Sunday February 2nd 2025 "Do YOU ever 'hobnob' with nymphs? Either hobbing or nobbing - both might qualify haha!"

Yes, Friends, do you ever 'hob-nob' with  nymphs? 

And here I'm talking very much your "real deal" wood-nymphs, water-nymphs, sea-nymphs etc. These kinds of nymphs are seldom seen these days, and were rare even back in the 1950's, when Lois and I were growing up. Sightings of nymphs used to score young kids such as us, like, a billion points, in the News Chronicle's kids' book, "I Spy The Unusual": which speaks volumes, we think, about the recent rarity of nymphs (!).

a book from the News Chronicle's 1950's "I Spy" series for kids:

keen "I-Spyers" could score maybe 10 points for unusual

sights like an old village pump or a mobile theatre, but, like,

a  billion points or more probably for, say, a wood-nymph.

Yes, remember those innocent days! When spotting a wood-nymph or a water-nymph, say, entitled you to declare a "red-letter day" with the guarantee of a signed personal letter from the Editor of the News Chronicle, or Big Chief I-Spy himself. And like most kids in the 1950's, my siblings and I had scads of these little books that we used to record our "sightings" in - some of them guesswork and completely unauthenticated, if I remember rightly (!).

Happy days !!!!

some typical kids' "I Spy" books from the 1950's

Water nymphs, wood nymphs, you name it, they had become an "endangered species" by the 1950's, but had been a common sight in the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans. As a result, nymphs were often painted by Renaissance and later artists, although probably more as a product of the artists' imaginations than from actual "sightings" of these dreamy, tantalising, nature-loving but delicate, creatures.

Thoosa, a typical Greek sea-nymph, and later, mother of the One-Eyed Giant

Cyclops by her then current "squeeze", Poseidon, the sea-god

11:00 Lois and I are thinking about nymphs this morning, however, because today's big news (at least for us personally - it doesn't have "national or international consequences" (!)), is that I have at last driven Lois to a Sunday Morning Meeting of what will probably be "her new church" for the duration, just outside Petersfield, which is about 9 or 10 miles or so from our new home in Liphook, Hampshire.

We moved to this part of East Hampshire just a month or so ago, and one of our priorities has been to find Lois a local meeting because she likes to attend every Sunday, as well as taking part online in meetings and informal classes etc during the week. 

And guess what - this morning we meet Graham, one of the archaeologists who worked on a Roman nymphaeum in our old stamping-ground of Gloucestershire: at Littledean in the Forest of Dean. Nymphaea in Roman Britain were monuments dedicated to the worship of water-nymphs, often erected by springs, running water nearby, that young couples liked to get married next to, which was nice. And the shrine was dedicated to the local goddess Sabrina, who gave her name to England's second longest river, the Severn.

Graham has "hobnobbed" with some famous faces from the world of archaeology, even the stars of  Channel Four's iconic archaeology programme "Time Team", people like Professor Mike Parker-Pearson and TV's eccentric Mark Horton. It'll be nice chatting to Graham about "What did the Romans do for us?" etc, that's for sure. 

(left) Neolithic specialist, TV's  Professor Mark Parker-Pearson, and (right) TV's Mark Horton

The church-members at this Petersfield meeting turn out to be a lovely, genuinely friendly and welcoming bunch, and their hour-long communion service this morning highlights Christianity's "bottom line": in other words behaving in a Christian way not just to fellow church-members but to neighbours in general. It's a message that's still alive and well here, and something that always comes across so magnificently, when not obscured by any clutter of obscure textual interpretation or any secularist argumentativeness, which is a relief (!). 

They're also a nice sociable, fun crowd, who meet together a lot during the week, even for skittles evenings, although not for darts - why not? I think we should be told, don't you?

At the same time I can't help noticing that, of the 25 or so church members present, plus a handful joining in online, there isn't a soul here today who in my "guesstimation" (!) is younger than 65 (at the very least!). Not all meetings are like this, of course, the one that Lois attended before we moved here, at Tewkesbury, there was a good spread of age-groups.

I've nevertheless read some interesting articles recently about the decline of religion and church attendance in Britain, quite aside from the more obvious influences of scientific advances, like evolutionary science, not to mention archaeological discoveries and modern biblical scholarship etc. 

One of these articles about the decline of religion in Britain, by former Anglican Mike Richmond, pointed the finger at the Industrial Revolution.

the "dark satanic mills" of Britain's 19th century Industrial Revolution

Richmond writes, "The biggest [factor], which really hit church attendance in the 1800s, was the loss of social punishment for not going [to church]. It turned out that when people moved to the cities and no longer had their employer, local magistrate, and landlord combined in one semi-feudal structure monitoring and enforcing church attendance, they stopped going. 

The Victorians built thousands of urban churches that remained largely empty from the day they were built, because they assumed that the working class would continue with church attendance in the way they did in controlled rural communities. 

That was not the case, and the Victorian urban working classes were largely unchurched. [my italics]

And a study by David Voas and Alasdair Crockett on "Religion in Britain, Neither Believing or Belonging", comes to the conclusion that the decline, both in belief itself and in belonging (i.e. church membership), is generational: as to the rates at which religion is transmitted from parents to children, the results suggest that only about half of parental religiosity is successfully transmitted, while absence of religion is almost always passed on. 

And [generational] transmission is just as weak for believing as for belonging, claim the study's authors.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it !! [If you say so! - Ed]

21:00 We go to bed on another entertaining re-run of the 1970's show "The 

This is the series that aimed, with great success, to recreate the authentic, often rowdy and raucous atmosphere of Saturday night entertainment in working-men's clubs in the North of England. Shows were presented by singer and foul-mouthed comedian Bernard Manning, and controlled by "club chairman and turn-manager-and-scheduler, the mild-mannered, the verbose and jargon-loving flat-cap-wearer Colin Crompton.

And tonight we see plenty of the kind of acts you don't see today, that's for sure. Like the guys who can play the harmonica by exhalation from the nose not the mouth, or playing it through a tube, here seen giving their "amazing" rendition of Amazing Grace, with Bernard Manning singing the words:

Or, if that doesn't grab you, how about this acrobatic novelty duo where the woman gets her leg caught in her partner's trousers, with her leg eventually emerging through his flies:

Now that's what Lois and I call "entertainment" haha! 

And later, in the duo's showstopping finale, the man even develops an extended finger - the mechanics of this aren't clear, but he's just got time to tickle his partner with it before taking the crowd's applause, and being ushered off the stage by club chairman and "turn manager", the ungenial Colin Crompton.

Sheer professionalism, and club entertainment at its best, no doubt about that!

And what a joy, finally, to see tonight's headliner, singer Roy Orbison, at the height of his powers, regaling this raucous Northern audience with a rendition of his iconic hit "Pretty Woman".

They don't give us entertainment like that any more, that's for sure!

[Something to be thankful for there, at least! - Ed]

Also tonight is a historic edition of the  show, because we come one step nearer to finding out why Orbison always wore sun-glasses, even when not in direct sunlight. Not-very-genial turn manager and club chairman Colin Crompton challenges Orbison on this very issue, and Orbison counters with "same reason you always wear a hat when it's not raining" (!).

Now all we have to do is solve the Colin Crompton mystery, and we'll be able the solve the Orbison mystery into the bargain, killing two birds with one stone.

(left) Orbison, with sunglasses, and (right) not-very-genial

club chairman and 'turn'-manager Colin Crompton in his trademark hat

I wonder....!

Your theories please (on a postcard as usual!).

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!