Danskcolin: Tuesday December 2nd 2025 Do YOU value YOUR privacy? Well, don't worry, Google does too haha!"

Privacy - it matters, doesn't it! And it's nice to know that the world's tech giants are finally acknowledging that fact, with some cast-iron confidentiality guarantees for the ordinary web-user - it's all there in Onion News this morning, and if you missed it, read it right here in Colin's blog, just lightly edited by Yours Truly, mainly for style and content only (!).

Kudos, Google! And kind of reassuring isn't it, that these tech giants have a beating heart, that's for sure!

And reading this heart-warming story here in leafy Liphook, Hampshire, this morning, my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I can't help but brush a tear from our eyes.

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

Privacy is number one on our "important" list, too, that's for sure, and this afternoon we welcome back our favourite handyman, William, to re-install window blinds on 7 of our windows, bringing some much needed "pry-vacy" from the local prying eyes [no pun intended!!!!].

You may not be aware, but Liphook, Hampshire is a hive of "nosey neighbours" - , so it'll be nice to finally have some protection from prying eyes when we're in bed. Also it'll be nice to finally be able to keep secret the number of times we visit the loo during the night - hence the blinds on our landing window - you can't be too careful, especially on our street !!!!

(left) our favourite local handyman, William, (centre) the shiny new blinds on our

bedroom window, and (right) on our landing, which will keep strictly confidential

the number of times we visit the loo in the night, which will be nice (!)

"As any fule kno" [sic!], the spiritual leader of the UK's thousands of nosey neighbours is film-star Michael Caine, and ironically, Yours Truly gets a bit of "stick" in Liphook, because of my alleged "physical similarity" to Caine, especially when we were both young, which is a pity, because the "similarity" was only ever extraordinarily superficial, as these iconic pictures make clear:

lookalike: (left) Caine, in his prime, "keeping tabs" on suspicious neighbours,

and (right) a photo-comparison highlighting the very obvious differences

between us as young-to-youngish men - case proven, I think !!!

You'll have to forgive a certain levity in my blog today - Lois has had a busy morning on the computer with her church's online "sisters' class", and I've had a tough morning at the dentist, having to have two teeth filled, which is annoying.

flashback to this morning: (left) our dental surgery and (right)

me waiting somewhat nervously for my appointment - poor me !!!!

And then, what with handyman William coming this afternoon, and working in our bedroom, there's been no chance for a spot of "nap-time", to recharge our "batteries" (!).

What a crazy world we live in!!!!

Barred from our own bedroom, we settle down on the couch and turn on the Great Christmas Channel, with its seasonal fare of Hallmark-style Christmassy romance films. Awwwww!!!!

And we get a pleasant surprise when we see that "12 Toys of Christmas" is set in the southern town of Pecs, Hungary, a town that Lois and I know well from our middle-aged years as 50-somethings, when we used to go and stay there, at the house of our good friend Istvan, who is still our friend on Facebook, incidentally.

The heroine of the film is a young American toy-designer, Olive, who goes back to Hungary to see her old Hungarian granny [Hungarian: "nagy-mama", or "nagy" for short], which is nice!!! Needless to say she meets a nice young Hungarian guy there at the town's famous Christmas market, and after some ups and downs she decides to "hitch her wagon to him", and transfer her toy-making business to Pecs, and the rest is pure schmalz haha!

Awwww!!!!! And at the same time, nice memories of the 1990's for Lois and me!

flashback to the 1990's: (left) me in Pecs with our friend Istvan and his son Marty,

and (right) Lois with Istvan at the local sculpture park looking at the "naughty" sculptures

- awwwwww (again) !!!!!!

included for comparison purposes - Istvan today.

And he doesn't look a day older haha !!!!

It's hard to believe, but Hungary was once part of the Roman Empire, just like Britain. And another of our Hungarian friends, Tunde, sent me a story from The Independent this week about a skeleton of a young woman that's just been unearthed in Aquincum, the Roman settlement now buried under today's Budapest.

It's interesting to Lois and me to see how "emotion" has finally come into archaeology these days, and that it's now "okay" for archaeologists to wax sentimental about the human remains they dig up. Just last week we saw the usually unemotional TV presenter Sandi Toksvig unable to hold back the tears after unearthing a skeleton of a young woman from an Iron Age settlement near Bournemouth, England, with archaeologist Raksha Dave.

flashback to last week: we watch presenter Sandi Toksvig

unable to hid her emotions at the unearthing of a young woman's skeleton

near Bournemouth, England, and the skull which had lain in the ground for 2000 years

Lois and I sympathise. After all, these skeletons were real people, and, especially if they sadly died young, like this young woman, it's touching to see how they were buried, with extraordinary care, by the people who loved them, people who must have shed many a tear over their untimely passing, and maybe never really got over the experience.

Hungarian archaeologist Gabriella Fenyes tells the story of the Budapest discovery: