An old trick, but a good one

There comes a point in life when one has ceased to acquire major new skills, and but still have some which need to be perfected: getting out of bed without falling over, for example (or indeed doing anything without falling over).

Many of the skills which I have retained are of very little practical value to me now. Will I ever again need to stand properly to attention? I could, if necessary, because I remember very clearly the instructions for doing it, which I never saw written down but only heard bawled: Headup-chinin-chestout-stomachin-heelstogether-feetatanangleof45degrees-thumbsinlinewiththeseamsofthetrousers-standperfectlySTIW! It’s probably done differently nowadays.

Something else I could still do if asked was rarely called for even at the time. It was called Rest On Your Arms Reversed, and it went like this:

On the appropriate commands, you sloped arms, then presented them (more fun doing this with a sword, but that's another story).

You are now in this position, only in a different sort of uniform (unless you were in the Royal Scots Fusiliers) and without the bayonet, for reasons which will become clear. (Also, the position of his right foot isn't quite correct: it should have been crashed down at a slight angle so that its heel was tucked into the the instep of the left.)

Then comes the tricky bit: on the command Rest...etc., you rotated the rifle forwards through 180 degrees (first moving it away from you to avoid giving yourself a nasty knock with the butt) until the muzzle rested on the toe of your left boot. Then, slowly, one at a time, you made a big circle with each arm, following the hand with your eyes until they (your hands, that is) were clasped over the end of the butt with your elbows still sticking out. Finally, in one quick move, you dropped your elbows and bowed your head, reverently.

How you got back from this position I have quite forgotten. But given a hint or two about that, and a short Lee-Enfield, I would love to play a small part, if called upon to do so, in the obsequies of some royal person, for that is the kind of occasion when this manoevre is—or used to be—carried out. A misty autumn day with a slight drizzle, the Dead March in Saul, the black-draped coffin on the gun carriage....... Great!

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Scalpels over the Ruhr

Earlier this month I had an operation and a few days in hospital. I did not expect an especially jolly week but I was not nervous, because what had to be done to me was not at all life-threatening, though everyone knows that there is always some risk with operations: if something goes wrong, even little things such as having a mole removed, say, can leave you crippled for life, while clumsy work on an ingrowing toenail can kill you. Anyway, I felt it was unlikely that the sort of emergency that crops up frequently in TV hospital dramas would arise in my case, with cries of "Quick, nurse, intubate!" or, from a worried anaesthetist, a quiet "I say, he's gone rather a funny colour...".

They decided to give me an epidural. I'd had one of these years ago, but on that occasion I also had a general anaesthetic; this time I was fully conscious throughout so that during the operation I could listen to the conversation of the theatre staff, a rare privilege.

They had all courteously introduced themselves to me as they bustled about in the ante-room but I can remember only a couple of the names; there seemed to be at least three surgeons, an anaesthetist, two or three other men whose function I forget, and two female nurses.

From the way they chatted to each other it was clear that here was a happy team with mutual respect; their discussion was of course serious but lightened with an occasional quip. They were not as persistently jokey as some proctologists and colo-rectal surgeons I have encountered, but when you think of where the latter spend their working lives it is not surprising that they acquire huge repertoires of funny stories to get them through the day.

After the introductions the head honcho asked the team to gather round and then proceeded to give them a pre-op chat. None of the team were old enough to have been WWII bomber pilots, but the general tone was very similar to a Wing Commander's briefing, though using different words to describe a very different sort of operation:

Right, settle down, chaps, smoke if you want to.
Tonight, it's Dortmund again. We're going over in two waves: I shall lead the first and Squadron Leader Wilmington the second. The first will drop incendiaries and the second 5,000-pounders.
Keep your eyes open for fighters as soon as we're over Germany, and there'll be heavy ack-ack over the target.
Weather will be......

...and so on. It was all most interesting and impressive. I would have liked to have joined in with questions or helpful comments, but I was too shy.

[Of course, smoking would not have been allowed in the theatre; you can't, anyway, when you're wearing a mask.]

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The Prizegiving

My CV (which can be found by going HERE and scrolling down), includes one item of which I always been particularly proud. This, the second in the list of my lifetime's achievements, is perhaps the most noteworthy, though it was only a runner-up prize.

