almost 30 years now since Sarah's "safari". Where did those years go?

Josie's jetting off to Africa from London's Gatwick Airport on Monday, but before then, i.e. tonight (!), her brother Isaac (13) will be flying in to London's Heathrow Airport from Beijing. Isaac has been on a 2 week trip to the city of Tianjin, 85 miles southeast of Beijing, by a party of students from his Hampshire school, all young students of the Mandarin Chinese language.

Has the whole world gone stark staring mad????!!!!!

Isaac with a group of students from his school in Hampshire,

all students of Mandarin Chinese, photographed this week

during their 2 week visit to China, which ends today

Alison tells us today that Isaac has been thrilled and enthused by his trip - the only downside was that he was sharing a room with two other boys, both absent-minded souls, so that he, Isaac, "had to be the daddy" all the time, making sure that the other 2 boys both had all their documents with them and other essentials every time they went out - what madness !!!!

During the phone-call with Alison we also get some further details about Alison's own visit, to the Wimbledon tennis championships in London yesterday with husband Ed. They had seats on the Centre Court, and took this picture of the royal box, where the Queen was in attendance, easily recognisable in the front row from her shock of white hair.

this is the picture that our son-in-law Ed took of the Royal Box 

yesterday, with the Queen in the centre of the front row, 

instantly recognisable by her shock of white hair, which is nice!

News websites had told Lois and me that film-stars Keira Knightley and Richard E. Grant were also in the royal box, but Alison tells us today that she and Ed also spotted former Tory leader William Hague (??? in the row behind the Queen towards the right-hand end???), plus the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (clearly the man next but one to the Queen, to her right), as well as the late Princess Margaret's grandson Peter Phillips, with his latest "squeeze" - your guess is as good as mine on that one (!), but we think it may be that he's with that nurse that he's been reported to have been "squeezing" recently - that Harriet (?), he broke up with that Lindsay didn't he(?) !

[That's enough "squeeze"-spotting! - Ed]

21:00 Lois and I go to bed on Episode 3 of the fascinating new 4-part drama "Douglas is Cancelled", starring Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville, all about national-treasure-cum-news-anchor Douglas Bellowes, who has been reported on social media as having made a "sexist joke" at a wedding - shock horror - which means he's in danger of being "cancelled"!

Part of the excitement, and also the frustration, of watching this series is that it's quite torturingly slow-moving, and we still don't know what Douglas's so-called "sexist joke" was. And tonight it seems that the source of the furore may not have been exactly a "sexist joke" at all, but actually a "sexist story" that Douglas may have told about his much younger co-presenter Madeline.

Was it the story about how Madeline came to be hired, several years ago, by their news programme's producer Toby? Did Toby decide to hire Madeline as co-host after "trying her out " on what used to be called the "casting couch", but in this case more likely on the sumptuous bed in Toby's London hotel suite, where the so-called "job interview" was conducted? 

I think we should be told, don't you? But by the end of this third episode out of 4, we're still not sure. 

What madness !!!!

The long flashback scene of the so-called "job interview" in Toby's London hotel room is agony for Lois and me to watch, because of Toby's repeated, persistent efforts to get job candidate Madeline to "let her hair down" - with Toby constantly offering her another drink, and even trying, at length, to get her to say the word "tits".....

Finally Toby gets Madeline to help him with his cufflinks when, to her surprise, he starts to undress, saying he's going to take a bath, and asks her what her preferred aroma of bath-salts is, all of that kind of malarkey, again, all at great great great length.

And Madeline puts up with it all, politely refusing the more outrageous of Toby's requests, while trying to keep Toby happy, because, of course, she wants the job so badly. But it's all so excruciatingly drawn out, as it must also be in real life to any woman unfortunate to be enduring this kind of "job interview". 

Even Lois and I, who don't normally shout things at "the telly" - by the end, we were almost screaming at the screen, "Just leave, Madeline, why don't you!!!!".

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

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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