Wednesday February 19th 2025 "Have YOU ever been a balloonagram delivery guy? Most of us have, haven't we!"

Have you ever found yourself being paid to deliver "balloonagrams" or even "Balloon-O-Grams", maybe, to some smart-Alec twenty-something "birthday boy" or "birthday girl", working at some town-centre small company office in Cockshott Lane, Hampshire, say, or somewhere similar (!) ?

Most of us have, haven't we, at some point in our lives! Especially those of us who've lived long-to-longish lives, and here I'm talking about myself and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, who, now at the grand old age of 78 (and counting!) have experienced most of the embarrassing predicaments life can throw at us, to put it mildly (!).

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me, our faces showing 

the scars of 78 years of some of life's most embarrassing experiences (!)

Although 78 now, we still do the occasional ballonagram job as our contribution to the so-called "gig economy", to earn a bit of spare cash for our extreme old age, but we can always take the car whenever we're one of our routine "balloon jobs", thankfully (!).

That's why we felt sorry this morning to read about poor area guy in the Onion News East Hampshire print edition (and if you've only read the headlines, "thumb" your way through to page 94 - you'll be glad you did!

Gerald's misfortune is mine and Lois's fortune this morning, however. It gives us both a chuckle to read his sad story over breakfast, especially the last bit: "Teenagers think they're so bloody funny" (!).

Poor Gerald !!!!!!

"But why that last bit of the story particularly, Colin?", I hear you cry (!). [Not me, I've given up on this 'post' already (!) - Ed]

Well, Lois and I may be a couple of "old codgers" with cobwebs growing all over us - not literally (!), but this week we find ourselves living with a teenager, something we haven't experienced since the 1990s, when ourselves and our two daughters Alison and Sarah were still "the centre of the universe".

flashback to 1990: Lois and me with our two daughters

Alison (15) and Sarah (13) on an afternoon in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire

Luckily, our temporary house-mate this week, our 18-year-old granddaughter Josie, is really easy to live with, and a total delight particularly at mealtimes, when our usual spasmodic "old codger talk" has given way to Josie's infectious enthusiasm, and why not? She's got her whole life in front of her, weighing which "uni" she wants to go to in the autumn, if she gets the grades she's working so hard to achieve, bless her! 

Her top choices at the moment are Bath and Durham.

We don't see that much of her, because Josie tends to be working conscientiously away on her laptop in her room from 7:30 am for most of the day, while Lois and I are doing our usual stuff - our morning walk in the Hampshire countryside, followed by our afternoons in bed, before we finally fall exhausted (!)  onto the couch to watch some "telly" in the evenings, usually one of our "poncey" documentaries (!).

Today is a bit different - Josie likes to take a break from her revision work around midday, usually going for a swim in the local pool. This morning however, she takes a walk with Lois in nearby Radford Park, while I stay at home, because we're expecting a Royal Mail delivery I've got to sign for.

Lois today in nearby Radford Park with our 18-year-old granddaughter Josie

Josie is spending this week with us while her parents (our daughter Alison and husband Ed) and her two siblings - Rosalind (16) and Isaac (14) -  are on a week-long nostalgic break in Copenhagen, where they all lived for 7 years from 2012 to 2018. 

We're following their adventures this week on social media - they've been visiting some of their old haunts like the "English Bookshop" (Books and Company) in the city's northern suburb of Hellerup, and also the Rygaards International School, which all 3 kids attended.

our son-in-law, hotshot lawyer Ed, with Rosalind (16) and Isaac (14) in Copenhagen this week

This is nostalgic not just for them, but for Lois and me, because we visited the family several times when they were over there, including a visit to that selfsame "English Bookshop" in Hellerup.

flashback to 2017: Lois with our daughter Alison in 

the "English Bookshop" in Hellerup, Copenhagen.

2017: Lois with Josie (10), Rosalind (8) and Isaac (60 in their Copenhagen home

Happy days!

And this week I find I can just about chat with Josie about maths, but chemistry in particular is a closed book to both of us. 

