So we're giving Stonehenge back to India, which is a nice gesture! And let's hope somebody's taken a photo of the old monument first, so they know how to reassemble it after its long sea journey: it's a step that's easily overlooked!
Or perhaps IKEA-style flatpacks with tiny font instructions is the way forward here - your suggestions welcome (postcards only!!!).
It was all in this morning's Onion News - here are the details, in case you missed it !!!
And here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, the story sends a chuckle running round the mouths, and down the throats, of me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois this morning, when we take a new daily walk today through a part of the Hampshire woodlands we haven't stepped through before (!).
me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois - a recent picture
"Why the chuckle, though, Colin?", I hear you say!
Well, just today, in the middle of nowhere, we stumble across a forgotten statue of a forgotten Victorian hero, Field Marshall Hugh Rose (1801-1885), a.k.a. Lord Strathnairn, no less, who got Central India back for us in the first place, after the great Indian Mutiny!
Talking point: Should Britain also give this statue back to India together with Stonehenge and all our other "old rubbish"? (!).
I wonder....!
Yes, see photo above - he's this guy sitting on a horse (not the guy himself, just a statue by the way - not the actual man!) [Glad you've made that clear, Colin! - Ed]
Of course, Lois and I have never heard of Lord Strathnairn, but we google him later, and also look him up in Lois's Biographical Dictionary when we get back home. And as the plaque on the plinth says, he was "Commander in Chief, India" for 5 years in the 1860's, and he managed to reconquer Central India - although not single-handedly (!) - after the great Indian mutiny, so quite a guy all those years ago.
What a crazy world they lived in, back in the 1860's !!!!
For Lois and me, it's our first-ever walk in this 'neck of the woods' (!).
Lois is a great explorer by nature, and she can't pass a signpost saying 'Footpath' or 'Bridleway' without saying "
Hmmmm,
I wonder where that goes...", in an enquiring voice, and who am I to deny her another little 'explore'. Nor could I stop her, even if I wanted to - she can be such a little demon, you would not believe! The stories I could tell you!
(left) Lois can't pass a signpost saying 'Footpath' or 'Bridleway' without saying
"Hmmmm, I wonder where that goes...", and (right) map of the path we take today,
past the pond and past the statue, into the Foley Estate, just off the Portsmouth road,
ending up at the Links Tavern for 2 coffees.
And it's one of the great pleasures of walking through the woods and forests of Hampshire, that you're always liable to come across some forgotten relic of history, like some poor old forgotten Victorian Field Marshal who's been sitting on a horse here, largely unnoticed, for 150 years or so!
Poor Field Marshal !!!!
He didn't just do "conquering" - he had a softer side. When in Malta, he visited every one of his troops infected by cholera, and he is said to have 'enthused them with his cheerful manner'. And when in Syria, he rescued 700 American missionaries from some peril or other, taking them all to safety in Beirut, himself walking with them all the way, so that his horse could be available to carry the old women in the group. Quite a guy.
Lois and I are both history buffs, so it's a good subject for us to delve into when we get back home, and also discuss in bed this afternoon during 'nap-time', with Lois's Biographical Dictionary very much to hand (!).
And we're in an especially good mood this afternoon because Darren, our local "leak guy", who repaired a leak in our water supply pipe at the beginning of the month, at the cost of several hundred pounds, I might add (!), has at last sent us his report, which we can forward to our insurance company, which is nice.
flashback to September 2nd: local leak-guy Darren and his son
find the leak in our water supply pipe and fix the pipe for us too, which is a bonus!
Leak-guy Darren is a man of few words, but here's his report:
Back of the net!!!!
two stills from the video Darren passed on to me, with (right)
water spurting out of the joint - what madness !!!
And let's hope our insurance company doesn't try to "wriggle out" of their responsibility to at least pay us back part of Darren's £700 plus bill. What madness, isn't it !!!!
By the way, we don't know what 'esv' means in Darren's report, so drop me a postcard on that too, if possible! We suspect it doesn't mean 'English Standard Version' - a contemporary translation of the Bible - because Darren didn't seem like a particularly religious man to us, but who knows? The man has hidden depths, as he proved when he dug up our leaky pipe, to put it mildly!
So - answers please haha !!!!
20:00 And our "chuckling" continues through the afternoon and into the evening.
We prefer to go to bed laughing (!), so we either try to watch the News (!), or something else amusing, like this old autobiographical study of the Life of Monty Python star Michael Palin and his so-called "comic roots", a "mockumentary" which the Palin wrote and filmed himself back in 1983.
A challenging programme from the start, where Palin, standing in front of the house in Sheffield where he was born, immediately gets Lois and me thinking, by posing some real 'head-scratchers', which is a good start.
I wonder....!
If YOU know the answers, try and squeeze them on that little postcard you've already started writing to me - on the "address" side if necessary: at least the postman will learn something, so it's all good!
And did Michael later suffer trauma because his old dad didn't take the day off work, when his old mum was "popping" little Michael in the front bedroom of their house?
I wonder (again) .....!
So not really working then haha!
Michael's is a poignant story in many ways, and after Shrewsbury School and Oxford, he was faced with no alternative but a dead-end job in the entertainment industry, making a lot of money at mine and yours expense.
Here we see Michael, after getting his degree at Oxford, contemplating his bleak future on the train back home to Sheffield or wherever.
An awful warning isn't it!!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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