Being relatively organised I have a string of ‘titles’ that might become postcards and today’s started off in draft last Saturday, after the final of MasterChef and after our meeting up with Richard, Debbie and Isla. It clearly was the right title this week as the person in the Sunday Times Magazine’s ‘A Life in the Day’ column was someone called Vick Hope!

The latest series of the televised cooking competition ‘MasterChef’ has just finished. Over the last eight weeks Celina and I have watched 45 ordinary people, who individually dream of running their own restaurant or writing a cook book or both, fight to reach the final three. We had wanted Robin to stay but his soufflé failed to rise, prayed Gloria could finish within the time deadline and been disappointed when Caitlin’s ‘modern take on Fish ‘n’ Chips’ didn’t wow the judges. Inevitably one develops favourites, then they bring the hurdle crashing down and are out of the race and you look for another on whom to put your money. The MasterChef logo is a brilliant take on an electric hob!

In the end this year’s three finalists reflect the diverse nature of those living here in the United Kingdom: Chariya Khattiyot, a master coffee roaster (40) originally from northern Thailand, Anurag Aggarwal, an accountant (41) originally from India and Omar Foster, a Toy Developer (31) from Barnsley.

Anurag had obeyed his somewhat traditional Indian parents as a youngster living in Gurgaon, India and trained to be an accountant. But subsequently he moved to the UK to be able to indulge his passion for cooking. His numerical training was evident in his hugely detailed spread-sheets which he laid out on his workbench before the relevant challenge, coloured coded and actions timed to the minute. Omar was an inventive cook and his dishes challenged and amazed the two judges in equal measure. But while it was Chariya who lifted the 2023 trophy it is the neat, precise, humble Anurag whose hope for his future is echoed in his final comments that I remember:

“It’s as if my wings were hidden somewhere and I have found them on MasterChef. I just want to fly free!”

I started this postcard mentioning a Vick Hope; my regular readers may recall another ‘A Life in the Day’ individual, Ayesha Vardag and her words of wisdom in PC 325. Another gem came from Kaleb Cooper, the Farm Manager and unlikely star of Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat. (Note 1) In the column after Ayesha Vardag’s, his advice: “To anyone thinking of farming (or any other option, journalism, finance, nursing, acting, being a chef for instance) as a career, dreams don’t work, unless you do.” Very aptly put!

“Dreams don’t work, unless you do!”

On Tuesday I popped into The Hope Café as I wanted Sami’s opinion on the latest revelations from our Post Office. It’s now over 700 days since PC 235 “Generosity in Government” (June 2021) when I expressed the hope that the government would be generous to our sub-postmasters in the wake of the Horizon IT scandal. Some hope! Here we are two years later: some of those wrongly convicted have died without receiving a penny in compensation and now a Freedom of Information request has revealed a code that applied to the compensation cases.

“You know Richard, it’s as if they (The Post Office) thought that the non-white sub-postmasters and mistresses, and I included myself in this group as my parents were Anglo-Indian, wouldn’t kick up a fuss as they had no one fighting their corner. Now we understand that they opened a file on each ‘suspect’ and coded their ethnicity. I assume so their race would affect the way the post office dealt with their claim.”

“Give me an example Sami?”

“A number on their file referred to a list. Claimants were classified, for example, as ‘negroid types’ (West Indian, Nigerian, African etc), ‘Arabian/Egyptian types’, ‘Chinese/Japanese types, ‘dark skinned European types etc etc.”

“That’s absolutely shocking and if I understand correctly these codes were in use in 2008 and onwards. I am ashamed to think that this still happens; it’s not the 1950s for God’s sake!”

“And do you know that only 85 of the 700 wrongly prosecuted postmasters have had their convictions overturned?”

“Let’s hope those responsible within the Post Office are brought to account. Sami, just seen Mo so need to catch up with her. Lisa OK?

“Yes! Back down here next week and planning a trip to Berlin.”

I walk over to where Mo has a Brazilian Brigadeiro and a coffee in front of her. We exchange the normal pleasantries and then she tells me a story from her mother:

“She had been invited to have an ‘Over 75’s Covid Spring Booster’ and overheard a conversation between a nurse at the Portslade Health Centre and a chap in the queue for his vaccination.

“Are you in the right place? This is for the Over 75s.”

“That’s OK then.”

“Can I ask how old you are?”

 “76”

“Well, you don’t look it! Congratulations!”

          Then she watched as this young-looking 76 year old went into the cubicle and heard the nurse there, after explaining about allergic reactions and stuff, ask the same question!!”

“Well, there are those who look their age, some who don’t; some stay mentally young and have an attitude which says ‘I am only 76 ….”

There is always hope I guess!!

And last Friday we encountered a real example of hope over adversity. A chum from my time in London had come down to visit Brighton & Hove, bringing his wife Debbie and 5 year old Isla – oh! and the dog Millie! Isla has Grade 5 Spina Bifida. We caught up at The Lawns Café …… and walked home discussing how life sometimes deals a tough hand, but the love these three individually exhibit is a wonderful example of HOPE!

Richard 9^th June 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Clarkson named his farm in Chipping Norton ‘Diddly Squat’, reflecting his belief you never make any money farming! 

The title for this postcard is a take on the 1951 film ‘An American in Paris’, which was itself inspired by the wonderful 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. I am sure Gershwin wouldn’t have minded my appropriation. Its content is simply a repeat of only one side of a conversation, overheard whilst having a cup of tea at a nearby table in the garden of the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath (See postscript below). I have added some personal photographs where it helps.

I surmise that an American couple, Ted and his wife Glenda, are on another visit to the UK. They have ‘done’ Oxford this year and then tomorrow drive down to Tenby in South Wales before finishing a week later in The Cotswolds. He’s talking to his son Russell who lives in Boulder, Colorado.

“You remember we were last here in 2019, Russell? Such a special place and the hotel’s just got better and better. We spoiled ourselves this time and had a minor suite with views over the lawns in front of the crescent.

What? You’re asking whether a crescent’s a semi-circle, right? No! No! It’s very clever, it’s a semi-ellipse. You’ll remember that stuff from school but I had to look it up and found this diagram. It’s a brilliant design for a row of houses ……

…. and I have noticed that the three central houses are slightly wider, with four windows across and not three. The central point in the crescent is marked by two pairs of columns and the rear elevations of the houses are all different.

