Danskcolin: Sunday October 26th 2025 "Sleep - doncha love it !!! But perhaps you're not getting enough? I wonder....!!!!"

Sleep's a wonderful thing - and me and my light-to-moderate wife, now retired for an incredible 30-years (almost!), just wish today's somnology, or "sleep science", had been around when we were still working.

The reason is that, apparently, the same principles apply sleep in the work environment as they do to our homelives, would you believe! Just look at this report of a game-changing study in this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire (slightly edited here for content, wording and style (!)).

Health warning: the above article comes from the paper's popular "Leave Time For A Smile" column, so don't take it too seriously!

More reliable, perhaps (!), is this info from those TV doctors, the "terrible" Van Tulleken twins, on the BBC website this week. Essentially, they're telling us not to worry too much about our health - because most of it isn't our fault anyway. Who is to blame, the twins don't say, but I think we should be told. Whoever's at fault, they should definitely be locked up, that's what Lois and I say, and we make no apology for that !!! [Why not? - Ed]

And number one on their "don't worry, be happy" list is: don't obsess over eight hours' sleep.

"Kudos, that twin !!!".

And today is the one day of the year that normally Lois and I would take the opportunity for an extra hour in bed in the morning, because it's "clocks go back" day. Unfortunately we forgot it was today and so we actually got up at what we thought was the usual time, only realising the horrible truth when we were already up and dressed - which made us feel a bit "discombobulated", to put it mildly !!!!

my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me having breakfast

- a recent picture

The change from BST to GMT also gives us a bit of "bother" this morning when trying to start our regular weekly "catch-up" zoom call with our daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia, where they don't mess around with clocks at all: the result is a 7 hour time difference with the UK in summer and an 8 hour one in winter, which can be a bit annoying trying to remember which one it is at any one time, if you know what I mean (!).

I try at the last minute this morning to text Sarah to move the time of the zoom call from 4:30pm to 5:30pm Western Australia time. The message seems to get through, but when Lois and I log on at 9:30am GMT, she's not there. Later we discover that Sarah had in fact fallen asleep before the zoom call was due to start.

Poor Sarah !!!!

(left) Lois and me this morning, getting no response from Perth when we log in

on zoom, and (right) the whatsapp chat that reveals that Sarah had "nodded off" (!)

But who can blame Sarah for falling asleep? A chartered accountant, she's still doing two jobs, her "new job" in Perth, plus her "old job" in Evesham UK, which she's still working at online in evenings and at weekends. What a madness it is, isn't it, but the money will come in handy, when her and Francis' 12-year-old twins Lily and Jessica start at the local private Anglican Church Grammar School in nearby Alkimos next February.

(left) Sarah (second from right) with colleagues at her UK accountancy job,

and (right) leaving her office in Perth, Western Australia - what madness !!!!

Poor Sarah (again) !!!!!

our regular Sunday morning "catch-up" zoom call with Sarah

and family this morning after it finally gets going (!) - what madness!!!!

20:00 And by evening today, Lois and I are even sleepier than usual when we finally "plop" down on the couch for a bit of "telly. After all today is one hour longer than a usual Sunday, so "fair do's" !!!!

Oh dear !!! But what do the Van Tulleken twins say in their podcast?

Yes, so no need to forget your sense of humour over it all, that's for sure!!!

"Be happy! Don't worry about it!" is what TV doctors the Van Tulleken twins say!

And there's no better exponent of this fact than famous British cartoonist Heath Robinson, who, with his intricate cartoons, laughed his way through two world wars, would you believe, and cheered people up like nobody's business!

Lois and I are reminded of this on tonight's Antiques Roadshow, the series where members of the public bring along their family heirlooms to have them looked at, and in some cases valued, by experts in the field.

In this sequence Heath Robinson's great-nephew brings along some of the old man's wartime cartoons, including this one to show programme presenter, Fiona Bruce.

The focus of the cartoon, however, is down below. Both sides have been tunnelling under the "front", and they finally find, to their surprise, they've each been doing it at exactly the same point in the line, and there's a definite sense of horror when they meet.

The British "tommy" doesn't know what to say to the German, so he blurts out "Third return to Hammersmith please!", as if he were buying a third [class] return ticket at a booking office on the London Underground.

Tremendous fun, isn't it!!!!

And by coincidence, there's another reminder of the London Underground later and the incredible Victorian technology in tonight's programme, when a local museum curator brings along a model of the Thames Tunnel. The model was made out of bits of card, and dates from the time in the 1820's when the tunnel was being constructed, the world's first tunnel under a river. The models were made and sold as "merch" to attract investors when the tunnel-builders desperately need more cash, so fair enough!

The idea of the "tunnelling shield" was the brainchild of early Victorian inventor Marc Isambard Brunel, father of his more famous son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the renowned designer of bridges, tunnels, railways and transoceanic steamships, who was recently voted second in a BBC poll to find "The 100 Greatest Britons".

The Thames Tunnel was actually pioneered by old dad Marc, but when construction of the tunnel started in 1825, Marc let 'young Isambard' work on it with him - although he was only a kid of 19 at the time: so "Kudos, Marc!"

I expect Marc gave in after his son's "Oh pleeeease Dad, let me do a bit !!!!!" had reverberated for, like, the billionth time - more probably!!!!