I sit on the little chair, up against the old wooden table, with the Olivetti typewriter in front of me. Through the window I can glimpse palm trees and the deep turquoise of the sea in the distance; the view over Flamingo Bay towards Sugar Loaf Mountain is breath-taking. On the coat stand hangs my Panama hat and linen jacket, essential items of one’s wardrobe. Overhead the lazy fan stirs the air like a reluctant Indian punkawallah, its circular motion somewhat erratic. “God! It’s hot!” As I struggle to keep cool, feeling the sweat forming in the small of my back, I hope that my iced tea is going to cool me down.

“Dateline Monday 21^st June 1932. Rio de Janeiro . ……” I stare at the paper in the typewriter, praying my weekly ‘copy’ for the Times of London is going to flow ….. although I know from experience it never does! My battered notebook, full of scribbles, lies open; I take a drag of my cigarette and look out of the window!

‘An Englishman abroad’. Nice expression, isn’t it? Conjures up soft images such as the one described above. And these days it’s still possible to ‘feel’ like an Englishman abroad. I even look like one, and here in Brazil stand out if only by the colour of my skin, which even after a few weeks of tropical sun is nothing more than tanned pink! We were meeting two girls on their Gap year, one the daughter of a chum, on Saturday for lunch; having never met before, we helped them by saying that I look English. They immediately saw us across the crowded café without a problem!

The European scramble for colonies in the C19th often determined spoken languages across the world. For example, in India the lingua franca is English, whereas parts of the Caribbean speak French. Here in Brazil they speak a sort of Portuguese, as they do in Angola and Mozambique. I learned French at school (mais je ai oublié la plupart de celui-ci), some German when stationed there (nur ein bisschen), Italian at evening class for some holidays (troppo tempo fa!) ….. but Portuguese? Not uma palavra! Staying in an English-speaking house here makes life easy for me, but I am trying! Not speaking the local language reinforces the ‘Englishman abroad’ label. What did the archetypal Englishman do (and some still do!)? Too lazy to learn the language, if the native didn’t understand they simply spoke louder! With a combination of online courses (DuoLingo and MemRise) and after many visits, I now know lots of words but haven’t yet got the confidence to join them together, in an appropriate order that makes sense, and pronounce them in such a way as to be understandable. I’ll get there sometime! Até amanha!

As Englishmen, did we really look down on those in Southern Europe and elsewhere who had a siesta during the heat of the day? Those lazy Latins? Do we still? When you live in the tropics, if you can be indoors during the heat of midday, with that fan or air conditioning on, why wouldn’t you be so? Noel Coward’s 1932 observation was right: “But (only) mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun!” He also observed that when it came to clothing, “The English garb of the English sahib merely gets a bit more creased.” How the hell did they manage? When I first came to Brazil, I packet my linen jacket; it’s still in the cupboard, unused! But the Panama hat, ah! Yes! Essential in … er … the midday sun!! Well, I am English!

Wow! How the world has changed since those interwar years …… when they shrugged off the ghastly memories of the ‘Great War’ and tried to enjoy life. And the change never more apparent than in the attitude of our societies towards dress. I grew up in what I sense was quite a strict environment. My stepfather was not a Victorian by birth but by upbringing certainly. His was a childhood of “children are seen but not heard” and of always dressing for the occasion. This manifested itself in what he expected at home, what I had to wear for dinner during the school holidays. Once I was 14 I could join my parents and brother for dinner, providing I wore a jacket and tie! I tried a sweater once … with a tie! And of course one wore shoes and socks; not wearing socks was not an option. If it was warm, you simply bought a pair of thin cotton ones. It seemed rather Italian not to wear socks with shoes; maybe we were rather jealous of their ability to carry it off, even if we branded them rather louche for doing so.

I hope I’m not alone in admitting that one of my pet hates is men wearing socks and sandals. Such a nightmare! In my mind, just so so wrong! Men’s feet, often not their best attribute, are normally covered with socks, so when it’s possible to give them an airing, what do we do (well! Not me! Of course!)? It’s a curious sight and style – ‘milk bottle’ white legs with white (at best) socks and heavy sandals. Looks silly on women, even sillier on men. “Now, where’s that podiatrist?” Here the standard footwear is the ubiquitous ‘flip-flop’ made by Havaianas of Brazil, or a moccasin-type slip-on.

As well as defining the local language, the European colonies adopted the mother country’s driving norm; here in Brazil they drive on the right. One learns the local idiosyncrasies quickly; motorcycles everywhere, everyone on their mobile phone, … and drivers on the third lane on the left suddenly realising they want to turn off to the … right. And they do, completely oblivious of the other traffic, cutting across everyone. And no one cares!! No horns, no hoots, no shouts ….. for this is Brazil!

I am lucky in having had a good education. Values were taught, and reinforced; certain standards became the norm; codes of behaviour and dress defined one’s life. But gradually, even reluctantly, some of these slip as society’s mores change and develop. Once upon a time my shirt collars were stiffened by starch, but by a process akin to osmosis the stiffness leaves the collar and me, the starch damp and eventually useless …. and rightly so. Even for a relaxed Englishman abroad!

