Danskcolin: Friday May 1st 2026 "Are YOU having a 'bad day' today? Well, don't tell local man Alan !!!!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU having a QUOTE UNQUOTE 'bad day' today? Well, if you are, better steer clear of local man Alan Bower, that's for sure!

Bower's was the owner of that pair of grinning 'chops', that was all over your copy of the local Onion News for East Hampshire this morning, as you may have noticed!!!!

Kudos Alan !!!!

And Alan's story brings a welcome smile of relief to the faces of me and my wife Lois today, here in semi-tropical Liphook, Hampshire, no question about that!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

And on an admittedly 'slow news day', Alan's story was quickly picked up by the 'nationals' - the Times, Telegraph etc, and even led the BBC's World Service's early morning bulletins for a while, odd though that may seem!!!!

Lois and I are certainly glad that, today, Alan wasn't anywhere near us, with his caustic comments (!), because we are having a bad day today, "in spades" !!!!

Our day starts off okay - we drive to Liphook Railway Station to buy tickets for our trip to see my sister Gill in Ipswich later in the month, and then we drop into Liphook Eyecare to make our long-postponed next eye test appointments. Then things start to 'unravel' as we try to get Lois her prescription pills, going first to our doctor's surgery, and then to the pharmacy, whose staff really give us the 'run-around' to put it mildly!!!

our day today hurrying hither and thither (!): to the Railway Station to buy tickets

for our trip to Ipswich, to Liphook Eyecare to book our eye tests, and then to the

doctor's surgery and to the pharmacy to try unsuccessfully to get Lois's prescription pills

Busy busy busy !!!

Busy yes, as usual, but definitely not good, because Lois really needs a new supply of the pills she takes every day. She's taken her last one today, and it's a three-day weekend coming up because of the May Day public holiday on Monday. There's no doctor around this afternoon to give authorisation due to 'sick leave' which is ironic (!), but the surgery receptionist tells us we can get an emergency pack of 5 of the tablets from the pharmacy. However, when we call at the pharmacy at 5pm, they tell us they're not allowed to do this without a doctor's authorisation, and that we'll have to drive 12 miles south to Petersfield Hospital to get the pills there.

Staff at Petersfield Hospital, however, tell us that the pharmacy staff were giving us the 'run-around', because they should have issued Lois with the emergency pills earlier in the day, given that she had all the paperwork.

What a crazy country we live in !!!!

Definitely not where we want to be doing at 7:30pm this evening - driving 12 miles south

to Petersfield Hospital to get an emergency supply of Lois's pills - what madness!!!!

There's a brighter note, however, when Lois and I finally arrive home to Liphook at around 8pm, with Lois's emergency pills clutched tightly in her hot little hand (!), because we see that the trainee pilots being put through their paces locally at Bordon Army Base are putting on some fabulous displays of graphic flight patterns, which delights us!

the gorgeous flight patterns being made above our heads by the newbie pilots

being trained locally, delight Lois (ringed) and me, when we finally arrive home

in triumph with Lois's pills clutched in her hot little hand - but what a madness it is!!!

Are the pilots doing it in our honour, to celebrate our eventual triumph? Probably not, but we choose to think that anyway, call us "us-centric" if you like haha!!!

At least they're not like those Finnish trainee pilots who were reportedly reprimanded, and given a right 'bollocking' the other day, for tracing pictures of penises in the skies over Finland, which is some comfort !!!!!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

21:00 After all today's frustrations and final triumph, we definitely need something to relax us before bedtime tonight, and what better than this week's edition of comedy news quiz "Have I Got News For You", chaired this week by Richard Ayoade.

We hear quite a bit tonight about the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, at which there was another assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

And we see some of this footage, in which a journalist interrupts her departure to come back to her table and delicately pick up one bottle, tucking it under her arm, before deciding to take a second one, for good measure!

This week's presenter Richard Ayoade, is particularly complimentary about the woman's choices, and the delicate way in which she selected, and picked up, the bottles she decided to thieve.