Yes, friends, it's in this morning's papers - brilliant new ways to track down so-called "missing persons", and they aren't rocket science. You don't need paper qualifications - not even a humble O-Level, which is nice!!! [They haven't been called O-Levels since 1988, Colin. Just saying! - Ed]
Here's how the locally influential Onion News handled the story - see page 94!!!!
my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me - a recent picture
The reason for our amusement? Well, this very morning, we find ourselves, accidentally, getting marginally involved in a mammoth "missing person" police operation this morning, in nearby local metropolis Petersfield, Hampshire, in some rather bizarre circumstances.
flashback to March 2024: Petersfield police officers, seen here in happier times,
pictured with town mayor "JC" Crissey (left), who had just opened
the town's shiny new police station on the town's bustling "Main Square"
Yes, so here are Lois and me this Saturday morning, sitting in Petersfield's "Moshulu" shoe-shop, innocently trying on socks and slippers would you believe, when a police constable bursts in, and begins questioning the assistant. The county police had just received a call from a distraught husband that his elderly wife had gone missing - he had said that his wife "often got confused these days", and that she "might be in Moshulu's", where she's well known to staff.
But let's wind the story back a bit first.
Lois and I had travelled the 10 miles south-west from our home in semi-leafy Liphook to buy Lois some new slippers in Moshulu's, and "drop in" for some coffee and cake at her church's drop-in centre around the corner, on High Street.
(left) the approximate route Lois and I take this morning to drive the 10 miles
south west from our home in Liphook, to local metropolis Petersfield [not marked], and
(right) the town's Moshulu shoe-shop where we get involved in a bizarre police operation
Don't start any rumours about me becoming a "cross-dresser" by the way!!!! It's simply for convenience that I buy those "ladies' socks" and I did ask the assistant for their "most butchest pair" [sic], in the UK size 9-12 range. After all, the UK's young women are getting as big and tall as me in these enlightened times, and why not! Go for it, Britain's Young Women - and "more power to your ankles", that's what I say haha!!!!
And Lois and I believe that our publicity agents will shortly be releasing the following charming, and utterly candid photos taken of us after we arrive home in Liphook, trying out our new purchases, and starting to feel really comfortable in them! These pics are sure to be all over Monday's "nationals", but remember you saw them first here!!!!
But "What about that missing person, Colin, that confused old lady, who you say had "wandered off" in this morning in Petersfield?
flashback to this morning: after getting involved in the police operation
in Moshulu's, Lois and I relax with a coffee'n'cake in her church's drop-in centre:
pictured here also are meeting-members Rachel and Myrtle
flashback to Saturday lunchtime: we arrive home in Liphook, and immediately
start "playing with" and "showing off" our shiny new purchases:
Lois sporting her new slippers and me my "butch-to-butchish" ladies' socks (!)
Well, Lois and I had spoken to another constable on our way back to the town's Waitrose Car Park, and he told us that the woman had just been "located" in the local Greggs bakery and cafe, so that's all good. We think Petersfield is a bit of a low-crime "hotspot", or should I say "coldspot" [No! - Ed], because the officers all seemed really "fired up" today to have a real case on their hands for once, and we've got to hand it to them - they wasted no time in "sewing it up", which is nice, and gives the local population a lot of confidence at the same time, I would imagine.
Petersfield's police officers, seen here with the mayor and town crier etc
"Kudos!", those guys!!!!!
14:00 After all the excitement Lois and I decide to have our usual Saturday shower and afternoon-in-bed, to calm down a bit!
It also gives us a bit of "space" to talk over the week's news, which is nice. The big story around the world this week is of course the story of the raccoon who breaks into an off-licence in Virginia USA, smashes a lot of bottles and then passes out on the bathroom floor.
Tünde suggests, by the way, that, since the story has become so well-known around the world this week, that the above article would be a good "language lesson" material for anybody hoping to master Intermediate Hungarian "the quick way" (i.e. in less than 20 years!!!!).
flashback to 2008: Lois and me with Tünde (left), my Hungarian penfriend
in the café of the Pump Room, Bath, on Tünde's last visit to England
Jokers in Britain have suggested that that Virginian raccoon "only woke up when he realised he was being used to clean out the toilet-bowl".
By coincidence the Hungarian word for "raccoon" mosómedve, means, literally, "washing-bear", so the story is even funnier in Hungarian than it is in English, if that's possible !!!!!
21:00 We go to bed on last night's Graham Norton's Chat Show, which this week includes in its guest-list one of mine and Lois's political heroines, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Jacinda, who first entered the NZ Parliament aged 28, and who quickly became Prime Minister when still unmarried and secretly pregnant (!), famously "kept New Zealand out of COVID" in her 3-year stint in high office.
Tonight host Graham Norton asks Jacinda if she would recommend politics as a career to young people, and Jacinda gives him an enthusiastic "Absolutely! Yes!".
Yes, that's what we want now in politics - some actual "do-gooders", not necessarily always right, but at least trying, in the words of the song, to "find some good, for you and me". And definitely not just more "sleaze-bags" !!!! Jacinda's story, the new film "Prime Minister" is in UK cinemas now, so Lois and I will be looking out for it when it eventually comes to Liphook - probably in 10 years' time, if we're lucky haha!
I wonder......!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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