Some jumbled thoughts to amuse – or not!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

Palm trees …… sea breezes …… the sound of the surf … and warm air; it’s easy to conjure up a typical tropical shore, huh? So we went north to Recife, a city at the eastern tip of Brazil, closest to Africa, where we found palm trees, sea breezes, the sound of surf and warm air. If you will indulge me with a little imagination and time travel, we met Robert Avé-Lallemant, an explorer from Lübeck in Germany, who described his visit to Recife in 1859 thus:

“A city entirely devoted to commerce with a population of around 100,000 souls. Lining the enchanted lagoons and in the city centre, the recently constructed houses and public buildings have already begun to take on a certain air of distinguished beauty which promises, one day, to make this city, risen from the waters, one of the most beautiful in the world, to rival even Hamburg with its magnificent Alster Bay. The views from the various bridges in all directions, especially to the north where the old city of Olinda sits majestically on a hill, are indescribably beautiful. With all this Recife in Pernambuco State is the true city of the future of Brazil.”

“So clearly, Robert, you enjoyed your time in Recife and saw its potential?”

“Absolutely! It is a wonderful location, ja, with the Sāo Francisco river estuary creating these three main islands. Thanks to the Dutch and their experience of waterworks in Holland, they managed to drain and channel the river in a way that the Portuguese never imagined. The natural off-shore reef allowed for a wonderful protected harbour and this city became the major port of Brazil. Incidentally, the Dutch were thrown out in 1654and most sailed to New Amsterdam, which became New York.”

 “But wasn’t it the capital of Brazil?”

“Ach! So! But as the trade in sugar in the north dropped off and that of gold and coffee in the south grew, the political focus shifted and Rio de Janeiro became the capital in 1763. It held that crown until 1960 when Brasilia superseded it.

“So what do you think people fly to Recife for?”

 “Fly? What is this “Fly”?”

“OK! We’ve learned to travel in the air! It takes three hours to travel from Rio to Recife …. a little bit quicker than your journey by sailing ship …. but if you can imagine looking down on Recife in 2015, the first thing you would see is the unconstrained building of high-rise apartment blocks as far south down the coast as the eye can see; like pins sticking up from a pincushion. Your prophecy that Recife is ‘the true city of the future of Brazil’ has sadly not been fulfilled. It now only attracts holiday makers to its beaches further south, particularly Porto de Galinhas.”

“So why did you come?”

“Eight years before you were here, my great grandfather Richard Sidney Corbett was born on a ship in the harbour. In those days I guess this now empty harbour was full of sailing ships. Along the old waterfront is a half a kilometre long line of abandoned sugar warehouses. I wanted to see this place, smell it, imagine the hustle and bustle of old. I also wanted to see the Cemitério dos Ingleses where a relative or two might have been buried.”

“But Olinda is beautiful, nicht wahr?”

“Robert, you probably saw it at its best! Today the small cobbled streets of this town that the Portuguese established in 1535 are crowded with cars and, whilst the little brightly-coloured houses are extremely picturesque and the churches numerous and ornate, it has a sad, rundown feel about it.”

“Bitte? What is a car?”

“We can not only fly, Robert, but burn minerals to drive carriages; no horses!”

“Wunderbar! So did you like modern day Recife?”

“Well, some parts! Those buildings you talked about are still there; the pink Teatro de Santa Isabel and the Palacio do Campas das Princesas are gorgeous and they have restored some houses on the oldest island Bairro do Recife, although others are gaunt shells. The prison you saw, that one built in 1850 mimicking US gaols, is now the Casa da Cultura, with each cell occupied by a shop selling leather, lace or ceramic crafts. We enjoyed the Mercado de Sāo José, a covered market selling everything from crafts, to clothing, to fish ….. and some mounds of meat which defy description (!) but this was only built in 1875 so you would not have seen it. And then there are the two enormous forts, a mixture of Portuguese and Dutch architecture, which guarded the entrance to the harbour.”

“Ah! Yes! I remember them. Magnificent! Maybe it’s best if I keep my lovely memories as they are and not allow them to be influenced with your modern view. Now, tell me more about flying and cars …… bitte?”

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

Rush! Rush! Rush! Is this what we do? And how often do we cry: “Stop the world, I want to get off!” remembering that show from the last century. Today I’m reminded we do need to pause occasionally, if only to draw breath!

“What is this life if, full of care, we don’t have time to stand and stare…..  No time to see, when woods we pass, where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.” I often used this quotation from the Welsh poet WH Davies to get clients to think about creating space in their busy lives, to actually acknowledge that life was to be enjoyed. We get caught up in the doing and give no time for thinking, not allowing ourselves to pause. For what is this life of ours if we don’t give ourselves time, time to pause …. and look …. and wonder …. and marvel?

Creating space between ‘doing things’ is actually very important to our emotional health. I love expressing ideas in pictures, so when confronted with a stressed client, I would say: “Imagine you’re holding a bucket of water, and I ask you to walk down to the end of the room and come back, as quickly as you can. When you turn around at the end, some water pours out of the bucket. Do this a few times and you have no water! Your emotions are like the water …. so when you get to the end, pause, allow the water to come to rest, (2 seconds? That’s all it takes for sure!), turn around and come back ….. with a full bucket of water.”

You may recall my discovery back in December last year of a grammatical construct called a Zeugma (see PC 26)? For some time I have loved people using alliteration, where continuing words start with the same letter, as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper” …. or “dragging the lazy languid line across the rocks”. I gave Celina’s father a copy of Lynn Truss’s book ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves” for his birthday and, whilst fluent and extremely knowledgeable about English, he’s marvelling at the easy complexities of the language that Lynn discusses. What other language can have, for example, ‘hear and here’ or ‘there and their’ and each word meaning something completely different from the other.  I am drawn to words which rhyme with pause for this PC – words which aurally are identical, as in pause, pours and paws, and it’s only the context which allows us to understand the meaning.

