Thursday August 21st 2025 "Are YOU looking for fun? Well, there's no fun like 'official' fun, that's for sure!"

Yes, friends, if you're looking for fun, get a bit of so-called "official fun" - it's the best!!! 

And if you want some so-called "official fun", where better to work every day than in government service, and Yours Truly should know, as an ex-civil servant! The fun we used to have! And the pranks we used to stage - you would not believe!!! I've been retired now for nearly 20 years, but it's heart-warming to see that those pranks are still going on - just read this morning's Onion News !!!

Ewwww!!!! 

And this morning, my light-to-moderate wife Lois and I are hoping against hope that that none of that "towering heap" of stinking meat hasn't made it to our little semi-leafy county of Hampshire, right out here "in the sticks", or "in the boonies" if you prefer! Sometimes there are pluses in living out in the country, that's for sure!

my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me - a recent picture

"Why the big heart-searching about meat today, Colin?", I hear you cry!

Well, you see, Lois and I find ourselves this morning in the nearby small, semi-leafy town of Grayshott this morning, in the delightfully named "Kaighin and Daughter's" butcher's shop, staring at some of the mincemeat in Old Man Kaighin's display cabinets and having "a bit of moment" as we remember with horror those morning headlines about all that "stinking meat" that's doing the rounds currently !!!!

we drop in at local butcher's shop Kaighin & Daughter's this morning 

in the nearby village of Grayshott, Hampshire

We're not doing our usual morning walk today, because Lois has had a bad night, so we're just stocking up on meat, buying what Onion News calls a "shitload" of it, and paying over a "shitload" of money at the "till" - pardon my French !!!!

the village of Grayshott, Hampshire

Grayshott is a classy village and Caighin and Daughter only stock the best local meat, which is why Lois and I like to patronise them - it costs, but we happen to think it's important what we put inside ourselves. Our daughter Alison, and her husband Edward, a hotshot London lawyer, refuse to shop in Grayshott, saying it's "a bit too pricey", which gives you some idea of the kind of money you have to part with if you shop there!

And all the shops in Grayshott can get away with their steep prices, because it's the sort of small town that's stuffed with moneyed retired people: loads of super-fit slim blonde over-60s women in shorts, who've obviously just been to the gym or for a jog, jostle us waiting for service when we stand at the till and hand over our life's savings (or thereabouts!) - £69.48 to be exact. What madness, isn't it !!!!

Lois (right) eyes the meat in the meat-cabinet at Kaighin & Daughter's

this morning, while a slim blonde 60s-plus woman in shorts,

of the kind you tend to see in Grayshott (!), waits her turn to be served

At least we can go to bed this afternoon knowing that our 2 fridges and our 2 freezers (!) are fully stocked with quality meat and fish- and no "rubbish", which is a comfort, even if we'll have to cut down on almost everything else we have to buy haha  !!!!

Today, however, on what we call our "bed-agenda", there are a few "business items" to discuss before we "get our heads down" (!). 

We moved to our current home in Liphook, Hampshire 8 months ago, leaving our old house in Malvern, Worcestershire sadly unsold - there's a young couple now wanting to buy it. It's taking forever to get the deal signed, needless to say, but our bridging loan people want an update. What madness (again) !!!

(left and centre) our old house in Malvern (still unsold) and (right) our new house in Liphook

Another item for discussion: the water bills we've had since moving into our new house. The water company here is saying that we're using 3 times the amount of water we were using in Malvern, which is obviously untrue. To start our campaign for a refund, we've now got ourselves on the water company's "Old Codgers Register", hopefully they'll have to pay more attention to our complaints, or at least investigate what seems to be some sort of leak, or faulty meter. Well, we'll see!!!!

flashback to April 2023: the fun Lois and I were having (!) trying to

check our water meter in the street outside our house in Malvern

- what a crazy world we live in  !!!!

And last item on today's bed-agenda - we're trying to join the local U3A old codgers' "Couples' Intermediate Latin" group, which is proving more difficult than we expected. What madness !!!

Well, there isn't much for old codgers to do in a place like rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, apart, obviously, from all the drinking and sex (!), hence the popularity of U3A groups like Joe's (!).

flashback to last September: local "old codgers" queue up outside

the Town Hall in a bid to be accepted as members of the local U3A 

When we met Joe formally in June, he sent us away with a loan of one of his Latin primers, and later  he emailed me saying he'd like a "follow up phone-call" with us this week, "to see how we've been getting on with it" - with the primer, that is, not the drinking and sex (!).

We were well-and-truly (and duly!) "vetted" last month by group leader Joe, and we're trying to work out way through the text-book he lent us. Next month Joe's going to be testing us, in company with another "intermediate old codger" couple" (!) trying to join the group. Brian and Yolande are their names, and Joe's idea is to use this meeting to "break the ice" and make Lois and me, and Brian and Yolande, feel more at ease when the group's first meeting of the 2025-6 season takes place.. 

In this final stage in the "process", Joe is also going to be "taking our details", including our U3A membership numbers, to check that we're fully "paid-up" - what madness (again) !! This morning I discovered that Lois hasn't been assigned a number, so I have to contact the membership secretary, only to discover that she has got a number, but it's just that they forgot to email it to her - triple madness !!!!!

It all seems an overly lengthy and unnecessarily bureaucratic process, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day, was it haha!

16:00 We struggle out of bed, carrying our ring-binders etc (!), have a bit of that pricey meat and then we get back into bed again, but not before catching a programme on BBC4 all about the weird way people used to "get their meat" in the olden days!

Back in 7000 BC you couldn't get your meat just by popping into a prehistoric branch of Kaighin & Daughter's in Grayshott, that's for sure. All those ancient couples, in those crazy, far-off days had no choice but to ruddy well get out and catch their meat for themselves, would you believe! 

A bit of a weird one, this. 

Around 7000 BC, before Stonehenge or the Pyramids of Egypt were even thought of, a totally unknown ancient tribe in the Arabian peninsular was building mile-long stone enclosures: and this was simply to lure animals in (probably gazelles), and getting them to fall down little pits, before cooking them for dinner. 

And that's not all. These enclosures that this unknown tribe built were all in weird geometric shapes, a fact that's now only detectable from the air. 

When they were first spotted, by RAF pilots in the 1920's, these geometric shapes reminded the pilots of the kites they flew as boys - hence the name "the desert kites". And the mystique surrounding the enclosures - every one with its individual shape, suggest that the designs were part of the tribe's culture, and possibly the tribe's religion too.

We don't know the tribe's real name, of course, but they've been dubbed "the Ghassanians" by archaeologists, possibly as a "nod" to the Kardashians, maybe: an amusing  cultural reference there!

Possibly the weirdest thing of all is that this tribe were sophisticated enough to carve accurate scale drawings of their enclosures on to large rocks which have been found at many of the sites. 

Why did they do this? Surely you didn't have to get planning permission from the council in those crazy, far-off days? Or did you? I think we should we told, don't you!!!!

But all in all, what a story!

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties!", as Shakespeare put it. After all, we're talking 9000 years ago here. That tribe didn't have our knowledge about the world, but their brains were just as good as ours - and it's just crazy what they could do with their limited facilities they had available.

And the programme reminds of all this at the end.

And not only that, but these people were careful with their money too and price-savvy, as we would call it today. It was a case of "penny wise, pound foolish", and getting their meat by the "enclosure method", was way cheaper - like a billion times cheaper - than getting it from a butcher's shop in Grayshott, to put it mildly!!!!! Kudos !!!!!

Will that do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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