Unfortunately photography was in its infancy in those days and no pictures of the presentation of the prizes are known to exist. However, to illustrate the item I have found a lovely contemporary print of a comparable occasion, though it has to be said that this was a much more lavish affair:

Had I attended that 1885 prize-giving ceremony (at Le Palais de l’Industrie, Paris) rather than the one in 1938 at Kingsley Road Junior School, just by the Croydon gasworks, I might have been standing behind the man about to receive the first prize, though of course I would have been wearing shorts.

Incidentally, the respective Guests of Honour at the two events were Hector Berlioz in 1855 and, of course, Miss Beamish in 1938.



Making a note of it

I have never been plagued by superstitious obsessions: I do not feel compelled to avoid walking on lines in the pavement, or to wash my hands more often than is necessary. But there is one completely pointless thing which I have been forcing myself to do from an early age, and that is to record my activities, however uninteresting, in a succession of diaries.

Of course this can be a salutary exercise; what the great diarists wrote is fascinating to us all, and any diaries, however inept or fragmentary, can be helpful to biographers and historians, or at the very least interesting to the families or descendants of the writer. However, mine are not a bit like Tony Benn's, which he started in his adolescence and has added to every day since then, and which, full of rich insights into political events over all those years, now fill a whole room. Eight volumes of them have already been published, and they will provide nutriment for biographers and historians for years to come.

Nor are my diaries in the least like Boswell's, featuring crisp descriptions of amusing incidents such as his note on 13th April 1763 which begins: Did meet with a monstrous big whore in the Strand....

No, mine are never going to do me or anyone else any good, consisting as they do merely of curt lists of things I did or which were done to me. The only reason for my diaries' existence is the ridiculous feeling that somehow if I haven't recorded something then it never really happened. So I have been setting down no comments or observations or thoughts, just the bare facts.

The tone was set from the very beginning, with a few entries for the year during which I reached the age of eleven; these were along the lines of Went to library or Aunt L came to tea. Later in the year the entries became very sparse and after the entry for 4th May, which was Forget what did, there was a long gap.

Eventually the regular notes resumed their onward march of relentless triviality, but even in later years the entries were hardly more interesting, still with a flat, uninformative style which gave very little away. Day in Brighton with Charles R and Rosemary, for example. Why? Did we have a good time? Who were these people? No-one reading the diaries today, not even I, would be able to answer these questions, or would ever bother to ask them, and posterity certainly won't be interested.

Later on, of course, I did have some moderately interesting experiences in slightly exotic places, but reading my curt notes on them doesn't really bring them back to me: Almost spoke to Duke Ellington at Bangkok Airport is perfectly accurate but doesn't conjure up the excitement I felt during that historic non-encounter.

A few years ago I found that I was being reminded of the pointlessness of this mammoth effort every time I came across the box containing the collection of diaries of all sizes and colours, every one carelessly filled in, sometimes illegibly, and never subsequently glanced at.

I could never bring myself to throw away the scruffy old diaries, with their rotting elastic band round each decade's volumes, for I felt I ought to have all the facts at my fingertips if I suddenly needed to know when my uncle Horace had died or in which year it was that I fell off a narrowboat into the Oxford Canal.

Then, a year ago, I found that writing had become so difficult for me that I really couldn't keep on with the diaries. Happily I can still type quite well using a large-key keyboard, so I am typing them into something I grandly call a Journal. It continues with current entries, two or three a week, as boring as ever. I am also working laboriously backwards with some help from a daughter and a grand-daughter. I have now reached 1997; more than fifty or so of the old handwritten volumes still leer at me from their carton, awaiting transcription.

The thing that makes the labour almost worthwhile is that the Journal is in Excel so that I can search for names of people or places, or words like "lunch" or "film", to produce instant listings. With a couple of clicks I can find, for example, the titles of the thirteen films I saw in 1997. This is an illustration of the spectacular futility of the whole enterprise: about most of them I can recall nothing at all.

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The brilliance of engineers

I consider myself fortunate to have failed dismally, twice, in my half-hearted attempt to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering, for I know I would never have been any good at it However, this has not in any way affected my admiration for engineers, which has not been shared by many of my countrymen since Victorian times when Brunel and his peers were working wonders. The Germans have always respected engineers and allowed them to distinguish themselves with an appellation, so if I had graduated and gone to live in, say, Stuttgart (where they invented the automobile), I could have called myself Herr Ing. Heinrich Fußboden, though this is not actually my name.