Each rear elevation is different!

There used to be a huge Magnolia tree growing from the basement in the front of Number 15; so big it reached up to the second floor. (Note 1)

Before!

Sadly the roots were obviously causing too much of a problem and it’s been cut down; looks very bare now and, you know me Russell, I wonder just how much damage it was causing or was it simple expediency? Probably been there for 90 years or more.

Now!

What’s that? Is your mother around? No! She’s treating herself to a 90 minute massage in the Spa here, while I’m gorging myself on the hotel’s tea; a snip at US$50! Tonight we’re going to eat in the hotel’s restaurant; wonderful English name – ‘Montagu’s Mews’. It’s the same place where we eat breakfast and where my tea this afternoon comes from. Interestingly there is not one English-looking waiter!

Rear of No 15

‘Montagu’s Mews’ used to be garages for first coaches then cars and there’s a rear entrance onto Julian Road. In the hall there’s a photograph of one of the cars, Thomas Tizzard’s large Humber Super Snipe – almost as big as some of our American gas-guzzlers.  He owned Number 15, now part of the hotel.

Last time we came we didn’t have time to visit the Roman Baths but this morning your mother and I spent a couple of hours immersed in this magnificent example of Roman building and planning. Used by the great and good of the time, so it was OK if you weren’t a slave I guess! Apparently they are the second largest existing example in the world, the other being in Rome itself.

I find this stuff fascinating Russell – hope you do too? Bath’s Roman name was Aquae Sulis (meaning the Waters of Sulis) and a temple was constructed over the hot springs sometime between 60 and 70 AD. The baths were used until the Romans withdrew from Britain in the first decade of the 5^th century (about 410!), variously in the following centuries and then they became a famous tourist and health attraction in the C18th. Major renovations took place in the 1980s and the whole complex is brilliantly shown.

While we were down there in the city centre we popped into the Abbey. I think I showed you photos from our last visit. Major renovations were going on then, lifting all the flagstones and skeletons from under the floor, installing under-floor heating pipes and connecting them to the hot natural spring hot water. Incidentally I learned that the spring water gushes up at over a million litres a day at 46°C – Mother Nature at its best huh!

Some of the pews have gone back in and I overheard someone saying to his wife and another couple that he used to attend the Sunday service back in 1955 as an 8 year old school boy, the pupils filling the pews just where I was standing. Here he was, 68 years later, sitting in quiet contemplation.

Bath is built of a wonderful local honey-coloured stone and the centre of the city has a great buzz about it, albeit sometimes the 1.3 million visitors that pour into it every year are slightly overwhelming! Tourists mingle with shoppers and I have noticed virtually every High Street chain in the UK has a presence here. Then I saw this student from Bath University sitting on his little stool, earning some beer money!

Pulteney Bridge is another photogenic place and it’s only when you come to places like this, Russell, that you realise how young a country the United States is, well to us white folk. The Native Americans wouldn’t agree. We think Boston and New York are old but Bath ……. now that’s old. Hang on, your mother’s just surfaced and she looks like she needs a glass of champagne. Talk to you later from Tenby. Love you son.”

So Ted ordered a glass of Tattinger champagne for Glenda and one for himself, I finished my tea and later, much later, took this evening photograph of the famous Royal Crescent in the City of Bath.

Richard 2^nd June 2023

Bath

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS See also PCs 164 & 165

PPS I have used English spelling despite the American origin of the conversation!

Note 1 The Americans call what in the United Kingdom would be the ‘ground’ floor the ‘first’ floor. The Magnolia reached the UK first floor!

After the seriousness of my last two postcards, one dealing with Sepsis (PC 334) and one with Coercive Controlling Behaviour in relationships (PC 335), I feel this week I have earned a couple of hours relaxing in the Hope Café.

In his “An Essay on Man” Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) wrote:

‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is, but always to be blest.

The soul, uneasy and confined from home,

Rests and expiates in a life to come.’

….. suggesting that people will always be optimistic and think that something better is coming. Actually I think today is a good day …. as Pooh would say!

So on Tuesday I popped in to The Hope, late in the afternoon, as Sami had texted me to say he was out for lunch but could meet up. Susie’s Aunt Libby is with Josh and looks as though she’s enjoying herself! Probably never imagined that in her 60s she would be acting as a barista in a coffee shop, but why not, I thought.

I went up to the counter. “Have you heard from Susie? Did she get to New Zealand OK, as it must be three weeks or more since she flew out?”

“Hello Richard. Yes she landed in Christchurch and then got a lift down to Dunedin. This is the Town Hall:

She spent a week there and has managed to find a job in Queenstown, working as a chalet girl during their skiing season. That starts in mid-June so she’s currently exploring Fjordland on the west coast. Here’s a good photograph of that wild and moody place, Milford Sound:

“Wow! That’s very dramatic. I mentioned to Susie before she went that I have lots of relatives scattered over the two islands. Michael Jones, who was an enormous help in the setting up of the first Nation Reunion in 2011 in Auckland, emailed to say he’d enjoyed PC 332 and that I should pass his telephone number to Susie, in case she needs any assistance during her time in North Island. Could you send this?” and I passed over his details, just as Sami comes through the doors. “Would you make me a double espresso and bring it over please?” 

Sami askes me about my chat with Lisa; I tell him what I had learned about Coercive Behaviour before I had spoken to her and how she’d given me a pretty horrific example of it in real life.

“When you came to dinner Lisa had said she’d sited it as the reason for her divorce, although when we spoke she talked about never sharing a house with Andrew. I am confused!”

“As I understand it, Andrew insisted on them getting married, as that gave him greater control over her. Despite getting married in a registry office in Derby in 2007, he actually pursued a rather open relationship.”

I have found so many news items about this (Note 1). For example, in 2016 Luke and Ryan Hart, due to go abroad for work, persuaded their mother and sister to leave the family home where their father had used fear of retribution to control the household for decades. Two days later the father found his wife and daughter and killed them both, before turning the gun on himself.

In 2019 a woman became the first to be prosecuted under the new law. Sentenced to 7 years in prison, Jordan Worth subjected her boyfriend 22 year old Alex Skeel to psychological and emotional abuse. “The hospital told me that I was 10 days away from death.”

