Caravan diaries, Here and Now (Part Two)

I’d anticipated sharing, in enthusiastically avuncular tones, my childhood experience of this beach: climbing rocks (there’s a particular one, the Big Rock, they’d surely have to climb that just as I did when I was their age), dipping a hand into a rock pool (I know where the best ones are), collecting shells (you can’t have too many cockles and mussels and razors), watching the slow motion of the tides and working out when the beach would be at its best, feeling the sand and building castles from it, with that special glee of knowing that those tides are going to level them back to flat clean sand in a few hours, so it’s fine to wantonly kick over your own lovingly crafted creation just before you leave the beach for an ice cream (that’s fun!).

I was wrong.  Gus and Zerlina found all that all by themselves, immediately and instinctively.  It’s Tuesday now (I think) and we have to leave on Friday; so I only have two days to discover diverting and damming streams, shrimping (though we have no nets as yet), espying huge live crabs in the recesses of the deepest pools…  Sorry, did I say ‘discover’ there?  Hmm.

 

Caravan diaries, Here and Now (Part One)

If you want to know mindfulness, come to Wiseman’s Bridge.  If you want to explore it deeply, bring two small children. 

I first came here when I was probably somewhere around Gus and Zerlina’s ages, so let’s call it six.  Although I was born and brought up within earshot of the sea, and spent many of my early days on Southbourne beach, that wasn’t the seaside as we understood it:  that had to be Pembrokeshire, obviously. As my parents had patiently to explain to acquaintances –  who expressed perplexity as to why anyone would drive three hundred miles to get from one beach to another, taking about seven hours in the process (the Severn bridges, let alone the M4, not then even having been a post-war planner’s wet daydream, the journey therefore having to be made via the lowest bridging point at Gloucester, followed by scenic detours across the Heads of the Valleys and even further north, as far as Builth Wells sometimes, to indulge my father’s unexpressed passion for dramatic scenery) – those two versions of ‘seaside’ were so different as to make the whole thing not just worthwhile, but essential.

This time the journey was in three legs, over three days – Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  (Modern kids shouldn’t be asked to do seven unbroken hours in a car, even with more distractive technology than we could have imagined or handled, nor required to sing ‘Old McDonald Had A Farm’ and ‘Ten Green Bottles’ for seven hours.)  Leg one was from their child-minder’s to Z’s house: a mere forty minutes, just to soften them up.  Packing my car with what had been interpreted from the phrase ‘travel light’ proved a challenge, though nothing compared to then wedging it all, plus our own modest equipage, plus the food (and the extra food, and the oh-by-the-way food; and we still managed to forget the garlic) into Z’s car for the second leg, from Yagnub to my place in Reading.  Then it was just the boring last three hours down the M4, across the gorgeous bridge and into Wales, lunch at the best pub in the country (the White Hart at Llandarog) and so to – here!

Now is Monday.  I’ve only managed to get us as far as the caravan, and I’m already exhausted.  Parts two and three will be written tomorrow and, perhaps, Thursday, and published simultaneously when I get back to the internet-verse on Friday.

The Real Result

In an election, you have a choice between several candidates, whose proposals you can consider and choose between, and place your X accordingly.  If you decide not to do so, by abstaining, you may feel that you are nevertheless making a statement, which might be ‘none of these’ or ‘I don’t care’.  Abstention is thus a positive choice.

In a yes/no referendum, you don’t have the luxury of that ‘none of these’ or ‘don’t care’ third option.  It’s binary.  Your action has to mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’, nothing else.

In the case of our recent referendum, not voting had to mean ‘remain’.  What else could it possibly mean?  After all, it certainly wasn’t a vote for ‘leave’, and as I’ve shown there was no third choice. 

Therefore, the votes of the 28% of the electorate who abstained have to be counted as votes for ‘remain’.  So by not turning up, those 28% were saying they were happy for things to ‘remain’ as they are.

This being so, the real result was

Remain: 63% of the electorate.

Leave: 37% of the electorate.

 

And then…?

If the result is to stay in, nothing needs to happen.

If it’s out, a lot will have to happen.  Here’s a non-exhaustive list:

The U.K. will have to abrogate several Treaties –Rome, Maastricht, Lisbon, to name but three.  This will require at least one, if not several Acts of Parliament, which will have to go through the due constitutional process before receiving the Royal Assent.  I’d guess that the Lords will send it back to the Commons as often as they can.