I always blame my father (jokingly, may I add!) for my failure to get to grips with chemistry during my schooldays. An ambitious young schoolteacher, my father was very focussed on becoming a headteacher, so he moved jobs every few years, working at schools all over England. This was to widen his experience and lengthen his CV (!) to the max, and so work his way up the greasy pole, finally achieving his goal in 1957, becoming the headteacher of a school in Altrincham, Cheshire.

flashback to August 1957: me reading on the beach at Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset,

with my father, just appointed to his first headship, and at the height of his powers

All that was good news for dad, but not so great for his 4 kids, me included, who were constantly having to start at new schools, and make friends amongst classmates who already "had all the friends they wanted or needed, thank you very much", and especially those northern kids, wary of somebody talking in a weird and "hoity-toity" southern accent! Oh dear!

flashback to 1958-9: a blurry 12-year-old me (moved just as the shutter 

was pressed!), with my dear late brother Steve (6), my dear late sister 

Kathy (11), and my dear sister Jill, born Manchester 1958.

There was no "national curriculum" or "STEM" system in those crazy, far-off days, so changing schools usually meant additional academic hurdles to overcome in the classroom, quite apart from the social challenges. For example, before our move up north to Cheshire in 1957, my previous school, in Hampstead, London, "didn't do science" - imagine that today!

my "poncey", hoity-toity Southern school, UCS (Hampstead, London NW3): 

its new premises being opened by King Edward VII, no less,  in 1907

The result was that I found myself in e.g. my first ever chemistry lessons, not having a clue about what was going on (and not being given any latitude for it, or "cut any slack" either, or given anything resembling "extra help"). 

What madness !!!

Also, I found that moving from middle-class North West London to the Manchester area was a huge "culture shock".  My 12-year-old grammar-school classmates, mainly from old Lancashire mill towns like Oldham, Bolton, Blackburn etc - all boys of course, it was a boys-only school - were much more "streetwise" than me, knew all the latest rock'n'roll hits, and were already getting curious about girls and sex.  

I remember my new "northern" friend Clive, on our walk to the bus stop after school, pointing out to me a used condom that had been discarded in the grass at the side of the lane. Needless to say, I had no idea what condoms were, or what they were for, but I remember I managed to cover up my ignorance with a hasty, if nervous, laugh. 

Oh dear!

flashback to 1958: me (ringed) in my first class photo

after moving from middle-class North West London to Manchester,

with classmates who came in by bus each day, mainly from the old 

Lancashire mill-towns such as Oldham, Bolton, Blackburn etc

Also, aged 12 at my new school in Manchester (my seventh school would you believe!!!!), I also learnt that some English people are Jewish. Manchester is a city with a sizeable Jewish population. Most of the school's classes, usually about 30 strong, had up to half a dozen Jewish boys amongst their number. 

In those far-off times, days always started with a 20 to 30-minute Christian religious assembly with Bible readings, prayers etc. This school's Jewish boys were numerous enough that they had their own separate assembly on the ground floor. Sometimes I found myself passing by the Jewish Assembly Room while on some teacher's errand or other, and I remember being mystified by the strange sounds emanating from it.

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Tuesday February 18th 2025 "Do you ever feel remote? And does your 'remote' sometimes feel remote?"

Remoteness - it's all relative, isn't it. Sometimes a TV remote control can feel remote if you can't lay your hands on it, although not so much nowadays with the new Sony RCRC devices currently coming out of Japan and flying off British shelves [source: Onion News International].

A step forward, certainly, but one nevertheless not involving having to get up and move, which is nice (!).

But, to be serious for a moment, remoteness also has  a larger-range, more geographical quality to it also, hasn't it. 

In all the books about Victorian writer Jane Austen that my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I have read, and all the documentaries we've seen about her works and her life at the remote village of Chawton, Hampshire, just 13 miles away from our new hometown of Liphook, we've never read more than a few throwaway comments about where Jane did her shopping.

Jane Austen's home, and bed, at nearby Chawton, Hampshire

I think we've all seen the recent studies showing that Jane did her grocery shopping at the Tesco Express at nearby Four Marks, and that her coffee shop "fave" and also her top source of doughnuts (!), was none other than the Greggs at Alton.

the Tesco Express at Four Marks, where it's believed Jane did her "weekly food-shop"

and the Greggs at Alton, Jane's "fave" coffee-shop and top source of doughnuts

There are still a number of mysteries remaining, however. 

In particular, "Where did Jane Austen buy her slippers?", for instance, is one of the big unanswered questions of English Literature. And don't say, "she wouldn't have worn slippers", because women of that time always wore slippers to balls and suchlike, so they were very much a "must have" item in any well-brought-up lady's wardrobes in those crazy, far-off days.