The gift of the 15 minute timer by Someone for Christmas got me thinking more about time and its use. “Why don’t you do ….? I’m asked. “Because I chose to do other things which take up my time.” “So make time!” “Oh! But if I wanted to, I would.” And you remember that the sand pouring into the bottom half of the glass ……. paused!

My favourite animal with paws is Pooh Bear. Read “The Tao of Pooh” by Benjamin Hoof. It’ll help you understand in simplistic terms us humans. Here’s Pooh “standing … and … staring”:

“I say, Pooh, why aren’t you busy?” I said. “Because it’s a nice day,” said Pooh. “Yes, but …” “Why ruin it?” he said. “But you could be doing something important.” “I am,” said Pooh. “Oh? Doing what?” “Listening,” he said. “Listening to what?” “To the birds, and that squirrel over there.” “What are they saying?” I asked. “That it’s a nice day,” said Pooh “But you know that already.” I said. “Yes, but it’s always good to hear that somebody else thinks so too,” he replied.

There is a contradictory nature to our lives, with people singing about having ‘all the time in the world’ in one breath and in a second bemoaning about having wasted this precious dimension, as in ‘Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.’ (Horace Mann)

Our washing machine has a spin cycle that lasts for 13 minutes. When it indicates ‘1’ you imagine you have one minute before it bleeps and you can open the door. But this is an Italian machine and time can move slowly. That one minute can sometimes last 5; the frustration while waiting for it to turn to ‘0’ for the door to unlock can test the patience of a saint.

You’ve heard of the expression “As boring as waiting for paint to dry”? In August last year I heard of an experiment which has been running at the University of Queensland in Australia …. since 1930 ….. and it must be even more boring! It was set up by physicist Thomas Parnell to illustrate that although pitch (tar/bitumen) appears solid, shattering when hit with a hammer at room temperature, it is actually a very viscous liquid. A container of pitch was set up and they waited for a drop to form at the open bottom. They had a long wait – 8 years! By August 2014 the ninth drop had formed, having taken 13 years. And the sad thing? That the scientist overseeing the experiment for 50 years missed it three times – the last time in 2000 because a power cut put the recording instruments out of action!! Think of this experiment when you’re rushing around, not pausing between doing things!

Often one pauses to collect one’s thoughts, focus one’s actions – such as when you are about to serve in a game of tennis, or about to squeeze the trigger of a rifle, or when you are about to ‘go about’ when tacking on a yacht, to check that everyone/everything is ready. Or when a lion is on its tip-paws (aka tiptoes!) ready to launch itself at some potential prey.

Mere scribbles and thoughts!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

This PC comes with a warning label – do not not read!!

When I first started travelling abroad I used to buy traveller’s cheques and cash them as I need some money. Then came the ubiquitous credit card ….. and then the debit card.

During the first part of last year Celina and I spent 3 months here in Rio de Janeiro and every time I used my HSBC debit card I got charged a small fee, some 1.8% if my memory serves me well. Over the course of our stay that little percentage mounted up and became sizeable. On returning to the UK I investigated the various recommended cheaper options for taking money abroad. One of the most mentioned was a MyTravelCash card which you simply load up from your domestic bank, and use at an ATM to withdraw cash. You can use it for nothing else. If you chose to buy a sterling one, they charge you a transaction fee if you use it in the UK, but not if you use it overseas.

At the end of August last year we flew to Rio for another month – I know, it’s a tough life but someone has to keep British Airways flying. During our stay I used my MyTravelCash card to withdraw money and it felt safe! Before we flew out to the Pantanal for our wonderful trip to the world’s largest wetland, I checked my HSBC account. I had used the HSBC Debit card 6 times, buying Yoga sessions and paying for some meals in restaurants. I was overdrawn! Agghhh! Not possible! I went online, checked my statement and found someone had withdrawn cash on a total of 7 times through ATMs.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but I do recall Sineta from HSBC Bangalore saying over the telephone: “But Mr Yates! You have the card, you say you have not told the PIN to anyone …… so you must have withdrawn the cash! It’s not possible to do otherwise!!” Fortunately I then spoke to Kasim from their fraud department who told me there had been a couple of attempts to withdraw cash ….. in Miami …… while I was here in Brazil. Fortunately I got all the money back and picked up my new bank card when I returned to the UK.

On this trip I decided to use cash wherever and whenever I needed to. I knew that MyTravelCash card had a few hundred pounds on it, as I hadn’t used it in the UK. So today I put my MyTravelCash card into a bank ATM and …….. was surprised to find the balance much less than I thought it should be. Back at Celina’s parents’ house where we stay, I went onto the MyTravelCash website ….. to find that someone had taken cash out on three occasions, once here in Rio and three times in Miami, since October. So now that card is useless.

It seems that cash is king …… and that if you have a card, any card, no matter how careful you are with shielding your PIN and keeping the card in sight, you risk someone cloning it. I am at my wits end! Maybe I should go back to buying Traveller’s Cheques?

Needed to get this of my chest …….aaaaggggghhhhhhhh!!

Mere scribbles …… in the heat.