In parallel, we will have to embark on the technical process of withdrawal.  I have no idea what this entails in practice, and I suspect that nobody else does either.  There may be some procedures written down somewhere, but they’ve obviously never been used in anger.  So it’ll take some work to turn theory into practice.  We’ll probably need a new department of the Civil Service to unravel it – and the Foreign Office will certainly need to be drawn in too; after all, we will also be renegotiating every single EU treaty with every other country we’ve signed up to, one at a time. 

Also in parallel, we will have to assess every single law, regulation and protocol that has emanated from the EU (or its precursors) and decide which of them to retain and which to repeal.   Given that these are enshrined in U.K. law, many Acts of Parliament will, again, be required, and will have to go through due constitutional process.

Then – and this can only happen once all the above has been performed, vetted and reviewed (not to mention publicly debated) – then, a single issue General Election will have to take place.  It’s impossible for this to happen in less than two years, and my guess is that it’ll take nearer eight.  By which time all the current generation of politicians will have faded away.

I have more!

It’s Too Late

I don’t mean that I’ve already voted so it’s too late to try and persuade me either way, though that’s true.

I mean it’s too late: the damage is already done.

Whatever the outcome on 24^th June, this pointless, gratuitous referendum has already achieved what will be its one enduring effect – to unleash primeval instincts of stupid, unreasoning prejudice, xenophobia and deluded imperialism that have always been latent in this country, and give them a cause, a voice and a platform.  In doing so, it has diminished us – all of us – in a way that will take us decades to recover from, if we ever do.

All those who out of pure, misguided self-interest called for and imposed the referendum, so surrendering in advance to those forces, have earned their historic legacy.  Let them sink in its mire and be ashamed.

 

Caravan diaries (June)

Having initiated Z into the worst weather Pembrokeshire can throw at you, I felt obliged to share the best, so (having arranged for a week of perfect sunshine, gentle breezes and no rain), off we set on Monday.  All the traffic was going in the other direction (bank holidays, for people who have to go to work, are travelling days, not holidays at all, aren’t they?) so we made good time.

The site was fairly well populated, although largely with people I don’t know that well; having been there for nearly fifteen years, I’ve observed generations succeeding each other, so the inhabitants now tend to be the children or grandchildren of the old hands I’d first met.  They still wave and smile, of course, but they tend not to stagger down the hill at nine thirty clutching bottles and glasses.  (Nine thirty p.m., that is: they did their pre-yardarm drinking behind closed doors.)

There were dozens of small children (great-grands in some cases), who monopolised every square yard of grassy space with cartwheels, downhill bicycle races, chaotic games of cricket or rounders (you’re not supposed to actually carry the player to the next base, are you?) and all the other incomprehensible games kids seem to invent once they’re let loose into an unconfined, fairly rule-free space.   

No rabbits, though.  Last visit, they were out in force – this time, not a single sighting.  This may be because of the extremely thorough grass-cutting that seems to have become standard this season; or because they’ve all borrowed under the foundations of our caravan and are busy down there, doing whatever rabbits do for fun.  Anyway, there’s a rather alarming hole directly under the front of the van, which caused me a moment’s panic until I realised that it wasn’t on the scale of those car-swallowing sinkholes you hear about.  I alerted Joseph anyway, and he promised to ‘deal with it’ – I didn’t enquire too closely into precisely what this entailed, as I suspect it’s not very pleasant, at least not for the rabbits.

We’d resolved to come back on Thursday, but fine weather trumps resolve any day of the week, innit?  So we came back on Friday.  The sunshine is chasing us eastwards, and will reach Reading for the weekend, and Yagnub by whenever we do.

 

Timbo gets a quality haircut

I’ve been going to Duke Street Barbers in Reading for about eight years now.  Prior to that, a ladies’ hairdresser called Diane had come to the house every six weeks, done Viv’s hair and thrown in a trim for me, but once that couldn’t be sustained I took a friend’s recommendation and ended up at Duke Street.

