Yes, Friends, are your sure that YOUR local landmarks - Big Ben maybe, or Stonehenge perhaps - are 100% genuine, and not something maybe made out of cheap plastic? Maybe you should perhaps stop by and check on your way to work maybe?
The lead story in this morning's Onion News is a bit of a wake-up call, if you saw it!
my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me - a recent picture
We're sitting in the town's iconic Millennium Centre, opened on January 1st 2000. The Centre was officially opened on January 1st 2000, not by any swanky 'celebs', but by the local Junior School's two youngest pupils, 4-year-old Daniel Brown and Rebecca Restall, according to the local paper.
I hope they'd got approval for the opening ceremony!!! And I hope, also, that their mothers knew that they were out, the little "tinkers" !!!!
And by the way, Lois and I can confirm that the Liphook Millennium Centre is 100% genuine, and not some cheap Chinese "knock-off" (!).
Liphook, Hampshire's iconic Millennium Centre - the entranceway
With other "old codgers" from the local U3A Local History for Old Codgers' group, Lois and I are sitting here in the Centre this morning listening to a talk on the history of the nearby town of Alton, Hampshire, being given by Tony Price, head of the Alton Museum and Art Gallery, no less.
position (red-ringed) of the nearby little market town of Alton, Hampshire
It seems that back in the Iron Age, according to Price, the Alton area was a hotbed of forgery, and the locals were running quite a profitable business producing cheap 'knock-offs' of the official Roman coins, which were the area's currency round here 2000 years ago - the little "scallywags" !!! What madness!!! But they seem to have got away with their little scam, so fair play to them !!!!
as Alton Museum director Tony Price (standing, right) shows us, on the screen, examples of the
fake Roman coins the local Britons used to make in these parts, nearly 2000 years ago
It seems, also, from Price's talk this morning, that Alton's Iron Age residents were not only good at producing cheap "knock-offs" of Roman coins but were also good at decorating bits of rock with "rude carvings" (!) - and Price shows us one local carving of some male genitalia, which somebody has tried to "censor" by turning it into a face (!) - an early example of so-called "bowdlerisation" (!).
We also learn that later, in the 18th century, when the world's calendars all changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one, that Alton's residents became totally confused, and "didn't know what year it was", according to Price. And in the local town graveyard, a certain William Draper's date of death is given as February 1731/2, which was "hedging the options" a bit.
What madness (again) !!!!
(left) a rude local carving of male genitals, which has been "bowdlerised" into a face
by local Iron Age prudes, and (right) the gravestone of local man William Draper,
said to have died in "February 1731/2", as the result of local uncertainty over the puzzling new "calendars" - what madness !!!!!
Our lecturer this morning, Tony Price, does his best, but when it comes down to it, nothing much has happened in Alton over the last 2000 years - it's a pretty quiet place, and it trades a lot on its proximity to Chawton, where writer Jane Austen lived.
There are statues and busts of Austen in Alton, even though there is no real evidence to what she looked like. And Austen's brother was the bank manager in Alton - we're shown a pound note issued by the Alton Bank, with his name on it. And Alton is also where William Curtis lived, who was Austen's surgeon, and who attended her death in nearby Winchester in 1817.
(top) the town's statue and bust of writer Jane Austen; (bottom, left) a pound note
issued by the Alton Bank, where Jane's brother was the manager, and (bottom, right)
a plaque commemorating Austen's 'surgeon apothecary', William Curtis
What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off days !!!!!
12:30 An enjoyable talk, however, overall, and Lois and I are buzzing with excitement when we slip away, after a brief chat with Price himself, to a quick lunch at our lovely home half a mile from the Centre.
The only downside to Price's presentation was that, as so often happens with slideshows, Price's voice dropped in volume whenever he showed a new slide and so turned towards the screen to describe it, and Lois and I feel we probably didn't hear some of the talk, which is a pity!
Yes, don't turn your back to the audience - it's a "rookie error", and not exactly "rocket science", is it!
And, by coincidence, in tonight's programme in the QI XL science quiz series, the subject is soundwaves, and we find out that we're not the only people in the world who watch TV with the subtitles on, allegedly because "today's young people just mumble "(!). In Britain, it's actually about 40% of the viewing audience, who watch with the subtitles on - what madness!!!
And that "mumbling" is all thanks, apparently, to another so-called "technological improvement" - the personal microphone. What madness!!!!
That does sound loud, doesn't it - 172dB even 100 miles away. And the noise created by the eruption itself actually, we're told, was like a hundred times louder than if you were standing right next to a jumbo jet engine firing up.
Not only that, but the noise kept going, for 5 days, as it "bounced" around the world.
I think even two old codgers like Lois and me might have noticed a noise like that, don't you?
On the other hand, we might not have heard it at all, apparently, because it was such low frequency.
What a crazy, mixed-up 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 - zzzzzz!!!!!
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