Monday August 31st 2026 "Have YOU ever been 'sick'? Or maybe 'sick of' being sick, or sick of something completely different?"

Yes, Friends, have YOU ever been sick? Or 'sick of' something, maybe? It's been called 'the modern disease', hasn't it, and with temperatures dropping all over the UK as autumn approaches, so-called 'sicknesses' of one sort or another are dominating the press today, no question about that! Just pick up your copy of this morning's Onion News print edition if you want to get the full 'low-down' !!!!

"Makes you sick", doesn't it, haha!!!! And today's headlines about our modern so-called "sick world" are certainly helping to bring a weak smile to the lips of me and my wife Lois today, here in damp-affected Liphook, Hampshire - so that's all good!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

Poor Lois has herself been feeling QUOTE "not 100%" UNQUOTE  for the last couple of days, but it's difficult to get the correct percentage down to more than a few decimal points, so I'm not going to put the "numbers" too much under the spotlight here, which is probably for the best!

The 'bottom line' is that Lois is determined not to let her reported 'sore throat' symptoms stop her enjoying herself, and she insists on 'powering through' with our usual morning walk over the 'hallowed turf' of local soccer specialists Liphook United. And she is also being irrepressibly spirited and boisterous, both during our morning walk and even during afternoon 'statutory nap-time', and so, fingers crossed, this 'tough medicine' is going to 'see off' her threatened full-scale cold, so we'll see. 

Watch this space, over the coming hours, for any last-minute 'news updates' !!!!

Lois and me this morning, with Lois insisting on doing our morning walk

over Liphook United's 'hallowed turf' despite her sore throat etc, and (right)

us passing the ground's iconic children's playground, deserted for the Bank Holiday (!)

It's certainly very quiet  on our walk, but maybe that's because (a) the weather is damp and miserable, and (b) it's a Bank Holiday (!) - a combination of factors that, over the years, some experts have linked, by the way: some even calling it  'causal', and certainly the stats don't lie! However, it's the last such holiday until Christmas, so we might as well enjoy it, damp or no damp - that's what Lois and I say !!!!!

And it's nice to know that today's UK Bank Holiday is bringing joy to at least one other person, 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia, would you believe! Yes, step forward our daughter Sarah, whom we call "Sarah Two-Jobs" (!). She's not just a busy accountant for a firm in Perth, but she's also continuing to do her former accountancy job in Evesham UK. And Lois and I always let Sarah know if there's a UK Bank Holiday coming up, because it makes her 'visibly less stressed' to know that her Evesham co-workers won't be at work today, allowing some of her 'UK deadlines' to slip 24 hours, which is a great comfort, and a significant 'morale-booster', she tells us, which is nice !!!!

(left) our daughter Sarah with colleagues at the accountancy firm in Evesham UK,

and (right) leaving her office in Perth, when Lois and I picked her up on our last trip there

Poor Sarah !!!!!

20:00 Evening fallas, and, at last getting a moment to collapse on the couch, and with Lois still reporting that her sore throat seems to be going away, we get the chance to 'kick back' and relax at last, and not before time!

At least on our screens tonight, noted film actor Richard E Grant is on hand to "spirit us away" from England's dampness  to sunny Mediterranean skies in the last programme in his celebrity literary travelogue series, "A Very Modern Odyssey", on Channel 4. 

There's admittedly only a very thin justification for Grant's series, which is supposedly based on the route taken by Ancient Greek hero Odysseus, after he left the Trojan War and 'took the scenic route' back to Ithaca, and back to the welcoming arms of wife Penelope. In his absence, "Penny" was then being 'courted' by, like, a billion horny 'suitors', all trying to convince her that Odysseus wasn't going to be coming home any time soon, so why not have a little fun 'between the sheets' with one or other of them., they told her (!).

What madness, though, wasn't it!!!!

the 'scenic route' taken by Greek hero Odysseus, leaving Troy

at the end of the Trojan War, and eventually finding his way back

to his home in Ithaca, and to his long-suffering wife Penelope

Despite the programme's rather 'dubious' link to Homer's great epic "The Odyssey", the series still has lots of fascinating bits to it. 

Lois and I didn't know (or had forgotten) that the lovely faraway Mediterranean island of Corfu, which was on Odysseus' route home, formed part of the British Empire for almost 50 years, from 1815 to 1864. The Royal Navy apparently kicked Napoleon's forces out of the island in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and the British evidently decided that it was nice enough in Corfu to stay a bit longer (!). 

flashback to around 1830: British troops parading in Corfu

Most of the rest of Greece was then currently occupied by the Ottoman Turks, so I think that the natives of Corfu probably thought that we British were a 'less bad option' if they were going to be ruled by anybody foreign, and the Brits at least had the grace to withdraw from the island eventually, in 1864, when Greek independence in general was becoming 'a thing', so that was all good!

Astonishingly, while 'occupying' Corfu, we Brits somehow also found the time to teach the natives how to play cricket, and the game is still flourishing there, with 6 local cricket teams, Grant reports, some of them 'fielding' the occasional woman-player [no pun intended!!!], which is nice!

"Well played, Sir (or Madam, as the case may be!)!", and "Good shot Sir/Madam" !!!

Before the British arrived in 1815, however, the island had had a long history of foreign occupation, for substantial periods forming part of Venice's Empire, and tonight we see the ever-charming Grant watching a demonstration of a Venetian dance called the Furlana, still popular amongst the "Corfiots", as natives of the island are called.

In a bygone era, the women's exquisite, eye-catching outfits weren't just costumes but also ceremonial dresses signifying social status and marriage eligibility, i.e. whether the woman was a virgin or not, so a big "giveaway" (!).

But wait, there's more! 

The number of ribbons in the woman's outfit told you how big a queue there was to marry the virgin concerned, which was another useful "time-saver" for the Corfiot man-about-town, no question about that!!!! 

So, the moral was that you didn't set your sights on any woman who had too many ribbons, especially if you were short of time, and eager to 'get on with it' (!).

Oh dear, that's a bummer!!!!

Poor Corfiot virgin !!!!!

But what a mad world they lived in, in those crazy, far-off times!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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