Monday September 29th 2025 "Do YOU have a leaky ceiling? Do YOU always feel something wet whenever you look up!"

Yes, friends, do YOU have a leaky ceiling currently? Just take a minute to look up, and see if you feel something wet in your eye which is the acid test! And if you DO have a leak, let's hope you have that nice Mr Recine as a landlord, to put it mildly! Did you see the story in Onion News this morning?

And the story brings a wry chuckle to the lower faces of me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois this morning, here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, not a million miles away from Recine and his happy band of tenants, and we give a qualified "Kudos!" to Recine for his caring attitude, which is so refreshing!

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

"But why the wry chuckle, particularly, Colin?", I hear you cry!

Well, we pause to applaud local landlord Recine's caring approach, while at the same time wrily ruing the blatantly un-caring attitude of our insurance company to the recent leak in our water supply pipe, which cost us £700 plus to get an approved local plumber to locate and fix the leak.

flashback to September 2nd: local plumber Darren locates and

fixes a leak in our South East Water water supply pipe

Today we get our insurance company's response, which starts as follows:

Uh-oh! But Lois are I are obviously to blame, having forgotten the golden rule about insurance policies, which is that they cover you for all the "perils" that haven't happened, but don't cover you for the "perils" that have. 

Simples! Our bad, obviously!

By coincidence, the UK's consumer association "Which?", which Lois and I have been members of for decades, is currently mounting what they call a "super-complaint" to the regulator against insurance industry for misleading statements in their policies and overall poor treatment of their customers etc etc.

"Kudos, 'Which' !", is what Lois and I say, but I fear that any results will come too late for us, if we know the efficiency track-record of the regulator!

Poor us!!!!!

So, all in all, a bit of a bad day for Lois and me financially, to put it mildly.

However, there are some pluses to today as well, which is a comfort! We find a local gardener, Matthew, the son of one of Lois's fellow-church-members, who's coming next week to sort out our garden for the winter. We prove our worth to our 50-year-old daughter Alison by picking her up after she drops her car off at local repair shop Moore's Motors, and finally we get our feet massaged and toes cut etc by our local podiatrist the lovely Zoë, or "Zoë the Toë" as we call her (!).

(left) Zoë our local podiatrist or "Zoë the Toë" as we call her affectionately (!)

seen here with (right) her colleague Kathy, the chiropractor

14:00 So, all in all, Lois and I are feeling particularly good, and pampered from head to toe (no pun intended!!!), when we finally get into bed this afternoon for "nap-time", which is nice!

It's nice to get a rest, because we're very gladly having to do a little very minor running-around, at the moment, on behalf of our daughter Alison, because her husband Edward is up in Liverpool for this year's Labour Party Conference. Edward is there in his capacity as a Transport UK Group executive, "schmoozing" - oops, sorry (!), I mean holding frank discussions with" (!) - Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander and/or her officials.

(left) the setup for this week's annual Labour Party Conference in Liverpool,

and (right) Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, whom our son-in-law Edward

will be "schmoozing", oops sorry (!), "having frank discussions with" (!)

Heidi has an interesting last name - "Alexander", which we can't resist googling on our phones when we're in bed this afternoon. Call us 'unhealthy obsessives' if you like haha! 

with an "unhealthy obsession" (!), we goggle Heidi's last name,

Alexander, during nap-time in bed this afternoon

Google tells us the following:

Fascinating stuff, isn't it! [If you say so! - Ed]

Lois and I are now planning to ask Edward, if he gets to speak to Heidi Alexander, if he'll ask her about her last name "Alexander", as this evening we see an interesting documentary on the More4 Channel about why Alexander the Great mysteriously died so early, at the age of 32 (?) having spent most of his twenties conquering a quarter of the known world (as you do haha!). 

Young people, eh haha !!!

Alexander the Great peaked fairly early in his career, which was fortunate considering his early death in 323 BC in  Babylon, aged 32. But what was the cause of his death, a question hard to answer particularly as there are no contemporary sources, no doctor's reports, newspaper reports etc, which is a pity!