It’s definitely a gent’s barber’s shop:  it says, or at least implies, as much on the signboard outside the door, which even sports the once traditional red-and-white barber’s pole (which is, as I’m sure you know, a relic from the days when barbers were also surgeons, and so bandaged wounded limbs, evidently not very efficiently).  It has eight chairs and, as far as I can tell, up to four barbers.  There are a couple of long-termers, but apart from them the staff turnover is high.  I’ve had my hair cut by lots of charming barbers, male and female – the unisex rule applies only to the clientele, not the operatives – but rarely the same one more than twice.

So I wasn’t surprised to find a new guy bouncing out of the back room when I called in the other day for my usual light scissor trim.  (I learned a few years ago that this was what to order, having disastrously experimented with the various grades of razor cut – they run from one (bald) to eight (nearly bald).)  He greeted me effusively, which usually puts me off, as making small talk whilst being gently tortured doesn’t come naturally to me.  But this guy disarmed me straight away by telling me how much hair I had, and by implication how much he was looking forward to sculpting it.  I alluded to the cranial bald patch, and he pointed out that I’m fairly tall, so people won’t usually notice it.  I thought it best not to argue the point.

He was a damn good haircutter (I’ve been complimented on the job he did) but also a very engaging conversationalist.  He’d spent some time in Spain before coming to England, loved it, learnt the language, had I ever been to Spain?  Given another twenty minutes, I like to think he’d have invited me to accompany him on a holiday to Marbella, but that wasn’t to be.  Turned out he was originally from Morocco.  We need more immigrants like him.

The best bit was when the chat turned back to my luxuriant rug.  I don’t understand why blokes who have a good healthy crop choose to reap it all off with a number one.  “They think it makes them look hard,” my friend said.  “They’re right, it does,” I replied.  “Yes,” he said.  “But it doesn’t make them hard.”

 

 

This Brexit thingie

This blog doesn’t do politics, except when it does.  This is one of those occasions. 

I may as well use the tried and tested WWWWW formula.

What?  Answer: Nobody Knows Anything.  (© the great William Goldman.)  Predictions of the economic impact of Brexit are so wildly variant as to render them about as useful as that bus you are, or are not, about to walk under.  (Oh, and it seems our French friends have scuppered TTIP, so that card’s no longer on the table.)

Why?  The Daily Mail, of all media, has posed this very interesting question.  If Cameron is so worried about the outcome, why did he call the referendum in the first place?  Don’t hold out for an answer.

Where?  The Brexit camp is rather vociferous about our potential trading links with, let’s see: China; South America; India …  Rather less so about Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea.  And presumably they’re a bit equivocal about the USA at the moment.

Who?  Z has waxed eloquent elsewhere, so I’ll just list her three Premier League names: George Galloway; Marine le Pen; Donald Trump.  And add a few second-rankers: Boris, IDS, Govey… I could go on.  They’ve even tried to rope in the Queen.  But give me a list of Remainers (apart from those under orders, obviously)?  David Attenborough isn’t enough.  Mobilisation is called for.  Where are Ant and Dec when we need them?    

When?  That’s a tricky one.  Will the Turkish and Armenian  hordes overwhelm us?  Or will the Empire rise again in Hope and Glory?  Before the next general election?  O will we just muddle on, as usual?  We are British, after all.

Tortoises

This is the last in a miniseries. 

Tortoises are demanding animate boulders.  That’s all I really have to say on the subject, but this is a blog post not a facebook quip, so I’ll have to expound.

Let’s take boulders first.  Basically, they don’t move (but see animate below).  You can watch one for hours before it proves it’s alive by sticking its head out to see if there’s anything green within reach.  If there is, it’ll eat it; if not, it’ll stick its head back in and revert to boulderdome.  If you catch one in the act, feel honoured.  It’s almost interesting.

As I hinted though, they can be animate, in the sense of actually moving.  When this mood takes them, they can be surprisingly sprightly.  We caught the older one halfway across the lawn a few weeks ago, it having somehow scaled a brick barricade five times its height and sprinted the equivalent of two or three of our miles, before pausing for whatever is the tortoise version of breath and looking around for something acceptably green to eat, the basic lawn grass of course not fitting its strict dietary regime.

Which brings me to demanding.  I mustn’t say too much under this heading, because after all, once you’ve taken responsibility you have to discharge it, don’t you?  But really.  Who needs three custom-built palaces?  Especially ones you spend most of your energy trying to break out of?

