Instant judgements? We all make them and with the ever increasing polarisation of western societies they get more common; “quick to judge, slow to understand”. Some people are very quick to judge and make decisions for themselves about situations they know absolutely nothing about. For those of you on any form of social media, one person’s story can be attacked from left and right, from above and below and still the writers often know little about the real situation.

Mind you these days it seems one person’s ‘truth’ is only their perception of what really happened and may not bear any relation to what did happen!! Sometimes you read of a critic whose written a vicious review of a book and then it materialises they haven’t read it. You might think I am a little sensitive about the following example – but judge for yourselves!

Professor Tanya Byron, a British psychologist, writer and media personality best known for her work as a child therapist, has an advice column in The Times. A husband asked for help to address his wife’s drinking problem, as he saw it.

I suspect we all hold to the archetypal view that it’s always the male of the species that has a drink problem, but the figures suggest it’s women, particularly after middle-age, who suffer a much greater risk of alcohol-associated bodily damage through chronic alcohol abuse. She wrote:

“Alcohol, the most socially acceptable drug, is considered the world’s most dangerous drug. A recent panel of British academics and practitioners ranked the harm caused by all legal and illegal drugs (for example harms that are physical, psychological, social, health-related, financial, relationship and family related), and found that the harm alcohol causes exceeds the dangers of heroin and crack cocaine when the overall danger/harm to the user and others is taken into account.”

“…..the most socially acceptable drug ……” – so if you don’t partake you’re considered odd, not a ‘team-player’, boring, not interesting? Then that lovely quote from Ernest Hemingway comes to mind: “I drink to make other people more interesting.”. Paddling a solo canoe upstream is harder work than letting the current take you ….. so when you do, you become a little sensitive, maybe over-sensitive, to how others behave towards you.

I never know from where an idea for a postcard may come although I often add to my ‘Notes for Future PCs’ folder little bits and snippets. The following example about making quick judgments just fell into my lap a few days ago and I thought it worthy of expounding.

Alberto had been involved at a senior level in Rio de Janeiro in the large Brazilian brewing company Brahma, founded in 1888. It’s now owned by global brewing giant Anheuser-Brusch InBev, whose 500 brands, including Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois, are familiar to beer drinkers the world over. He and other family members, on the first day of a three week European trip, dropped in for a drink before going on to supper locally. Everyone enjoyed a glass of champagne and I tucked into a Sagres 00, a likeable non-alcoholic local beer. At some stage it was pointed out to Alberto that I was drinking a non-alcoholic beer.

“You don’t know what you’re missing!” he cried, raising his glass.    

Well of course I knew what alcohol, particularly a glass of champagne, tasted like, what it chemically does to the body. I also knew I didn’t need it to feel fun and enjoy myself, knew I wasn’t missing it. He knew nothing about me; I could have been a recovering alcoholic, I could have had parents who were alcoholics, a friend could have been killed by a drunken driver. But it’s the arrogance of the statement, not knowing anything about the person that he was talking to, that has made me scribble this. The instant judgment is often so incorrect!

Writing about this recent event caused an old memory to rise from the murky deaths. Somewhen (Note 1) in the spring of 2014 we had a guest teacher from the USA for our Wednesday 1000 yoga class in Portslade, someone who had run his own studio in New York. It’s always good to have another teacher, as it’s easy to get so used to the mannerisms and style of one that you can end up in a rut! God forbid! I remember him as it was six months after my triple heart bypass operation …… and we are encouraged to tell the teacher if you have any aches, physical limitations, are pregnant if appropriate, breathing issues and so on which can affect the way you attempt a posture. So before class I found Otto and told him I had had a heart bypass, that I was fine but was taking it sensibly.

“You need to change your diet!” was his only response.

There are many reasons for needing a heart bypass, and one’s diet may be one of them. Actually I thought my diet had been relatively healthy, plenty of fruit and vegetables, not a lot of meat, plenty of fish and nuts, so I was rocked back on my heels a little by his comment. How could he make any judgment about me, in any way, knowing nothing about me? I might have expected him to ask: “Oh! I am sorry the hear that.” “How long ago?” “Are you back to full health?” “I’ll keep an eye on you during class.” …… didn’t feel he was very empathetic!

Later during class I realised he had a very sexist manner and decided he had more issues that worrying about my diet!  But maybe I was being quick to judge?

Richard 2^nd September 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS According to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, people with judging preference want things neat, orderly and established, so more likely to judge quickly! Those with a perceiving preference want things to be spontaneous and flexible – ‘let’s find out more’!

Note 1 Somewhen is a delightful informal word meaning ‘at some time’ that was first recorded in the C13th but then dropped out of favour until the 1800s. Best articulated with a County of Sussex dialect!

I am not sure whether you have clocked it, but I simply adore Watermelon, absolutely adore it. A large piece is a staple almost every lunchtime, although in England during the winter it’s more difficult to source. During the summer months they’re easy to find and are gloriously juicy. Apart from eating it on its own and in salads, you can serve thin slices, cut with a Mandoline, a la Carpaccio. Simply add some rocket, capers, grated Parmesan and black pepper with an unctuous dressing. (Note 1)  

Back in March 2014 I scribbled about my observations of beach life in Brazil (PC 08). I added a postscript (PC 09) which starts:

“It’s a little known aspect of life in Brazil but there is something of a fixation on the bottom here. Is it the only country in the world to have a competition for the most beautiful bottom? Have you ever heard of Andressa Soares aka Mulher Melancia (Watermelon Woman), who’s famous for having an enormous bottom that she shakes and …….. you know the sort of thing? For those with more time on their hands than sense, look at her on YouTube.” (Note 2)

Watermelon is called melancia here in Portugal and pastèque in France, where my youngest grandson Theo aka Kitkat was enjoying a slice ten days ago.

When you return from a trip or holiday do you unpack straight away or leave the suitcases unpacked with the tops open, like some Pandora’s box(es) (Note 3), from which you pull stuff out over two or three days? Some items are consigned to the washing machine or even the rubbish bin; did we really want another shell/piece of driftwood/souvenir from Madeira/postcard you should have sent to Great Aunt Doris but were put off by the queue to buy a stamp (Note 4) and now it seems rather pointless, to put an English stamp on it when the exotic nature of mail from abroad is so often the stamp/the remnants of some expensive sunscreen that seem to have leaked a little and the cling film with which you wrapped it is all greasy ……….