There was good news too. Back in 2010 Sally Challen killed her 61 year old husband Richard having suffered years of controlling and humiliating abuse and was sentenced to life for murder. With the new law on the Statute Book, in 2019 the Court of Appeal was able to quash her conviction and replace it with the lesser charge of manslaughter. Reflecting time spent in prison, she was released.

Libby brings my coffee and offers another Milford Sound photograph from Susie:

Just as Sami and I are looking at our diaries to see when we might next share some conversation over a coffee in The Hope, Duncan the manager comes in. After a few minutes talking to Josh and Libby he comes across, looking very pleased, as if he’s just won the Lottery.

“Hi guys. All OK?” and without waiting for an answer continues “I have some great news. You remember dear regular Edith (See PC 278 Refuge April 2022) and how we had heard that she’d died?”

“Yes lovely woman …

“Well, I had a call from the solicitor dealing with her will and its bequests and delightfully she’s left The Hope Café £5000, saying The Hope gave her enormous pleasure in the last few years of her life.”

“Wow! That’s amazing! What a lovely gesture! How do you think you’ll spend it?”

“I have been discussing with our landlord, who happens to own the building next door, and she’s agreed we can combine the two premises. Teresa’s Brazilian deli business hasn’t been doing that well and our ‘Talking Thursdays’ are very popular, so we have a plan to take the dividing wall down ……

“It’ll cost more than £5000 don’t you think?”

“Of course! But already people who use The Hope have asked whether they can help. An architect’s volunteered to do some structural calculations for free, Jimmy of Wadsworth Plastering has said he’ll do any plastering at cost and others will come forward I’m sure. When it’s all finished we’ll put a little brass plaque on the wall next to Edith’s usual table: ‘Edith Tadstein 1935 – 2022’.”

Can’t wait!!

Richard 26^th May 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Until April 2022 to divorce in the United Kingdom you needed to state compelling reasons for a judge to agree the marriage was not working and should end. Inevitably this led to unnecessary recriminations and hurt. Now the concept of a ‘No Fault’ divorce has become possible.

PPS The late, great Tina Turner said: “The older you get, the more you realise it’s not what happens – but how you deal with it.” And boy she should know!

Note 1 Improving our understanding of ‘coercive controlling behaviour’ has meant Celina now believes it was a factor in one of her best friend’s life.

So much enjoyment in my life comes from interaction with other people, be they family, friends, mere acquaintances or even complete strangers. Meeting people in the Hope Café here in Hove has been, and I trust will continue to be, interesting and rewarding. A year after I had started talking to Sami Gupta, who had been made bankrupt by the Post Office scandal (see PCs 235 and 271), he introduced me to a woman he had met on a tour of the Indian Mutiny sites in November 2022 (see PC 309). Lisa Wallace lives in Folding Over Sheet, up in the Derbyshire Peak District, and is a writer.  

Celina and I had them both over for supper in March (PCs 329 & 330) and Lisa had mentioned that a couple of years ago her now ex-husband left for a new life with his secretary! Charmingly she had defined his actions as a cliché but you could tell by the way she had said it there had been some serious issues. Later she admitted siting his coercive behaviour in her divorce action and I made a mental note to find out more.

Lisa is currently at home working on an assignment so before I spoke to her by WhatsApp, I wanted to get up to speed with the issue that in the last decade has become main stream and rightly so.

In 2015 ‘Coercive Control Behaviour’ was defined in law as when a person with whom you are personally connected repeatedly behaves in a way which makes you feel controlled, dependent, isolated or scared. Sadly there are many examples of how this plays out, from isolating you from your friends and family, controlling how much money you have and how you spend it, monitoring your activities and your movements, repeatedly putting you down, calling you names or telling you that you are worthless, threatening to harm or kill you or your child etc etc. Those charged with coercive control will be guilty if, for instance, they knew or ought to have known that their behaviour would have a serious effect on you.

Lisa knows that I spent two decades assisting people to sort out what was inside their heads in a coaching capacity, so is not surprised by my first question:

 “So, Lisa, can you tell me more about yourself?”

Well, I was born in 1976 up here in the Peak District. My parents were both teachers and I have a younger brother Simon who went to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and got commissioned into the Royal Engineers. I did quite well at school, who wouldn’t with parents whose life was education (!) and got a place to read journalism at the University of East Anglia. Graduated in 1997 with a first, but found that most full-time positions needed ‘experience’ – the classic Catch 22!! Wind the clock forward to today and I write regularly for The Derbyshire Times and have a monthly column in the magazine Red!”

“I remember Red. My mother used to buy it: didn’t it launch in the late 90s?”

“Yes. Aimed at the ‘thirty something’ market and now an international brand. Occasionally I contribute to Grazia and have written a number of short stories about local relationship.”

“Why relationships?”

Lisa laughs and thinks. “Probably as I feel I have experienced a lot and not all of that experience was good.”

“This about your coercive relationship with Andrew?”

“You’ve heard that a frog dropped into a beaker of hot water leaps out, but put the frog into a beaker of cold water, gradually heat it up and the frog dies? Coercive behaviour is just like that; someone also compared it to living in a house with a boiler leaking Carbon Monoxide. It’s as dangerous and possibly fatal.

I recognise now that I always go for the posh, broken guy and my heart says I need to fix them. Andrew was like that and, you know Richard, it went on for years and years. We didn’t live together but spent a huge amount of time in each other’s houses. One evening he had a supper party, some of my friends and some of his. Andrew felt very entitled, would ‘love-bomb’ me for weeks then turn and accuse me of sleeping around. Anyway this particular evening he got very jealous of my friends, who were confidently talking about their love of work, bringing me up-to-date, as this conflicted with his own lack of a work-ethic. I could see he was becoming very agitated, which was worrying as he never knew when he should stop drinking.

The party ended after midnight and, as I was loading his dishwasher, he grabbed me by my hair, which was quite a lot longer then, and pulled me upstairs to bed.

“I’m going to teach you a lesson, you cunt, flirting with my friends, avoiding me ….”