Love etc

Richard

P.S. Every time Celina used a bank card at Terminal 5 Duty Free she had some fraudulent transactions – and now only uses cash there

Rio de Janeiro is hot at this time of year as it’s high summer, and the contrast after leaving the winter in Hove is startling.

On our second evening, completely unpacked, I stand in the hot bathroom vigorously using my electric toothbrush in the prescribed manner. I notice that the bottle of Listerine mouthwash (Zero Alcohol of course!) we brought out from England is unopened. My toothbrush is in my right hand but, being reasonably ambidextrous, I think I can multitask ….. despite being a man! Occasionally I’ve done more than two things at once; do I hear applause from you men (?) or is this drowned out by cries of disbelief from you women?

Anyway, the Listerine bottle has a childproof top (boy! sometimes it’s bloody adult proof) and one of those plastic wrappers with a thoughtful arrowed part down its side to make it easy to open. With my left hand I grasp the bottle and try using a fingernail to rip the plastic; I continue to clean my teeth. After some minutes, the only progress I’ve made is to change the colour of the plastic from clear to white …. but no rip! I give up. I finish my teeth cleaning, take a pair of nail-clippers from my bag and cut the plastic. Result!

It got me thinking of other times when I have really struggled with packaging. Some modern plastic is particularly strong, some very brittle. I was on a business trip to Japan some years ago and raided the hotel minibar before going out for dinner. That bloody plastic bag of peanuts! I remember spending some 10 minutes pulling, tearing, ripping ….. I would have died of hunger if I hadn’t stopped, glaring at the unopened bag which seemed to say: “I won!” (Or whatever the Japanese equivalent is?)

Celina loves French mustard and if we’re eating out somewhere it often comes in a little plastic sachet (we go to all the posh places!!). At the top it says “tear” – being helpful I guess. So you try and tear it – along that little dotted line. Nothing happens! You check you’re in the right place and try again. Nothing happens! In desperation you get a fork and push a tine into the plastic sachet – often with so much force that mustard squirts out in all directions! Agh!

My dear step-father Philip believed that if something was difficult to unscrew, you should tighten it first. The Gherkin glass jar top was tight; I tried tightening it but nothing happened. I knew if I put a rubber band around a top, I would get a better purchase. Nothing happened. There was a little pressure inside; I gripped and twisted, I gripped and tightened, I got my arms lower to get a better angle of attack ……. and after some 5 minutes eventually it popped open; I felt I had been in the gym!

Part of my daily medication is an Asprin and they come in a foil pack. For some reason better known to the manufacturer, the foil is quite thick. Actually I think there’s a micron of plastic on the underside of the foil for …. freshness?! Maybe they think Asprin is a dangerous drug as it is extremely difficult to push the little tablet out through the foil. If I had arthritic hands, it would have been impossible. Not sure why they aren’t sold in a simple plastic tub with a twist-off lid?

Whenever I see plastic simply elongating under the force from my hands, I think of Young’s Modulus of Elasticity. This English scientist proved that material will revert to its original shape once a force is removed, providing it has not past a certain point. If that point is exceeded, the material will ‘run’ until it breaks. Sometimes I think modern strong plastic hasn’t heard of Thomas Young!

I buy yoghurt in 500ml plastic containers (Yeo Valley if you’re interested!). It has a hard plastic cap, and then a flimsy piece that seals in the yoghurt. I take the corner and rip it off; most of the times I’m successful, but sometimes I end up with little strips of plastic. So I remove it all and put it in the bin. Sometime the next day you remember that those friendly people at Yeo Valley have printed the ‘use by’ date …… on the piece of plastic now in the bin!

I bought a bag of Pasta the other day ……. and it was a plastic bag. It had one of those little ‘replace for freshness’ stickers you could fold over the bag once you had taken some pasta out ….. but the type of plastic is too brittle, making it almost impossible to actually open the bag easily. The plastic rips and the pasta spills out. So you decant it into a container.

Before this rant ends, how about Cling Film? (glad wrap/pvc/plastic wrap) The most useful material in a kitchen but woe betide you if you don’t cut it cleanly. I’ve watched grown men and women weep at the frustration of trying to clear a piece/find the start/get it to come off the roll cleanly.

A year ago it was almost impossible to extract one brush from a pack of three Braun replacement electric toothbrushes; they’ve got much better!! Pray that the Listerine bottle will similarly improve. Just some idle thoughts for the new year.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

I started the after Christmas Thank You note with “Thanks for nothing!” … and I meant it. Because someone dear to me had given me …….nothing! It went something like:

“Thank you for nothing. No, really, it was so so kind of you to give me nothing for Christmas. The vacuous thought that decided that nothing was appropriate was spot-on, I just love the empty, expurgated, expunged, evaporated plastic enclosure of nothing. It complements the sand timer someone else gave me, which for a reason better known to itself, measures 15 minutes of …… time! Maybe it measure 15 minutes of ….. nothing. I don’t know, ‘cos I know nothing.”

My bubble pack of ‘Nothing’ was ‘guaranteed to do absolutely nothing’ … and if something happened I was to return it for a full refund! So clever … to get someone to pay for …. nothing! I just had to share this with you as a fortnight after Christmas I’m still thinking about …. nothing!