Poultry

If you’ve never had a close encounter with a chicken, you’ll find it hard to believe how such a profoundly stupid creature could have survived the evolutionary process. 

My grandfather kept them in his garden, just down the road from my first home in a sedate suburb of Bournemouth, but I can’t honestly admit to having been particularly aware of them; I think they were probably discreetly disposed of by the time I was about nine.  But before that, he must have gone through the learning process I’ve recently embarked on.  Even grandfathers started out as babies, after all.

I’m learning fast, though, and I’m approaching some preliminary judgements about these curious beasts.

For a start, the cocks behave for all the world as if they were immortal, each of them certain in his own superiority to all other cocks, and prepared to fight to the death to prove it.

Secondly, the hens are determined to put themselves in danger.  All right, it’s nice to peck around in a great big grassy open space, but haven’t millennia of evolution taught you about predators yet?  Come home at night, idiots!

And thirdly, they’re all impossibly perverse.  Why, when a clearly superior being like me tries to help guide them in a sensible direction, do they persist in doing the opposite?  I try to chase them away from me, they run towards me; try to cajole them, they recoil.  It’s almost as if they think they know better – or would be, except that implies a thought process.

In a word – teenagers.

 

 

Animal Crackers

Until recently I hadn’t spent all that much of my life around animals.  My parents had two cats, consecutively – Scrap, who was a black adopted stray, evidently much loved, and Sandy.  Scrap died when I was about four, so my memories of him are almost entirely vicarious; and Sandy was a fat ginger neutered tom for whom I can’t remember ever feeling a scrap of affection.  (It was reciprocal, I’m sure.)  Then there were two dogs, again consecutive, both called Trixie, both Pembrokeshire corgis.  Trixie I died after only a few months in the family, and was immediately replaced by Trixie II.  I’d guess this was around 1953, when corgis had suddenly become quite fashionable.  I had to take this dog for walks, which worried me.  My fears were justified, because on one occasion a local male mongrel took advantage on my watch, fortunately without outcome.  I think Trixie II was ‘done’ shortly after this incident, thus becoming as fat and lethargic as Sandy the cat. 

Much later, I had two German shepherds, or Alsatians as the British public were trained to call them during WWII.  Again, these were consecutive.  The first was too friendly for his own good, wanting to socialise boisterously with every dog or human he encountered, which didn’t always work the other way.  He died of a mysterious virus at about two years, and was replaced with his temperamental opposite, a shy, nervous creature who was hard to get to know.  I loved him, but he scared me – not for myself, but for other people.  He was lucky to get away with some transgressions.

So my early experience of  animals wasn’t particularly special.  Recently, though, all that has changed, so over the next few posts I’ll tell you about some of my new friends, acquaintances and, dare I say, potential adversaries.

To kick off  with, then, cattle.  Or bullocks, to be exact – although I’m told that one of the seven is in fact still a bull: I haven’t attempted to verify this yet. As readers of Z's blog will know well, they visit the meadow every summer.   They’re placid creatures, but naturally inquisitive, and they don’t play to human rules, as I found when I incautiously went too close to one, just trying to be friendly, and he decided that my jacket looked like a tasty morsel.

They’re not stupid, though.  The other day, we found that they’d managed to remove the galvanised cover on the header tank of their water trough and hide it somewhere in the field.  This was the first move in a cunning plan.  They then unscrewed the ball from the ballcock, thereby causing the tank to overflow onto the surrounding ground and form a nice muddy lake, from which they were able to drink without having to raise their heads from their other important business, eating grass.

In which I celebrate A Memorable Lunch

We needed to use up an hour before the clarinet-repair shop woke up from its lunch break, so decided to have lunch ourselves, fetching up at a reasonable-looking pub a few miles outside Norwich.  They had a lunchtime sandwich menu, and I selected (I quote from memory) locally cured honey-roast ham, Dijon mustard and tomato on granary bread, with salad garnish and chips.