And he got out this riding crop and started hitting me. In extremis I can be quite physical so I guess we rolled about on the bed, Andrew trying to hit me, me pushing him off and still trying to reason with him. He would have raped me if he hadn’t had so much to drink and couldn’t get an erection so, in a moment of frustration, he put his knee between my breasts, put both hands around my throat and squeezed. I wriggled free twice but he just pulled me back. Eventually I fled out into the street, bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the riding crop, and bumped into an elderly chap who was walking his terrier. As he put his coat around my shoulders he called the police; I was absolute jelly! Andrew was arrested but, do you know what, I felt really embarrassed and wouldn’t press charges. I now know that’s normal, both of us worried about losing the relationship and he not recognising what he had done.

Since then I have been involved with RISE (note 1) and am undergoing therapy for PTSD.”

“It must be so difficult to have any relationship afterwards, so wary of meeting others, so suspicious! Then you met bankrupt Sami! In India of all places!”

(The story doesn’t end here!)

Richard 19^th May 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 “RISE is an innovative staff-led mutual that designs and delivers behavioural change programmes and new approaches. Our work can be used in the criminal justice system and community to transform the lives of individuals, families and communities.”

This post is a departure from my more mundane scribbles but I feel it’s vitally important that as many people as possible understand the dangers inherent in the title; share with others if you can. I am not sure when exactly I became aware of something called ‘Sepsis’, as the term was hardly every used in the first part of the last century; it’s sometimes called septicaemia or blood poisoning. But now we talk about all sorts of things and what might have been something that the medical profession would have liked to remain under the radar has become mainstream ….. and we now know its effects can be deadly.

What or where would we be without our blood?

Our heart dispenses around 260 litres every hour, pumped to every organ and through every artery in our bodies, although the kidneys take the most at 20%. The whole cycle is complete in about 50 seconds, about four litres out through the arteries and back through the veins; what hydraulic engineers would called a closed system. (Note 1)

So why should I write about it now? A recent documentary “In Memory of Maude” featured the death of two year old Maude, the daughter of actor Jason Watkins and his wife fashion designer Clara Francis. Maude had had a sore throat and was running a temperature, severe enough to be taken to their GP, then to hospital, but was discharged. The following day they took her back to A&E as she was floppy and extremely pale. She was diagnosed with having croup and again discharged. The following morning she was found dead in her cot by her four year old sister. At no stage was Sepsis mentioned or suspected, but maybe the doctors and nursing staff didn’t really know what to look for? ‘Read, mark and inwardly digest’ the following; it could save your life or the life of someone else:

Signs of Sepsis in adults:

          Slurred speech or confusion

          Extreme shivering or muscle pain

          Passing no urine in a day

          Severe breathlessness

          It feels like you’re dying

          Skin looks mottled

A child may have sepsis if they:

          Are breathing very fast

          Have a seizure

          Look mottled, bluish or pale

          Have a rash that doesn’t fade when pressed

Are very lethargic or difficult to wake

          Feel abnormally cold to touch

To quote: ‘Sepsis is the body’s extreme response to an infection. It is a life-threatening emergency. Sepsis happens when an infection you already have, for example influenza, triggers a chain reaction throughout your body. Infections that lead to sepsis most often start in the lung, urinary tract, skin or gastrointestinal tract.”

Here in the United Kingdom the Sepsis Trust says 48,000 die of sepsis every year. Early intravenous antibiotics are essential; for every hour lost, the risk of death rises by 8%! Nice huh?

A very good friend of my daughter suffered a horrendous car crash some years ago and it left her with physical and mental issues one wouldn’t wish on anyone. Suffice to say she is often diagnosed with Sepsis and rushed to hospital on an infrequent but depressingly regular basis. This was rumbling in the background when I then read of some poor unfortunate obese individual who had joined the trend to have a Gastro Band fitted in Turkey, saving himself many thousands of pounds. Sadly like so many of these ‘on-the-face-of-it-amazing-deals’, the minimal local after-care didn’t pick up that he had got an infection, that turned into Sepsis, and he died. The surgeon had said he’d had a cardiac arrest but a post-mortem revealed internal bleeding!  

My son-in-law Sam was recently told that a friend with whom he had lost contact had had a heart issue which required hospitalisation. Presumably it was serious enough for him to be put into a coma, but somehow bacteria got in, Sepsis got hold of his body and he woke up without his hands and feet. He is in his 40s.

The loss of one’s hands and feet following a bout of Sepsis seems quite common. Septic shock causes small blood clots in the blood vessels, which prevent adequate blood flow to the fingers, hands, arms, toes, feet and legs. Given that our blood carries vital oxygen and nutrients, tissues deprived of these begin to die.

Now I come to a news story the nub of which constantly reverberates around my brain. A white woman had developed sepsis after a urinary tract infection, relapsed into a coma for nine weeks, and had both her hands and feet amputated. Makes you realise how infections can have such tragic consequences. Kim Smith obviously imagined that our healthcare system would respond by outlining her options, either with the provision of prosthetic hands and feet or with some transplanted ones. The whole issue is frankly distressing for those of us not faced with these choices, but in her case it got worse. She had been accepted as suitable for having a double hand transplant but the search for donor hands was proving quite difficult. According to the article she was offered either a pair of male hands or those of a black female. I have read this a number of times, but still can’t get my mind around the emotional impact of the initial need and then the offered solution.

I type these scribbles using fingers attached to my white hands and try to imagine if I had been in Kim’s situation, what I might have found acceptable. Reminds me a little of ‘Sophie’s Choice’ ……… (Note 2)

Richard 12^th May 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS In 1863 the British surgeon and anatomist Joseph Green was finding his pulse. “Stopped!” he announced and promptly died.

Note 1 The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

Note 2 Sophie’s Choice is a novel by William Styron and a 1982 film. Sophie is asked by a Nazi concentration camp officer to choose between her daughter and son; the one not chosen will go straight to the gas chamber.

…….. “Sorry Mo! Needs must! Now, where was I?”

“In the Brighton Dome! Hasn’t it been an entertainment venue for a couple of hundred years?”

“Yes, amazing really. Seemingly the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, wanted a bigger and better stable block for his horses and commissioned the building of the Brighton Dome. It took five years and £54,000, a small fortune by the time it was finished in 1808. Over its lifetime it’s been riding stables, a place of protest and solidarity for the Suffragettes, a World War One dance hall, a temporary hospital in World War Two and even a roller skating rink. Today, inter alia, it’s the organisational hub of the annual Brighton Festival in May.”

