Wednesday August 20th 2025 "Our dogs - doncha love'em! But they can sometimes be a pain, can't they!"

Dogs - love 'em or hate 'em, but what would you do without your dog! 

That being said, dogs can be a nuisance sometimes, without meaning to, bless 'em!!! This story was all over the Onion News' Icelandic edition this morning - or so my spies in Reykjavik tell me !!!

And living here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, my wife and I haven't got a dog personally but we certainly see a lot of dogs whenever we go for a walk in nearby Radford Park, believe it or not! 

[You don't say! - Ed]

my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me, spotted by my phone's camera (!)

this morning, on a walk through nearby leafy Radford Park,

just yards away from our home in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire

However, today, for the first time since moving to Liphook 7 months ago, we see a dog inside our house, would you believe! 

Don't get alarmed, it's fully with our permission, because today our dear daughter Alison (50) brings her Danish spaniel Sika with her when she calls round to see us us this afternoon, following a visit to the local vet's in downtown Liphook. Alison and family adopted Sika during their 7 years in Copenhagen, Denmark from 2012 to 2019.

our daughter Alison (50) brings her Danish dog Sika with her, when she visits us today

And this week, dogs are making all the news, not just in Iceland, but even in our little semi-rural county of Hampshire, England, would you believe! They were all over page 94 in today's print edition, I expect you noticed, in the journal's popular "Your Dogs Tonight!" column, to give chapter and verse!!!

(left) today's Onion front page highlighting another shocking theft from the Dorm Study Area,

and (right) the latest headline from the paper's popular "Your Dogs Tonight" column (p.94)

One thing you can say about Alison's dog - he's not like that so-called "cool dog" in that picture (see above). He's very much a dog's dog (!), and when in the park he loves nothing better than getting to know the neighbourhood's other dogs. He's never too busy to introduce himself and exchange a few dog-noises, I'll say that for him!

flashback to a recent walk in nearby Radford Park - our daughter Alison's

Danish dog Sika (left) exchanges some friendly dog-noises with a passing poodle (right)

And sometimes I think it's a pity that we humans aren't the same when we pass a person we don't know in Radford Park - how seldom do we take the time just to rub noses maybe, and generally give them a sniff all over if necessary, so that we'll remember them next time! Think back to your last experience in Radford park - and you'll realise that what I say is true, sadly perhaps, some would say.

While dogs are always interested in other dogs, particularly if it's a case of a different "breed", we humans tend to "identify" with some people and not with others - especially if we're English!

strangers passing each other in England - a country

where sniffing the other person is considered somehow "uncool"

By contrast, in Hungary, a country which Lois and I know well, having visited it several times, people are used to hobnobbing with other "breeds", to put it mildly!!! An email today from Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, reveals that the country's constitution recognises no less than 13 nationalities as minority populations with certain rights: Bulgarians, Greeks, Croatians, Poles, Germans, Armenians, Roma, Romanians, Ruthenians, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenians and Ukrainians.

the story this morning on the Hungarian 24.hu news website

And if that wasn't enough, a new group, the Scythians [Who they? - Ed], that officially disappeared from the history books over two thousand years ago, have come out and said that they are actually still around, although scientists have refuted their claim. Despite that, however, the so-called Scythians are now clamouring for their own so-called special "minority rights" under Hungary's constitution! 

some typical Scythians 

What madness !!!! 

And Tünde poses the question, quite rightly in our view - will Britain's Ancient Picts now "come out of the woodwork" and start applying for special minority status in the UK, if you please!

a "ty-pict-al" "Pict-couple" [no pun intended!!!]

 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

And it's all a bit sad, because, when it comes down to it, "people are people wherever you go", as the old song says.

But it wasn't always like that, according to tonight's re-run of the recent BBC2 series "Human". And just like today's spaniels hobnob cheerfully with poodles, people also had their different breeds, other breeds that they had to somehow "rub along with", like it or not.

According to series' presenter Ella Al-Shamahi, recent discoveries in Morocco have shed new light on what were thought to be humanity's origins.

Yes, in a remote cave in Morocco, a chance discovery has uncovered some mysterious human remains, and it's been found that someone unexpected was living there, thousands of years earlier than we would have imagined.

Yes, the 3000-year-old "Jebel Irhoud I", to give him his official name, had some features very much like us today, very homo sapiens, but also other features that were much more ancient, and more primitive.

  

Unlike us, however, were the massive brow ridges above his eyes. And the brain case was not globe-like, like ours, but all stretched out at the back. So the question remained, was he a different species from us, or was he just an early version of us? 

After similar finds were examined and dated, the latter is what researchers now believe - that these individuals were early homo sapiens, the earliest ever found, from around 300,000 years ago.

And, says presenter Ella Al-Shamahi, the skulls of "Jebel Irhoud I" and his friends recently found in Morocco, represent "a stage in the process of becoming us". They were not modern humans, but were an earlier stage in our journey, bridging the gap between us and our ancient human ancestors.

As a result of the discoveries palaeo-anthropologists are now coming to believe that early iterations of homo sapiens, like Jebel Irhoud I, were "popping up" all over Africa.

And she adds, "We once believed in a single origin, a sole cradle of humanity, in East Africa, but our story is [actually] far richer, and more interesting. The latest evidence suggests that we emerged gradually, across thousands of miles, and over hundreds of thousands of years, appearing bit by bit, like a series of sparks, igniting across the African continent."

Fascinating stuff, isn't it!

So next time you pass a stranger in the park, maybe with slightly heavier brow ridges than you, and a brain case that's a bit elongated at the back, don't pass him or her or whatever by, with just a nod or a grunt. 

Take the time to just reach out to him (or her or whatever!), and get to know him (or her or whatever)! 

And tread softly so that you don't tread on his (or her or whatever's) dreams. And, after all, if you prick him (or her or .....), if you prick X, does X not bleed? 

[All right, we get the idea! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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