….. a half-open packet of Oreos that got stuffed in at the last moment and now, after sitting inside the suitcase on the luggage trolley on the baking airport tarmac, are a soggy mess of crumbs and chocolate that seems to have oozed (such a descriptive word!) out and stained that silk skirt that you bought from the market stall and you know how expensive it is to dry clean a silk garment and is it worth it?/the fountain pen that you hoped wouldn’t leak so you popped it in a plastic bag, but pulling it from your suitcase you notice your hopes were not listened to by God, or whoever you asked/Ah! Yes! The aerosol of unisex shaving cream which you put in the suitcase as you only need a very small amount and it’s extremely expensive abroad, but you have doubts whether you’re complying with the ‘Do Not Put These Items In Your Baggage’ notice at security (No explosives (obviously!), matches, flammable items, poisons etc) as it might come under ‘gasses and pressure containers’/the cardboard box of cheese that you thought wouldn’t smell but after a couple of days forgotten underneath some unwashed knickers you couldn’t decide what was smelling the worse/the glass souvenir was packed really well but you hear something as you pull it out

(This glass Kiwi I bought back from Nelson, New Zealand in 2019 and it arrived intact!)

I once worked for a well-travelled woman who obviously decided at the last moment to place that bottle of oh-so-nice red wine in her suitcase. She imagined that wrapping it in a few T-shirts that would be washed on her return home would be safe enough but found on the luggage carousel at Arrivals some reddish liquid in the vicinity of her suitcase and …….

I am one for instantly unpacking my suitcase and putting the items away in the holiday cupboard/drawers/rubbish/wardrobe/laundry bag; Celina is too. I didn’t imagine anyone did anything different!

There are four apartments here in the building on Avenida General Carmona in Estoril. Following one apartment’s owner Glenda’s demise two years ago her daughter has put her apartment on the AirBnB website. Last weekend, after a fortnight here, Jaap, Petra, Eefje and Christina returned to their Dutch home near the Germany city of Aachen. As a seventeen year-old I hitch-hiked with a school friend down to Luxembourg and then back up through Koln, Aachen and Antwerp. I remember Aachen as we spent the night in a half-built house sheltering from the rain, having crossed from Germany into Holland.

My regular readers will know that after their seven days here in Estoril at the end of July and a week’s turnaround at home in the UK, my daughter and family drove took Le Shuttle to France and thence to Troyes, Saint-Pourçain Malchère north of Clermont-Ferrand, Orleans and Bayeux. With three boys she and husband Sam can’t just sit on the beach and will have researched what to see and where to see it; mind you the gîte they rented with another couple had a pool so that became the centre of most activities! Last week they visited Blois in the Loire Valley where there is a Comic Book Museum (so, The Adventures of Tintin peut-être?) and found this wonderful set of stairs that the town use to display local artists’ work.

Richard 26^th August 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 For dressing, 4 tablespoons olive oil, I tablespoon lemon juice, 3 tablespoons mustard, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and 2 tablespoons of chopped chives.

Note 2 Read the rest of PC 09 at www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 3 Driven by curiosity, Pandora opened a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing physical and emotional curses upon mankind.

Note 4 Don’t you like those places which actually sell stamps as well as postcards?

Holidays are a time to recharge, relax, reinvent, explore places and ideas; time to think. We are not all the same and for some they want Action! Action! Action! This poem by Rose Milligan is quite apposite; it was first published in The Lady magazine in September 1998.

Dust if You Must

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better

To paint a picture or write a letter,

Bake a cake or plant a seed,

Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must but there’s not much time,

With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,

Music to hear and books to read,

Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must but the world’s out there,

With the sun in your eyes and the wind in your hair,

A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,

This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must but bear in mind,

Old age will come and it’s not kind

And when you go (and go you must),

You, yourself, will make more dust.

Buggy jumping off bridges in New Zealand, white-water rafting down the Colorado River, climbing in the Alps or in the Highlands of Scotland, running marathons in far flung places, whatever floats their boat – well, for me sailing of course! You may remember that wonderful quote from WH Davies: “What is this life if full of care, we don’t have time to stand and stare?” For those who like to ‘stand and stare’, or even to sit on the beach and stare at the horizon, letting one’s mind wander, that too is OK!

I am not a fan of motor racing but obviously, by a process of osmosis if nothing else, am aware of Formula One and the Grand Prix races that are staged all over the world; aware also of the UK’s current star Sir Lewis Hamilton. Just five kilometres north of here is the Autódromo do Estoril, a racing track that hosted the Portuguese Grand Prix from 1984 to 1996. Difficulties in maintaining the track to current safety standards meant that Formula One is now raced on the Algarve International Circuit in the south of Portugal and Estoril’s now used for other motorsport events.

A house on Rua Lisboa, on the north side of the Casino Estoril, used to house the Estoril Racing Team. No longer, although delightfully on the pavement outside is a more permanent reminder:

On Wednesday I thought I should work on this postcard as, at that stage, it was only in draft. Always good to write …… then reflect! By the afternoon I thought ‘tomorrow’s Friday so I must add the photographs and finish it’. Then I noticed that the date on my watch seemed a day out (17th), so changed that to 18th. It was only much later that it dawned on me that ‘tomorrow’ was in fact Thursday ….. so I was very pleased with myself, as I had gained a day! My daughter, commenting from somewhere deep in rural France, suggested it might have been the first sign of ‘old age’: perish the thought! 

