Danskcolin: Monday March 2nd 2026 "Friends, have YOU got somebody who can make a game-changing improvement to YOUR life?"

Yes, Friends, have you got some special somebody who can turn YOUR life around for, say, under £100 a "pop"? Local sad man Tom Etheridge is in luck, according to this morning's Onion News for East Hampshire - did you "catch" the story today?

Kudos, that woman! And the story brings a knowing smile to the faces of my wife Lois and me this morning in rural, semi-autonomous Liphook, Hampshire, as we tramp through local Radford Park indulging in another 30 minutes of "squelching" through the mud on our daily walk, listening out for the lovely birdsong. Lois says it's excitement over the start of the mating season that's making the local birds so vocal, so it's all immediately understandable.

Poor birds - they've waited long enough haha!!!!

Never mind the birds, for Lois and me our own excitement is palpable today too - people are saying you can "palp" it for miles around haha!

The reason? Well, just like sad local man Etheridge, who's on the brink of having a birthday with lots of game-changing gifts from thoughtful girlfriend Alessa, my own daily "routine" is about to be changed for the better, with a much-discussed "game-changing" new slot in my afternoon, which is nice, using the book of exercises I originally bought on my retirement, 20 years ago this month, if you can believe that!

(left) flashback to March 2006, my 60th birthday and the day Lois and I both retired,

and (right) me yesterday with the exercise book I bought at the time, now still looking

as shiny and untouched as when I first bought it, an incredible 20 years ago this month!

From today, I'm debuting my new daily 45-minute "exercise slot" starting at 3:30pm, immediately after our 90-minute "statutory afternoon nap slot", which is exciting! And Lois thinks it will be a complete game-changer for me, seeing as how my current exercising regime currently has had no fixed time-slot.

And this fact, in tandem with my justly-famous "busy busy busy" lifestyle, leads to the exercising being, perhaps conveniently, "forgotten about" most days, she hypothesises, and I think there may be something in that argument, to be fair!

some typical exercises from the book

So watch this space! There is provision, which I've had "written into" my new contract with Lois, that the exercise slot can be called off, if I feel I haven't had enough time for a completely satisfying nap, which may turn out to be a dangerous loophole, but we'll see! Your views welcome - postcards only haha!!!!

Certainly, now approaching 80, both Lois and I most days feel like "complete ruins" (!), so it's nice this evening to see some other, even older ruins, in the latest fascinating programme in Alice Roberts' new series "The Roman Empire By Train".

The Romans liked their towns planned on perfect grids, meticulously aligned to north, south, east and west, something which our Anglo-Saxon ancestors didn't bother to do, which is a pity, Lois and I sometimes think (!).

Lois and I didn't know, however, that Roman fastidiousness in trying to create towns perfectly aligned with the universe, has enabled historians to use astronomical data, combined with archaeological data, to determine more or less the exact date that many Roman towns were founded, And this is the case with Turin, in the north of Italy - on the basis of the ever changing night sky, Turin's foundation has been dated to January, 9 BC, which is when its street grid would have been perfectly aligned.

But here's another "stinker" of a question.....

Did a herd of African elephants come this way, even further back in time, in 218BC? Well, "maybe" is the only answer it's possible to give to that old "chestnut" (!).

As we're told in tonight's TV programme, way back in the 2nd century BC, when the world's two superpowers of the time - Rome and Carthage (in modern day Tunisia) - clashed in the second Punic War, the the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy, coming through the Alps, bringing all his forces, including his fighting elephants, with him.

But exactly what route did Hannibal take for his epic journey? Frustratingly that's one question that's proved just too difficult to answer, as Alice explains: