Saturday November 22nd 2025 "Do YOU find it difficult to 'switch off' in a sauna?"

Yes, Friends, do YOU find it difficult to completely 'switch off' when trying to relax in a sauna or bathhouse?

One young area man had this experience just this week, a story which this morning was "all over" the local Onion News for East Hampshire, to put it mildly! If you missed it, here it is in black and white, just lightly edited by Yours Truly for both content and style (!).

Poor Stewart!!!! 

But the story brings some mild 'guffaws' to puncture the conversation of me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois today, as we 'sweat through' the details of Stewart's story - no pun intended !!!!!

me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois - a recent picture

And we're laughing because, coincidentally, one of  our documentary heroines, TV's Bettany Hughes, is all over social media today, shamelessly flaunting her body, lightly dressed in her "scanties", coming out of an Estonian sauna, to advertise tonight's last programme in her "Treasures of the World" series, would you believe (!).

But more of that later!!!! [I can't wait! - Ed]

Meanwhile it's another bit of a hectic day today for Lois and me. We finally sold our old house in Malvern, Worcestershire, yesterday, after 11 months of trying (!), and I'm on the computer a lot of today trying to cancel our old insurance policies for, like, a billion, domestic appliances etc which we left in the house for its new owners, young couple Sophie and George, for whom it'll be their first ever house that they've actually owned, bless'em !!!!

George and Sophie - the young couple who yesterday bought

our old house in Malvern, Worcestershire

Yes, we decided to leave a lot of stuff in the house for Sophie and George, like the central heating boiler, the shower etc - we couldn't get them all in our car, to be frank, although we tried (!!!!). In the end we decided to let Sophie and George keep them. We're all heart haha!!!! But they'll just have to insure them themselves - it's our way of gently "educating" them into the real world of adult life. 

Call us old 'skinflints' if you like, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind !!!!!

We also got a shock this morning when the postman came - our first Christmas card of 2025. 

November 22nd and Lois and I today get our first 

Christmas card for 2025 - what madness !!!!!

Yikes! 

And it's also a bit of a wake-up call to remind Lois and me to send out our own cards out especially early this year, so that we can put our new address in Liphook on the back. We don't want Sophie and George getting all our Christmas cards to help decorate their living-room. Today is their second day of owning the property, and they're already probably using our shower and central heating boiler etc. So to have our Christmas cards to enjoy as well would be utter madness, wouldn't it, we'd really be spoiling them haha !!!!!

The card has come from the US, from Portland Oregon, to be precise, and it's from one of my oldest friends, Kathy. We got to know each other in 1970-71 during our student year in Japan, when we were in our early 20's, both living with Japanese families and going into Japanese colleges during the day. And it was such a relief just to have the joy of speaking English to each other, whenever we met up. 

flashback to 1971: me and my American friend Kathy in Japan,

and (bottom right) Kathy as she is today, with a young friend

Happy days !!!!

Coincidentally it's Kathy's motive also, this year, to send out her Christmas cards early, to publicise her new address - she and husband Dan have, like us, been moving from home to home, following their kids around, just to get their help and support, now that they're "old codgers" too, just like us!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

But now over to Bettany, in Estonia, for tonight's programme in her current series of "Treasures of the World".

Lois and I didn't know that when you burn or heat bits of the bark of a silver birch tree, you get something called "birch tar", still in use for various purposes in many parts of the world today.

But there's nothing new about 'birch tar', as Bettany explains;

Finds of prehistoric birch tar are also very useful to archaeologists, because in order to prepare the substance those prehistoric guys first had to put it in their prehistoric mouths, which is interesting, and gives away all sorts of clues about who they were.

But wait - there's more! It's not just those teeth that are of potential interest, to put it mildly!

Fascinating stuff, isn't it !!!!!

Also fascinating, Lois and I think, is how human nature hasn't really changed much, over those 10,500 years.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it!!!

But there's a serious point here also, isn't there.

Would it be worthwhile for archaeologists to "take a second look" at those many prehistoric stone armchairs that have been unearthed, just to check there's no leftover birch-tar traces, stuck there on the arms thousands of years ago, by some feckless prehistoric teen?

I wonder..... !

a typical stone-age armchair - could it, and hundreds like it

be holding DNA secrets that could rewrite history?

And I definitely think we should be told, don't you?

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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