This fifteen-minute measurer I’m just not sure about! That’s ten times the time it takes for my three eggs to boil every morning ….. only a sixth of my daily Bikram Yoga session …… more or less than the time it takes me to complete the Killer Sudoku puzzle as they vary in difficulty …. half the time it takes for the dishwasher to complete its business … Oh! I know! A timer to measure boiling an Ostrich egg? The giver feels I should recognise that “15 minutes is longer than we often give to many of the things we ostensibly think of as so important.”!

I’ve upturned the timer by my laptop, to measure the time it takes to write this PC. Have you ever read a dictionary definition of ‘time’? “Indefinite continuous duration regarded as a dimension in which a sequence of events takes place, but it has a finite duration as distinct from eternity.” Oh! Yes! It’s a dimension. Space and time have their own peculiarities. Space has three dimensions; length breadth and height but Time has only one, from the past through the present to the future. It is inevitable, unrepeatable and irreversible.

Time? You can’t physically feel it, touch it, but you know it passes …er …. as sure as day leads into night? Well! Of course; the early humans recognised there was a pattern, a rhythm to this earthly existence and they called it time.

In Yoga one of the postures is Savasana or ‘dead-body pose’ in which you are meant to lie still, unresponsive to sweat dripping or muscles aching or a nose needing twitching (well, you get the drift?), clearing your mind of stuff so that nothing takes its place. Going from ‘mindful’ to ‘mindless’! So easy to do – not! And still the clock ticks …..

But guess what? The timer’s stopped!! No! Really! The sand was in too much of a hurry to get into the bottom glass …….  and the grains got jammed! Uncle Tommy gave it a nudge and off it went again …… but this time measuring more than 15 minutes!

There are so many good quotations concerning time and why not! It affects all of us who are alive, all of the ….. er ….. time, even when we’re thinking of nothing. I love Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “There is a time in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of one’s life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea am I now afloat, and I must take the current when it serves or lose my venture”. The nautical theme echoes in “Time and tide wait for no man”

In my post major surgery existence, my time seems to be measured by the bloody box of medication! Every week I fill it up with the morning and evening pills (the betablockers, statins and other stuff which my doctor says I must take)  Suddenly the box is empty again, there’s nothing in it and I have to go through the whole rigmarole again of filling it up. Another week of my life just gone. So much for Louis Armstrong’s “We have all the time in the world.” Not true!

I recently was challenged by someone who had a very contrary view to me about life. I couldn’t crudely dismiss their view as it was earnestly put but what was before this life, and what was after this life, was/is surely better than life itself? I tried to make light of this in conversation, as for me life is for living, in every way possible, sucking the very breath out of it, and whilst I accept that death is inevitable, it’ll come soon enough I don’t need to think about it … or prepare for it!! “Before” I might have been a pig; “after” I might be a flying pig, even pink! But right now is my time, my life; as sure as eggs are eggs (ostrich eggs?) my time will come to an end ……… but time itself will simply run on …. and on.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

When Celina and I moved to Hove in 2012, it was very apparent from the outset that there was little storage space in our apartment – no garage, no cellar and no loft! A lot of ‘stuff’, an over-worked modern word for everything and anything, had to go. I hate throwing things out, never knowing when they might ‘come in useful’, but that’s the whole issue; when might they come in useful? Next week? Next month? Next year? In five years’ time? I admit to keeping some things for really no good reason, apart from being a bit of a romantic. For instance, I have a collection of cards/post cards which bring back some lovely memories. Of course the original Post Card had ‘Post Card’ printed on the front; then came ‘picture post cards’ with a photograph of something on the front and space on the back to write the address and ‘Wish you were here’, which probably was not wholly true! So here is a selection of some of my cards I simply cannot throw away!

I’ve been known for having a positive attitude towards life, something I tried to work into my coaching assignments. ‘Bestie’ is a card illustrator. One client sent me a Bestie card depicting a man lying in a distressed state in the gutter and a stranger walking by; both wear Biblical clothing. The walking man turns to the chap in the gutter and says: “Oh! Stop moaning about your problems and pull yourself together.” And the card is entitled: ‘The Bad Samaritan’!

The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney has the most mesmeric installation I’ve ever seen. One hundred and three large stones from a river bed, suspended in a horizontal circle 11 metres in diameter by wire, no one stone touching another. Google it (Ken Unsworth) to see it! Just amazing; I treasure that memory ….. so I keep the card.

In the early 1980s I had to go and do a military reconnaissance of some type in Gibraltar and stayed in the Royal Air Force Officers’ Mess. My memory is a little vague, but somehow I’ve ended up with a 1930’s sepia photographic post card of a scantily-clad lady …. and on the back ‘The Thespians’ have written “Richard, Richard, Richard, where are you ….?!” and added ‘love’!. Maybe this should have been classified as much as the reconnaissance?!!

When I left Morgan & Banks to start up “The Yellow Palette”, my own coaching business, there was the obligatory farewell gift and the card signed by everyone in the office! Bestie again, showing a chap sitting at a table doing an exam. “While answering a question on surrealism his pen ran out”; and the pen has jumped off the table and is running out of the card!

I love the female body and admire those who have captured the essence of femininity. I have four cards: Modigliani’s female nude circa 1916, the photographer Annie Leibovitz’s depiction of Lauren Hutton lying in a sea of mud, Matisse’s Large Pink Reclining Nude 1935 and my favourite, Willy Ronis’s wife Marie-Anne. This famous black & white photograph shows her at their house in Gordes in Provence, naked, washing her face from a bowl; a pitcher of water stands on the rough stone floor.