After Alexander mysteriously died, his body was taken to Egypt and seen, and visited by, a bunch of important people, including Roman emperors, but the body mysteriously disappeared sometime after about 200 AD. So, without a body, how to do an autopsy on the guy, in 2025?

As the blurb in the Radio Times says, any attempted "autopsy" on somebody whose body disappeared from Egypt two thousand years ago is not so much a "cold case" but a "deep-frozen case", but Professor Suzannah does her best with the facts available, rejecting the "old war-wound" theory and the "poisoned-by-jealous-rivals theory" and coming down, instead, on the probability that poor Alexander, exhausted by all his campaigning across the Middle East and Asia, including India, simply became the easy victim of a virus such as the West Nile Virus, prevalent at the time in those crazy, far-off regions (!), a virus which caused terrible fevers followed by a fairly quick death - yikes!

Poor Alexander the Great !!!!

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

21:00 After a bit of a "heavy" programme all about Alexander, Lois and I, seeking something lighter to go to bed on (no pun intended!!!!0 , turn to this week's edition of our favourite TV quiz programme, "Only Connect". 

We're anxious to see this one, because Lois's cousin Brian's grandson, Steve, is the captain of one of the two teams competing tonight, the Scanners - a team of NHS radiographers from the Dorset area. 

tonight's edition of our favourite TV quiz, Only Connect, which

tests lateral thinking: (top, centre) Stephen, grandson of

Lois's cousin Brian is shown as the Scanners team's captain

It's a pity that Lois's relation Steve's team "The Scanners" is eliminated from the competition after tonight's show, but on the plus side, there is, as usual, lots of fascinating knowledge to pick up, which is nice!

Who knew, for example, what these 4 random-looking expressions have in common?

Yes, you've guessed it! They all demonstrate how some languages other than English represent a dog's "woof-woof" sound:  Greek, Spanish, Afrikaans and French, needless to say (!). 

Lois and I still think our English version is the best, call us unhealthily "Anglocentric" if you like haha!

How about trying this one for size?

Yes, right again! It's what you get given on your 100th birthday, and this is one where the UK is closely aligned with Sweden, which is nice. And sensible for the USA to cut out unnecessary expense by only issuing a letter if it's really wanted - a lesson here for us and the Swedes maybe, who seem to take a more profligate approach, sending out letters from the monarch with an outrageously expensive Royal Mail stamp on the envelope? Even a second-class stamp costs 87p - what madness, isn't it!

I wonder....!

Memo to self: must write letter to Charles now, lodging mine and Lois's desire for a letter, because in 21 years' time, it'll be our turn, "if we're spared!", as Lois's dad Dennis used to say (!). 

Back to the quiz! How about this one - what's the link between these 4 picture-clues?

These turn out to be four pictures representing dating apps: (1) David "Bumble" Lloyd [Who he? - Ed], (2) Evadne Hinge of "Hinge and Bracket" fame, (3), "Match", and (4) "Tinder". 

So, "Bumble", "Hinge", "Match" and "Tinder" - all dating apps. Simples !!!!

Both teams have difficulty finding the link in this one, which surprises Victoria, who comments to the teams, "You're all young, you must be on dating apps?".

To which Lois's cousin's grandson Steve, has a simple one-word answer:

Fair enough - good answer, Steve!

Victoria, however, comments that marriage is no barrier to using a dating app in this day and age - oh dear! But she also reveals that, on the other hand, the "Hinge" app actually specifies that its "connections" are designed to be long-term, whereas so many dating apps are now almost deliberately aimed at people looking for casual hook-ups. 

Not that Victoria seems to mind that fact, to put it mildly!

Oh dear! And let's hope Victoria's husband, comedian David Mitchell, isn't watching tonight's show too closely!!!!

Poor David !!!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!  [You've done that one at least once already. Just saying! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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