Friday November 2025 "Let's hope the NEXT Winter Olympics will 'skate along' more smoothly than the last !!!!!"

Yes, Friends, let's hope that the next Winter Olympics will "skate along" [no pun intended!!!] a bit more smoothly than the last lot, in South Korea's iconic PyeongChang Olympic Park, to put it "mildly"!!!!

And once again, no pun intended!!!!  [Why didn't you rephrase it then! - Ed]

If you missed it, here, for your reading pleasure, was the local Onion News for East Hampshire's "take" on the "snafu"!!!! It was a bit of a classic, wasn't it !!!!!

Oops!!!! 

And here in rural, semi-grassy Liphook, Hampshire, unlike all you "younger fellahs" (!), my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I, despite having being retired for nearly 20 years (!), don't normally have the "leisure time" to follow the sports news! But did any of my readers notice if the Winter Olympics last year manage to recover from Kim's disastrous mistake that snowy morning in South Korea? Postcards only please haha!!!!

another busy morning for my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me - driving to nearby

Grayshott, just over the county line in Surrey, to buy a car-load of meat, before stuffing ourselves

with chocolate doughnuts at a nearby coffee shop and then going for a walk over Old Man's

Lowsley's Farm - busy, busy, busy! And yet we've been retired for 20 years, incredibly!!!

And when, later in the day our elder daughter Alison (50) drops in for a chat around 2pm, we tell her about the Olympics snowplough "snafu" and we all have a jolly good laugh about it!

Hopefully, there'll be no "snowplough snafus" when Ali and family - husband Edward, and their 3 teenage kids - spend a week in Sweden on a skiing trip around the New Year holiday.

our elder daughter Alison (50) who lives with her family

at nearby Churt, Surrey, drops by for a chat this afternoon

Ali and husband Edward are soon going to be getting all dressed up for attendance tonight at a swanky "Railway Ball" in London, staying overnight and coming back tomorrow morning. Husband Edward is a hotshot lawyer on the board of Transport UK "for his sins" !!!!

flashback to three years ago this month: Ali and Ed all dressed up for the

2022 Railway Ball in London, at which there were 1500 guests

- what madness !!!

What's uppermost in Ali's mind is that she hopes she's not going to be sitting next to a "railway bore", like she was at last year's ball. Poor Ali !!! She and Edward may be late getting back tomorrow morning, so they've asked Lois and me to pick up their son Isaac (15) at Headley, where he'll have been refereeing a junior soccer match would you believe (!), and then take him to Haslemere for a rehearsal of "Legally Blonde the Musical", in which Isaac is appearing next year.

Isaac is becoming quite the 'thespian', to put it mildly. A couple of months ago he was appearing (and singing!) as the Tin Man in his school's production of "The Wizard of Oz", which Lois and I were lucky enough to get tickets for.

flashback to July: (top) our grandson Isaac as the Tin Man in his school's

production of "The Wizard of Oz", and (below) Lois and me (left), and our daughter

Alison and family (right), waiting for the production to begin at the prestigious Bedales Theatre

But yikes! And next weekend the family's going to be in Frankfurt - what madness !!!! Do you know, sometimes, I think Ali and family are even busier than what Lois and me are [sic] !!!! 

What a crazy world we live in, that's for sure!!!!

But what era are we all currently living in? And does that era have an official name? 

Lois and I call it the "Post-Crazy Era", but that's just our little joke (!). If only we knew exactly what our era's official name is, it might give us more of a "road-map", enabling us to get safely  through this era and into the next - "if we're spared", as Lois's old dad Dennis used to say!!!

Luckily, Lois's weekly magazine "The Week", is on the case, which is a start. Just check out page 3 and this biting editorial by the journal's deputy editor Theo Tait (crazy name, crazy guy!!!!!).

Yes, throughout history, people have generally been at a loss to know what historical 'era' they were living in. In the UK, people struggled through most of the Industrial Revolution without knowing exactly what it was that they were struggling through - the period itself is dated to 1750 to 1900, but the term "Industrial Revolution" wasn't coined till the 1880's, when the so-called "revolution" was almost over.

But is "The Great Acceleration" a good name for our times? Your views wanted - postcards only as per usual!  

It's all just more madness, really, isn't it !!!!

And what Lois and I say is "Don't accelerate, slow down! Or better still,  "stop the world, we want to get off!" to quote the 1960's musical of the same name !!!!

21:00 Evening eventually falls, and as usual on Friday night, to get 'closure' after a bit of a mad week, Lois and I turn to TV's "Have I Got News For You", the topical comedy news quiz, for a burst of much-needed comic sanity, before we put the week (and ourselves!) to bed.

As usual, both Ian Hislop and Paul Merton have a 'celebrity guest' on their teams, who normally Lois and I have no idea of who or what they are (!). We've never heard of Bella Hull, whom Ian Hislop has invited to be on his team tonight. She looks far to young and far too small to be on the show, but luckily Bella explains herself exactly what she's doing on the show tonight, which is a help.

Got it, Bella! Enough said!!!!!

Let's just skip to the Missing Words round of the quiz, shall we !!!!

And can YOU supply the missing words in any of these recent "Cuttings" headlines?

Bella suggests "The winner of a lawn mower race can expect never to feel the touch of a woman". Whereas Paul Merton suggests, "The winner of a lawn mower race can expect f*** all", which is also a good try. Here's the real answer, suggesting that Bella maybe, in a way, got closer to it than Paul.

How about this "doozy"?

Bella suggests, "Many women are now paying £70 to spend half an hour alone", but the real answer is "Many women are now paying £70 to spend half an hour smashing up appliances with a baseball bat".

This is the news that apparently 90% of customers at so-called "rage rooms" are women.

a typical modern "rage room": 90% of customers are women, it seems!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!! [That's enough madness for one day! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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