Well, here's mine and Lois's bombshell answer to this centuries-old conundrum. It's not a complete answer, but at least we've narrowed the solution down to one of two possibilities. After 5 minutes of painstaking research on Google, we can confidently announce that Jane either must have got her slippers in Peacocks, Bordon, or at Elphicks Department Store at Farnham, Surrey. 

And our breakthrough today was just incredible luck, because Lois just happened to need some new slippers at this very moment - her current ones are coming apart, which we think could be dangerous around the house at our advanced age (!), and this chance event, unlucky for us, was English Literature's gain, by supplying the answer to what's become known as "the Austen Slipper Conundrum".

Isn't life funny sometimes!

And, while I think about it, hold that 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature, why don't you!

Stockholm here we come !!!!

the dilemma facing us this morning, and which must also have been Jane Austen's

"headache" back in the day or similar (!) - should we (left) drive 6 miles to Peacocks

at Bordon, or (right) 12 miles to see the bigger selection at Elphicks, Farnham?

flashback to earlier today: opting for the "shorter drive but more limited stock" 

option of Peacocks Bordon over Elphicks, Farnham, Lois finds a fetching pair

of slippers which she later showcases for me at our Liphook home

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

21:00 We go to bed on Sunday night's re-run of a programme in the 1970's series "The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club", which aimed to recreate the sometimes rowdy atmosphere of a Saturday night's entertainment at a typical working men's club in the north of England.

It's something of a gala edition of the show this week, because the social club and most of its loyal members have been on a coach trip to Blackpool, from which seaside town this special edition was being presented.

And how refreshing to see the normally "un-genial" and, arguably, overly bureaucratic, club chairman and turn-manager Colin Crompton forsake his normal Turn Management Seat on the floor of the club, and actually venture out on stage to address the membership and also find time to sing a little song. 

Un-genial Club Chairman and Turn-Manager Colin Crompton

pictured here being "bureaucratic" at his usual table beside the stage

Yes, tonight for once, Colin was letting his hair down - such as he's got (!) - and giving us his interpretation of veteran singer George Formby's classic piece of 1930's innuendo, "My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock", while playing air-ukulele, in the absence of one of Formby's trademark "instrument".

And here's Colin again with his big finish.....

That stuff - it just never gets old, does it!

[I'd like to see some documentary evidence of that statement, Colin, when you've got a moment (!) - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Monday February 17th 2025 "Do YOU look forward to Mondays? Well, some of us do haha!"

Do YOU positively look forward to Mondays, Friends? Probably not, if you're working age, but for me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, now retired for an incredible 19 years (and counting!), Mondays are always "Fun-days", as we jokingly say (!). 

That's because every Monday, Steve, our American brother-in-law, sends us amusing "Venn Diagram of the Week", a series which he monitors for us from the web, and which always gives us a chuckle.

Statistics, Venn diagrams, pie charts - you name it! They're often good for a giggle, to put it mildly.

But they have their serious side, however, especially in the run-up to Christmas, and you probably saw this "doozy" of a story back in December, if you subscribe to Onion News East Hampshire print edition. Bit of a memory test, I know, now it's February!

Yikes, Christmas was another minefield for the Conroy family again obviously (!), but I understand from mine and Lois's contacts in Betty Mundy's Bottom that the siblings are currently working on a massive "Lessons Learned" presentation, with a promised full-page spread in Onion News coming shortly, together with a downloadable Powerpoint display in the web version, so watch this space!

But wait! You're probably wondering what this week's amusing Venn diagram from Steve is, and, before I forget, here it is!

For myself, I immediately focus on the middle Venn, and start to chuckle, thinking of some of the bad haircuts I've had over the years, until Lois reminds me that all my haircuts are in fact bad. In our family I'm famous for being too mean to pay somebody to cut my hair, so I do it myself, with somewhat predictable results (!).

For the UK's soccer teams, Venn diagrams aren't a luxury, however. Not just a "nice-to-have" but very much  a "must have" and they can be incredibly useful to managers, as "Spurs" (no pun intended!!!!) to improving their teams' performance.

Did you see this "doozy" of a Venn the other day on the sports pages?

I'm no expert when it comes to soccer, but my immediate "take" on this diagram is that, of all these top teams, it's the Wigan Athletic manager Shaun Maloney who needs to be the most worried, with the fatal combination of a trophy drought, a half-filled stadium and an empty-to-emptyish bank account - oh dear!

Poor Shaun !!!!!