The Times, commenting about some of the jokes being told at The Edinburgh Fringe, acknowledged it’s been a warm summer but doubted whether the hens are laying hard boiled eggs? (Note 1) Other jokes that caught my eye:

“My dad always said you only get out what you put in. Which was a lovely sentiment but ultimately led to the collapse of his vending machine business.” Ali Brice

“I can’t even be bothered to be apathetic these days.” Will Duggan

“My attempts to combined Nitrous Oxide and Oxo cubes made me a laughing stock.” Olaf Falafel

“Today I sent a food parcel to my first wife. Fed Ex.” Richard Pulsford

A week or so ago, in the setting sun, we joined Carlos & Camila on their patio as they entertained some friends, Dido and Anna, who had just flown in from Rio de Janeiro. Camila was providing succulent slivers of beef cooked to perfection on their BBQ. I had never met the other couple so there was that brief exchange of hello, who are you, where do you live, what do you do, how long are you here, I love your T-shirt/hat/earrings and all that sort of stuff, wanting in some subconscious way to put a metaphysical boundary around them. As I tucked into some of the wonderful beef, I openly admitted I rarely ate much meat these days; an occasional steak and the odd piece of chicken (not to suggest that all cuts of chicken are odd) sort of cover it. I added that I never cook a leg of lamb now as it’s got such a strong smell. “Ah! You have to remove the gland!” says Anna. The what? I was a little sceptical; how didn’t I know that the leg had some gland that smelt when it was being cooked? So I YouTube’d (that’s a verb, right?) it and sure enough a butcher gave a demonstration of how to remove it. This new-found knowledge makes me want to roast a leg of lamb, without the gland!    

Being on holiday allows some of us to read more; last year I finished 51 novels, discarded another one after just three pages and struggled with The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell on and off for weeks before giving up! The obituary of Derlva Murphy (1931-2022) had me ordering Full Tilt from my local Waterstones. (Note 2) It’s the story of her riding a bicycle from Ireland to India in 1963. A woman, on her own, riding a bicycle to India, in 1963? (Note 3) I was not disappointed!

And finally that wonderful Australian response ‘No Worries’ translates to Hakuna Matata in Swahili!

Richard 19^th August 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Did you know that white-feathered hens lay white shelled eggs and brown-feathered ones brown eggs?

Note 2 If a book has explanatory maps and other stuff you want to refer back to, for me a physical book is so much better than an e-book.

Note 3 When her bicycle needed some repair in Iran, she was intrigued to find that the Iranians didn’t use screwdrivers!!!!! Anybody verify that?

I must have read this little piece in some travel magazine in a dentist’s waiting room, so it was way before COVID and the associated suggestion that anything you touched might carry the virus!! It’s always amazing just how many copies of magazines are published weekly and monthly; in the UK it’s about 2800 magazines each year. The more upmarket the dentist’s Practice, the more up-to-date the reading material.

If you don’t buy magazines, then arriving slightly earlier than the appointed time will give you a chance to catch up; fortunately the days of year-old magazines seems to have disappeared! Some of you may remember I saw a photograph in one-such magazine of a chap doing yoga and sweating profusely; this led to me asking a friend what type of yoga made you sweat and off we went to the Bikram Yoga Studio in Balham one Wednesday evening. That class was on 11^th March 2009; never looked back and now it’s a vital part of my life.

I digress; I think it best to simply reproduce the story entitled ‘The Holiday Swap’ verbatim:

“Annie and I had thought for some time about doing a house swap abroad for a couple of week’s holiday. We had read how people had become frequent ‘swappers’ and had loved the random nature of the places available to them. Not for them the standard Time Share in Torremolinos in Spain (Note 1) or the second home on the Falmouth Estuary in Cornwall. We had invested in neither but, knowing that we were swapping with someone who was going to live in our home, it felt like we could trust the arrangements. What could go wrong, I thought? (Note 2)  We would each treat the others’ house as our own. One advertisement stood out from hundreds of others on www.holidayswapsfunguaranteed.com , a beach house in the Bahamas.

“We’re open to swapping with a professional non-smoking couple for two weeks in May. No children. Go to www.seashorevilla.co.bs for photos etc.” Nice and simple; their website showed a beach house in Red Bay on the north of the largest island, one we could easily live in and Trip Advisor confirmed others had loved it.

Once we had established what would be included and what not, for instance car insurance, and would they look after our cats, eventually we decided this was ‘good to go’, as they say.

“Tropical Storm Rupert has the potential to turn into a hurricane and may head towards the coast of Florida and further east”; the radio murmured in the background as I put the final items into the suitcase and I rue the day that that particular news item didn’t register, didn’t have me reaching for a map. Instead we simply locked the house front door and headed to the airport.

We flew into Nassau in the Bahamas a few hours late and found our little aeroplane that would take us out to the island. A friendly customs official informed us that, although Tropical Storm Rupert had not developed into a hurricane as forecast, the west coast had suffered a very small tidal surge 12 hours before; a certain amount of damage had occurred. We gulped as we recalled that our villa was on that side, but the sun was shining and we hoped our ‘seashore villa’ would be intact. On landing, a taxi took us on our way and we looked expectantly around every bend on the road, glancing down at a photograph of the villa and trying to identify it.

“Oh! No!”

We both shrieked, for there it was ….. in a very sorry state …… a corner of the tiled roof had been torn off, the sea-side of the house was missing six feet, two of the supports for the decking had been washed away leaving it at a crazy angle and a palm tree lent drunkenly across the carport. Fortunately the taxi driver was able to suggest a couple of local hotels and, after a few telephone calls, we found a more suitable location for our two weeks in the tropical sun.

 “Oh well” we thought; at least David and Ted will have a great time in Clapham.

(Over in London )

“Look! Here it is, No 11 Elms Road” exclaimed David to his husband Ted, as they peered out of the cab at the wide Victorian mid-terraced house. It sort-of looked like the photos Annie and Mike had sent us – but we glanced up and down the street and realised they all looked the same.

The keys are under the flower pot. We lifted the edge of the pot, found some house keys, and opened the front door. It was much as we expected although in our mind’s eye the decoration was a little different. And where were the cats, we thought? We had been there an hour when we were startled to hear a key being put in the front door lock ……

We had got confused between ‘Elms Road’ and ‘Elms Row”. Thirty minutes later, as we were unpacking in the right house, David’s mobile rang.

“David. It’s Mike in The Bahamas. I am afraid I have some very bad news …..”

It was attributed to Mike Palette. Sort of puts you off doing something like this, doesn’t it?

Richard 12^th August 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS In this Tuesday’s Times a news story about The Bahamas and a shark attack!!