There must be something about Bestie’s humour that gets to me, as another of his cards shows a grocer’s shop, run by a badger (not normal huh?). In the queue is a bear, a weasel and a rabbit. The bear is asking for: “Half a pound of tuppenny rice and half a pound of treacle please?” And the caption at the bottom? “Weasel didn’t like the sound of this.”*

I have a card of an aerial photograph of the Circus and The Royal Crescent in Bath. Together they look like a giant Question Mark, not something the Georgian architects would have been able to see from their earth-bound existence! I was born in Bath and Uncle Tommy and my grandmother lived in the Royal Crescent.

When I was running an Outplacement service, amongst other things I advised people how to be successful during the interview process. I am amused by a card showing an extremely large Hippopotamus, wearing a tie and a cross face, facing a small man with glasses. The man looks up to the Hippopotamus and says: “The bunny didn’t get the job because the bunny is cute. The bunny got the job because the bunny knows WordPerfect!” (WordPerfect? Gosh! That’s so last century!)

Winnie The Pooh featured in the early childhood of many here in England. A card shows Christopher Robin bringing Pooh downstairs: “Bump! Bump! Bump!” This was the only way Pooh came downstairs, on his head. And if you have never read “The Tao of Pooh.” (by Hoff), please, go and get a copy and read it …… now. It’ll improve your understanding of us humans and how we communicate, or not!

Just simple pleasures derived from a stack of treasured cards and post cards. Mere scribbles, you might say!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

*“Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle, that’s the way the money goes, pop! goes the weasel!” an old nursery rhyme. Probable in Cockney rhyming slang that ‘weasel’ is coat and ‘pop’ is ‘pawn’….. ie pawn your coat to buy some food and drink. But ‘pop’could be ‘to explode’!

I never wanted to be a roughie toughie Paratrooper but, during my officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, there was an opportunity during an Easter holiday break to do some basic military parachute training. Edward Bear was a scruffy teddy bear, complete with beret and parachute wings, and the mascot of the club whose entry involved completing 7 daytime and 1 night-time parachute jumps. After our initial ground training, we arrived for our first jump, from a tethered balloon, its shape a little like those World War Two barrage balloons. Fitted up with my parachute, I climbed into the basket with a couple of others and the instructor. We left the ground behind and the cable was let out until the balloon was at 800 feet. It seemed a long way off the ground!! Adrenalin was pumping through my veins, the instructor went through the checks, I stood at the barrier, thought “What the f**k am I doing here?”, a tap on the shoulder and I jump ………. the ‘chute’ opens above me and my quick descent is suddenly jerked to a stop, becomes an ascent for a bit and then I float down! I look around: “Wow! This is such a feeling of elation, of satisfaction …. so weird.”  And suddenly the instructor on the ground is yelling through a megaphone; “Number 73! Assess your drift, prepare to land……” Land? Oh! Yes! I need to do that!

I remember doing two jumps from that balloon maybe three; then we jumped from aeroplanes, with kit, before we passed the course and became eligible to wear a small parachute badge on our uniform and the Edward Bear tie. But that balloon, standing there waiting to leap into space ……. I can picture it now! We did of course have a ninth jump, one summer’s evening about three months later, onto a nearby training area for the ‘Teddy Bear’s Picnic’. As you would!!

Balloons featured at my birthday party in October, ones filled with helium (He). And I was reminded that, at a wedding in August, two teenagers thought it such fun to let the helium out of the balloons and inhale it. Took a while before adults realised the effect the gas was having! Maybe the adults had already had too much of another gassy drink, Champagne!

Some years ago there was a craze amongst the cooking fraternity to rinse a raw chicken under some running cold water before preparing it for cooking. “Get all the blood off!” Now we’re told that this is so wrong. The reason is bacteria called Campylobacter, which seems to be present in a huge percentage of chickens, and it can cause severe food poisoning in us humans. A chart in a national paper suggested that no chicken supplier’s chickens are completely immune.  It’s destroyed by proper cooking but if you wash the bird then you potentially spread the Campylobacter around ….. your kitchen! Yuk!

The other morning, well actually around 0200, I thought about the chicken I’d had for supper. Normally I prepare our meals from scratch but I was lazy and it was a ‘ready-made’ one, Chicken Arrabiata if my memory serves me well! I went to our bathroom, contemplated my navel, went back to bed …..  and then I went to our bathroom, contemplated my navel, went back to bed … I was blowing up …. truly not sure what was really going on in my stomach but the Chemistry teacher from Breaking Bad must have had a hand in it!! Celina asked if I was OK? I said I felt like one of those large rubber bouncing balls, with two large hand holds, that children can ride on. “Bounce! Bounce.!” ….. except I had feet at the other end ….. just the middle that was so, so bloated. You know those Puffer fishes that, dare I say it, ‘puff’ themselves up when confronted with danger? That’s not how I looked, for sure, in the dim light of early morning, but it was exactly how I felt.

And what came to mind? Far from the Madding Crowd!! Some of you will have seen the cinematic adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel “Far from the Madding Crowd”, starring Terence Stamp and Julie Christie. It was in our cinemas the year Celina was born, 1967. OK! OK! What the hell brought this to mind? You remember the scene when a flock of sheep strayed into a field of young clover? Sheep love fresh juicy clover ….. and munch and munch and ……. and they can develop ‘pasture bloat’, caused by a build-up of methane (CH4) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). (You’d think I was good at Chemistry but the truth is I can’t tell an oxide from a dioxide!). In the film they rush around the field performing rumenotomies, where they puncture the sheep’s stomach to let out the gas …. or the sheep dies!

