As I asked Libby for a double espresso, she showed me a long email from Susie. “I must say hello to Mo, then I would love to see how she’s doing. I’ll be back!”

Mo was head down into the latest Peter James novel. James is a hugely successful local writer whose detective character in his ‘Dead’ series is DS Roy Grace, played by the actor John Simm in two televised dramas.

Like all stories that feature the same characters, they tend to get a little samey, even if time and effort is spent developing and aging them. When we first came to Hove and someone introduced me to ‘Grace’, I hoovered them up like a maniac. They are all set in and around Brighton & Hove so there is that ‘Oh! I know where that is’ that makes them more interesting to those readers who live here.

“Have you read this yet Richard?”

“No, not yet, but it’s in a pile in my Kindle!” (Can you say that?)

Mo wonders whether I had seen the news item here about possible changes to the legality of assisting someone to end their life. Our Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have said: ‘Charges are unlikely in cases where a victim clearly wanted to die and they suspect put real ‘emotional pressure’ on a friend or family member to assist.’

 “My mother is loving living in her ‘retirement house’ in Shoreham where people are on hand to help if necessary, but otherwise the elderly live normal independent lives. She comes over here quite a lot and helps on Thursdays for the ‘lonely table’ mornings but she has said that, at 83, she may need help at some point to leave this life! It’s one of the most complex issues any society has to deal with, the conflict between the wishes of someone which goes against the laws of the land.”

“This sort of dilemma pulls at the heart strings, doesn’t it? We knew someone in Portugal who was diagnosed with a particular nasty cancer and contemplated going to Dignitas in Switzerland. By the time she had decided to go, she was too unwell to travel! Mo, I haven’t much time this morning and I promised Libby I would see Susie’s photographs from Tasmania, so I’ll leave you to get back to ‘Stop You Dead’ and catch up next early in November. OK?”

Libby comes and sits at my table as the café is quite quiet this morning. I think she’s rather enjoyed standing in for her niece while she has been away on her belated Gap Year and I suspect she’ll do a deal with Duncan to stay in some capacity.

“Hi! Richard! About time you caught up! By the way” Libby says, lowering her voice and nodding towards the café’s corner, “the woman in the wheelchair’s Anna; she’s become quite a regular and you should make an effort to get to know her.”

“How did she end up in a wheelchair? She’s what, late 20s?”

“She told me she was on a tombstoning holiday in Cornwall and ….”

“What’s that, tombstoning?”

“Apparently, it’s an extreme sport where individuals jump off cliffs or harbour walls for instance. She got it wrong once and is now paralysed from the waist downwards. But she’s plucky and works in marketing for a spinal injuries organisation.”

“Sounds as though they chose an appropriate name for that sport! So what about Susie?”

“You know that she got offered a job in Hobart, Tasmania, working for Margie in her catering company?”

“Yes! Until the end of October wasn’t it or …”

“No that’s right. She says she fitted right in and has loved living on this rather strange island, where lots of the towns are named after places in England and Wales. (Note 1) She sails in the evenings in a Spring dinghy regatta in Hobart harbour and has managed, with Margie and her partner Stephanie, to see something of the island during the weekends.”

“That’s great! Where has she been?”

“Well; the first weekend they went up the coast to Wineglass Bay, says the seawater was freezing ….

and then took the little ferry to Maria Island, famous for its rock striations

Oh! And they stayed in a great B&B in Swansea and did some hiking in the Freycinet National Park.

“She’s obviously having a good ‘overseas experience’. Hasn’t Tasmania got a bit of a dark history, apart from its Tasmanian Devil?”

“Sadly yes! Susie’s had time to read Robert Hughes’ ‘The Fatal Shore’ about the colonisation of Australia. Hughes wrote how Aboriginal people were herded north and shipped across to Flinders Island where, without much support, they eventually withered.”

“I read that book many years ago – brilliant! Has she seen the ruins of the convict prisons at Port Arthur?”