Note 1 My mother and step-father almost got sucked into investing in a Time Share apartment in the Algarve, such was their popularity in the 1980s; fortunately they decided against it. And then, a year after I moved to London in 1987 I spent an evening off Leicester Square in London, listening to a very polished ‘Time Share’ sale’s pitch. I had actually gone for the amusement and to take away the ‘Silver Tea Set’ – available with no commitment! It wouldn’t have lasted 2 days of use!

Note 2 Somehow reading this I know something bad’s going to happen!

oldie

In 2019 I managed to get my daughter and family to come out to Estoril for a week, staying in a small AirBnB within walking distance of where we were staying. You may recall from PC 158 that one of the issues with three small boys is the endless changes of clothing required – and the AirBnB had no washing machine. 

This year she managed to secure a little apartment with a washing machine, in the centre of Cascais, for herself and her boys, Jasper (10), Reuben (9) and Theo (5). Celina and I had gone ahead and passed through London Gatwick without any problems although simple observations included watching people drinking vodka at 0900 as if this was necessary to initiate the holiday mood, overdosing on breakfast and wandering through the Duty Free wondering whether it was indeed as it said on the tin! We have all got used to the security rigmarole involved in travelling these days, although we no longer have to remove our shoes, distanced in time from 2001 when Richard Reid attempted to detonate a bomb in his trainer on a transatlantic flight. So why are some people surprised by what they have to do? A little like watching people at a supermarket checkout and when the cashier says: “That’ll be £43” seem surprised that they have to pay and start searching for their credit card, cash or smart phone.

Some swimming pool accessories far outweigh their cost by their popularity and the endless fun they offer. Three blow-up plastic rings are a real hit: getting them inflated is hard work without a little pump and actually deflating them requires a similar effort, keeping that little valve open to let air out whilst sitting on the ring. Standing in the pool, holding the inflated ring aloft allowed a steady stream of children, around and around, diving through it like performing Dolphins!

“Mummy! He said ….”

After supper in the AirBnB one evening, out came a pack of cards. I am not sure what the name of the game was, but it was fun, sitting on a little balcony with the sun setting over the rooftops.

One day we hired a boat to get out onto the sea. Being a sailor I’m always envious of those who have a yacht abroad; just climb aboard, set some sails, let go the mooring and …… bliss; Oh! That it would be that easy! Diniz’s boat was a little like a twin-hulled barge with a superstructure and a moveable table on the open deck. I wasn’t sure why this couldn’t have been clamped into place when at sea, as invariably those on board push against it when a wave stretches their ability to stay upright …. and the table moves! Instinctively I wanted to coil the warps left in a mess at the stern! Old, particularly good habits never leave one.

Motored out of the Cascais marina …..

…… past the largest yachts you see anywhere (no jealousy here!). The skipper Diniz is a Dragon sailor …..

……. and tells me he has ten stored in one of his warehouses. He’s 50, on his second marriage with a four year old daughter; out comes the iPhone – in the old days it would have been a crumpled photo stuck next to the money in his leather wallet – and he proudly shows his gorgeous daughter. Half an hour later we’re anchored in a little cove and paddle boards and one inflated plastic ring ensured a couple of hours of endless fun ….. in the cold but clear blue water.

It’s always important to get decent protection from a Summer’s sun, particularly at sea as there is added reflection from its surface. Reuben has my skin, ‘English Pale’, and turns to pink and a slightly darker shade over weeks, whereas Jasper and Theo inherited their maternal grandmother’s olive skin and just go brown …….. and then browner.

“Mummy! He said ….”

Theo has a nickname – Kitkat! Apparently one choice for his first name was Kit, but then Theo won. I had imagined the nickname had come about from the advertisement- you might say to your child who was being particularly obnoxious: “Oh! Give me a break?” And for me the immediate response would be: “Have a Kitkat!” so powerful are these adverting slogans. So Theo has become Kitkat! Our parents choose our ‘first’ name and sometimes it’s not popular for its recipient. Whether Theo stays KitKat will depend on lots of variables; my daughter changed her ‘given’ name many years ago.  

There’s a sea water pool in Estoril and, as the incoming tide gradually increased its depth last Wednesday, the boys played in the cold water. An empty Pringle’s tube was endlessly used, unsuccessfully, to catch little fish  ……

……. and the sea wall provided a perfect launching pad for jumping in.

On their last evening we went to Capricciosa Cascais, a beach-side pizzeria in the centre of town. It was not a good experience! We stood around for five minutes waiting for someone to show us to our table and, despite offering Sangria on the menu, couldn’t do a glass of Prosecco. But the main issue was cold pizzas! The base was delightfully thin but this needed to go on a warm plate as it lost its heat quickly! This and a lack of generosity with the cheese and tomato sauce suggested over-the-top portion control! But we all enjoyed some good puds!

And then the week’s over and they are hugging us and saying ‘Best Holiday Ever!’ and all that sort of thing and then into Mario’s taxi for the 45 minute drive to Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon. One suitcase didn’t make it but, with over six flights between Lisbon and London Heathrow each day, it was promised in a couple of days. At the time of writing it was still adrift – somewhere!

Back in the UK, time for them to take a breath before heading off to France and a few more: “Mummy! He said ….”

Richard 5^th August 2022

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Writing about having dinner with Her Majesty (PC 289) – well, me and 121 others so a small intimate gathering it wasn’t! – prompted another story to rise to the surface of my memory. You may appreciate that in male civilian circles there’s a graduation in the range of attire from budgie smugglers to very formal wear, the highest in the latter being ‘White Tie & Tails’. It is the same in the military, although the frequency of wearing the most formal is rarer these days. When I first joined we had a formal dinner with dinner jackets once a fortnight and once every two months an even more formal one requiring Mess Kit. In the latter the shirts ranged from soft to semi-starched to fully-starched with stiff wing collar.