“Great place to have in the city, especially with that history! What else’s being going on?”

                    “I know you read most of my scribbles so you may recall in PC 328, ‘Random, Fate and Consequences’, I wrote that ‘He who hesitates is lost’ is one of the Christian Proverbs – Proverbs 3 Verse 2.’.”

                    “Yeah, I really enjoyed that PC and have thought about buying one of those Ottolenghi pieces of pottery.”

                    “Celina and I have kept in touch with a Dianne & Tim Tinnes from San Francisco, with whom we shared canoes during our Pantanal trip in 2014 (See PC 20). Tim reads my postcards and occasionally comments. He couldn’t find Proverbs 3 and additionally asked: “Why say Christian when there is no Christian ie New Testament bible book called Proverbs!” I live and learn!

Off to find a sandbank to have breakfast on, in the River Negro

Firstly in my mind I think of the Bible as a complete book, both Old (OT) and New Testaments ….. but now see the error of my labelling, as the New Testament is the only Christian part. I live and learn! I told him I had Googled ‘He who hesitates ……’, got Proverbs 3/2 and assumed it referred to the Book of Proverbs in the OT. This morning I lifted one of my physical books of reference, The Dictionary of Quotations and Proverbs, off the shelf and looked up ‘He who hesitates …..’.  No ‘proverb’ exists!”

“Oooh!” says Mo, “that’s going to be on my ‘To Do’ list this week, to find out more.”

Out of the corner of my eye I notice Sami coming through the door, and lift my arm in recognition. He comes over and I introduce him to Mo.

“Where’s Lisa this week Sami?’

“Ah! She gone back to Derbyshire for a few days; think she had an important assignment to complete and she didn’t need me as a distraction! I read your postcard about the Year of the Rabbit (PC 331) and that encouraged me to watch David Attenborough’s Wild Isles programme, but I’ve only seen the first two episodes.”

“So you haven’t seen what I call ‘The Trojan Horse’ episode?”

“Not yet! Tell me …..”says Sami and Mo cries: “Yes please!”

“An absolutely fascinating story concerning the early life of the Large Blue butterfly. It became extinct in Britain in 1979, largely as a result of the huge decrease in the rabbit population due to Myxomatosis which changed its habitat; a great example of the co-dependences across the natural world. Now through careful land management it’s making a comeback. I am no lepidopterist but this tale could easily have been the instigator for the Wooden Horse at the gates of Troy! Let me explain.

The eggs of the Large Blue are often laid on plants such as Wild Thyme and fall down to soil level as they develop into little caterpillars. Along comes the Red Ant, which just loves eating caterpillars; in the TV series this needs some very dramatic background music!! Knowledge is key and the Large Blue caterpillar secretes some honey dew onto its back, inflates its body and as the air escapes, the sound is like the distress call of a Queen Red ant. The Red worker ant instinctively pulls the caterpillar into the safety of its nest (cf The Trojan Horse?) where, over a six month period, the caterpillar eats all the ant larvae and grows to be one hundred times its original size!

The butterfly emerges ….

The larva develops into a chrysalis from whence eventually the Large Blue butterfly emerges. Wildlife programmes rely on great photography and patience, a good commentary and appropriate music. Turn off the audio and you might imagine you are watching something very different. However in this particular case, just so believable and utterly Trojan Horse-ish!”

“That is unbelievable! Good old Mother Nature. By the way” says Sami “have you been to The Salt Room on Kingsway? Lisa and I are thinking of going but it’s got mixed reviews.”

“That’s always the case; everyone’s expectations are different, don’t you think? Funnily enough I went on a Sunday evening a couple of weeks ago, as a guest of someone who had been to the Goodwood Revival.”

“And was it good?”

“Well, one starter caught my eye: ‘Wild Argentinian Red Prawns – cooked over coal, with Pil Pil sauce and Chive Oil (Price per prawn £3!)’.  Being a guest I got a bit stuck when the waiter asked: ‘How many would you like, sir?’ I had no idea what size an Argentinian Red Prawn was, so was 2 too much or should I ask for 3 or 4? Decided to play safe and instead ordered the ‘coal-roasted scallops with chorizo crumb, coral beurre blanc and purple basil’, which were delicious.

The uncertainty about the number of prawns reminded me of going to a fish restaurant in Tavistock Street, just up from The Strand in central London. I ordered ‘Grilled Sardines on a bed of blah blah’. When my plate arrived I was slightly surprised to find ONE, just effing ONE.’ (note 1)”

Mo and Sami laughed out loud and we settled in for more inconsequential chat …… until Libby came over and suggested we play our part in reducing the loneliness of others!

Richard 5^th May 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS In some television programme that was inadvertently on one evening, an English woman was trying to identify Romania. “It’s near Turkey inn’t? No! No! That’s not right; Turkey’s in Africa.” God help us all!

Note 1 I wrote and complained …. and got a free meal a month later!

I managed to drop into The Hope last Thursday. Thursdays are ‘Talking Days’ and I met Susie’s aunt Libby who has volunteered to help those who want to chat and relax, to make them feel welcome. Interestingly, the word’s got around and there’s quite a gathering, Libby encouraging individuals to sit here or there and organising drinks. Susie says she’s off on her late, late Gap Year in a week and that Libby will stand in for her.

“Where are you off to first?” I asked.

“Well I thought I would head for the south of South Island New Zealand, say Dunedin, work my way up the island, across Cook’s Strait and all the way to Cape Reinga on the northern tip.

Then across the Tasman Sea to Australia; maybe go to Tasmania first then back across the Bass Straits to Melbourne. If I can get eventually to Perth I will have fulfilled a long standing dream, to visit some of the places that have inspired the Australian writer Tim Winton’s stories.

“Oh! I love him! Which ones? ‘Cloud Street’ or ‘Dirt Music’ perhaps?”

“Got hooked reading Cloud Street, all those lovely characterisations and then ‘Breath’ and ……”

“If you need any contacts in NZ let me know as I have lots of second and third cousins all over the place! And do try and get to Tasmania, just stunning! Now, I need to have a word with Mo, so could you get me a double espresso and bring it over please?”

