Danskcolin: Thursday January 23rd 2025 "Have YOU ever been a member of a gang of international jewel-thieves?"

Have you ever been a key member of an international gang of bank-robbers or jewel-thieves? Most of us have at one period or other of our lives, haven't we, especially if you've lived as long as my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I have lived, let me stress!

And if you have, you'll know that finding the right person for the right job is key to the gang's eventual success: they've all got to be very much "team-players", so let's have no 'square pegs in round holes' thank-you-very-much, to put it in a more homely way!!!

Look at all the examples of gangs who have gone wrong in this early "recruitment" stage - well, there's, like, a billion of them aren't there - they're almost "legion", to put it mildly! Look at this morning's Onion News (Local) print edition for East Hampshire (!), if you're not convinced (!).

I'm intermittently in touch with local poetess Sawkins myself, by the way - I happen to know her cell-number in the County Police Station, where's she's today awaiting the gang's first appearance in court. So by all means "channel" your suggestions for suitable rhymes through me - I guarantee to pass them on, so no worries there! And postcards only please (!).

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

At the same time it's nice to see poets "in the thick of things" again, and taking part in the cut-and-thrust of East Hampshire's daily life; in other words, not "wasting away" in some ivory tower and maybe gradually losing touch with reality. Lois and I firmly believe that poets should try to remain "relevant", or else face possible extinction in these internet-crazy days (!).

Lois and I are both excited today, going through the "haul" from our own "heist" (a strictly legal one (!)). It's a "haul" of around 20 books on local history that we came away with this week, after signing up for tickets at the Hampshire County Library in central Liphook - the town we're already starting to call our own, after little more than 3 weeks residence here.

us on the sofa in the house in Liphook, Hampshire, that we moved into

on January 3rd: we've just joined the local library and Lois is regaling

me with "juicy morsels" about our new "home town" and its vibrant history

Liphook is superficially a small, quiet and pretty insignificant town, some would say, but it's had its brush with great events in the past, that's for sure. Before they built the mighty A3 or even the M3 motorway, Liphook was a convenient stopping-off point for travellers riding the stage-coaches between London and Portsmouth, the city on England's south coast, which was, and remains, the headquarters of Britain's mighty Royal Navy.

Two hundred years ago, normally as many as 26 stage-coaches a day would be drawing up at the Royal Anchor Inn in the town's central "Square", for "change of horses and refreshment of passengers".

then and now: the Royal Anchor Inn in the middle of the little town of Liphook

And who knew that in 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo, which freed Europe from the scourge of Napoleon, the Prince Regent entertained all the allied monarchs and heads of state at the inn. And celebrated local resident Henry Knight ( 1805-1903) [Who he? - Ed] famously recalled that, as a boy of 10 years, he had watched French prisoners, brought across the Channel from the battlefield, being offloaded at the inn on their way to the military prison camps.

Not only that, but Princess Victoria, the future queen, was brought to the inn as a child by the Duchess of Kent, who gave the future queen her first lesson in "how to give the royal wave" on the inn's balcony to the cheering crowds in the square below.

Awwww cute !!!!

All in all, today, however, it's a quietish day for Lois and me - there's some foul weather going on outside, with heavy rain and south-westerly 40 mph-plus winds, so we decide to just hunker down inside and concentrate on making at least the upstairs of our house superficially "decluttered" and "packing box-free" after our recent house-move.

foul weather outside, so Lois and I "hunker down" and concentrate on

making our 4 bedrooms superficially "decluttered" after our house-move

Which reminds me, dear Readers - did I ever warn you to "never never never move house" because it's just hassle hassle hassle all the way? [Only, like, a billion times, Colin! - Ed]

20:00 After a punishing but satisfying day's work, Lois and I finally settle down on the couch to watch tonight's programme in this year's "Winterwatch" series, which surveys the state of wildlife in the UK with the help of a team of presenters across the country.

Who knew that female barnacles parasitise shore crabs? And who knew that "parasitise" was even a word, let alone a "thing"? [I expect a lot of people knew that! - Ed]

Female barnacles like to burrow into a passing crab and then spread its root-like tendrils throughout the crab and into the crab's legs and all its organs, At that point the crab is officially "hacked" - the barnacle is in control. The barnacle can now absorb all the nutrients that the crab eats for itself, and can also control the crab's behaviour, becoming the crab's "puppet-master".

The barnacle lives inside the crab for a while, growing and eating, until she's ready to reproduce - difficult to do if you're inside something with a hard exo-skeleton like the crab. So her ovaries squeeze out a bunch of eggs from the crab's body, so that a passing male barnacle can then "mate" with it, by fertilising the eggs.

What a crazy planet we live on !!!!!!

21:00 Lois and I want to go to bed on something light and frothy (i.e. just like ourselves haha!), so finally we turn over to this week's edition of QI XL, the comedy quiz and panel show.

Tonight, on the subject of "vegetating", who knew what the most boring time was in the history of Planet Earth? It was apparently that period from 0.8 billion to 1.8 billion years ago, of course (!).

"What, not even any 'Jurassic stuff' going on????", I hear you cry. [Not me - I'm already putting my 'jim-jams' on! - Ed]

Bringing the subject a bit more up-to-date, however, what do you think was the most boring day of the 20th century?

Somebody apparently went through a database of 300 million facts, and decided that April 11th 1954 was the most boring day - no significant births, deaths, weather events etc.

And, finally what was the day when, as far as the great BBC was concerned, there was no news at all? Yes, it was back in 1930, of course!

Historians have since pointed out, however, that there were things going on in the world on that day, like, for example, the little matter of a large uprising by Indian nationalist rebels.