Edward B was a Guard’s Officer chum and he called me one evening many years ago to say he was in charge of the Tower of London guard for the week. The Officer in Charge of the Guard was permitted to ask a friend to join him for supper and Edward asked whether I was free on such-and-such a night. Sadly I was going to be away and had to decline, but he got in touch some weeks later to say HM the Queen had dropped in for supper. If it’s not really possible to sneak into McDonalds for a quick burger then I guess the security of the Tower of London would allow you to be more relaxed. She had apparently turned up at very short notice and Edward only had a semi-stiff shirt to go with his de rigueur Mess uniform. The queen was obviously very relaxed but asked Edward why he wasn’t wearing the proper shirt. “Oh! Your Majesty. I only wear that on very formal occasions.”   

In the United Kingdom Scout Leaders have issued a Style Guide to help its young members navigate the hyper sensitive times in which we live. I have long realised that talking of someone’s ‘Christian name’ makes some assumptions … but it will take a long time for the security question we are often asked, “What is your mother’s maiden name?”, to change to “What is your mother’s previous name?”, as the guide requires; this designation begs the question: “Previous to what?” The guide also bans terms such as ‘falling on deaf ears’, ‘dinner ladies’ and curiously the reference ‘Down Under’ when talking about Australia and New Zealand. This last one baffles me …… and probably the Australian artist Ken Done who has made a business using it. What the f**k is wrong with referring to both Australia and New Zealand as ‘down under’?  From a Northern European perspective they are almost hidden by the curvature of the earth – although relative to the Equator, the southern tip of New Zealand is actually equivalent to Nantes in France. 

Ben Fogle (1973 – ) made his name in the UK in a social experiment called ‘Castaway’, a year-long effort by 36 men, women and children to build a community on Taransay, a remote Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides. Broadcast by the BBC in 2000 it covered the ups and downs of the individuals, although I suspect the producers introduced material to ensure there was enough ‘drama’!

Described as ‘pioneering’ it was an early form of the new genre of Reality TV; it was followed by Eden and Love Island but remembered only for Ben Fogle and little else! Which is why I remember it as, in his latest venture, Fogle returns to individuals who had gone very ‘off-piste’ to live ‘in the wild’ some years ago.

Tisserdmine is located central right on the Google Map shot

Karen lives in a little oasis village called Tisserdmine in The Sahara Desert in south east Morocco; for a single middle-aged woman an extreme choice. Having heard her talking of surviving a sand storm that lasted two months, Ben questioned her continuing “battle against nature.” But she said: “You have to work with nature, not against it; it’s a challenge you have to dig deep to meet and you can’t throw in the towel. If you ‘battle’ it, it will win.” Many times when I have been caught out by a gale sailing, I have screamed at the sky, dark thunderous clouds and pouring rain, asking ‘it’ to lessen, to give me a break! Of course the simple answer is to ensure your yacht has sails to match the conditions and you know it will get through it. Maybe that’s a metaphor for life; just go with the flow??

Plastic grass gets extremely hot in the sun!

A day or so after I had watched this programme Matt Rudd mentioned plastic grass in his weekly The Sunday Times column. ‘Across the country it (plastic grass) is now the go-to choice for hard working families who simply don’t have the time or inclination to ‘battle’ nature. (Again it shouldn’t be a battle!). He added, almost as a non-sequitur: “My neighbour said I am irresponsible for having flowers in my garden as her child might get stung by a bee.”’ Wow! I know we live in sensitive times but ……? Really?

From a post on Facebook by Sharon Rodgers who takes the credit with the following: “My husband and I went through the McDonald’s driveway window and, as the total bill was £4.25 (Not sure what you can buy for £4.25 at McDonalds but …..), I handed the cashier a £5 and 25 pence. “You’ve given me too much money” says the sales girl. “Yes I know but this way you can give me a pound coin back.” She sighed …… and went to talk to her supervisor, who came over to the window and asked me to repeat my request. I did so; he handed me back the 25p and said: “We’re sorry but we don’t do that kind of thing,” (What did they mean by this, I wonder? Money laundering comes to mind?) The cashier then handed me back 75 pence.” (Note 1)

The American Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967) was in the news recently as researchers had uncovered details about her early life. She was apparently best known for ‘her wit, wisecracks and eye for C20th urban foibles.’ I love this; on hearing that the famously uncharismatic US President Calvin Coolidge had died she reportedly asked: “How can they tell?”

Richard 29^th July 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 For those unfamiliar with UK decimal coinage, at a minimum this would have been three coins – a 50 pence piece plus a twenty and a five.

When my great grandfather George Nation was out in Dawson City at the very turn of the C20th, managing mining syndicate investments, he wrote as often as he could to his wife Eva back in London. Those letters still exist and they provide a wonderful glimpse of a different time, commenting on local and international news and asking of course after his three children.

He started each with his cursive ‘My Darling Eva’ and finished somewhat formally with ‘Your Loving Husband GM Nation’. Letter writing using pen & paper has gone out of fashion, replaced first by email and then by the highly abbreviated text; most are deleted at some stage, so unlike George’s letters there is rarely any trace.

If you are old enough you might connect ‘letter’ with the British/American Alistair Cooke’s ‘Letter from America’, a fifteen minute weekly broadcast on the BBC. Cooke would speak of some topical US issue, tying together different observations and anecdotes, all beautifully orated in his deep rich voice. The letters were broadcast from 1946 until his death in 2004.

William Donaldson, on the other hand, was a satirist and author, who wrote to those in positions of power and influence, for example The Queen, The Prime Minister or The National Council for (so called) Civil Liberties, under the pseudonym Henry Root and with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

You will know by now I vacuum up news stories; some aspects of a story may lodge in my memory, most simply add to the general data bank from which I can make comment or observation …… a little like gently drifting a watercolour-laden brush across an existing image. Some aspect may prompt me to put pen to paper, or more normally these days finger-tips to keys on my laptop and send a comment to the paper I have read since schooldays (Note 1) – The Times. My efforts rarely make it passed the sub-sub-editor’s desk but I was pleased to have something published early this month

“8^th July 2022

Sir! In The Times 8th July ‘Affluent patients face longer NHS wait’, Kieran Patel, university hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire Trust’s medical director says that ‘if you have patients who smoke, have hypertension or are overweight, you can use those factors to weigh their position on a waiting list, potentially pushing these patients forward on the list’. For those of us who make an effort to keep the weight down by exercise and sensible eating and who have long recognised the benefits, let alone the cost saving, of not smoking, this smacks of rewarding those taking little responsibility for their own health.”