“Let me have a look through these photos, Richard. (pause) Yes, here’s one of those buildings …..

…… and one of Macquarie Harbour on the west coast.”

“I remember Hughes’ description of Macquarie Harbour’s entrance, ‘Hells Gate’. This coast is the first landmass east of Argentina and the southern ocean’s waves made navigating the gap between the rocks treacherous. Susie’s having a great time; any sense of when she’ll return?”

“Not yet …..! By the way, you know Lisa gave Sami a birthday treat of two weeks in the Maldives?”

“Yes! She told me she took him to Terminal Five at Heathrow and he had no idea where he was going. Perfect 65^th Birthday present! No doubt we will hear about it from them on their return.”

“No doubt we will!”

Richard 27^th October 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 He now lives in Jersey, I assume for their more favourable tax regime. I read one of his non-Grace books, ‘I Follow You’, about a man obsessed with a female runner; it was based in Jersey and absolutely brilliant if a little spine-chilling!

Note 2 For instance Launceston, Richmond, Beaconsfield, Devonport, Sheffield and even Brighton.

These scribbles may, I suspect, be more interesting to my male readers than those of other genders but who knows, living in the alphabet-soup of today’s options!

In August 2015 I scribbled about Loo Paper (PC 47) which attracted some delightful reminiscences but was probably ‘placed or arranged the opposite way to the way it should have been’ ie ‘arse about face’ – as subsequently I was prompted to write about The Loo (PC 54 November 2015) and the delightful Mr Crapper.

I can guarantee that if you are a living mammal you urinate! Mammals, for clarity, are ‘warm-blooded vertebrate animals that are distinguished by the possession of hair or fur, females that secrete milk for the nourishment of their young and typically the birth of live young! There are seven sub-groups of mammals, of which one, ‘Primates’, covers us humans.

Having a pee is something no one can do for you, although if you’re a very young boy and not really able to hold your penis and, more importantly, aim it into the loo, then some parental help may be necessary. I will not comment on what happens when you’re very old! Urine is extremely corrosive – you can see the result of dogs urinating up against a lamppost, how the bottom gets rusty, unless you have them coated or covered. If you are of a certain age (Note1) you may remember the Avocado bathroom suite with its matching bath mat and mat around the base of the loo? The latter needed regular washing if there were males in the house.   

I remain fascinated by what can only be described as coincidences and have written about them in these scribbles many times. It was almost a coincidence that Facebook posted a photograph of Sean Connery and Ursula Andress from the film Doctor No (see PC 349 ‘Coincidence? Nah! Big Brother’ August 2023) as I had seen the exact photograph in a hotel corridor not thirty minutes before. Now I believe that, however spooky it is, algorithms follow me everywhere!

So it is extremely odd that, on Monday this week, I saw this photograph on Facebook and yet hadn’t posted anything about loos (ie this postcard was only 70% complete). How very appropriate and how very coincidental! I have always ‘stood up’ to pee and, much like swearing allegiance to the King and queuing, standing up to take a pee is apparently a British tradition, but it isn’t one that’s shared by other countries around the world. According to data collected by YouGov, only 9% of British men prefer to sit down for a pee, (Note 2) compared with 40% of German men; in Japan, that land of strange habits, a whopping 70% of Japanese men put their backsides on the pan!

Studies suggest that it pays to take a seat when you pee. Researchers from the department of urology at Leiden University Medical Centre (Note 3) found that men who sat down to pee were able to empty their bladders faster and more effectively. That’s because when you stand, you activate muscles in your pelvis and spine, but they’re completely relaxed when you sit. Sitting down to pee obviously helps with aim issues and is ‘a better option for men with prostate conditions or men who just can’t stand up for a long time,’ says Dr Jesse Mills, Associate Clinical Professor at the UCLA Department of Urology.