It was not to be. But even now, after a career in which engineering featured not at all, I still think how nice it might have been if I could have made things like this; full instructions are given so anyone who wants to can do so, though not me.

Taken for a ride

It has occurred to me that it is a long time since I have added a new titfer to my "Hats" category. This will be OMF's 50th hat and I have chosen it to contrast with all the spectacular, soppy or frightening ones in the series

Actually this one isn't new. I posted this photo of one of my grand-daughters before, as hat number 41, but so what? It's a gentle, pleasing image, and I've nothing else to post today. 

Selah!

 

At last a personal approach

I get a couple of dozen spam or scam messages every month in response to one of the eleven hundred posts this blog contains, sometimes one I published five years ago or more . But they're no trouble really: they pile up in my junk folder and every few weeks I just delete the lot, though I have to glance at the headings in case a real message has somehow got wrongly identified as spam.

Today I was charmed, and not a little flattered, to receive a comment on one of my recent posts, which was about the royal visit to Canada. This is not one of those sent out at random, by the million: it has been composed with some care and is clearly for me personally:
  
Greetings Mr. Flowers Sir;
Do you have the address of Wills and Kate?
I am a Nigerian Princess and would very much like the banking details of the Royal Family.
Thanking you most sincerely,
Lynn from Canada


[On second thoughts, perhaps this was not an attempted scam at all but merely a bit of fun by some jokey friend. If so, please reveal yourself, fool; there is no need to be so formal, you may call me Other Men's if you wish.]

Peace in our time

In September 1938 my mother wrote to my sister Audrey, who at that time was a dancer, on the stage in Scotland; she had her ninetieth birthday last March.

My mother first passed on some family news: my other sister and I were about to be evacuated (they brought us back to London later, in time for the Blitz) and my elder brother in the RAFVR had been told to report for operational training.

Then, an update on the national news: " ...trenches and dug-outs are being dug in the parks and even in the cemetery ...we have all been fitted for gas masks...".

And...

"Things certainly seem a lot brighter this morning. It seems that our Premier, the French Premier, Mussolini and Hitler are all meeting again today to discuss the situation, so perhaps war will be averted after all."

My brother died in May 1940, when his Armstrong Whitworth Whitley crashed in France after dropping its cargo of leaflets.

A new 419

Emails from gentlemen offering me 10% of $3 million if I use my bank account to carry out a small service for them have not been reaching me for some time.

They are like buses,really: you can wait ages for one and then three come at once. Or rather, the same one comes three times, at two-minute intervals. But this time the approach is slightly different: 

Hi, Corporal Mary Ann MacCombie(E-4) here.
I am an American soldier with Swiss background,serving in the military with the army 3rd infantry division. Please  I am seeking your kind assistance to help me move the sum of Three million,two hundred thousand united states dollars to you,as far as  I can be assured that my share will be safe in your care until I come out of hospital here in Germany ,where am receiving treatment on my injuries,this is no stolen money, and there are no danger involved.

I am presently in a hospital recovering from injuries sustained in a suicide bomb attack,

Please view website for confirmation: http://www.xxxxxx
Please if your willing to assist me contact me for more details at marry.ann@neo.rr.com .

Yours in Service.

Corporal Mary Ann MacCombie (E-4).

Clearly, there is some original thinking here. 419s used to involve a request from help from a senior bank official, or a fatal accident to an intestate millionaire, or perhaps a grieving widow seeking to get her inheritance out of Nigeria. Now the plot has changed: a suicide bomber, a female Swiss/American corporal? Is she really In Service, like Mrs Bridges and Rose?

And although her share would certainly be safe in my care, and it is good to know that "there are no danger involved", there do seem to be some uncertainties. How much is my share, exactly? And why doesn't she use Western Union?

These are deep waters, and I shall not offer my help until I have made further enquiries.

Ill-assorted

It does happen sometimes that dog-owners get to look like their dogs. I used to know a girl called Gill who kept a pair of Afghan hounds. As she was a hairdresser (mine, actually) their coat was always beautifully kempt; so of course was hers, and she shared with the hounds a friendly disposition, a lean, fine-drawn and slightly aristocratic appearance as well as a bouncy and cheerful mien, though unlike them her ears were not silky and long and her legs were not a bit shaggy, so far as I could tell.