This is not a black and white subject for sure but, with the British Nation the fattest in Europe, surely educating and supporting people to take even a little responsibility for their own health will save them and the NHS money in the long term?

And a week or so ago I had to respond to this:

“Sir The Sunday Times article about Lincoln Cathedral was wonderfully informative and a great example of modern restoration techniques. However Liam Kelly didn’t learn much geography at school. If the cathedral had been “upwind” of the various factories and power stations that caused the thick layers of dirt, it would have been blessed by clean air. I think ‘downwind’ is the term Liam is looking for!”

It did not get published!!

Last Christmas I spent with Celina’s brother and family here in Estoril, Portugal. I was prompted to write the following to the Times’ Feedback column:

“Dear Feedback: Watching the sun rise in the south east over the Targus Estuary in Portugal I was catching up with my online Times. There must be something magical about the Glastonbury Tor in Britain as the picture caption suggests you can have a 360 degree view of the sunrise if you climb to the top.
Ah! The magic of Christmas!”

In September last year our city staged its annual Marathon, possibly the most popular after The London Marathon. But, horror of horrors, it was too short!! Another letter ….

 “Sir…..Living in the great city of Brighton & Hove, I read with a mixture of amusement and sadness that last Sunday’s marathon course was ‘568m’ too long. It’s amusing as it is unbelievable how anyone could get it so wrong. It’s also sad that, as the distance is universally known as 26.2 miles, so the extra missing distance should have been 621 yards.”

And I couldn’t this go; in July 2021, 7 square centimetres is not 7 centimetres squared!!

“Sir! Oh! Dear! Leonardo’s Head of a Bear was described in the Sunday Times as being 7 sq cm. Helpfully a ruler showed it was 7 centimetres both long and tall, making it 49 square centimetres! Back to the classroom!”

In June 2021I wrote some scribbles about two issues facing the general public here in Britain; a scandal within The Post Office and a scandal within the Construction Industry. (PC 235 Generosity in Government) The Times covered both in a ‘Leader Article’ the following month, which deserved comment:

“Sir!  Your leader comment in The Sunday Times was spot on. Two issues concern the right-thinking middle-of-the-road Brit. The scandal of the Post Office’s actions over the last two decades with regards their own postmasters deserves some strong action; the Government’s response is wish-washy and pathetic – this needs to be gripped and those responsible named and shamed.
Other individuals who through no fault of their own are facing financial hardship are those living in buildings with unsafe cladding. We rely on the government to regulate the building industry. When the laws are deemed inadequate it’s the government who should pick up the complete bill.”

One in a hundred might get published but it’s fun to try. More to follow (maybe!)

Richard 22^nd July 2022

www.postcardscribbles .co.uk

Note 1 When I was at school I took advantage of the much-reduced Student Subscription for The Times; their way of buying your loyalty to their stance on news stories.

If you do a little research about the pig you find an interesting collection of connections. You can call someone ‘pig headed’ if they’re being obstinate or simply ‘being a pig’ when they’re greedy and dirty – grubby! I remember the days when at the rear of canteens and restaurants there were bins for discarded food waste, for example vegetable peel, which were collected by Pig Farmers – Pigs Swill. ‘Pigs in the trough’ can refer to people who have benefitted from something but selfishly spoil it for others; the connection with the pig is that they can eat their fill then cause the trough to spill its contents so that other pigs can’t eat!! Nice huh?

If you have basic knowledge of manufacturing you will remember the term ‘pig iron’. Hot iron is poured into moulds laid out in a sand bed and fed by a common runner. The group of moulds resembled a litter of suckling pigs; the ingot became the piglet and the runner the sow.

In complete contrast to the hard, hot metal of pig iron is the pig tail. From the C17th; in the UK the term referred to braided or plaited hair, which had some vague resemblance to the twisted tail of a pig. In China it’s called a queue or cue. Traditionally Chinese men and women grew their hair long and then styled it in elaborate ways. The Queue was introduced by the Qing Dynasty to show their dominance in Manchuria; the front of the head is shaved, the hair on the top grown long.

For some reason we view pigs as the most endearing of animals and they feature in many children’s stories and cartoons, as well as the adult Miss Piggy from The Muppets. A pig was the subject of a Beatrix Potter story published in 1913, Pigling Bland. Despite being a children’s tale the conversations often reflect the current society’s mores: “You are a worthy person but your family is not well brought up.”I am a great fan of Sheppard’s Winnie-The-Pooh stories, with his friends Piglet (note 1), Tiger and Eeyore. But in the C21st it’s Peppa Pig, a British preschool animated TV series by Astley Baker Davies, that makes the headlines.

The show follows Peppa, an anthropomorphic female piglet, and her family, as well as her peers portrayed as other animals. It was first broadcast on 31 May 2004. The seventh season began broadcasting on 5 March 2021. ‘Peppa’ has been sold to 118 territories generating global sales of £1.1 billion. Last week Quentin Tarantino, whose son Leo enjoys the animated series enormously, claimed it’s the greatest British export of this decade.

And after our Prime Minister’s resignation last week, it’s rumoured she will be made a Dame.

Other miscellaneous facts about pigs: the leather made from pig’s skin ranks fourth after cow, sheep and goat; their bristles are used for shaving and paint brushes; their highly developed sense of smell makes them ideal for hunting truffles; they don’t sweat so roll in mud to cool down; “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” a proverb from the C16th meaning if it’s ugly, no matter how you dress it up, it’s still ugly (!); “Don’t buy a pig in a poke” means don’t buy something you haven’t inspected first (the poke is a bag).

Leviticus 11.27, from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, says that God forbade Moses and his followers to eat swine ‘because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud.’ It’s possible this came about because the climate in the Middle East was not good for raising pigs; they need grass and shade so there weren’t many around! I don’t think this guidance is followed by most Christians today but in Judaism and Islam pork is a taboo food. It seems acceptable to eat animals that eat plants ie Herbivores, but not animals that eat literally anything ie carnivores or omnivores as pigs are. Fish are OK as long as they have fins and scales, so no shellfish. From a common sense view, should we eat anything that eats waste? Does the flesh of the pig contain toxins which are harmful, even in a minute way, to us human?

