Danskcolin: Tuesday November 10th 2026 "Violins, Cellos etc - They Can Really Pluck At Your Heartstrings! And no pun intended!!!"

Yes, Friends, those soulful violins, cellos, guitars etc, they really speak to our heartstrings, don't they! But what our heartstrings say back to them isn't recorded, at least not on any CD I've heard so far, to put it mildly !!!!

And at last - and not before time! - popular tabloid Onion News has introduced its long-awaited "Your Strings Tonight" Weekly Colour Supplement today, complete with some brilliant photos from one of their hard-working cameramen, which is a nice touch!

Just look at today's "doozies" !!!!

It's all a bit "over the top and round the sides (and back!)", if I'm honest! But the stories bring the briefest hint of a smirk to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-supercalifragilistic Liphook, Hampshire - no question-marks over that !!!

me and my wife Lois this lunchtime in a church just over the

county line, in nearby Haslemere, Surrey

"But why are you two 'noggins' sitting in at church, and at lunchtime, of all things, Colin?!", I hear you cry!

And there's a simple answer - we're here for the first in Haslemere's St Christopher's Church's new 2026-2027 series of lunchtime concerts, which is mad! But 'needs must' so we just grab a quick sandwich at home before zooming over to Haslemere, and luckily we get to the church early, in time to fight our way through a huge party of other "old codgers" and also crowds of local schoolchildren, somehow managing to get ourselves a couple of sought-after aisle seats, which is nice!

The nice church-member-lady who shows us to our seats reveals to us the simple seating plan - "old codgers" to the left, schoolkids to the right - which simplifies things enormously and is a great relief!

And my aisle seat will also give my long legs somewhere to go - i.e. stick themselves out into the generous aisle without necessarily tripping up the vicar or anybody else, which makes a pleasant change! Nothing puts "the mockers" on a church concert like the vicar being taken away in an ambulance, Lois and I always say!!!

Also, we're in plenty of time to peruse the programme, and so become a bit familiar with the chief players and try to remember what their instruments are, and their backgrounds, and also satisfy ourselves that they're qualified to be here today.

To be blunt, Lois and I don't want any what-we-call "Les Dawsons".

Dear old Les, dubbed "Barnsley's Answer to Andre Previn", was known for his notoriously poor, 100% untutored, piano-skills, to put it mildly!!

flashback to the 1990's - classically untrained" pianist Les Dawson,

styled "Barnsley's answer to Andre Previn" - what madness, wasn't it!!!

Luckily, however, today's soloists seem to pass even mine and Lois's vigorous tests, which is encouraging!

Guitarist Jenny Janse, according to our programme, read music at Cambridge and has performed and recorded across Europe with her ensemble, "The Musicke Companye". And cellist Fiona Harrison graduated from the Royal College of Music, has a Masters degree in music from Yale, and has performed in ensemble at The Barbican Centre and the London Purcell Room.

(left) today's cello soloist Jenny Janse (Cambridge and Royal Academy of Music)

with today's guitar soloist Fiona Harrison (Royal College of Music, and Yale)

To sum up, today's two soloists seem eminently qualified, and so, after discussion, Lois and I decide to let the concert go ahead!

[That's big of you, Colin! - Ed]

And all in all, it's a lovely concert, too, with music to soothe our shattered nerves (!), and finishing with a bit of an oddity - Ravel's drinking song "Chanson a Boire", which is punctuated by some weird "musical hiccups", from Jenny - not from her tummy (!!!!), but from her cello, being played pizzicato-style, which is mad!

(left) French composer Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937), who wrote today's famous "Drinking Song"

(French: Chanson a Boire); and (right) a typical 18th century drinking scene

of the kind his 1930's song seeks to channel (!)

And after all this is a lunchtime concert, and, for the slightly younger "old codgers" in the audience, there's probably just time, after the concert, to pop into the pub for "a quick one", or a "swift half" before going back to the office, so fair enough!

Ravel would have been proud of them haha!!!!

(left) Lois, seated with me in the "Old Codgers" section of the room, and (right)

today's cello soloist Fiona Harrison, who can make her cello hiccup, which is weird!

However, whether we reject sobriety or not (!), Lois and I certainly don't have time, after the concert, to pop into a pub for a "swift half", because we have an important appointment in bed for "statutory nap-time", so "needs must" haha!!!!

But what a crazy world we live in!!!

21:00 And there's more craziness tonight, when we settle down on the sofa to see the second programme in the new 2026-2027 season of the comedy panel game series "QI", which has now got through most of the English alphabet, reaching the letter 'X', would you believe!

And, for presenter and X-Scandinavian Sandi Toksvig and her 4 experts, trying to find words in the dictionary that begin with the letter 'X', to do their research on, is getting increasingly difficult to put it mildly!!!

Luckily there's an old word for 'charcoal', which is "xyloanthrax".

And talking of "xyloanthrax"... (as you do!).... who knew that charcoal beetles like to mate during forest fires?

X-Scandinavian presenter Sandi Toksvig has more....

And just why do they wait for forest fires before they 'do it' ? Well, you see it's because the charcoal beetles know that, in a fire, their main predators will have already either (a) run away from the fire, or (b) burned to death, which makes a kind of weird sense to Lois and me!

But wait - there's more! And this is the really weird, "science bit".....!

You see, charcoal beetles have a sort of incredibly sensitive "armpit" - more precisely the area behind the "middle pair" of their 3 pairs of legs - a part of their anatomy which can sense fires burning from 130km away (about 80 miles), which is crazy!!!!

And yes, charcoal beetles literally can't mate, or lay their eggs, unless there's a big fire going on.

And it they're in London, they can detect fires as far away as Swindon (for example!) because of their "armpits".

designated "London to Swindon: best route for charcoal beetles" - M25 and M4 (if available!) !

You see, these beetles' tiny armpits contain dozens of tiny water-pockets, which expand when they sense heat, and then push against a "receptor". And the difference in how much the water expands on one side of their body compared to the other side of their body, also tells them the direction of the flames.

See? Simples!!!!

What madness, isn't it !!!!

And what Lois and I say, is "What a good thing people don't have to do that, flying and flapping their arms about, if they start feeling romantic (!), which is a blessing!

Especially if you then had to go to Swindon to do it (!). We've got nothing against Swindon, particularly, but, it's known principally for its large number of roundabouts, so isn't really the UK's most romantic town, is it, to put it mildly!!!!

And - historical fun fact (!) - charcoal beetles used to regularly swarm at 1940's American Football games, and not because of the grills or barbecues out in the car parks. It was simply because of the spectators' cigarette smoke, in those far-off crazy times, which was mad!

Also, another, more up-to-date, fun-fact (!) - firefighters in California often wear 'bee veils' to protect themselves, because the charcoal beetles can be very territorial, and when the fire-fighters arrive to put out a forest fire, the beetles start to bite them.

You couldn't make it up, could you! But at the end of this section of the show, presenter Sandi delights the studio audience with her own, charming impression of those little beetles - the young scamps!!!