What eventually arrived, served by the charming and extremely efficient but overloaded barmaid (who was the only person on public duty, the other member of the bar staff having called in sick and the management clearly not having come across the concept of ‘cover’) consisted of two inch-thick hunks of (admittedly fairly decent) bread, enclosing a single wafer-thin slice of fairly ordinary ham (sourced, I suspect, from the Tesco Express just down the road), a scraping of English mustard and two slices of tomato (probably Dutch to judge by the flavour, if that’s the right word), accompanied by a handful of lamb’s lettuce, one leaf of what might once have been rabbit’s lettuce, two more slices of the same tomato, and exactly three – I counted them - potato crisps.

I mean, really!  There ought to be an EU regulation about that sort of thing, oughtn’t there?

To be fair, the beer was nice.  So were the napkins.

Caravan diaries 2016 #1

The journey down was longer than it should have been, partly due to an entirely inexplicable traffic jam between junctions 16 and 17 of the M4.  The warning signs were lit up right from Reading (junction 12), a good 35 miles earlier.  Sure enough, as soon as we passed Swindon, we slowed down to a near standstill as the signs got more and more alarming.  It took about half an hour to get to about junction 17, when the traffic miraculously cleared and we were back to our normal speed – there was no sign of what had caused the tailback, and I ranted yet again along the lines of “it’s the bleedin’ warning signs that cause it, rant rant rant”.

The caravan had once again survived what was actually a fairly hard winter for Pembrokeshire; in other words, it hadn’t rolled down the hill into the sea, and was only partially covered in green gunge, which will have to be washed off next time – I couldn’t be bothered to do more than the glass door this visit, on the basis that that particular patch of gunge was visible from the inside, and that it was more important to show Z the ropes, and the view.

The other good news is that the lawnmower fairy had called and cut all the grass, even the bits that are usually left for me to delight in.  I can only wax optimistic – has this become a new site policy?  Or a gentle hint about general tidiness expectations?  Time will tell.

On Saturday we went and shopped in Narberth (or Arberth as it’s named in Welsh; couldn’t they agree on at least that minor international difference?  Evidently not.)  It’s still a delightful town, surprisingly thriving for what likes to see itself as a depressed, deprived area.  Staycationing might have had an impact, of course.  Good to see that the best butcher, Andrew Rees, is still vigorously trading, selling local wet fish as well – we bought a turbot, not a beast you see often in the shops these days.  And a local genuinely free range chicken, which we’ve only just consumed the last of, four good meals’ worth.  And the slightly quirky greengrocers’ (or greengrocer’s) cum deli had very new Pembrokeshire new potatoes – easily the match of Jersey Royals, especially for not having been over-marketed and so over-cultivated.  This shop is called Wisebuys, which of course years ago got renamed Wise Boys.

On Sunday the east wind did blow.  The caravan site, unusually for the Welsh coast, faces east (which confused Z slightly until I explained the shape of Carmarthen Bay, without even having to resort to a map – she’s very quick on the uptake…), and when there’s a good blast from that quarter we feel it.  The caravan trembles and strains at its anchors, making for mild excitement and pretend trepidation, always good fun.  And the sea, of course, was churned up beautifully, as these pics show. 

We weren’t as brave as those folks, and didn’t venture onto the beach.  Next time.  Z tells me she loves rock pools, so she has a treat in store, as do I – this particular chunk of my childhood is indelible, but does benefit from the occasional refresh.

Ou sont les pois-nieges d’antan?

Yesterday I decided to show off by cooking my legendary prawn stir-fry with noodles.  It needs green peppers and, ideally, pak choi; but pak choi was an ask too far for Yagnub Co-op, so we settled for mange-tout, or snow peas as they’re sometimes called, and I lobbed a pack into the trolley.  Come evening, they were nowhere to be found.  A certain amount of historical reconstruction, including inspection of the Co-op till receipt,  proved that they had indeed not been purchased.

I’m making a habit of thieving from supermarkets.  Only last year, as (the) dedicated reader(s) of this blog will recall, I nicked a tube of Polos from Waitrose.  So I felt suitably guilty as well as perplexed, and tried to work out what had happened, or not happened.

The best conclusion is that the pack of snow peas had accidentally spilled over the barricade into the next customer’s shopping.  I do hope they were as perplexed as I’d been, and I rather hope they decided to keep them and incorporate them into a delicious prawn stir-fry with noodles, unlikely though that is.  One can always dream.

The main rationale for this post is, of course, its title.