The story of how my nephew Hugh and his wife Hannah came to have a pet pig is worth telling. Scripting their ‘Wedding List’ in 2015 they put down ‘pet pig’ as a bit of a joke, not imaging anyone would buy them one! Hannah’s boss offered them a pig but if they hadn’t bought it within three months it would turn into a Kenwood’s toaster! Their sense of humour extended to calling it Babar, probably guaranteeing it developed an identity complex, thinking he was something woolly or an elephant! Babar lived in a Wendy House within a pen in their London garden – although obviously the rules were relaxed sometimes.

To visit their local pub, firstly Hugh & Hannah had to get a licence from the council so he could be walked on the pavement on a lead. Then the local publican had to agreed that Babar was a dog so he could come into the pub; this must have further increased the severity of his identify crisis. His life was cut short by severe arthritis in his knees and he left this world in 2017.

Edward Lear (1812-1888) managed to incorporate a pig into his poem ‘The Owl and The Pussy Cat’ (1871). You may remember that …… ‘The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five-pound note.’ Well ….. ‘They sailed away for a year and a day to the land where the Bong tree grows and there in a wood a piggy-wig stood with a ring at the end of his nose’. The pig sold the ring for a shilling and the owl and the pussy cat got married!!

George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) was a ‘Set Book’ when I was at school. It tells the story of a group of farm animals led by a pig called Napoleon who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free and happy. The historical context is the Russian revolution of 1917 – the allegorical story representing the Russian politicians, voters and workers. Napoleon is said to represent Joseph Stalin and Snowball, another boar, Trotsky. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

“The time has come” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things; of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages – and kings – and why the sea is boiling hot – and whether pigs have wings.” Lewis Carroll The Walrus & The Carpenter.

‘……. and whether pigs have wings’!! Indeed! ‘Pigs might fly’ is an adynaton, a figure of speech so hyperbolic that it describes an impossibility.

Charles Whitehead (1835) must have read Carroll; ‘Pigs might fly, but they are very unlikely birds’.

Richard 15^th July 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS We flew to Lisbon yesterday. Outside the Supermercado Tradicional this morning in Estoril I found this. Seemed so apt!

Note 1 “We’ll be friends forever, won’t we, Pooh?” asked Piglet. “Even longer.” answered Pooh.

I hadn’t intended to go to the Hope Café this week as I was working on a painting for an ex client of mine, but I got drawn into its warm friendly space and I thought a quick coffee would help me organise my thoughts for this week’s post.

As I was leafing through my beige ‘PC Ideas’ folder, I noticed a piece about how in these post-Covid times we remain wary of close contact with another human. As I started reading, Susie came across with my coffee and a lovely observation. One wall of The Hope Café has some antiqued mirrors which create the illusion of a much larger space and it’s well done. Susie had noticed two good female friends settle down for a coffee and a natter; Susie guessed this was their first time in the ‘Hope’. One of them spied a couple of old dowdy-looking women and remarked to her chum: “Don’t look now but those two probably look like we will in 20 years.” “Oh! My God!” says the other, “there’s a mirror; it’s us!”

Susie tells me Josh and Luke are away on holiday but like everyone else travelling overseas their trip were beset with delays and cancelled flights. The manager Duncan has been helping out and he says trying to find staff is so difficult. Not unusual here today; for instance the UK had been relying on nomadic Europeans for seasonal farm work and now, post-Brexit, soft fruit might well not get harvested. A ridiculous situation; a little like farmers unable to take pigs to an abattoir for lack of abattoir staff.

Pre Covid we had got used to offering more than a formal handshake and hugs and back-patting had become quite normal. Now we unconsciously worry we might catch something and hold off. Let’s hope we get back to hugging soon – something very friendly and loveable about feeling the warmth of someone’s body! (Note 1)

Without Sami to chat to I cast my eyes around and spy a group of young 20 year old somethings. Here in Brighton & Hove I am not surprised by the individual styles of fashion; the latest seems to be coloured hair and I am not talking blonde or Chestnut rinse but strong pink or green or blue or purple. And nail extensions so long that the owner has to develop a slightly different way of tapping their mobile keys; needs must I guess. Coloured hair and nail extensions I can abide but I cringe when I see someone with ‘Fish Lips’!!

SO unnatural!

Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times of 26^th June wrote about Leslie Sinclair, a 66 year old man who over the course of his lifetime had donated some 125 litres of blood. (Note 2) On his last visit he was asked whether he was pregnant, as women who are ‘with child’ are not allowed to donate blood – you might think for obvious reasons! He refused to answer what he and most of us would consider an asinine question; clearly not our NHS. In response to his ‘going public’ with what he saw as a ridiculous issue, an anonymous NHS administrator refused to apologise saying we must use language that’s ‘inclusive’. Er! Not for us males who can’t get pregnant.

Around the Platinum Jubilee The Times published a list of notable books we should have read over the past 70 years. I had read about 10% so you can draw your own conclusions to either my literary likes (?) or those who drew up the list. One book caught my eye, JG Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur, set in a fictional town during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Given that my great great great grandfather Stephen Nation had been in India in the lead up to the Mutiny, although he’d died of Cholera in 1848, and that his eldest son Henry had been involved, I have read extensively around the subject, admittedly from European writers so with a biased viewpoint.

 Farrell’s novel drew on the real experiences of people under siege at Lucknow and ‘The Collector’ at Muttra. Amazing that the Victorian participants had ‘deep & meaningful’ discussions about this and that, as the bullets clanged and the cannons crashed outside. There was one particular ‘daily grind’ that one of the characters observed: a couple of villagers would spend their days turning a wheel to bring water up from a well. (Note 3)

If you continue to do what you have always done you will always get the outcome you’ve always got. To achieve something different you have to change. A painful ‘tennis elbow’ (note 4) last year meant an adjustment in a certain yoga posture so there was less pressure on the elbow. A year on I was still doing it, until challenged by a teacher to change.