Well, I wanted someone to come and perform a rumenotony ….. on me!!

You know that Celina and I practise Bikram Yoga most days? Well, what you probably don’t know is that there is a posture called “Wind Removing Pose” (Pavana mukt asana). You think I’m joking? No! Really, it’s true. After the one hour ‘standing series’ you have a half-an-hour floor series, and the first posture is ‘Wind Removing Pose’. You lie on your back, bend your right leg up to your chest, put your hands on it just below the knee and pull the knee down towards the right shoulder. You hold it for 10 seconds and then do the other side. It’s meant to ease the intestinal gases ….. out. So, at 0300, on the bedroom floor, I try it. My stomach is so extended I can hardly get my knee to bend, let alone touch my shoulder! I’m reminded of that ‘funny’ card of a women’s yoga class where it seems they are all in ‘wind removing pose’ ….. and it’s very effective (there is no delicate way to describe this, is there?).

Just some more mundane thoughts …..

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

In the latitudes in which England lies, December is often a cold month and so here we develop this huge association of Christmas and of cold, hopefully even of snow! Many a Christmas I walked or drove to the local church for the Midnight Mass service and if there was snow …… wow! Magical! We don’t really make the connection with Bethlehem and snow and frost, thinking the Middle East is always sunny and warm; we learn later in life that that is not the case. I’ve spent Christmas in Sydney in Australia, rather warm but wet that year, in New Zealand where it was warm and dry, and in Rio de Janerio, where it was amazingly hot … and humid. Wherever, “There must be turkey …. and sprouts ???” Really?? “It wouldn’t be the same without Brussel Sprouts.!” The most maligned vegetable in western cuisine, normally with any taste and colour boiled out ……. until Jamie Oliver came along and suggested roasting them with bacon. Brussel Sprouts are just another of those things in life associated with the most boring country, Belgium.

Christmas in Britain, commercial Christmas that is, starts sometimes in ……  October nowadays! I resist …. and resist …… until I think at least I should dig out the box of decorations. You go up into the attic, into the garage, into the cellar or in my case, in my modern no-storage apartment, into a spare bedroom and find the Christmas decorations box.

“Uncle Tommy” shook his head. Well, he didn’t really, but as his head was attached to his body by a big spring, every time someone nudged the table, his head shook! This wonderful papier-mâchié Father Christmas, some 10 cms tall,  was bought in the 1960s, but still gives enormous pleasure as he sits on the dinner table at Christmas. He was christened ‘Uncle Tommy’ as his rather red cheeks, reflecting too much sherry drunk delivering Christmas presents, reminded us of our grandfather – who also loved his sherry, amongst other tipples!

Christmas is a family celebration …. a time when everyone gets caught up on the merry-go-round of eating and drinking, stuffing the turkey and stuffing their faces, nursing hangovers and wishing it hadn’t happened. Growing up as teenagers, we had to ‘make do’ with sandwiches and wine for lunch as we opened presents, before walking the dog and sitting down in the evening to roast turkey, roast potatoes, sausages with a bacon wrap, bread sauce, Cranberry sauce …. and the dreaded Brussel sprouts. This was followed of course by Christmas pudding, a wonderful sweet concoction of dried fruits, eggs, suet and spices, laced with Brandy during its manufacture to ensure it matured properly, accompanied by Brandy Butter. Before the pudding was brought into the dining room, hot brandy was poured over it and set alight. Uncle Tommy simply nodded his head – he’d seen it many, many times.

Of course, we all believed in Father Christmas and of his way of delivering presents by climbing down one’s chimney. So at the bottom we would put a plate – a couple of mince pies and a small glass of sherry for him, a couple of carrots for Rudolph. Dave Allen had a one-man evening comedy show on television in the 1980s and 1990s. In his wonderful glorious Irish brogue, he would talk irreverently about every single aspect of Christmas, religious or otherwise. He mused that if Santa drank all the sherry and ate all the mince pies he found at the bottom of every chimney, he would have exploded  ……. And that Rudolph certainly wouldn’t have got airborne with tons of carrots inside his tummy! He also had a few things to say about the party hats in crackers and about bringing a tree into one’s house!

One year he brought a rather modern look to the story of Bethlehem and that stable. He reckoned Joseph was a pretty disorganised husband. Mary: “What do mean, there’s no room in the inn?” “Well,” says Joseph, “I thought it would be OK.” “What? OK? The whole nation is on the move, back to our home towns, and you didn’t think to book a room? And you see this”, says Mary, pointing to her huge pregnant belly, “that’s our baby, due any day now. And you didn’t book a room …….. and we have to make do……  in a stable?!!” You could imagine at this stage a modern woman would have sworn, possibly using a word beginning with ‘J’, but then you’d be getting ahead of the story

I spent a couple of Christmases in Northern Ireland when the IRA were fighting for some form of independence, firstly in Londonderry in 1973 and then in north Armagh in 1975. They were dangerous times but we still recognised Christmas; dinner was roast turkey, Brussel sprouts (!) and Christmas pudding served by the officers to the soldiers. The Miss World organisation, through Julia Morley, delivered 400 stockings to our regiment, with packets of cigarettes, sweets, playing cards and I think the latest copy of Penthouse, a Men-Only raunchy magazine. I’ll leave it to your imagination how the soldiers enjoyed the contents of the stockings! On Christmas Eve in 1973 I went up to the border, to visit some of my soldiers on patrol. A Baptist minister, let’s call him Desmond as my memory is too dim (!), attached to the regiment for the length of the tour, accompanied me. The sentry and I stood in a static observation post, looking out over the dark, frosty countryside, whilst Desmond talked softly about the meaning of Christmas; one of those memories that stays with you all your life!

