Danskcolin: Tuesday November 4th 2025 "Did YOU spend the afternoon in bed today? A lot of firefighters did, 'reportedly' !!!"

Yes, Friends, have YOU been spending the afternoon in bed today? Well, you were in good company (hopefully!), according to afternoon editions of the local Onion News for East Hampshire. Did you see the story?

Yikes! And here in rural, semi-grassy Liphook, Hampshire, the story came as a bit of a shock to me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois.

my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me - a recent picture

As loyal council-tax payers, wee were shocked to our very foundations, to be frank!

That is, until we noticed that this afternoon's Onion News article appears in the paper's popular "Leave Time For A Smile" column (see page 94!) where they tend to dump all their spoof or "fake news" items.

Phew, that's a relief!!! And relax..... haha!

Too late now, however - Lois and I have already taken the hint, and we're spending a self-indulgent afternoon in bed ourselves, for "statutory naptime"! [So what's new? - Ed]

Well, Lois has earned a bit of a lazy afternoon today - that's for sure! This morning she was online giving a talk to her fellow-female-church members - the monthly "sisters' class" - all about 'biblical paradoxes', based around an article by our old friend Paul's old dad Len. The bible says, "Do not your alms [i.e. charitable acts] before men, to be seen of them", while, in the previous chapter, it says "Let your light so shine among men, that they can see your good works".

So what are the guidelines here? Keep quiet about your good deeds? Or shout about them to all and sundry?

(right) Lois, in her "meeting hat" taking part in another online session

with fellow female church members - the "sisters' class", and (left)

the book by Paul's old dad Len, that Lois is using as her starting-point

You can't always keep your good deeds secret, she tells the group. And she recalls the occasion when she had a bouquet of flowers sent anonymously to an old couple in the meeting, I think, an older couple who were going through a tough time; later the couple, curious to know who had sent the flowers, rang up all the meeting's members in turn asking if it was them who sent it, and so Lois, at this point, had to "fess up" and admit it was her - so you can't win sometimes!!!!

This whole issue is a bit of a dilemma, but Lois deals with it confidently and capably, as I had expected, generating a lot of questions and discussion. She's inherited her old dad Dennis's way with words and his sense of logic, as well as his warm heart - Dennis was a lay preacher, known in the church's circles worldwide. It's a pity, but Lois is prevented from following the same path as her father by the church's strict rules about not letting women preach at Sunday Morning Meetings etc, but the "sisters class" remains a good outlet for her talents, that's for sure.

Also, on the health front, poor Lois suffers from intermittent aches and pains in her back, which tend to come on particularly in the evenings when she's doing the evening meal, and a few days ago we visited the Community Hospital in nearby Petersfield, Hampshire for an x-ray - results, however, promised in 10 days' time.

Why ten days? What madness !!!!

flashback to last week: I drive Lois to Petersfield Community Hospital for a back x-ray

And today, partly as a result, we're also starting an experiment on the meals front. For some time, I've been urging Lois to make our midday meal the main meal of the day, followed by a lie-down. In the evening she's tired anyway, and the standing around, bending etc in the kitchen is just "the last straw that broke the camel's back" - no pun intended !!!!

[You lazy bastard, Colin, why don't you help more in the kitchen? - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're asking, it's true, I am a bit of a "klutz" in the kitchen, admittedly, although I have 2 or 3 signature meals, like "Fish Finger Surprise", "Poached Egg Surprise" etc, which I can call on if required. However, Lois, on the other hand, is really into cooking and likes to experiment and try new things, so planning and cooking meals is also a pleasure to her as well as a "pain" - oh dear!

flashback to April 2022 - I delight Lois with one of

my justly-famed signature dishes, my

much praised (by me!) Poached Egg Surprise

And in my defence I would say also that back in the 1950's when I was growing up, little boys weren't expected to have to learn to cook - we didn't get "domestic science" lessons like the girls. Poor us!!! It's a different world today, that's for sure, with more "celebrity chef" men than women, to put it mildly!

It's a funny thing - that sex difference isn't it. And according to an article sent us recently by Steve, our American brother-in-law, the dye is cast as regards sex pretty early on, to put it mildly!

And it's apparently a myth, the common idea that we all start as female, according to embryologists. Our sex is determined right from the moment of conception.

Fascinating stuff!

And today, Lois, with an unmistakeable hint of indignation in her voice (!), reads me out a fascinating snippet from this week's copy of her "The Week" magazine, explaining why more IVF babies tend to be male than female. Baby-girl embryos take longer to grow in the first few days, so it's the baby-boy embryos that get selected more often for planting in the woman's womb, on the grounds that they're growing faster and therefore are deemed to be "healthier".

What madness !!!!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

And no better evidence for that statement than tonight's edition of "QI XL" the comedy scientific quiz programme, which has now reached the letter 'W', and is dealing with "weaponry".

We hear tonight about many of the crazy unconventional weaponry deployed by nations at war, during World War II, including exploding rats, and also sabotaging Nazi bedsheets by treating them with itching powder, usually made from ground rose hips, which are very prickly - just to be annoying perhaps?

And are babies conceived on itchy bedsheets more likely to be boys than girls? I think we should be told - and quickly!

In World War II, the Norwegian Resistance went further, we hear in tonight's programme, manufacturing supplies of tampered condoms, impregnated with itching powder, which they distributed free to the occupying Germans. Whatever next !!!!