The other morning I awoke rather groggy from a restless night’s sleep. Like most people there are certain habitual actions you perform at this time of the day, almost without thinking, so ingrained do they become. I walked into the shower room, washed my face, dried it, put my contact lenses in, picked up my underarm deodorant stick ….. and proceeded to rub it over my right ear.
Made me smile!

The 50^th Anniversary of the Glastonbury Festival closed last month with Sir Paul McCartney, joined by Bruce Springsteen, singing Hey Jude; the audience joined in with ‘na na na nananana, nannana’! I was reminded of Gail and Cyprus in 1968 (see PC 110 That Reminds me (2))

More Oinks next week!

Richard 8th July 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 You offered your right hand to show it hadn’t got a weapon in it and invited the person to shake it to prove you didn’t have a knife up your sleeve. (That might have been up the other sleeve!)

Note 2 When I first started donating blood one was given a bottle of Guinness stout afterwards as it contains iron!

Note 3 This was 1857. One would hope by now that every village has pumped water (The Charity WaterAid www.wateraid.org works in Africa and elsewhere today towards this goal)

Note 4 I do not play tennis!

Unless you are really really against any form of monarchy, I hope you will agree that the feel-good event last month was the celebration of HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The four day party was held all over the United Kingdom, a wonderful celebration for a nonagenarian who has been the sovereign for 70 years. Her real birthday is the 21^st April and she was born in 1926 (Note 1), but since 1748 the state has celebrated an Official birthday at the end of May or beginning of June when, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, there is a higher probability of fine weather. The main event is always the Trooping of The Colour on Horse Guards Parade, Whitehall.

Elizabeth had become queen on 21^st February 1952, aged 25, on the death of her father; her coronation was 15 months later on 2^nd June 1953. This was probably the first time I became aware of our monarch. My grandparents lived in Bath (See PCs 164 and 165) and had a monochrome analogue television, which in 1953 was extremely rare. The Coronation broadcast was in black and white with the actual television image 376 lines high; another 29 lines gave the circuitry time to prepare for the next frame! (Note 2) The screen was small but Granny had purchased a large magnifying square of plastic which fitted over the screen. I suppose it worked to some extent but the refraction of the light through the magnifying panel created its own colour – which was completely unrelated to the activities on the black & white screen – we might have had blue horses or red faces!

This year’s Trooping the Colour was taken by the heir to the throne, with HM The Queen in Windsor no doubt watching the ceremony on digital television. Some 1500 soldiers and 250 horses took part, with the colour of The Irish Guards being trooped. Kings Troop, Royal Horse Artillery (Note 3) also paraded before firing their 82 gun salute from Hyde Park. As Kings Troop paraded the massed bands played the Royal Artillery Slow March, one with which I was extremely familiar, having marched at Sandhurst to the same tune. The crunch of boots on gravel, the dust raised by marching formations, the sweat inside one’s uniform, the music in your ear as well as the inner voice reminding what the next manoeuvre was, well practised so almost automatic, is an ever present delightful memory.

And the title of this postcard? Well, the Royal Regiment of Artillery was formed in 1716 and its 250^th birthday was in 1976. The Queen is the Regiment’s Captain General and she and Prince Philip were invited to have dinner at the Royal Artillery Mess at Woolwich in south east London.

The date finally agreed was 4^th November even though this coincided with the climax of the 1^st British Corps Commander’s Exercise in Germany, which meant that most senior Gunner Officers in Germany, including my own CO, couldn’t attend. I was a lowly Captain and volunteered to go, to join the twenty three Generals, 18 Brigadiers, 36 Colonels, 24 Majors and 21 Captains and Lieutenants – so I had dinner with the Queen, well, me and 121 others!

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh being welcomed by the Master Gunner St James’ Park, Field Marshall Sir Geoffrey Baker

Before dinner half the attendees met the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in the East Ante Room, the other half after dinner – I was in this half. No Royal Artillery dinner would have been complete without the Post Horn Gallop being played by trumpeters and, after the long mahogany tables had been cleared of the candelabra, the central tablecloth being rolled up from either end and then pulled lengthways off the table, without any deviation.

It’s very unlikely the United Kingdom will see another Platinum Jubilee celebration so this particular weekend was even more special. Apart from Trooping the Colour there were parades down The Mall, a concert in front of Buckingham Palace and thousands of street parties up and down the country.

(photo courtesy The Times)

Older people were interviewed about where they were on the Queen’s coronation and the subject of ‘Coronation Chicken’ came up. The recipe for this was created in 1953, essentially adding curry powder to mayonnaise to make a chicken salad. One 78 year old said his mother didn’t like ‘that foreign muck’ – and later someone on the BBC had to apologise as a viewer had complained. It may not be something to say today, but then our attitude to ‘Johnny Foreigner’ was very different. 

All this military nostalgia reminded me of something I first heard in 1968, when in charge of the regimental rear party in Cyprus. Towards midnight the BBC World Service would broadcast the Shipping Forecast and then play an amalgam of tunes, the National Anthem, Taps and ‘For Those in Peril on The Sea’; it might even have included Abide with Me!! Far from home, this sort of thing tugs at the heart strings!!

During my military service I spent two years in the Ministry of Defence in the ‘procurement department’. We got an allocation of tickets for the Bucking Palace Garden Parties and I went both summers. I went out of interest, with some excitement, and loved the occasion. The tea? Not wonderful!! But who cared?   

Robert Crampton, a Times columnist, is an avowed Republican and in his weekly musings published over the Jubilee said he had never stood when The National Anthem is played. Think he’s confused! While its words reflect good wishes to the sovereign, surely first and foremost it’s the anthem of our Nation and deserves our respect and acknowledgement? (aka The Star-Spangled Banner or La Marseillaise.) 

          ….. and so into a new month!

Richard 1^st July 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Sami (from the Hope Café) emailed simply to say he had arrived in Gujarat safely and would be in touch next month.

Note 1 Under the Zodiac star signs that makes her a Taurus, Celina’s sign. In our yoga studio two others share the same date! Us Scorpios complement Taurians.

Note 2 The next upgrade consisted of 625 lines

Note 3 Fifty per cent of King’s Troop is female.