Our eyes - they're some of our most useful 'organs', aren't they. [Just how many eyes have you got, Colin? Three? - Ed], [No, I'm a "four eyes", actually! - Colin] but if you're relying on glasses, those extra eyes can let you down at times. Recall, "windscreen wipers" for glasses is the invention-that's-yet-to-happen. They're the invention-that-got-away, aren't they.
Wake up, science !!!!!
[That's enough unintentional puns! - Ed]
Another "gap in the market" is, famously, that there's currently no equivalent to glasses for those with an impaired sense of smell.
Dogs, however, have an enhanced sense of smell. Onion News even has a new feature specially for reader's dogs - did you see it, lurking somewhere on page 94?
I think of all this when my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I drive over to Churt to accompany our daughter Alison and our 16-year-old granddaughter Rosalind on one of their rural dog-walks near the house the family is living in temporarily while their "normal" mansion is being refurbished.
"Thank goodness for botany!" is what I think as I pause gratefully while Lois examines some interesting specimen or other. And I fear our beloved daughter Alison has inherited this same trait of speed-walking, and this morning as a result I find myself huffing and puffing up some woody hillside trying not to get "left behind". Yes, I'm always what's called in horse-racing circles "the back marker", or sometimes "Tail-end Charlie", which is a bit galling - what me? - haha!!!
17:00 After driving home and spending another afternoon in bed - well, you can't say we haven't earned it! - back at our home in leafy, semi-rural Liphook, Lois and I have time for a smile when an email comes in from "birthday boy" Steve, our American brother-in-law, with his pick of the week's most amusing Venn diagrams, that he monitors for us on the web.
Tonight's line-up of 'turns' is a bit lacklustre, I would say if I'm being honest, although there's an unexpected highlight when genial compere Bernard Manning spots "The Observer" newspaper's jazz critic and surrealist art expert George Melly sitting in the audience.
Yes, nice touch, Colin! And let's hope that Trish soon becomes a "fixture" at the club, much like Colin himself.
spoiler alert - the front "skin" of your Onion this morning (!)
At this point, let me put my cards of the table. My wife Lois is much fitter than me - she does yoga and gardening, while I tend to sit slouched over a hot computer screen. Plus I'm still "running in" my new hip which I got fitted with last year. When we go out for walks I have to admit that I struggle to keep up with Lois when she's in "speed-walk mode", but fortunately she will often stop to look at a rare plant, which gives me a chance to get my breath back.
flashback to Saturday: Lois showcasing an unusual plant carrying what we fear
may be a host of "naughty names" - it's supposed to look like a man and
a lady 'doing it', which is embarrassing, to put it mildly !!!!!
Luckily today, although there aren't any rude plant-names to talk about, the two dogs we're taking with us on our walk, Sika and Bjørn, like to stop and sniff something about every 10 seconds, which is nice for me, because it holds Lois and Alison up for a few crucial moments, which is nice!
(left) my usual "Tail-end Charlie's" viewpoint, as Lois, our daughter Alison,
and granddaughter Rosalind "power up" some country lane in front of me, as I huff and puff
trying to keep up with them, and (right) one of the welcome pauses in pace
forced on us by the two dogs' desire to "sniff something in the bushes", which is nice!
Whenever I'm trying to keep up with Lois and Ali on their "speed-walks", I feel I'm very much playing "Tolkien" to Ali and Lois's "CS Lewis".
Tolkien and Lewis were that literary pair of "noodles", who used to go on walks together in the Malvern Hills as young men in the 1930's. I say "walks together" but as likely as not Tolkien would typically be trailing his friend "CS" by, like, a billion miles - more probably!
[Aren't you exaggerating there a bit, Colin? - Ed]
Both men were writers - Tolkien famously wrote "The Hobbit", while CS Lewis equally famously wrote "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". But whereas "CS" liked to clock up the miles in as short a time as possible, Tolkien, with his botanical and entomological interests, liked to stop and smell the flowers and examine the insects. And he used to call "CS" and "CS's" brother Warren, who used to tag along, a couple of "ruthless walkers", and I know how he must have felt!
Poor Tolkien !!!!!!
three young men with an unsolved walking synchronicity problem: (left) JRR Tolkien,
creator of the Hobbit, and (right) Tolkien's friends the Lewis brothers (CS and Warren)
Yes, where's the fire, folks haha!!!!!
At least today we can all relax 30 minutes later, and have a cup of Earl Grey tea, when we get back to Ali's temporary home after the exhausting uphill and downhill 'hike'.
The whole family is there this morning, including Ali's husband Ed, a lawyer who often works from home, plus Rosalind's siblings Josie (18) and Isaac (14), both off school for the Easter holidays, and revising hard for their summer term exams. It's the home they moved into only last week, while builders "gut" their proper home and renovate it to their requirements.
everybody's tired when we get back to the house after our strenuous walk:
(left) the dogs "chill out" on the sofa, (centre) Lois and Alison admiring
the colours in the back garden, and (right) me showcasing the
lovely traditional "mora clock" belonging to the house's Swedish owners
Happy birthday, Steve - hope you're having a good one!
Oh dear! "Launching in every which direction, chaotically colliding", like children on a trampoline - that'll be Lois and me tomorrow morning as we struggle to get out of the house by 7 am for Lois's scheduled 8 am cataract surgery at Guildford - yikes !!!!
20:00 For now, however, we can continue to "chill out" on the sofa this evening, and watch another show in the 1970's series "The Wheeltappers and Shunters' Social Club", the programme that tried to recreate the atmosphere of a typical working-men's club in the north of England.
And imagine mine and Lois's delight when Manning actually persuades Melly to jump up on stage and sing a couple of vocals with house jazz combo The John Chilton Feet-Warmers, proving once and for all, that, for all Melly's "poncey" journalistic and academic pretensions, he can "boogie with the best of them", which is nice!
Observer critic and surrealist art pundit, George Melly (arrowed)
is spotted in the audience and enticed into singing vocals
on stage with house band The Feetwarmers.
Kudos, George !!!
Kudos, George!!! Plus, so nice that George gave a "shout out" for the Feetwarmers' incredible, and indeed vastly underrated, pianist Colin Bates. Kudos again, George !!!!
Kudos, underrated pianist Colin Bates!!!!
It was a bit of a big night for the "Colins", all in all at the Wheeltappers. Did you see that glorious moment when Colin Crompton, the social club's anxious-looking, humourless, grim-faced and flat-cap-wearing "club chairman" and "turn-manager", visibly letting down his guard for a moment at his regular stage-side table?
Yes, did you notice when Crompton actually said a few words of welcome to the club's new waitress, Trish, which Lois and I thought was a nice touch, and a sign of Crompton's "softer side", which was a pleasant surprise.
There was a bit of a hiccup, however, when Trish, "loading up" at the bar, unfortunately dropped her tray of drinks in surprise at Colin's unaccustomed display of "human warmth". Colin's threat to "sack her on the spot", was surely just in jest, though, we think, and we're 55% sure that Trish will be given a second chance, when good humour is restored and the cameras have gone away!
Poor Trish!!!
Clearly, however, the Colins of this world, sometimes maligned, often just plain ignored, still have something to "give back" to this world.
Just take a look around. I'm sure there must be a Colin lurking somewhere in YOUR life, so why not reach out to him, and give HIM a second chance? You'll be glad you did!
Will this do?
[Stop lurking in MY life, Colin, and just go to bed, will you! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!!
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