I saw today an example of the opposite, a totally disparate dog-and-owner pairing.

It was at a little caff usefully sited half-way between the town and the gentle slope up to my home, where it is good to linger for a while to get psyched up for the climb (it's not the South Col exactly, but the last 500 yards make me think). The sun was shining and there were some tables on the pavement where I sat with a double espresso and a toasted tea-cake chatting with the owner who had come out for a cigarette; he has very little English, but he managed to tell me that he had to smoke because of the stress of having a wife and three children; I re-assured him that I once had a comparable family, but after puffing away for half a century was eventually able to give it up (smoking, that is).

Where was I? Oh yes, dogs and their owners. A few yards away there was a man giving water to his dog, using an interesting device consisting of a plastic container with a bottle of water inside; he opened it up and the lid formed a little trough from which the dog was happily lapping. The thing was obviously invented in America; I remember that when my wife and I visited some of her relatives there we found that they were obsessed with carrying water with them at all times. This was in Arizona where it is easy to die of thirst in the desert, so I suppose they were taking no risks even when shopping in downtown Phoenix.

I am digressing again. The point I set out to make was that the dog looked very young, handsome, intelligent and friendly, while his owner appeared to be none of these things. I do not want to traduce the man: he may well have been a kindly, good-natured fellow, fond of flowers and with a gentle, whimsical humour, but his brutish appearance gave the impression that if you annoyed him he would gie yer the heid without compunction.

I think that was what I intended this post to be about, but I can't be sure; it's been a long day. The above is rambling and muddled, without a trace of OMF's usual brisk precision, a feature of omfstyle much admired by omflovers around the world. I shall have to pull myself together, lest two or three of them chuck it in, leaving me with barely enough to make up a synchronised swimming team should the need arise.

The Blue Comes Through

A few years ago I wrote a post about my first employers and their products (or, rather, one of them; I omitted to mention another of our best sellers, an ointment for piles: blind, bleeding, itching, ulcerated or protruding).

And we sold all round the world other equally effective remedies for a variety of distressing maladies. Our advertising, though perfectly honest, was colourful and convincing; inevitably, it evoked a great number of enquiries and it was one of my duties as Export Manager to respond to them.

Many were from West Africa. In those days none of them were of the kind which asked for my bank details so as to facilitate the transfer to me of huge sums of money; some were heartwarming expressions of gratitude for having relieved the writer's discomfort or worry and others asked for advice or a free sample. Most included lurid details of the writer's symptoms, and some of these had to be kept out of the sight of the junior office staff, for these were prudish times; nowadays, of course, they would be pinned up so that everyone could have a giggle.

In reply I used a number of different standard letters, all of them ethically impeccable, giving sound advice where this could do no harm and always recommending consulting a doctor. Sometimes I would add a non-committal sentence of comfort or re-assurance.

I still have a file of the most entertaining letters that I received. It was all rather a waste of time, really. It would have been easier, and perhaps kinder, to have had a few hundred standard replies ready-printed for use in most cases, simply saying:

Dear Sir
You have the pox.
Yours faithfully....

Cab and me

Last Thursday was an important anniversary for me, and by an extraordinary co-incidence it was also an anniversary for the great Cab Calloway, for on 3rd March in the year I was born he published Minnie the Moocher, the first million-selling jazz record.

But sadly I could not invite him to join me in celebration because he died in 1994, and I certainly wouldn't want to invite his trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who stabbed him in the leg with a small knife in 1941 and died in 1993.

So to mark the occasion I had dinner with my immediate family, nine of us, at a restaurant in rural Sussex: no scat singing or HBTY, just a couple of hours browsing and sluicing.

As a matter of interest (my interest, that is) I ate:
Potted Herring, Slow Cooked Gloucester Old Spot Belly, Fennel Gratin, Chestnut Honey Tart, Green Walnut Ice Cream... and miscellaneous forkfuls from the plates of those who had something different: Barbary duck, onion jam potatoes, pigeon, that sort of thing. An eight-year-old grand-daughter had chosen Jacob's Ladder (illustrated below), but needed very little help from me in putting it away. 

It was a splendid evening.

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And bring your good lady

A couple of years ago I published a post about the invitations which I occasionally receive from my old school. It would be hypocritical to express my regrets that I cannot attend, and ungracious to explain that that the functions they refer to are usually of a kind which are less attractive to me than the prospect of being thrown, naked, into a vat of boiling pitch. So I do not reply.