The flaming Brandy on the pudding reminds me that one year in Kitzbuhel, in Austria, the real candles that decorated the Christmas tree flamed in the draught from a window … and the tree caught fire! You only do these sort of mad things once huh?

It’s been suggested I start a ‘blogg’, but I thought these were for the really really mundane …….. not just my simple mundane scribbles and thoughts. I wonder?

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

This is called ‘… of mine’ as a number of my readers do not have English as their ‘first language’; I’m not trying to be too possessive!

I was never very good at spelling and suffered the ignominy of having my brother, two years older than me, supervise spelling tests in the school holidays! We would sit in the study and he would dictate that day’s Times leading article. I hated it!! To this day I have to think about the difference between practise and practice for instance, but spell-check helps …… except when it wants to put an ‘s’ and I want to put a ‘z’ or vica versa. Luckily, I guess, I grew up in an environment where the spoken and written word was valued. My step father loved doing The Telegraph crossword puzzle. In those holidays, at a weekend he would bring the paper into the kitchen as mother was preparing supper and we’d wrestle with the final few clues: “Two Down, “No Sailor’s About To Desert.” 3.2 R blank blank. blank N.

It’s sad to reflect that some sections of our society never develop sufficient vocabulary, beyond a basic 500 words, to be able to use this rich English language. Sometimes I sense that the TV soaps have, over the years, dumbed down the use of language to its coarsest; or do they simply reflect what the writers hear. Bit “chicken & egg” possibly!  The other day in a local supermarket Mrs not-very-well-educated was having a ‘go’ at her husband. “You f*** git!” I told yer before, bring the f****g shopping list! Yer useless piece of s**t. I really don’t know why I bother.” …. and this in a loud, yelling, in-your-face voice. She didn’t seem to mind that the whole supermarket had almost stopped to listen ….. but why didn’t a member of the management take them aside and tactfully ask them to be quiet? Maybe they didn’t do ‘tactful’!

Some years ago a woman who didn’t know much about me, on the very first occasion we met, said: “So you’re trained to kill people!” or maybe it should have been “So you’re trained to kill people?”, referring to my time in the British Army, which at the time of this embryonic conversation had ended over fifteen years before. Funny how some people have a very warped perspective of some aspects of life. I think I responded that we actually tried very hard not to, but if push came to shove …..! My reply came to mind when thinking about this PC and I rather wish I had said: “No! Actually we were trained to write English in the most pedantic way.” Now that would have been true … but I was never very good at the quick witty retort!

Staff Duties (SD) were a major aspect of our training, seemingly on a par with tactics and strategy. If you couldn’t write an appreciation, whether tactical or strategic, you didn’t get on. If there were spelling or punctuation mistakes during staff courses, out came the red marker pen.

We had to grapple with the proper use of the apostrophe, know when to use a colon and not a semi-colon ….. and woe betide us if we dared to split an infinitive. Does it sound better to say “To go boldly” or “To boldly go”? Personally I think the latter is better and I wear my ‘pedant’ label with a small ‘p’! I don’t think I’m so precious about it now, as the SD taught us to be, and listen with interest how this language evolves, how it lives. Some 500 words join our dictionary every year and some fall by the wayside, no longer in vogue or just obsolete, or should that be obsolescent? See what I mean? A real mine-field!

I was awake enough the other day to read of a Zeugma, a ‘figure of speech by which a single word is made to refer to two or more words in a sentence, especially when properly only applying to one of them or to them in differing senses.’ The example given was that she could draw a cork, a nude and a conclusion. Wow! How clever is that? How did I manage to get through life without knowing that? The letters page of The Times was flooded with examples, all apt: for instance, “We had turkey for lunch and Granny for tea.” and John Lennon saying “I play the guitar and sometimes the fool.” But then people started asking how you could tell the difference between a Zeugma and a Syllepsis. Well, having not known of a Zeugma for the first 68 years of my life, I think I’ll leave the understanding of the second for later!

A book came out some years ago by Lynn Truss, called: “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.” It explores the correct and incorrect use of punctuation in English. The title came from a wildlife manual: “Panda. Large, black-and-white bear-like animal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.” Of course it should have read ‘eats shoots and leaves’ but the image of a panda firing a gun into the air is rather endearing! Bless that comma!

Lynn also explored the use of the apostrophe. Did you know, by the way (sorry, btw!), that there is an Apostrophe Protection Society? I must find where to sign up, as I love this little mark. News the other day that the ‘autocorrect’ function in our iPhones and other Apple devices will insert an apostrophe, when it’s needed, is music to my ears! How can ‘its’ mean anything other than a possessive, as in “its colour” rather than “it is colour”?  I could go on …… and on …… and on.

There may of course be punctuation errors in the above – but that’s life, innit! Just some idle thoughts, mere scribbles.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com