Danskcolin: Saturday June 28th 2025 "Does air-travel HAVE to be so luxurious? No, says one local 'guru' !!!!"

Air travel - it's the height of luxury for many, and yet a story in this morning's local Onion News reminds us that it doesn't have to be, which is a refreshing thought!

Poor Jonathan !!!!!

But, on reflection, it's as well to "bolster" your powers of self-denial with a bit of self-mortification, rather than with your airline's free "pillows" - geddit !!! - when you're about to visit the fleshpots of Basingstoke with their manifold temptations, to put it mildly !!!!

Basinngstoke, Hampshire (left) by day, and (right) its vibrant night-time club scene

Let me put my cards on the table at this point! [I wish you wouldn't keep doing that, Colin! - Ed]

My medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and I don't bother with that whole "ascetic" thing any more, and "self-denial" is simply "not on our agenda"!

Particularly today, when the temperature is starting to climb back up into the low 80s F, and we can take our lunch outside into our pleasant but tiny back-garden of our home in Liphook, Hampshire, listening to the vibrant birdsong, to put it mildly!!!!

And I'm sorry to have to report, that shortly after these pictures were taken, some shocking scenes of self-indulgence were witnessed, after Lois and I embarked on a 3-hour orgy of "us time" with a long shower, followed by 3 hours in bed, not emerging till 5pm.

Well, we deserve it to take it easy sometimes, and particularly this afternoon, after our gruelling morning (!).

Let me explain [You really don't have to, Colin. Why not leave some of the magic, the mystery haha! - Ed].

You see, having taken delivery of a shiny new freezer from Curry's yesterday, we decide today that we simply have to start the daunting task of gradually filling it - and, in particular we need to have a stack of ready-meals available next month, when our dear daughter Sarah and her family flies in from Perth, Australia, to spend a couple of weeks with us, which will be nice.

So, this morning, we at least make a start on it by popping into the local Co-op to get a few CookShop meals, before taking a gruelling stroll around the "rec" - the local Recreation Ground, watching others "sweating it out" for a change (!), the youngsters on the football field and the "old codgers" in the bowls club.

[Is that really all you two "noggins" have done today, Colin - bought a couple of things, taken a walk round the "rec", had lunch and then gone to bed for 3 hours? - Ed]

Well, we're in training for tonight, if you must know!!!

Yes, it's the long-awaited film of Jane Austen's "Persuasion" that's the true "climax" of mine and Lois's activities today, and it's what we've been building up to, both mentally and physically (!).

We enjoy the film, although for this modern-day Siddhartha (!), I find some of the obvious and rather heavy-handed "product placement" by Austen a little jarring. Take this scene when Anne Elliott's parents and siblings have been "taking the waters" at Bath, and Anne's father takes to complimenting his daughter Anne on her complexion.

A little too obvious, I feel !!!!

Lois knows the text of this Austen novel backwards, and her verdict is that it's pretty faithful to the original, with the main exception being the final scene where the threads are drawn together too heavy-handedly, she says. And when Anne and her beloved Captain Wentworth finally "hook up", the scene ends with the two indulging in a passionate kiss - not in the book, but Lois says it was put into the film "for the overseas audience", who would otherwise not have realised that, yes, the story indeed has a happy ending.

Oh dear - us British eh - too understated for our own good, seemingly! Nevertheless if it put "bums on seats" around the world, then what's the problem, Lois and I say !!!

But what a truly crazy world we live in !!!!

After the kiss we see Anne and Captain Wentworth on the deck of his warship setting sail from Portsmouth - there's been word that Napoleon Bonaparte has escaped from Elba, and there'll be work for the Navy, helping the Army to put "Old Boney" "back in his box" (!).

Lois says it was normal in those crazy, far-off days for wives to accompany their officer-husbands on missions, and even an ordinary sailor could take his wife or current "squeeze" along, if they didn't mind their humble bunk being a bit on the cramped side (!).