Yes, Friends, is there a man in YOUR circle who has trouble folding his shirts? There are plenty of these 'bozos' around, aren't there, including Yours Truly, if I'm honest!
And 'watching a man fold a shirt' is said to be one of the oldest entertainments in the world, and it's still happening, would you believe, that is, if you can trust this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire!
It's a pretty general failing with us men, isn't, but with one honourable exception. Step forward Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory sitcom, who famously was able to even show women, if you please, exactly how it's done!
Kudos, Sheldon!
a typical episode of the Big Bang Theory sitcom: Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons)
shows housemate Penny (Kaley Cuoco) how you fold a shirt
However, reading that Onion News "shocker" today brings a knowing grin to the faces of my wife Lois and me, here at our lovely home in leafy, semi-suburban Liphook, Hampshire, I have to say!
my wife Lois and me - recent pictures
The reason for that knowing grin on our faces? Well, we're bound for an outing this morning to nearby shopping-hub Petersfield, where we're sure to end up finding ourselves in one of the town's many clothing stores taking clothes off hangers and out of piles on counters, and then, later, putting them back (!), and finally buying something or other for Lois - a 'reduced' skirt perhaps - to put it mildly!
I can't blame Lois for seizing the opportunity - Petersfield's clothes shops are pretty seductive, with their subdued lighting and their well-turned-out, menopausal female servers.
a typical Edinburgh Wool Mill outlet - there's a
handy branch in Petersfield, Hampshire, which is nice!
And it's a good chance, admittedly, for Lois to stock up, whenever we're in Petersfield, because, needless to say, tiny, semi-rural Liphook doesn't have a single clothes shop, unless you count the minimal stocks in a small corner of Liphook's Sainsbury's supermarket, or ordering from a catalogue in the store's miniscule 'Argos concession'.
What madness, isn't it!
Lois this morning, in nearby Petersfield's bustling Edinburgh Wool Shop,
(left) choosing a jumper, and (right) trying on an attractive, reduced skirt
(only £10, which is crazy!) in one of the store's poorly-lit fitting-rooms
Our main worry this morning however, is not to forget, amid all this skirt-buying madness (!), the real reason why we're in Petersfield today - to take along the home-made Nutella cake that Lois baked yesterday to her church's "drop-in centre", or "pop-in centre" as it's called. It's the first Saturday of the month, and the church is holding its usual coffee-and-cake morning: these sessions advertise the church's presence in the town, as well as raising money for third-world charities.
Lois's church's drop-in centre in Petersfield,
or "pop-in centre" as it's dubbed, which is nice!
We have to get there early before the "pop-in centre" opens for business, so that Lois can deliver her cake and cut it into slices etc before the "punters" "pop in" later. It's nice and quiet when we arrive, and we get a chance to sit with a coffee and a cheese scone in a bit of peace, for once! And it's cheese scones on our plates, not Nutella cake, because of Lois's current dietary restrictions: and Yours Truly is "going along for the low-sugar ride", to help lose some of the pounds I put on over Christmas: oh dear!!!!
So see if YOU can guess who that poor little old man in the 30-year-plus old cloth cap is, in the third of these three following revealing photos!!!! No prizes offered haha!!!!!
us this morning, before opening time, at the drop-in centre organised
by Lois's church in bustling Petersfield, Hampshire, delivering Lois's home-made
Nutella cake while restricting ourselves to some low-fat cheese scones - what madness!!!!
Poor little old man haha !!!!!
[You old fraud, Colin. Isn't that a "chocolate crunch" on your plate there? - Ed]
And I really don't know how old my cloth cap is. 'Thirty years' is almost certainly an underestimate. I certainly used to wear it to work, although I always took it off once I got inside the building. And come March 2026, Lois and I will have been retired for exactly 20 years, so that cap is certainly older than that!!!!
What madness, isn't it !!!!!!
21:00 We go to bed on Alice Roberts' latest (!!!!) archaeological travelogue series, this one being about the Roman Empire, starting in Pompeii. Yes, I know, Alice has got at least 3 series going on concurrently at the moment, this one on Channel 4, as well as her "Holy Grail" series on Sky, and her "Digging for Britain" series on BBC2.
All these Alice programmes, are a blessing for Lois and me, however, because we don't much care for sports, or for game-shows, so if you're like us, you're pretty much "stuffed" for TV choices most of the time. But what a crazy world we live in!!!
We notice that, when Alice is walking through towns in the Middle East or in Mediterranean countries, she seems to be able to slip around unrecognised, whereas her TV archaeology rival Bettany Hughes is constantly being greeted with smiles and requests for selfies etc.
Lois and I have the theory that people in those countries like their women big and busty, like Bettany, whereas Alice cultivates the slim, waif-ish, dyed-hair, "biker-chick" image, which doesn't have the same appeal over there. But your views welcome!
rival archaeological travelogue series presenters, and their polar opposite styles:
(left) Alice with her waif-like biker-chick image, and (right) Bettany
I wonder.....!
But "Not another programme about Pompeii, Colin!", I hear you cry! But Lois and I think that Alice is amazing at picking up on some of the extraordinary details that are often overlooked by other presenters. Like, for example, the fact that many of the skeletons and casts of people found in the act of running from the 79AD eruption of nearby volcano Mt. Vesuvius, were actually carrying their house keys on them, no doubt expecting to return home later after the "fuss" was over. Heart-breaking isn't it.
And the incredible thing about Pompeii is that, over 400 years since the ruined town was first discovered (in 1594), Pompeii was such a large city in Roman times that a whole 54 acres of it (22 hectares) still hasn't been dug up and examined.
Recently work began on a totally new area, containing a massive 750-acre mansion and grounds belonging to an as yet unidentified wealthy individual, as Alice discovers in this sequence:
The mansion contained a huge banqueting hall - Donald Trump, eat your heart out! And this banqueting hall was adorned with frescoes depicting the story of a wealthy woman. Although wealthy and "respectable", the woman in the frescoes has been tempted into joining a feminist cult - the so-called 'maenad women', devoted to Dionysus (Bacchus), the god of wine and revelry, who indulged in so-called 'Bacchanalian' orgies.
Fascinating stuff, isn't it!
But what a crazy world they lived in, back in those mad, far-off days !!!!!
Will this do?
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzz!!!!
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