One of the worst situations for having a pee is on a lurching yacht in foul weather, when it’s raining and the deck is constantly covered in salt water spray. You need to grab onto a stay or life rail, unzip your oilskins and find ‘it’ – probably shrivelled due to the cold and wet – relax and let it go – and ignore the involuntary dribbles.

Going to the loo on an aeroplane has its own challenges. How often have we thought I’m just going to have a pee and at that same instant the drinks’ trolley is wheeled into the aisle, effectively blocking it, or the seat belt sign comes on as the pilot identifies some turbulence ahead? Or you stand outside an engaged loo and wonder why the occupier is taking so long …. and all sorts of strange ideas come to mind!

Flying back from Portugal last month, at 30,000ft I popped to the loo and wondered how one has a pee in the Embraer E190 (Note 4)? Unless you’re only 1.6m tall and not carrying too much weight, the space is tiny.

I enter the loo …. and my head hits the bulkhead ….. to get close to the pan standing up I need to bend my knees, so it’s a good thing I regularly practise Awkward Pose in the Hatha Yoga series …. this is NOT me!

 …. but this is not a position that encourages the natural flow of things! Waiting for it to work my thighs begin to feel the effort …. the lurching aeroplane doesn’t help …. and just as I’m wondering whether it would have been better to sit down at the beginning…… a dribble starts …. so I need to be patient …… hope the seat belt sign does not illuminate …. and finally I finish, with a huge sigh of relief.

And I am told it gets worse with age ….

Richard 20^th October 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Recently I bought some denim dungarees ….. and immediately understand I need to almost completely undress to get ‘it’ out. My female readers will probably think: “So?” whereas other males who undo their belt and loosen their trousers will wonder what the fuss is!

Note 1 A chum here in Hove lives in his now deceased mother’s house, complete with a 1970s pink bathroom suite ….. including the loo mat and pink wall tiles.

Note 2 That figure might change if asked about peeing in the middle of the night!

Note 3 Leiden in Holland has the country’s oldest university and is the birthplace of Rembrandt (1606 – 1669)

Note 4 This 100-seat aeroplane, comparable with the Airbus A220 and known as the Cityhopper, is made by Embraer of Brazil.

(Continued from PC 355)

Clutching my coffee I make my way over to the table where Sami and Lisa are sitting. Sami was expecting me and he’s got a coffee and a Brigadeiro; Lisa has a mug of Macha tea and a biscuit.

“Hi! Richard! You look well. Portugal OK was it?” asks Sami.

“Well, you know! Lucky to be able to live somewhere else for a while, indulge in different routines and rhythms … but good to be back! While I was away I read that Kevin Hollinrake, the Postal Affairs Minister, has offered compensation of £600,000 to ex sub-post masters like you. You going to accept this?”

“For some this isn’t enough, to compensate for lives being turned upside down, for time spent in prison, but personally I want to move on and so, yes, I am accepting this. I think that those who went to prison and had their reputation trashed should hold out for more, but personally I can’t continue to look backwards as my own future is today and tomorrow ……. with Lisa.” I notice Lisa smiles!

“I think that’s a good decision, Sami, but the British public needs to keep the pressure on to ensure those who were responsible for the cover-up at the Post Office are held to account. Not sure why I doubt what I’ve just said but ….! Incidentally I watched that docudrama called Partygate about the parties held at Boris Johnson’s Number Ten Downing Street during the Covid lockdown periods ……”

“We did too …..”

“So you understand the claim that those involved in the No 10 parties were fined £50 and those in other areas of the country partying during lockdown were fined thousands of pounds? Do you think it’s true? If so you understand my scepticism about calling the Post Office management to account?” 

“Mmmm. One rule for one and another for others!” Sami looks up and around at the renovated café, abuzz with people and conversations. “So what do you think of the renewed Hope? Think Duncan’s done a great job. Did you read the piece Lisa wrote for The Argus about it, praising how the regulars came together to get the work done?”