The Laws of Sudoku

I was seduced into these puzzles a few months ago, and now I divide my meagre residual leisure time between them and crosswords, which makes me an expert.  I’m sure that no-one who reads this blog is unfamiliar with Sudoku, so I won’t patronise you by spelling out the basic concept or the fundamental techniques.  I can, however, share with you a few tips I’ve registered during my (ahem) several hours’ in-depth experience:

1. When all the obvious and less obvious connections have been detected, stare at it for at least twenty-five minutes.  Then do the quick crossword.  Then stare some more.  Then go and get a drink.
2. The drink will have the immediate effect of revealing the bleedingly obvious link your eyes had meticulously swerved around throughout the pre-drink epoch.  Also the fact that you had written ‘4’ twice in the same nine-by-nine box.
3. I always print it out from the Garduain website, for two reasons: a) there’s just about room on an A4 for the demented aides memoires I need as a memory surrogate; and b) erasers don’t work more than twice on newsprint.  (Actually, my confidence levels have risen to the point where I can start with ink rather than pencil, safe in the knowledge that I can always screw it up, screw it up, and print it again.  It’s surprising how differently take 2 can turn out.) 
4. When the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains must be, er, equally impossible.  Guesswork should not be resorted to – but occasionally pays off.  Only today, I had to downgrade a ‘hard’ Guranaid Sudoku from ‘impossible’ back to merely ‘hard’ as a result of an inspired guess, which turned out to be wrong but unveiled the (rather subtle) right approach.
5. As an alternative to breaking down into uncontrollable metaphorical sobs, if it’s at all feasible, ask Z.  This never fails.

Five* Have Fun At The Dentist

*That being approximately the number of nearly intact molars I seem to have left in my mouth, not counting caps.

Ray, my dentist of thirty-odd years, retired at the end of last year, shortly after I’d made my appointment for yesterday’s check-up.  (I’d like to think this was a coincidence.)  So I was a bit nervous when I turned up ten minutes early.  Usually I grit my teeth and let them do the necessary, but a new, unknown dentist is bound to be a challenge.  The fact that the surgery didn’t open for another ten minutes didn’t help either.

I needn’t have worried.  He was charmingly camp, in an eastern European way.  The first thing he said was ‘I won’t ask you how you are, you’re well enough to get here and I’m not a doctor.  So, how are the teeth?’

I told him.  Unlike doctors, dentists can’t be lied to.  The next thing he did, after counting them and explaining very objectively the condition of the five worthy of mention, was ask me if I had time for him to repair the two most urgent.  The other three, he explained, could wait.  I asked how much time.

‘Depends whether you want anaesthetic,’ he replied.  ‘That takes a bit longer, obviously.’

By now I’d got the hang of this guy’s drill-side manner, so I swiftly decided to be equally honest with him.  ‘I’ll take the chance, but if I can’t bear it I’ll let you know.’  He smiled behind his mask.  ‘Shouldn’t be too bad.’

It wasn’t.  A few minutes in, he asked if I was okay: ‘don’t lie to me, now.’  And towards the end, ‘are you still with me?’  When he’d finished practically rebuilding the tooth that, it seemed, had been about to fall to pieces without my noticing, he filed a bit off a back one which had been nagging at my tongue.  The entire process took about half an hour, and was miraculously painless.  I cannot praise this man’s skill highly enough.  Or his entertainment value.    

And the whole performance (for that was what it was) cost me just £51.30.  I couldn’t help wondering what the one pound thirty covered, but thought it best not to ask.

Fantasy Brexit Cabinet

Prime Minister: Boris Johnson

Home Secretary: Nigel Farage

Foreign Secretary: George Galloway

Chancellor of the Exchequer: Nigel Lawson

Work and Pensions: Alan Sugar

Health: Jeremy Hunt

Transport: Ranulph Fiennes

Energy: Joan Collins

Education: Michael Gove

Culture: Tim Rice

Justice: Ian Duncan Smith

Minister Without Portfolio: Jeremy Corbyn

 

 

There and Back Again*

Flann O’Brien tells, in The Third Policeman, how a road differs depending on whether you are coming or going.  When you are coming along it, the road can be inviting, enticingly undulating, gently pulling you towards your destination.  When you are going down the same road, it can be dreary, achingly hilly, frowningly forbidding.  In O’Brien’s novel, it is the road itself that changes, not the traveller, but we don’t need to stretch the metaphor quite that far.

