Monday August 24th 2026 "Are YOU celebrating some sort of anniversary this week? MOST people are, would you believe !!!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU celebrating some sort of anniversary this week? Most people are, I think, you'll find, especially if you subscribe to the East Hampshire Edition of Onion News (print edition), at least!!!

And it's a bit of a nightmare trying to keep up with all those anniversaries, don't you find, not to mention the difficulty in putting your hand on just the right 'happy anniversary card or cards', even, to send whoever, it may concern, especially if that's the whole country, as in the case of the Edison "malarkey" !!!!

At least Onion News has done what readers in East Hampshire have been calling for since I don't know when, and they've at last revived their popular "Your Anniversaries Tonight" feature - and not before time !!! Check out today's front pages!!!!!

And all this "hoo-ha" certainly brings a blush to the cheeks of me and my wife Lois, here in leafy Liphook, recently dubbed the "cultural hotspot" of East Hampshire - a label that the town's accepting with pride, if we're to believe our neighbours' somewhat breathless sighs of satisfaction !!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Let me put my cards on the table at this point! [I wish you wouldn't keep doing that, Colin! - Ed]

When it comes to anniversary shenanigans this week, Lois and I are no exceptions to the general rule, because tomorrow it's our 54th wedding thingummy (!), and I find myself this afternoon busily working away on my personal anniversary card to Lois. We're celebrating tomorrow with lunch at Adriano's Italian restaurant in nearby Beacon Hill, so I'm theming my card by recalling our lovely holiday in Pisa, Italy back in 1998, when our daughter Alison was studying at the university there.

flashback to 1998: Lois with our daughter Alison on a balcony

in Pisa, where Alison was doing her study year there

A very romantic holiday, Lois and I had decided to stay at what turned out to be a dodgy hotel just under the Leaning Tower, the kind where suspicious couples sign in in the name of whatever the Italian equivalent of "Mr and Mrs Smith" is, and which the police visit at regular intervals - not very restful, but not boring either, if I can put the best "spin" on it!

I've managed to fish out a few of our 'holiday pics' to stick on my home-made anniversary card, but remember this is all top secret information until 7:30am tomorrow (Tuesday) when I bring Lois her card at the same time as her usual "cup of tea in bed" - after that, it'll all be "in the public domain", so talk about all you like, and at length even, if you so desire haha!!!

Lois and I were just 52 then, in 1998, a lovely age to be, with our daughter Alison on her way to getting a degree from Cardiff University, and already having met there her future husband, Edward, while our other daughter Sarah was approaching her A-Levels and already thinking about which university she wanted to aim for. 

Happy days!!!!

Lois and I don't normally exchange presents for our wedding anniversary - the "present" is normally just the lunch out followed by sleeping it off in bed in the afternoon, which seems to work for us! But recently we've been binge-watching the Canadian sitcom "Schitt's Creek", and learning all the catch phrases like Alexis's "Ew David!", spoken excruciatingly often to her brother David. 

And we also like doing the gestures like the one we call Alexis's "rabbit hands" (!). 

I tried to order the "Ew David" t-shirt that's been advertised to me on my Facebook feed ever since we started watching the show, but I keep being told that "it's not available in your country" - what madness!! So why do you keep advertising it to me, then? Wake up!!!! Is it all part of some international 'tariff war' of the sort that's popular nowadays? I think I should be told, and quickly haha!

(top left) the "Ew David" t-shirt that I tried to get Lois for our anniversary,

only to be told that it's "not available in your country"; (top right) Alexis doing her

"rabbit hands", and below Alexis saying the famous phrase to a petulant David

I'm putting my disappointment aside, however, and looking forward to our anniversary tomorrow. 

Just think, 54 years - it's quite a time, although it doesn't feel like it, which is good, to put it mildly! 

Have we changed in that time? I don't think we have, not really much! My reference is, as always, the verse that singer-songwriter Paul Simon inserted later into the original lyrics of his song "The Boxer";

flashback to 1970: the earliest known photo of us together,

in a rented cottage in Shropshire

(left) flashback to 1972: cutting our wedding cake, and (right)

Paul Simon's amended lyrics for "The Boxer"

10:00 Nevertheless we are now both 80 years of age, and when we take our daily walk this morning, Lois is slightly anxious about her dress, which has shrunk a bit in the wash, and she says she's worried that it isn't "appropriate" for an octogenarian to be wearing what's become a bit of a "mini-dress".  

However, she clearly doesn't look her age, so we decide in the end that it'll be okay, and certainly there is a clear absence of outrage from the handful of dog-walkers and tennis-players that we encounter, so that's all good!!!!

Lois, showing 'a bit more leg than usual' on our walk over Liphook United's "hallowed turf"

this morning - but nobody would guess she was 80, surely. Be fair!!!

At last the Liphook United club secretary has "pulled his finger out" and, on the run-down clubhouse window, has at last  posted details of the squad chosen for the lads' upcoming East Hampshire Premier League "grudge match" against local rivals Hook (without the "lip" !!!). Nice to see, also, that former "club legend" Steve Harding will be team's exciting "no 9 shirt" come Saturday. So watch this space!!

A promising start to the season, with Liphook United currently "languishing" in the coveted no.7 spot, under the management of club legends Steve Harding (above, right) and Ash Sharp [not shown]

Yes, Lois is clearly showing a bit more 'leg' than usual today, and even household pests are taking advantage, and I'm not talking about Yours Truly here, in this case, if you're wondering! 

Because, in other news, the dozy fly that's been driving Lois and me mad with its crazy antics around our house, has been taking advantage of Lois's hemline, and studiously avoiding the "honey trap" I laid for it a couple of days ago, which is a pity!

(left) flashback to a couple of days ago, when I first designed my 'honey trap' -

a former margarine tub filled with water, honey and washing-up liquid,

and (right) the fly showing its disdain, and flaunting itself on one of Lois's 2 knees

Is it my clearly-marked "Fly Trap" sign that's proved the trap's undoing - a fundamental "design fault" maybe? I think I should be told (postcards only!!!!) !!!!

I wonder....!

But what madness, isn't it !!!!

20:00 And there's more madness tonight, when Lois and I finally (!) get a bit of peace and quiet and can at last settle down on the couch and watch our favourite TV quiz, "Only Connect", which tests lateral thinking.

Can YOU work out the link between these 4 seemingly unrelated "things" ?

I think you've got this one, haven't you!

Yes it's all about a survey about attitudes to swearing, with 91% thinking it's "okay" to swear when you're home alone; for 87% it's "okay" to swear in response to pain, but only 4% thinking that it's acceptable either in church or in front of children, which is fair enough!

As a postscript, however, programme presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell adds another statistic, this time about swearing on TV, which is illuminating.

Wow! And that's little snippet that Victoria gives away tonight will certainly add fuel to the rumours that the "unedited" version of the show, which the BBC for some reason refuses to show us, is as long as an hour (i.e. twice the broadcast length!) or even two hours, some believe!

Bu what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!