Mo has been reading some of my past posts and mentioned ‘No Buts no Butts’ (PC 234 June 2021) as she’d recently seen that New Zealand is implementing a law which means if you were born after January 1^st 2009 you will be unable to buy cigarettes legally.

“Great!” she exclaimed. “I hope the politicians here do the same thing.”

“Sadly I read they are not going to! Sixteen years ago the UK government banned smoking in public places, despite vested interests saying it was unworkable and civil liberties groups complaining it was an attack on free choice. Yet today the ban can be counted as one of the most successful public health interventions in British history. But the UK government has ducked the issue this time, falling back on their belief that raising the legal age so that the habit would quite literally die out gradually was ‘too big a departure from the policy of helping people to quit rather than banning adults from buying cigarettes.’ So smokers, whose habit costs the NHS billions of pounds in associated health issues, will die needlessly.”  

I looked around at the tables in the Hope, all full of people chatting, and smiling, and laughing, and listening to the others at their table.

“This looks a very successful way to reduce the undoubted impact of loneliness on those living alone”

“It’s simple yet so effective; I can see Libby’s in her element. Maybe I’ll bring my mother one Thursday. She says she isn’t lonely but I think she would have great fun!”

I had talked to Mo about the Couples Therapy programme and how interesting we had found it (see PC 326 March 2023).

“We finished the third series last week and I was pleased to hear from India and Dale how helpful their sessions with Orna had been. You remember I had been interested in their belief that they carried generational trauma. Dale had said: “I think as Afro-Americans we come into relationships with a lot of trauma that we are not necessarily willing to acknowledge, ready to accept, and there has to be a lot of soul/self-searching in order to understand how real life affects your relationship.”

They now acknowledged that within the safe environment of the sessions, they had realised a few things. “Just seeing our parents, grandparents and uncles blaming others, made us realise we don’t want to be part of that cycle, blaming others. They seem to want to escape from the lineage of our family, but I don’t want to escape, don’t want to run; I just want to accept it.”

“Orna’s clinical support group had asked whether the question of her skin colour had arisen. So she asked India and Dale whether they had initially wanted a ‘therapist of colour’. India said they were adamant they had, but realise now the benefits of being challenged by someone not of colour.”

”A complicated topic! Relationships are about the two individuals in the real-life story, not some fantasy, not influenced by baggage that may have been carried down the generations and not, as Dale agreed, by what my grandparents did!”

I told Mo that we had gone to a classical music concert in The Brighton Dome on April Fools’ Day, to listen to a professional performance of Sibelius’s 2^nd Symphony, some sixty years after I had played in the school’s orchestra’s amateur rendition of it in the End-of-Term concert (See PC 109 That Reminds Me (1) November 2017).

“How was it, hearing it played well?”

“Actually I have heard in played a number of times before, although I never tire of its opening and the finale, when trumpets make a grand entrance. Goose pimples and all that! Andrew Mellor, writing the programme notes, says: ‘…. the Symphony slips inevitably into its final movement and the mustering of a heroic, striving tune soaked in optimism and renewal in its journey from a cautious harmonisation to a brilliantly confident one. The tune, again born of those upwardly-stepping notes, lightens the dark shadows of the troubling Elli Järnefelt theme to suggest the blossoming of life anew, in all its richness and colour.’ Not sure I could have described it like this but hey! Ho! I am not a music critic!”

“So a good evening?”

“Absolutely! Although why is it men don’t dry clean their jackets or overcoats? Before the performance started a chap sat down in a nearby seat and we were assailed by this awful smell of damp, musty material, almost stale BO. It probably went straight back into the wardrobe when he got home!

Sorry Mo, must just pop to the loo; back in a second.”

(to be continued)

Richard 28^th April 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

(See also PC 172 (March 2020) and PC 217 ‘My Week’ (February 2021) with its recognition of Hugo Rifkin’s genius)

Christians have recently celebrated the moveable festival of Easter. My thoughts about Easter were brought together in PC 64 (March 2016) and the defining memory of my taking part in the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race, 125 miles from Wiltshire to the capital city, along canals, some dry and others filled with water, and the River Thames. This year someone wished us ‘Happy Easter’ with this delightful little collection of yoga poses:

Francisquinha has her own favourite posture, half locust …..

The Chinese New Year, which started on 22^nd January and ends on 9^th February 2024 (!), welcomed in the year of the Rabbit, traditionally one of the luckiest. If you were born in a Year of The Rabbit you are likely to be quiet, elegant, kind and responsible (Note 1).

The zodiac signs are popular in neighbouring Korea and the rabbit is the guardian of the moon in their folklore. It’s believed rabbits make rice cakes using a pestle and mortar; this has not been verified. Winnie and Richard wished us Happy Easter with San Kim’s photograph of this Cumulus rabbit over the island of Joong-do; San is a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society (Note 2)

The new series of David Attenborough’s nature programmes features the British Isles; ‘Wild Isles’ as it’s called. Featuring my homeland has simply more meaning in its revelations of the treasures beneath my feet than some of his programmes, all undoubtedly wonderful, despite the breathless commentary. Did you know for instance that the red ant obtains protein from an Aphid or that the Ash Black slug mates by wrapping its penis around another slug? The 30cm long slug is a hermaphrodite, so wraps itself (herself? himself? non-binary?) and its penis around another slug (and penis) until the twisting penises are 30 cms long, sperm is exchanged and both penises drop off. Not sure I can add anything to this, apart from a photograph:

One episode in Wild Isles features grasslands and the animals that live in them such as voles, hares and rabbits. Watching any animal is vaguely interesting but it seems that programme makers are always looking for the individual Mating Displays, like the slugs above, as these are often colourful if ritualistic. A male rabbit featured for some minutes of this programme and I am not sure I should share the details with Francisquinha. The first part involves the buck rubbing ‘a cocktail of pheromones’ from a gland under its chin across the fur of the female.

Just for clarity, a pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor which triggers a social response in members of the same species. In us humans, they are actively involved in sexual attraction, for instance stimulating arousal, desire, lust or even fertility.   

The second part of the mating ritual is weird; the buck urinates over the female.  I thought this was only practised by those humans who do deviant sexual stuff behind closed doors, but to see the rabbits, plural as it seems other bucks join in, spraying their urine liberally over a female makes me wonder. Francisquinha tells me her favourite drink is Buck’s Fizz but maybe now I am confused.