“No! I missed that. Lisa, could you email it to me please? Love to read that! In Portugal I rely on my digital subscription for The Times to get my news, but I don’t have one for The Argus. I sensed I really missed out being away but I have offered Duncan a big triptych to go on the wall above us!”

“I’ll look forward to seeing that, Richard” says Lisa. “While you were away did you see that Sugarman, Sixto Rodriguez, had died?”

          “Yes, we did. We’d never heard of him until we watched that documentary ‘Searching For Sugarman’. Absolutely lovely story of his career being resurrected by South African fans decades after he’d given up in Detroit.

“We bought his CD, ‘Searching for Sugarman’ and simply love some of his lyrics, (See PC 283), particularly those in his song ‘Cause’: ‘Cause I lost my job two weeks before Christmas, And I talked to Jesus at the sewer, And the Pope said it was none of his God-damned business, While the rain drank champagne.’?”

“Yes! Yes! And then ‘So I set sail in a teardrop and escaped beneath the door sill’. Somehow I can visualise that! He rather summed up his life with this: “My story wasn’t rags to riches, it was rags to rags and I’m glad about that. Where other people have lived in an artificial world, I feel I’ve lived in the real world. And nothing beats reality” Despite his later success he still lived in the same house in Detroit he’d bought for $50 in 1976 and never felt he needed a car or computer!”

“Talking of those whose lives have ended, you wrote one of your postcards about that television series ‘Seven Up’ (PC 213 January 2021). You probably missed it but Nicholas Hitchon, a nuclear physicist and one of the eleven kids who found fame in that series, died of throat cancer aged 65.”

“That’s sad Sami; too young an age to die. While I was researching that postcard, I read that the assumption driving the episodes was that the social class into which the children are born would create obvious winners and losers. In fact they have showed that achievement, fortune and contentment are influenced by more fundamental things than class. They showed that our lives unfold through both circumstance and our own choices and it’s up to us what we make of them. We all have a choice, whether you take the road less travelled or not!! Using tobacco, in any form, and excessive alcohol consumption, both of which I was guilty of, are the two greatest risk factors for developing throat cancer. His death reminded me of my cousin Susie Mayhew, drinking and smoking her way to an early grave aged 53.

And by the way! We bought some little tins of good Olive Oil in Portugal and, knowing how expensive it’s predicted to become, thought we could give some as a gift. Here’s yours!”

“That’s lovely, thank you!” says Lisa.

I give a can to Mo with a ‘must catch up on my next visit’ comment and walk up to the counter to give Josh and Libby some oil. Libby starts reaching for her iPad, as she’d promised to show me some photographs from Susie in Tasmania.

“Libby, I’m really sorry but I have to dash. Will definitely find some time next week as I am dying to see photos from Tassie!”

…… and with a quick look at Teresa’s counter, the new coffee machine and the tables full of animated people, I head for the door. Good to be back.

Richard 13^th October 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS I remember Nicholas saying “I am still the same little kid (Ed: ‘as I was, aged 7’), really. Probably all of us are.”

If you are not a regular reader of these scribbles you could easily have imagined I was going to reflect on renewed hope for the state of the world in the months and years ahead. For sure, we need to see something other than dictators manoeuvring, posturing and strategizing for their own enrichment and hardly ever for the benefit of the people over whom they have control.

However this is about my first visit to the Hope Café here in Hove. Due to the generosity of Edith Tadstein (Note 1) an idea for an enlarged meeting place became a reality and work started on the 26^th August. Since then numerous regulars have given of their time and expertise to make the renovated Hope something to be proud of. In PC 351I included a sketch of what Duncan and his team were going to do. And now this is how it looks:

I popped in the other day, hoping to catch up with the regulars who I hadn’t seen for over six weeks, and to meet Duncan, to get the low down as to how the renovations went. He greets me with a huge grin on his face:

“Well, the stranger returns and you missed it all! What do you think?”

“Think it looks fantastic; so much more space, more and yet somehow you’ve managed to retain the cosy atmosphere you had engendered before (Note 2). What are the highlights?”