But they have not given up on me. Presumably they have a mouldering database of email addresses of old boys, many of whom have been dead for thirty years, which still includes mine. Anyway, they are still trying, and the invitation I had the other day was much more intriguing that the usual ones. It announced:

Prostate Awareness Roadshow and Social Evening

...at the Rugger Clubhouse, "...not just a venue for sportsmen: it is the spiritual home of the Old Boys and has 6 changing rooms for simultaneous blood tests". I had no idea!

Besides a talk from a consultant urological surgeon, "...the evening will also be a social affair and a chance to meet old friends over a pint and and gastronomic delights". The blood test is optional.

Difficult to turn down such an entrancing offer. But I shall, I shall. 

Milestones in the history of Egypt

In a couple of earlier posts I described the major events in Egypt in 1952 and 1953, in particular my arrival in Ismailia in February 1952, my move to Fayid in July that year and my return to England in January 1953. I am now able to add a note about contemporaneous happenings there and subsequent developments.

On 23rd July 1952 King Farouk was deposed by the Free Officers movement led by Gamel Abdel Nasser and Mohamed Naguib Yousef Qotp (Qotp?) Elkashlan, and the latter became Egypt's first Prime Minister. Eleven months later the Republic of Egypt was established and Naguib was sworn in as President. He had often been censured and as a child sometimes even whipped by his British tutors for criticizing Britain's occupation of Egypt and Sudan, but I had always felt he was a reasonable chap as army officers go and although I never actually met him I was ready to give him my full support had he asked me.

In November 1954, however, he was ousted by Nasser. By that time I was working in England as Export Manager for an American firm of proprietary medicine manufacturers, so I could play no part in what happened later: in fact, my influence on Middle Eastern affairs generally had declined for ever; Suez, the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein and the departure of the Shah all took place without my involvement, though over the years I had some happy times in Amman, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Damascus, Luxor and many other hot noisy places where people try to sell you things.

And I never gave a thought to Hosni Mubarak, or he to me, during his thirty years of brutal dictatorship, until the last eighteen days and the immensely satisfying dénouement yesterday.

Anne's First Theorem

Anne teaches mathematics, and our friend Grumio gave her this Christmas present:

He had it produced for Anne by TheoryMine, whose details are here (read the FAQs). A certificate of registry was provided guaranteeing that it is unique and provable, and that it has been recorded under her name in their database.

As most readers of OMF know, a theorem is a mathematical formula for which we have a proof. Both theorems and proofs are within a theory which consists of a set of axioms. A proof is a sequence of formulae, starting with some axioms and ending with the theorem. Each non-axiom formula in this sequence follows from the previous formulae in the sequence. All the axioms in TheoryMine theories are recursive definitions.

Recursion is a mathematical technique that is much used in computer programs. In a recursive definition, the value of a recursive function is defined in terms of values of the same function applied to smaller inputs. This sounds circular, but because the function's inputs get smaller and smaller the computation eventually stops. TheoryMine also uses recursion to define brand new types of input and output for each theory. These are called recursive data-structures.

But never mind about all that; theorems are abstract objects that are not subject to wear and tear. Even diamonds will be destroyed in the heat death of the universe; theorems won't be.

So what a splendid gift they make! No-one could doubt that they are a girl's best friend.

Soldiers of the King, Part Three

Continued from  HERE . 
  

We stopped in Malta for a night and luxuriated in a fine drizzle, the first rain I had seen for more than a year. On landing in England we were deposited in Tottenham Court Road underground station which was being used as a rather cosy holding camp.

There we heard the news that Lilibet had replaced Bertie, which  meant that I had become a Soldier of the Queen. This made me feel rather Victorian; I imagined myself and my men, bayonets fixed, red jackets with brass buttons gleaming in the African sun, advancing fearlessly under a shower of assegais, ready to give the Matabele horde a real pasting. But, of course, I would have been no use at that sort of thing.

The War Office Selection Board was not too difficult for me; my fellow candidates were mostly rather callow youths so although I lacked the aristocratic background of most of them my advanced age, deep tan and camel flashes gave me some kind of cachet which enabled me to compete. Anyway, I passed.