The rabbit is fair game for owls and other birds of prey when they are out and about but protected once down their burrows … unless the local fox sees them as they simply follow the rabbit down. What’s that expression, ‘dog eat dog’? In nature the food chain is clear!

If you have read PCs 172 and 217 (odd they both have the same numbers, just a different order!) you will know that Francisquinha is a stuffed rabbit who serves a multitude of purposes in our home. She is, of course, someone to blame for a misdemeanour! For example, Celina’s father was very particular about who could load the dishwasher; he was not a domesticated man by any stretch of the imagination but he firmly believed in ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’. I passed his test, but no other family members did. Now here in Hove it’s Francisquinha’s fault if the dishwasher loading is haphazard. And she’s to blame if the hall loo light has been inadvertently left on!

Dragons’ Den, a BBC production which has just finished its 20^th series, enables entrepreneurs to pitch for investment from the five resident multimillionaire ‘Dragons’. In the last episode the Dragons, having already been asked to invest in a child-friendly sunscreen applicator, a hard-water shower filter and a collectable whisky business, were faced with Jo Proud from Loughborough. She had found that having a stuffed toy to cuddle, talk to, had helped with her anxiety. She then developed a range of stuffed bears that, it is hoped, encourage everyone to understand their thoughts, feelings and emotions and, most importantly, to cope and articulate their feelings. They are named Hope, Calm, Happy, Nervous, Love, Sad, Silly and Angry, and are there to cuddle or simply to listen to their owner, without judgement. All five Dragons offered all of the investment she had asked for and their mentor and business acumen. Francisquinha serves the same purpose; you can ask her anything and she’ll answer.

In fact in this Year of the Rabbit, she wants to write the last comment:

“Sunday mornings are a very worrying time as it’s ‘clean sheets’ day. Everything gets bundled off the bed quickly and into the washing machine. Once I wasn’t quick enough and it was only when the detergent ball was about to be thrown in one of my ears was noticed and I was hauled out. Quite a close shave I can tell you! Although after many months, years even, of lying around, flopping on top of the duvet or travelling to strange cities like Singapore, I do need a bath occasionally!”

Richard 21^st April 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Born in a Year of The Dog (there are twelve signs), apparently I am “honest, amiable, kind, cautious, prudent, loyal, reliable, considerate, understanding, patient, hard-working and sincere!” Food for thought!

Note 2 www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

Mushroom Risotto is such a simple dish but it tastes delicious and I can see from the empty bowls that everyone else thinks the same. As we tuck into the salad, Sami mentions the Hope Café for it was here we first talked to each other over a year ago. Having a regular coffee haunt is a mark of a sophisticated existence, someone once said. In fact such places, often know as Third Places or The Great Good Place (note 1), are a hugely important part of our local communities, of our local society. Here in the United Kingdom traditionally it’s been the local pub where one could not only have a drink but also engage in conversation with strangers, if you so wished. The growth of the ‘café society’ has increased the number of places where you can do this and The Hope’s popularity is testament to the way that Duncan and his team have developed its offering. Sami agrees:

“Such a friendly place and I’ve heard that Thursdays are going to be ‘Talking Days’, encouraging those who live alone to come and chat.”

“Yes, didn’t Susie say that her aunt’s going to come in to encourage people? I am sure that’s going to help. Maybe she’ll stand in for Susie? Do you remember that Susie wanted to go off on a Gap Year but Covid postponed that …..”

“Bit old for that!” says Sami, thinking Susie is ‘late twenties’.

“Oh! No! Never too late to travel and stretch your horizons, experience new cultures so I will certainly encourage her to go now (See PC 155 Overseas Experience June 2019) .Talking of which, what was Goa like?”

“Actually it’s a very busy state, with both international and domestic tourists attracted by the lovely white sandy beaches and active nightlife! Being next to the North Western Ghats rainforest we had a wonderful time looking at the ‘flora & fauna’, as they say. And I had forgotten the Portuguese ran it as an overseas colony for over 450 years; that is very obvious in the European architecture which is everywhere. (Note 2)”  

“Tell me more about your writing, Lisa?”

“Well, I occasionally contribute to Grazia and have a monthly column in both the magazine Red and in The Derbyshire Times. I have written a number of short stories about relationships based around the Derbyshire Peak District; no one gets murdered so definitely not crime stories!”

“Wow! That sounds fantastic. Funnily enough I know the sister village to where you live, Folding Under Sheet. It was the location for a short story I wrote in October last year; I called it ‘Murder at The Fete’ (PC 306). I have been writing a weekly ‘post’ since 2014 and am now on my 330^th. I make a hard copy of each 50, just for me!!”

I get up from the table, walk to the end of the room and pick up Volumes 1-6 of my ‘postcard scribbles’ to show Lisa and Sami.

“Goodness! Well, you and I have writing in common and then I gather from Sami you and Celina are Hot Yoga fanatics, if that’s the right word?”

“Slightly obsessed, Lisa!!” says Celina. “Neither of us is working so we’re able to practise five times a week. I started in 2008 and actually we moved to Brighton & Hove because of the hot yoga studios. …….”

Alexa’s timer goes off so, leaving Celina to tell them of our romantic yoga journey, I excuse myself, to take the Tarte Tatin out of the oven and let it rest before turning it upside down.

An artful presentation of food will often mask a mediocre effort but with Tarte Tatin it’s so simple that it both looks great when turned out and is decorative and delicious to boot. (See note 3 for guidance)

“Vanilla ice cream, cream or custard, and the custard can be hot or cold?” I ask as I put the dish on my own place mat and start cutting slices.  

So the evening drifted on in the warm relaxed atmosphere created by good food and conversation, everyone sharing little anecdotes of their lives. I found out that Sami lives in an apartment on Third Avenue here in Hove and that Lisa was staying for a few weeks.

Some moments after 10 o’clock, I tell Sami and Lisa that I don’t do late nights so we could finish before 1030. They looked at each other, as if to say:  ‘Who is this guy?’ so I explained what has become a tradition started after my heart bypass in 2013 and how I had needed to rest. Interestingly it’s been quite popular with many of our guests. Those who drink wouldn’t have a headache the following day and those who don’t wouldn’t have to listen to the inebriated bore ….. for example Andrew from about six years ago, who clearly hadn’t taken in the blank and resigned faces around one dinner party table, talking about the difference between two versions of a small aircraft, the Yak 23 and the Yak 23a, or some such and it was 11.30pm. No one else cared one iota!

