Sunday June 22nd 2025 "Could be this Chancellor Rachel Reeves' big mistake? Not actually stealing? I wonder.....! "

What's going to fix the UK's sick economy - you tell me! 

For what it's worth, my advice to Rachel Reeves, the first ever woman to hold the office of UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, is to "think outside the box", like US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, did recently. And by coincidence, I believe I'm right in saying Janet was the first woman to hold that post too, which is weird!

Well, it's the woman who holds the purse-strings in many a relationship, so step up, women of the world! Whatever your particular country, let's see you show us men a thing or two, and quickly!

Our own Rachel Reeves has getting plenty of advice recently, but, to my knowledge, all the suggestions have been legal ones, and look where that has got us, to put it mildly, as I explain today to my medium-to-hard pressed wife Lois, as we quickly browse the finance pages in this Sunday morning's Onion News, here in bed in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, would you believe !!!!!

And Rachel even pops up (not physically!!!) in the remarks given by this week's visiting preacher in Lois's church near Petersfield, where we drive this morning for the Sunday Morning Meeting followed by another "shared lunch". It's also an opportunity to try out my shiny new GPS satnav TomTom device for the very first time, on the gruelling (!) 8.5 mile drive from Liphook in sweltering temperatures of up to 82F (28C).

Phew, what a scorcher !!!!!

(left) flashback to earlier in the week, when I take delivery of my shiny new TomTom,

and tear my hair out trying to read the microscopic instructions, and (right)

our gruelling (!) 8.5 mile drive this morning to Lois's church near Petersfield

But "What was Rachel Reeves doing in your visiting preacher's remarks this morning, Colin?", I hear you cry! [Not me, I've popped out to see a man about a dog, or vice versa haha! - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're obviously gagging to know (!), the preacher's theme today was "Growth", and he opened his remarks with a reference to Reeves' well-publicised, and repeated, "drive for growth". As he pointed out, God wanted his people to grow rapidly in numbers, hence the encouragement to "go forth, be fruitful and multiply", although it all had to be started again with the Flood after people became too wicked, as they tend to do - you've probably noticed! 

Lois and I get a seat at the back at her church's Sunday Morning Meeting -

a good choice, because we're near the door to the Air Conditioning,

and also next to the food table for the shared lunch after the meeting

Yes, phew what a scorcher !!!  If only Lois and I lived in Australia, where it's much cooler and rainier, would you believe, as we found out earlier this morning on our regular weekly call to our younger daughter Sarah, husband Francis and their 11-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, who live in Perth.

Sarah has turned 48 today, and through the magic of the internet, husband Francis shows us the birthday cake, which looks scrummy.

flashback to earlier today: we talk on whatsapp to our daughter Sarah,

who turns 48 today, and to our twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica

You know you're getting old, to put it mildly, when your youngest child starts to approach 50, and your youngest grandchild starts to approach 12 and the threshold of the "terrible teens" !!! 

I still remember, so well, the day back in 1977 when Sarah was born, not least because she's the only person I've ever seen actually being born. I remember watching Lois "pop" her out (!) in a room in the old Victorian, and now long-closed, St Paul's Maternity Hospital, Cheltenham. And I remember seeing little just-born Sarah, at 8 lbs 0 oz, lying on the spare bed, her eyes darting about the room as she contemplated  the world outside the womb for the very first time - what memories !!!!

flashback to June 1977: I, the proud father, holding little

new-born Sarah, while Lois sits with Sarah's elder sister Alison (22 months)

in the tiny back yard of our little Victorian terraced house in Cheltenham

Awwwww !!!!!

And the whatsapp call this morning is also an opportunity to talk about the family's upcoming visit to the UK next month, and what the twins would most like to see when they're staying with us here in Liphook: top of the list seem to be taking the train to London and riding on the London Eye, and taking a riverboat ride on the Thames; also, doing the zip wires and treetop challenges of "GoApe" on the Surrey "county line" near Farnham, and, also, among other things, the planetarium and science centre at Winchester.

two of the attractions our twin granddaughters are eager to see during 

their visit to the UK next month: GoApe in the Alice Holt Forest near Farnham, 

and the new Planetarium at the Science Centre in Winchester

Somehow - don't ask Lois and me how (!) - Sarah's managing to do two jobs simultaneously: her new job as an accountant for a firm in Perth, Western Australia, as well as still doing her old job for a firm in Evesham, Worcestershire, mainly to finance a deposit for the house they've just bought in Perth's northern suburbs. So during her trip to the UK next month, Sarah will also have to spend some face-to-face time with her English boss in Evesham. 

What madness !!!!

(left) flashback to 2015: Sarah (second from right) joins with her English colleagues,

 as they meet to celebrate the accountancy firm's 80th birthday, and (right)

Lois and I picking Sarah up from her Australian workplace in Osbourne Park,

during our last trip down under, back in 2018

14:00 Lois and I get back home after the church lunch in Petersfield, feeling pleasantly full on piles of quiches and fruit flans etc, and ready, or, I have to say "more than ready" (!), for our usual afternoon in bed for statutory "nap-time". Luckily, the temperature has gone down from the dizzy heights of the previous week's heat-wave, which is nice.

Today's high temperature is "only" 77F (25C). It's even a bit windy, and a 19 mph breeze coming at us through the bedroom window threatens not just to bang the bedroom door, but also blow us off the bed, which is a bit of a change from the previous few afternoons, to put it mildly - no pun intended !!!!

And "There she blows!", as the old sea-dogs used to say!

21:00 We finish our Sunday in the traditional way, watching some reruns of forgotten variety acts from the 1970's, performing at a typical working men's club somewhere in the north of England, interspersed with tedious club "notices to members", intoned by grim-faced club chairman and "turn-manager" Colin Crompton, from his customary stage-side table.

(left) the "unwoke health warning" that always precedes these programmes on the 
retro-focussed Talking Pictures TV channel, and (right) grim-faced club chairman

and "turn manager" Colin Crompton giving out club notices on his outmoded hand-held mike

Lois and I have both got a bit of a "thing" for Crompton - with me, it's at a simple "bromance" level, as one Colin to another, but Lois is rather "turned on" by Crompton's shy charm, I sense, and what woman wouldn't be bowled over by his studied lack of social awareness haha !!!

On tonight's show, there's been some trouble at the club, Colin says, as they've had difficulty finding a replacement for a much-loved club waitress who had to leave after becoming pregnant. Apparently in those crazy, far-off days, it was actually against club rules to make a waitress pregnant, thus leading to a vacancy, because of the UK employment situation back in the mid-1970's. 

On this occasion, however, Colin announces that the club committee are prepared to take a more lenient view, but on certain conditions.

The club committee's unexpectedly lenient stance on this particular waitress, later proved a bit of a windfall for the club, as Colin points out in his announcements tonight.

And whatever was good for the club's finances, was also good for Yours Truly and all the other ageing fans of the show too, because it meant that the club continued to be able to afford some of its trademark top-rated, world-class acts, like ageing country duo Miki and Griff, who we see performing on the club stage tonight - remember them?

[No! - Ed]

Surely you do! What if I said "A Little Bitty Tear Let Me Down" ?

[Still nothing! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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