Tuesday August 18th 2026 "Aren't 'couples' just SO annoying?! Always hogging the headlines these days!!!!"

Yes, Friends, do YOU find couples are getting more and more annoying these days - thinking they're so clever and glamorous, cleverer and more glamourous than everybody else - what madness!!!!

I counted, like, 300 headlines about couples today, in our copy of Onion News, and that was just on page 94, would you believe!!!!

Sickening, isn't it!!! But, weirdly, the stories bring an awkward smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, "lapping them up" here in semi-edgy Liphook, Hampshire, no question about that!

my wife Lois and me - some recent pictures

Neighbours have warned us that, in our desire to justify our locally-famous "moniker" of "Liphook's busiest-looking retired couple", we've been neglecting to show proof of our other accolade - sometimes totally forgetting that we were several months ago dubbed "East Hampshire's Most Glamourous Retired Couple" by readers of "East Hampshire Glamour Magazine" - oops !!!!

Yes oops! Our bad!!!!

And today, Lois and I set about trying to restore our now rather faded-looking 'most glamourous' title by planning a few public appearances to scotch the rumours, and, hopefully, silence the doubters and the nay-sayers, and hopefully also some of the "moaning Minnies", who think we're so-called "past it", would you believe!!!!

Some of the pictures that earned us that coveted "most glamourous" title (!):

all dressed up, and "ready to party like it's 1999" - Lois and me,

getting ready for a night on the town on New Millennium Eve, 1999

And today, Lois and I decided to waste no more time before "upping our game", and doing it "in spades", that's for sure !!!

An appearance tomorrow at an exhibition of prints by local artist Flora Twort in nearby Petersfield is now firmly "on the calendar" for starters, and should start the ball rollling! Then, with hopefully local press interest duly awoken, we're planning to follow that up with an appearance next Tuesday at Beacon Hill's iconic Adriano's Italian Restaurant for our 54th wedding anniversary, which is mad (!). 

(above) Petersfield Museum's exhibition of works by local artist Flora Twort

 where we plan to "drop by" tomorrow, and (below) flashback to June 2025:

we dine at Beacon Hill's Adriano's Italian Restaurant for Lois's 79th birthday

And, after our anniversary is "done and dusted", the icing on the cake (no pun intended!!!) will be an appearance at Haslemere Hall for local community theatre workshop's staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber's sparkling 1968 musical "Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat". 

Better don your sun-glassses - our own "technicolour" glamour (no pun intended !!!) is starting to show its face again, no doubt about that!!!!!

I have to add, however, that, on top of earning us "brownie points" on the glamour pages of local paper The Liphook Herald, these appearances will also "tick numerous boxes" on mine and Lois's personal "walk down memory lane", which is nice!

The exhibition of artworks by local artist Flora Twort (1893-1985) is a reminder that, next month, Lois and I will officially become posthumous relatives of Flora, when my niece Lucy will be marrying Flora's cousin's great-granddaughter Rosanna (if I've got that right!!!) in a ceremony in Ipswich, Suffolk, which we will hopefully be attending.

flashback to May: Lois and me on a visit to see my sister Gill in Ipswich, (left)

dining with Gill's daughter Lucy and her fiancee Rosanna at a local Turkish restaurant

And our guest appearance next week at the local "Imagine That!" production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat" is a reminder that we first saw a performance of this musical back in the early 1980's, during our 3-year stay in the US, at a little community theatre in Ellicott City, Maryland. 

flashback to the early 1980's: (left) Lois and me with our daughters Alison and Sarah,

during our 3-year stay in the US, seen here touring Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains,

and (right) the community theatre in Ellicott City, Maryland, where we first saw "Joseph"

Also, many years later, in 1991, I took our daughter Sarah to see a performance of the musical at the London Palladium, starring Aussie soap-star Jason Donovan, a role which he reprised for our late Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, back in 2022. 

(above) flashback to 1991: the London Palladium production of "Joseph..."

starring Aussie soap-star Jason Donovan which I took our daughter Sara to see,

and (below) Donovan reprising the role for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee (2022)

Happy days!!!!

So, for Lois and me - the local press's latest "glamour couple" - is Liphook starting to look like too small a stage for us? Is it perhaps going to be a case of "Liphook today, Hollywood tomorrow!", maybe?

I wonder.....!

[Get real, Colin! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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