“Well, first and foremost we wouldn’t have embarked on the renovations without the generosity of Edith. So I’ve had a little brass plaque engraved and placed above what she considered her normal seat. Look!”

We walked across to the bench seating and read:

“Edith Tadstein – we loved her hope”

Duncan continued: “She was of a generation who didn’t boast about their age, so she wouldn’t have wanted to see ‘1935 – 2022’! Think she’ll like this. Now, what else? We have made the front doors wide enough for wheelchair access and they can be opened by a push button at the appropriate level. The loo on this level’s been changed to accommodate wheelchairs; I haven’t written Disabled Loo on the door as this has a double entendre!

For years I have been aware that the noise of modern coffee machines, those that grind the beans for instance, is quite intrusive, so we’ve invested in the quietest one we could find; everyone thinks it’s well worth it. Incidentally the coffee cart we hired from Brad Stevens was extremely popular, a life-saver for some; such a nice chap to deal with, Brad. And Josh and Libby, and Susie when she returns, will be pleased we’re now paying our staff just more that the living wage, which is itself higher than the minimum wage (note 3) We’ve got a new App so our regulars can claim a freebee once they’ve reached a certain level of spend.”

Walking over to the front windows on the left, Duncan points out some laptop and mobile charging points. Already there’s a chap I recognise from Amber House, Robert Silcock. I understand he’s a budding journalist and potential novelist, who normally works from his apartment, so it’s good to see him in The Hope Café, not only working but also soaking up the friendly, inclusive atmosphere. I know all the people who live in Amber House, so I smile and lift my hand in silent greeting, not wanting to disturb his chain of thought.

The Brazilian Deli run by Teresa has now been incorporated into The Hope, having its own counter. As the Hope itself always provides snacks for its customers, she hopes to provide very Brazilian fare such as:

Brigadeiros, Quindim – a baked desert made from sugar, ground coconut and eggs, Cocada – a coconut confectionery……

Queijadinha – a custard tart made from sweetened condensed milk, grated coconut and cheese, Mousse de Maracuja – sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream and passion fruit juice, and Tapioca pancakes made with Tapioca flour and are either savoury or sweet, depending on their filling!

“Now I’ve seen your colour scheme, Duncan, and given that I was not able to help with the renovations, what would you say if I painted a large triptych to go on the right hand wall – say 80cms by 200cms?”

“That sounds great – by Christmas?”

“I’ll try, Duncan!.” ….. and walked over to speak to Josh and Libby, still standing in for Susie who’s now in Hobart Tasmania, helping Margie until the end of the month in her catering business. Libby doesn’t think we’ll see Susie before Christmas.

“She’s having a ball, a real eye-opener this OS (overseas experience) thingy so I’m beginning to wonder whether she will come back! She sent me some more photos but they’re on my iPad and it’s charging so ask me before you leave? Now, can I get you a double espresso?”

(to be continued ….)

Richard 6^th October 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 I had first met Edith standing outside the Trinity Medical Centre in April 2021 (PC 224). Twelve months later I see her in the Hope Café and she tells me she, aged 3, and her great friend Marie Kobel (later known as Madeleine Albright and US Secretary of State under Bill Clinton) had fled the Nazis on the Kinder Transport and arrived in Britain in 1938. She never returned and made England her home, living in Hove for decades.

Note 2 Before we left Portugal we went for a drink in the Palacio de Estoril (see PC 141 December 2018). I guess every commercial operation is constantly tinkering with its external message but I was amused to see that the little paper mats for my drink glass had the hotel’s name and crest and a new little strapline: ‘Grand and Cosy’.

Not sure I would ever describe a five star hotel as ‘cosy’

Note 3The National Minimum Wage varies dependent on age; for example it’s £10.18 per hour for someone aged 21-22. The Minimum Living Wage is £10.42 and is 66% of the National Median Earnings.