Thursday February 6th 2025 "Dogs - a lot of people like them, don't they haha!"

Yes, lots of people like, well, dogs you'd call them, don't they. And dogs - love 'em or not love 'em, you just can't keep them out of the news either, same as you can't keep them out of a waste paper basket, especially if it's got e.g. an old dog-biscuit in it, that is (!).

And, as per usual,  there are articles galore about dogs, just in this morning's print edition of our local Onion News for East Hampshire - have you picked up your copy yet? If not, just take a minute to read through this "doozy" (!).

And that's just one of this morning's "dog stories". There are like, a billion others today - the above was just one of them: in fact they're almost "legion" (!). By tradition, of course, Onion News has put them all on page 94, for the convenience of "dog-story lovers", which is a nice touch.

Let me put my cards on the table at this point, before this blog post gets too out of control (!). 

My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I are both "cat people" by inclination, and we raised our two daughters Alison and Sarah to be the same. As luck would have it, however, both girls married what we would label "doggy" men, so Lois and I have just had to make a few compromises, hard as first, but after a quarter of a century we too have come to love dogs, not to mention "people of the doggy persuasion" (!).

This morning we prove our "crudentials" (!) in this area by going for a "doggy walk" with our elder daughter Alison and her two dogs, Sika and Bjørn: Sika is a Danish dog, acquired during Alison and family's 7 years in Copenhagen (2012-2019), whereas Bjørn, despite his name, is actually as English as you and me, which is a twist, to put it mildly (!).

Our walk this lovely sunny morning takes us around Frensham Little Pond in the neighbouring county of Surrey. Sika, despite his age -he's about 7 I think, even swims a couple of hundred yards into the pond in a fruitless attempt to catch and eat a duck - the rascal! - much to the amusement of a small crowd of onlookers too, I might add (not shown) !

Danish dog Sika (ringed) tries to catch a duck for his lunch, watched by our daughter 

Alison (49), and fellow-dog Bjørn, plus a crowd of interested spectators (not shown)

- what madness !!!!!

after all the excitement we calm both dogs down with a table-for-five

and coffees at the nearby Tern's Café by the water's edge

Awww! Who's that sweet little older couple (left)? Why it's my medium-to-long-suffering

wife Lois and me, of course! And (right) Lois again, pictured here with Alison and Bjørn.

Lois is pleased too, after the walk, because in our hasty scramble around the pond trying to keep up with the dogs, both she, and all of us, clock up around 7,500 steps on her "step-ometer", the one she wears round her neck when we go out: not just sexier than a necklace, but today's step-total will give Lois's online fitness-and-diet-coach Caroline something to "put in her pipe and smoke", which will be nice (!).

All in all it's a good day for us generally, because, one of our big problems currently - a non-working freezer - gets diagnosed at least, if not solved. 

Who knew that most freezers don't work, when they're too cold? A bit like people, I suppose (?).

It sounds like total madness, though, doesn't it !!!!

Today we finally got a Hotpoint engineer to come out and look at our freezer. When we moved to this house in Liphook, Hampshire from our former home in Malvern, Worcestershire just over a month ago, on January 3rd, we brought our old freezer with us and set it up in the garage, even though we knew there was a freezer here already in the kitchen. Just as extra capacity.

The old freezer, however, has refused to work since we moved in, and when you switch it on, the orange warning light starts flashing, and basically the freezer doesn't do anything.

a typical Hotpoint engineer on call-out

The engineer guy takes a look for us this morning, however, and he says that the temperature in our garage is too low for the freezer to work, but he assures us that, come March, we'll find it'll be working "like a dream" - were his actual words.

What madness though! So we've now got a "seasonal freezer", which is total madness, isn't it!

[That's enough madness! - Ed]

21:00 We go to bed on an interesting Channel 4 documentary about Elon Musk.

Lois and I learn a lot tonight about Elon Musk that we didn't know. Who knew, for example, that South African-born Musk had a granny who was a "Scouser" from Liverpool? What madness !!!!!

Yes, Channel 4 puts a "health warning" on this programme, advising that it contains material which viewers may find upsetting. Yikes!

And early on, there's a good example: this Washington commentator (see below) says that Musk's dual role as global businessman and now government insider is raising red flags, and could be why Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is currently trying hard to restrict Musk's access to the President. 

Also, you might have been thinking that Elon Musk has been like he is now for, like, a billion years, more probably! But actually this isn't so. And, as another health warning says on the tin, Musk's views can "go up and down", just like those of his friend, US Government co-worker (!) and rival-for-attention, President Donald Trump no less !!!

Who remembers now that Musk, today finding his feet in his new job, and so keen to eradicate DEI-inspired (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) policies from government, was himself, not so long ago, a supporter of LGBTQ rights?

And how extraordinary Lois and found it, to see the other day, incredibly, Trump and also Musk blaming DEI policies for a fatal collision between a helicopter and a passenger plane over the Potomac River.

And yet, years ago, Musk was in there battling "woke-ly" for LGBTQ rights, as tonight's programme recalls.

Of course, Trump's, and now Musk's, eternal "badge of shame", "as any fule kno [sic]" (phrase copyright Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle) is to import the totally dishonest and unprincipled behaviour and tactics once associated only with totalitarian governments and parties of both right and left, into the previously 60%(?)-honest arena of political debates in free, democratic societies. 

Also to sully the sacred concept of "free speech" with "the freedom to make up anything you want if you think it will help to get you votes or anything else you may be after (!)". 

Just saying haha !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh, just go to bed! - Ed]

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