I was, however, planning to stretch it in another direction.  My yesterday was a ‘going’ day.  Today has been a ‘coming’ one. 

The metaphor has, of course, just nearly snapped, because days don’t run in opposite directions.   Only nearly, though, not completely.   My whole life recently has been a-coming, not a-going.

*Quiz question: locate this fictional unfinished tale.

A Study Suggests

There are a lot of academic Studies out there, aren’t there?  Or putting it another way, there is a lot of academic Studies out there, isn’t there?  I’m sure someone has published a learned Study on the subject of The Collective Singular in Modern English. 

In fact I’d be amazed if they/he/she haven’t/hasn’t.  My own Study suggests that the academic study industry, in its broadest encompassment, is set to outweigh all other industries put together.  Nary a day goes by without at least two catching the media’s attention.  And they (the reported ones, that is) seem, mostly, to fall into one of two categories: statements of the bleeding obvious, and pure gibberish. 

The latest to catch my eye is the one suggesting that, in various life choices, we tend to favour the option located on our dominant side.  That is to say, right for right-handed people, left for lefties.  As an instance of this, the authors state that we’re more likely to vote for a candidate on the right-hand side of the ballot paper if we are right-handed, and vice versa.

Now, this is an American study, and America is a democracy (let’s assume) in which the right not to vote is constitutionally, albeit not explicitly, enshrined.  So it’s possible that these authors have never seen an actual ballot paper.  To be fair, I’m not particularly familiar with the details of the American electoral system, except that it involves things called chads, which may be hanging; but I reckon it’s safe to assume that candidates are, as here in Britain, listed from top to bottom rather than left to right.  Er, was this the best example they could think up?

No.  They also suggest that, at an interview, you should sit to the interviewer's right, or left, in order to make the best impression.  Now again, have they ever attended an interview at which they were given the choice of where to sit?  And at which they knew in advance whether the interviewer was right- or left-handed?  And have they considered that, whilst this technique might just improve your chances of getting the job, it might also put you off it?

Gubbish.  Gobbledegook.  Anyone got any other examples of this sort of pseudo-scientific codswallop?

Country Ways

Not strictly true: Z doesn’t really live in the country in the extreme rural sense, it just feels like it, as those of you who’ve visited her will vouchsafe (and be able to confirm at her next blogfest on 16 July).

But I had a small initiation.  As you know, one qualifying feature of ‘country’ is lack of mains drainage.  Modern septic tanks take care of this with minimal maintenance and, when it all runs (ha!) according to design, rare problems.  It just so happened that my visit coincided with not one but two.  (I firmly deny any complicity…)

Roses, who lives next door, had noticed a bit of a pong, which she’d very easily traced to the feed to her tank.  Well, two of the five senses were quite enough.  So Z’s trusty BMWF (as she calls him) was summoned to the rescue.   BMWF has, I learned, been an energetic tower of strength (if you can have one of those) around the Zedary for more years than there are.  He rapidly ascertained that R’s tank flowed into Z’s, so the latter had to be investigated as the fount (?) of the effluence.  This proved to be untrue, but fortuitous.

Because it turns out there were in fact two separate, quite unconnected, blockages, one for each (entirely unconnected) tank.  This proves how easy it is to build a course of action on a false assumption – as Kingsley Amis memorably epitomised it, the ‘inverted pyramid of piss’.

Of course, once this had been established, the rest was easy.  Just scoop the water and sludge out of Z’s pit, so as to find the outlet pipe; dispose of the sludge; rod the outlet once found; all will then be well.

Except that it wasn’t.  I’m tired now, so I can’t go into the details of how BMWF eventually discovered that R’s problem was easily solved whereas Z’s requires a whole new run of outlet pipe to be laid.  I’m dwelling on my small country life initiation, which consisted of disposing of many gallons of sludge, in a wheelbarrow, down a couple of rabbit holes across the field.  Right, that’s enough dwelling on that.

The sole reason for this post, actually, is to report that, when told this story, Z’s friend apparently remarked “sort of Watershit Down, then?”