Danskcolin: Saturday February 1st 2025 "Do you sometimes email people, instead of writing them a letter? Why not try it!"

Dashing off a quick email to somebody - it's so much better than writing a letter, isn't it, because you typically have to go out oof your house to post a letter. Very few of us have post-boxes in our houses, I've noticed: I always check for one when I'm visiting others, and it's almost always a "nil return" haha (!).

[You've certainly got your finger on the pulse still, Colin, that's for sure! - Ed]

Then, when you've posted your letter, as if that wasn't heartache enough (!), you have to wait for your letter to arrive at the other end, not knowing if it's going to get lost en route somewhere. However, emails also have their downside, to put it mildly. Look at these two stories just from this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire:; look and weep !!!

Email drawback number one is that others in your household may be able to see your emails and have a good laugh at them, at your expense, as happened to local man Greg Tate from East Hampshire, whose wife routinely "monitors" his "sent box":

Or, if you're at work, with emails, there's always the temptation to write the occasional courageous email to your boss, copying in your co-workers, an email that really "kicks ass" and "tells it like it is".

Compare the sheer naked thrill of dashing off emails, however, to the pain of sending a physical letter, if you can bear to make the comparison (!).

Lois and I, having paid £13 yesterday to have an ordinary letter sent "Special D", to arrive today by 1pm, discover to our dismay today that the Royal Mail's own Sorting Office at Patchway, Bristol had already closed for the weekend when the letter arrived, so that the delivery failed.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

Grrrrrrr!!!!!

[Don't upset yourself, Colin! It isn't worth it! - Ed]

[Thank you, Ed, you're such a comfort! - Colin]

14:00 Postal woes or no postal woes, however, my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I are fortunately in a super good mood when we get into bed this afternoon for our regular "naptime" session.

Lois just had her ear-wax "hoovered out" for her this morning by a pleasant guy from Mauritius at Liphook's only opticians - it's our first visit to their establishment, because we only moved to Liphook, Hampshire on January3rd, after moving out from our former home in Malvern, Worcestershire.

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I, waiting

in Liphook's opticians for her to have her ear-wax

"hoovered out", by a pleasant Mauritian

Lois and I have a lot in common. Purely in simple "anno domini" terms, we're both "old codgers", and "boomers" - both born in 1946. And we're both getting a bit hard of hearing, and suffer from ear wax build-up from time to time.

Luckily my "good ear" is my left one, and Lois's is her right one, which means that there's always a bit of a scramble, sometimes a very public one, and often a bit of undignified to boot(!) , for us to get ourselves "right side on" to each other.

See that picture above, where we're waiting at the optician's for Lois to be "done", and we're in what we call "standard ear-to-ear configuration", or SETEC for short.

illustrative graphic indicating (left) our standard ear-to-ear

configuration (SETEC) and (right) a photoshopped

impression of what a non-SETEC situation might look like

[I think you've explained that very well, Colin - Ed]

[Thanks! - Colin]

And when we're in bed, also, we're always careful to get in the SETEC position, which obviously works best. And this afternoon, we know Lois's hearing has been improved, because Lois even says to me, "Stop shouting, Colin! Keep your voice down - the neighbours will hear you!", so we know that that Mauritian must have done a good job on her.

Mauritians speak perfect English, incidentally, just like you and me. Their island was originally part of the French Empire, but we "took it off them", i.e. took it off the French, in the Napoleonic Wars after they started using it as a base to attack our commercial shipping. This tactic of theirs was a bit "below the belt", no question, so fair enough to nab their little island, Lois and I think - call us crypto-imperialists if you like haha!

(left) flashback to 1810: the British invade the French colony of Mauritius,

and take it over, and (right) a recent Mauritius postage stamp

20:00 Little islands are wonderful, aren't they. And although a lot of them, like Mauritius, are independent now and look after themselves (and good luck to them), we've still got hundreds of tiny islands just here in the UK, which is nice. And we see some of those tonight on the third programme in Channel Four's fascinating new series, "Our Tiny Islands".

Aren't Britain's tiny islands wonderful!

And in particular, isn't Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel wonderful - "smaller than one square mile", and "population one" haha! Although its "population", ie Meghan, gets help from up to 5 volunteers who pop in and out to help her with her conservation work etc. Flat Holm is a nature reserve with a flourishing seagull colony.

As early as the 6th century AD, the island was a retreat for visiting Christian monks and missionaries. And later the Vikings used Flat Holm, and its neighbour Steep Holm, as a base to attack shipping. Sound familiar? And hence the the islands' names - "holm" means "island" in the Scandinavian languages.

It's just like "Stockholm", Sweden, which means "log island".

The "getting away from all" theme is continuing into the present day, and tonight we watch a group of women doing some sort of mindfulness course on the island, "connecting with nature and with themselves", as the course-leader puts it. "Life's getting so fast", she says, and it's time to slow down, and enjoy "the now", and not think about what you're going to be doing tomorrow.