Danskcolin: Thursday February 20th 2025 "Are YOU a drummer in a band? Thought as much, you so look the type (!)"

Friends, are you all drummers in various bands - not necessarily all in the same band, needless to say!

It's not the easiest job in the world, is it - you get a lot of brickbats, and for what? Stuck in the background on stage, while the singer and his guitarist bask in the limelight and get all the glory. No fair!

Did you see this story in this morning's Onion News East Hampshire local print edition page 94, by any chance, maybe, that's if this bulky organ happened to just "come open" on that very page, like it did with me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois today?

Am I getting warm haha ???!!!

[my italics]

And this snippet of pop music "trivia" very much struck a chord (no pun intended!!!) with Lois and me today, because we've been following the adventures of this local "hardcore" band ever since moving to nearby Liphook, Hampshire, just 7 weeks ago.

And I can't count on the fingers of one hand, how many times we've remarked over breakfast that the whole situation with the wretched parents of that old drummer's girlfriend Cindy were just "an accident waiting to happen".

Once you start having kids, you find you never stop being a parent, all your life, and when your kids start having kids, you never stop being a grandparent, a fact of life that you hear less often (!), but one which we can now, finally, exclusively reveal (!).

flashback to June 1977: where it all started - me with Lois

in the backyard of our first house in Cheltenham, with

Alison (22 months) and our little "new-born", Sarah.

And here we are Lois and I are today, nearly 50 years later, spending the afternoon in bed on this rainy day in Liphook, trying to keeping our voices down, because our granddaughter Josie is in the next room studying for her A-Levels.

And not only that, but also just as we're finally getting warmed up, Lois's huawei starts beeping, as it often does. Yes, a text has come in from our daughter Sarah (see picture above (!)), now 47 and 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia, with a passionate cry for help. It's 2:30 pm here in our bed, but it's 10:30pm in Perth, and Lois and I can sense the urgency in Sarah's language - we're quite sensitive underneath our hard exterior haha!

flashback to April 2018: Lois and I, on our 2nd and probably final (!)

trip down under, joining the family for an afternoon at

the iconic Cheeky Monkey Brewery, Margaret River WA

What's all the crisis about, all the way over there in Perth, down under, then, Colin?" I hear you cry! [Not me, I've given up on this post and I've just started my running my bath! - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're "gagging" to know (!), I'll explain!

Our daughter Sarah and husband Francis are at this very moment trying to buy their very first house in Australia, just north of Perth. And the Aviva Insurance people in Bristol, UK, with whom Francis has some kind of policy, have apparently been "playing silly buggers", demanding this piece of paper and that piece of paper, just as Sarah and Francis have been hoping to seal the deal.

What madness, isn't it!

So it's goodbye to afternoon-in-bed. We have to print off a couple of emails, stick them in an envelope and then struggle outside through the pouring rain to the post-office counter in the local Coop and pay for it to be sent "special D" to arrive in Bristol tomorrow morning before 1pm. The urgency is something to do with the fact that Francis turns 60 on Sunday, but Lois and I don't understand that bit of the crisis.

Anyway we send the package off, so all's well.

Don't get me wrong - we love nothing more than being useful to our lovely family, and at least we can feel that we're paying our way (!).

Also this week, we're hosting our other daughter Alison's eldest, Josie (18) this week in our new house here in Liphook, and trying to keep our usual "couple's noise" down to acceptable levels (!). The reason is that Josie is studying for her A-Level maths, chemistry and physics this week - it's half-term, and her "mocks" are coming up straight after half term ends next Monday.

She's staying with us here because the rest of the family are in Copenhagen on a nostalgic 7-night stay in the city, where they lived for 7 years from 2012 to 2018. Luckily we can keep up with their "doings" thanks to social media, which is nice. Today they've been visiting the iconic Louisiana Art Museum on the Baltic Sea coast, just north of the city, which Lois and I also remember from our own visits to the family during their 7 years in Denmark.

And, excitingly, 'Louisiana' features not just musty old paintings, but also exciting light displays and multiple halls of mirrors galore, in case you're wondering (!).

our daughter Alison (49), husband Ed, and Rosalind (16)

and Isaac (14) at the Louisiana Art Museum, Denmark, today

Remember when Lois and I visited the museum with Alison & Com, back in 2015? [Of course I don't! - Ed]

flashback to December 2015: Lois and I visit the Louisiana Art Museum

on the Baltic Sea coast north of Copenhagen, with our daughter Alison,

her husband Ed, and their 3 kids Josie (

And if you look carefully at that final picture above, you'll see an image of Yours Truly standing a bit to the left with my stylish "instamatic" camera, taking those iconic multiple pics of Lois at the special exhibition then being held by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, her of the many spots (!).

I think this experience made it slightly less off-putting when we discovered all the mirrored wardrobes in the house in Liphook, Hampshire, that we moved into on January 3rd this year.

flashback to October 31st 2024: we view for the first time,

with our estate-agent, James, the house in Liphook, Hampshire,

then owned by local man Peter and his "squeeze" Shirley Ann,

the house that we eventually decided to buy.

What a crazy world we live in, don't we (!).

21:00 It's all 9pm and all is quiet in the house now, with our granddaughter Josie, up in her room watching some film or other on Netflix before bed. Well, why not - she's worked jolly hard today, bless her, and she deserves a bit of relaxation.

Lois and I, downstairs, find ourselves alone on the couch again in front of the "telly", and we decide to go to bed on what Lois calls "a bunch of old dames" (!!!).

It turns out that all 4 of tonight's dames were offered the part of Cleopatra in Shakespeare's "Anthony and Cleopatra", but were reluctant to accept the role because none of them thought they were "pretty enough".

Here's a young-looking Judi Dench having a go at the role, however.

But there's a problem. Lois and I didn't realise that actors find many of Shakespeare's lines embarrassing to say these days.

Figuring in a lot of Anthony and Cleopatra scenes are references to "the monument", This mysterious "monument" is the name Shakespeare gave to a balcony high up at the back of the stage. It's the place where Anthony dies in Cleopatra's arms in the play, and other key events in the story unfold.

"To the monument!" - it's a phrase that's said multiple times in the play, but Lois and I didn't know how embarrassing it is for actors to say. In tonight's programme, Dame Maggie Smith explains why.

Fact: Monument is in fact an underground station in London. Maggie's absolutely right, and is the nearest tube station to "The Monument", a structure commemorating the Great Fire of London of 1666.

But that's not all, apparently. There's another problem too, Maggie says.

Yes, "I am for Argos!" - embarrassing line to say, or what?!

Fun fact:

For Lois and me, we're spoilt for choice because there's an Argos in the Sainsbury's here in Liphook, and another one in the Sainsbury's in nearby Alton, Hampshire, also home of our nearest Greggs, which is handy - and, back in the day, it was writer Jane Austen's nearest Greggs, too, which was nice!