I am sure we will see more of this delightful couple.

Richard 14^th April 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg

Note 2 Fourteen years after it became independent, India annexed Goa in 1961 after an invasion that lasted just 36 hours. Portugal protested but was probably happy to see it go! It’s India’s smallest state by area and fourth smallest by population but has the highest GDP per capita of all Indian States, two-and-a half times as high as the GDP per capita of the country as a whole.

Note 3 You just melt 100g of caster sugar (50/50 caster and light Demerara works very well) until it browns, add 50g of butter cut into chunks, place pealed apple segments (dusted in ground ginger and ground cinnamon) in a pattern, cover with rolled out puff pastry and put into the oven for 45 minutes.

When I was last in The Hope Café (PC 327 – 24^th March 2023) I invited Sami and his girlfriend Lisa to supper and said I would email some dates which would work for us. Yesterday, Thursday, was a suitable date for everyone and they came.

We have learned from experience that it’s better to ask anyone coming for a meal whether they are vegetarian, vegan, have dislikes, often an irrational one (!) about certain food, or whether they have any allergies, like to mushrooms, to nuts or to red peppers. Celina is allergic to all sorts of seafood, such as prawns, lobsters, oysters, whelks, scallops, clams etc. People seem shy in telling one upfront, so we ask. Some years ago someone came for a three course meal and then announced she was on a calorie-counting diet and could she weigh the food I was about to put onto her plate! Someone else had had to eat fish pie at boarding school and today, more than 40 years later, still couldn’t stomach it, especially if the pie includes boiled eggs. Felt sorry for him, as Jamie Oliver’s Fish Pie recipe is to die for!!

Sami had introduced me to Lisa, whom he had met in India during a tour of the Indian Mutiny sites, back in December (PC 312 In The Hope). She’s a writer from Folding over Sheet in the Derbyshire Peak District and the two of them seem to have developed a lovely relationship, so much so that they went off to a yoga retreat in India in February and then toured Goa.

Our doorbell went.

“Bottle of Tattinger? (Note 1) How did you know? Welcome ….. so nice to see you both ….. please …. come in …. let me take your coats.”

We had decided not to ask anyone else, as we wanted to get to know Sami and Lisa better. Our huge ‘living room’ is exactly that, a room in which we live, cook, eat and relax; downstairs are the apartment’s bedrooms. The open plan format allows me to chat to our guests as I am putting the starter together, a simple collection of roasted pine nuts, peeled pears, rocket, endive, some chunks of gorgonzola and a dressing.

“So how was your yoga retreat?”

Lisa quickly replied:

“Actually it was lovely. I am fairly new to yoga, having started only a couple of years ago when my now ex-husband left for a new life with his secretary! Such a cliché, but I had sited his coercive behaviour in our divorce papers, so it was a very serious breakdown of our relationship! ….”

I made a mental note to find out more, probably at a later date.

“ ……. But it got me focused on what I wanted, mentally and physically; practising yoga covers both aspects so a good place to start! I was delighted to find out from Sami he practised Hatha yoga too, maybe in a more desultory way …..

“I agree, not very regularly, but I am keen to do more.” interjects Sami.

…… so we booked a retreat in Kerula. Very international group of people, all ages, very relaxed and a beautiful place.” And pulling out her mobile from her handbag, with a little searching produced a photograph of the place.

“Looks wonderful! OK Let’s sit.” ….. and we sat as a foursome around the dinner table and got stuck in. The conversation started to flow, everyone relaxed and comfortable.

I then excused myself to finish off the main course. Sami and Lisa hadn’t met Celina before so she was able to tell them something of her life, being born in Rio de Janeiro etc.

Up until 1995 white rice to me meant perfectly cooked, dry and fluffy stuff; the sort of standard accompaniment to an Indian curry. I had never liked what I could call ‘wet’ rice, until I went for lunch in the café of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney’s Circular Quay. I ordered a bowl of mushroom risotto and thought I had gone to heaven; creamy, perfectly al dente but still with a bite and have loved cooking it ever since. When a friend Narissa commented she was put off making it at home, one evening I hosted a ‘Teach-in’ on how to make it.

A much used Risotto recipe from Jamie Oliver

Sami got up and came over to keep me company.

“You can obviously cook Richard.”

“Well, yes I learned sailing offshore that with a little effort food can be tasty and then I can read. Not fazed by a new recipe and remind myself that some recipes, for instance by reputation Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate cake, don’t work, but I have never tried to make it! A few years ago, in the family kitchen in Rio, I was told you could only make Crème Caramel with condensed milk. Thought this was nonsense if you can buy ‘fresh’ milk so came back to the UK, found a recipe and made some – delicious!”

“I guess I’ve got a bit lazy since my bankruptcy and having to look after myself! Too many ‘Take-Aways’ but Lisa can cook really well so life is on the up.”

“And I read the Post Office (PO) scandal isn’t over?”

“It’s a nightmare. I was offered thousands of pounds but the lawyers wanted 80% of it. Some convictions have not been overturned, with the PO dragging its feet, the compensation scheme is a nightmare to work through and the governmental enquiry still has to hear from the PO and Fujitsu executives.”   

Into the heavy-bottomed saucepan of white onions (15 minutes to sweat properly), garlic, sliced celery, I add some finely chopped mushrooms and separately cook some other roughly-torn ones.

“OK! Now some Risotto rice and white wine; three minutes”

“Hey that’s beginning to smell wonderful.” says Sami, looking over my shoulder.

Over the next five minutes I gradually add some hot vegetable stock, keep stirring, and eventually the rice is cooked. Finally I add the mushrooms, a large knob of butter and some grated parmesan cheese, tip the saucepan’s contents into a warmed serving bowl and take it to the table. 

“Sami, can you bring that bowl of salad and the plates please?”

When everyone has some food in front of them and something to drink, I raise my glass and toast:

“Bon Appetite” 

(To be Continued …..)

Richard 7^th April 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 A bunch of flowers is lovely too, but you have to scramble around looking for a vase etc so a bottle better!