But what would be the equivalent Venn diagram for our local East Hampshire League? Lois and I are new to the area, having moved to our new home-town of Liphook only on January 3rd, so barely 6 weeks or so ago. And sadly, I suspect that our local team, Liphook United, is probably very much in the unfortunate "Wigan intersection" too, with a trophy drought, a half-filled stadium and no "spondoolicks" in the bank (!). 

Oh dear (again) !!!!!

flashback to January 2nd: us on our way from Malvern to our new 

home-town of Liphook, pausing to break our journey with a night in

the seductive surroundings of Gloucester's Holiday Inn

This morning on our daily walk, eager to discover more about our new "stamping ground" of Liphook, Lois and I stumble by chance on Liphook United's "hallowed turf", a.k.a. the Bramshott and Liphook Parish Council's "Recreation Ground", and we spend a while gazing thoughtfully at the somewhat forlorn Pavilion and Changing-Rooms, and the oddly deserted "Director's Box".

Lois and I try to stay cheerful this morning on our morning walk discovering

local soccer team Liphook United's "hallowed turf", and wandering thoughtfully

past the deserted "players' pavilion" and eerily quiet "director's box"

Yes, we try to stay cheerful, gazing at the silent pavilion and changing rooms, and the abandoned "director's box", but at the same time we can't help wondering, "Where the cheering crowds, the teams' directors, where the teams even????"

[You really don't know anything about soccer, do you, Colin. You wouldn't expect to see a game going on at 11 o'clock on a Monday morning. Get real, and I suggest you cut this whole piece from your blog before you even think of publishing it !!!!! - Ed]

Whenever I see a sad, deserted stadium like this, I think of Paul Simon's wonderful song "Night Game", all about a cold winter's night falling over a long-forgotten and disused baseball stadium where crowds had once screamed and cheered. 

Remember that one?

Fabulous stuff, wasn't it !!!!

13:00 All in all, a good day for us, with a healthy long walk meaning we have another 5000 steps "under our belt" - Lois as always has her "step-o-meter" round her neck - not under her belt (!): and when at home, she takes it off. She doesn't actually wear it round her neck all day, which is handy when we're having our afternoon nap (!). 

We have to be quiet this week, because we've got our 18-year-old granddaughter Josie staying with us at the moment and she's using her school's half-term week to revise for her A-levels. Her parents and siblings are away this week having a nostalgic 7-night break in Copenhagen, where they lived for 7 years from 2012 to 2018. And their posts on social media are very nostalgic for Lois and me to look at: we visited the family several times when they were living over there.

flashback to February 2013: (left) our daughter Alison with Josie (6) and her 

little sister Rosalind (4) in a Copenhagen coffee-shop, and (right) Lois

me in the family's Copenhagen home, sitting with Josie, and sporting my stylish winter headgear 

Happy days!

flashback to yesterday: Josie as she is now, 18 years old and having dinner with us, 

and she's also a car-driver, with her own little red VW parked out front - yikes !!!!

 

21:00 We wind down for bed with the latest fascinating instalment of UK-based Canadian stand-up comedian Katherine Ryan's reality TV series, "At Home with Katherine Ryan". 

Katherine is famously married to fellow-Canadian, Bobby, a semi-professional golfer.  The couple are now living in the UK with Katherine's teenage daughter Violet and two much younger children that she's had more recently with Bobby. The couple are really a bit "overrun" with kids, to put it mildly, especially at night-time, which has created problems for their sex life.

This week we see another visit that the couple make to their marriage guidance counsellor, Adeezi Chiwoko. Last time Adeezi recommended that they see an intimacy coach, Seema, and Adeezi is curious to know how the session with Seema went.

Predictably perhaps, the couple had asked Seema's advice to help them navigate their nights, spent mostly either in the children's beds, or with children in their bed, trying to get the kids to calm down and go back to sleep. Bobby reports however that they may have found a solution, 

However, Catherine has a health warning for any man hoping to copy Bobby's approach. 

Oh dear!

Poor Bobby !!!!! But what did he expect when he married a "stand-up", Lois quips (!).

Catherine is the main breadwinner and is about to go away on a year-long comedy tour, but, now in her early 40's, she's worrying obsessively about her declining fertility. You wouldn't think that the couple would want another baby - they've got plenty of them already, to put it mildly! 

Catherine, however, seems to hate the thought that she couldn't have one, willy-nilly [no pun intended!!!!].

Fascinating stuff, isn't it!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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