Then, finally, I found myself at last where I had been trying to get to for most of my military career, Mons Officer Cadet School, where I became one of the 40,000 cadets who passed through the hands of the legendary Regimental Sergeant-Major R Brittain, MBE, Coldstream Guards, a fearsome but basically kindly man. He had become the best-known soldier in the country, having appeared in a number of films, some in a character part and some as himself; he was very proud of this and if he saw eyes straying as he strolled down the ranks standing to attention he would bark "Don't look at me! If you want to see me, go to the pictures".

We spent a lot of time standing to attention and I still remember the mantra which tells you exactly how to assume the position:
HeadupChininChestoutStomachinEyestothefront*
HeelstogetherFeetatanangleoffortyfivedegrees
ThumbsinlinewiththeseamofthetrousersSTANDPUFFEKLYSTIW!

It is worrying to think that there are now two generations of young and not-so-young men who have no idea how to do this; lacking this skill and some others, they will be absolutely nonplussed if they are ever called up to defend us from Mongol hordes, or a nuclear-armed rogue state, or whoever.

I enjoyed the fourteen weeks at Mons and after it was over not only was I able at last to put on the hat I had coveted for so long (I lashed out and had one made to measure; it cost me a weeks' pay) and the little stick, and at the passing-out parade I got to carry a (blunt) sword and give the order to fix bayonets.

But my pleasure in such glories was short-lived: the only really remarkable thing about my two years' National Service was that after all the messing about on the Suez Canal only ten weeks elapsed between gaining a commission and being demobbed.

[*I have just seen in newsreel film of Cameron's visit to Beijing a shot of the Guard of Honour in their very pretty uniforms, being inspected. They do not keep their eyes to the front at all, but turn their heads Mexican-wave fashion as he passes. This is impressive but slightly creepy.] 

Theft made easy

Did you know that if you want to get something for nothing you can do so quite easily? This is how:

You choose an internet retailer whom you know or suspect to be incompetent, negligent or just careless, and place an order with them for whatever you want, giving a name and address you have got from the telephone directory (or anywhere), an age, which can be your grandmother's if you like, and another address for them to send the goods to. They may well do so, though afterwards you might go to prison.

I am fairly certain that I would have little use for a Lipsy Built Up Shoulder Grecian Coral 8, even if I knew what it was, so when I received a statement from a company called Additions, of which I had never heard, telling me that they had supplied one to me, that I owed them £63.95 for it, and that late payments might incur a default charge, I guessed almost immediately that something was not right.

So I dialed the firm's premium rate number and after twenty minutes ("...Press 4 if you really really want to speak to someone..."), I spoke to someone. My news came as no surprise to them and the woman said calmly and without apologies that yes, it was clearly ID theft and they would cancel the account.

Then I had a letter from their Fraud Unit's "FPT Manager", saying: ..."after a thorough investigation, I can confirm that your name and/or address have been used fraudently by parties unknown....... I will be keeping a record of the account(s) for our own purposes to help us combat fraud. I look forward to hearing from you, Yours sincerely".

 So I wrote back to them as follows:
Thank you for your letter. This raises more questions than it answers.
It could hardly have taken a “thorough investigation” to establish that fraud had taken place; that was obvious from the information I gave you. What further investigations have you undertaken? You appear to be saying that you opened an account for someone who provided nothing more than (my) name and address, a false date of birth, and an accommodation address for delivery of the goods. Can this be true? Did you take no action at all to verify the details, for example by checking with the electoral register that someone with my name lives at the delivery address, or by other means? If not, why not?
If this is your normal policy then it means that anyone can look up a name and address in the phone book and order goods from you with no further verification of his identity, but perhaps there is something I do not know, in which case please enlighten me.
Anyway, I assume you have reported the matter to the police. If you have not, I will do so myself, so please provide me with the address of your local police station (or if you prefer I can do so through my local police) .

There was no reply, so I wrote again, twice, and still had no reply. Finally, after three weeks had gone by, I telephoned their Fraud Unit. Asking by name for the "FPT Manager", I was told that the person who had signed the letter was in fact their "Operations Manager" but never wrote letters or spoke on the phone (clearly she is a PR fiction and does not exist). I resisted the temptation to ask whether their Operations Manager's responsibilities covered only the waste bins and toilets, and instead asked why they had not replied to my letters. In reply I got an obvious lie: "Ah well, we tried to phone you but couldn't get through". In three weeks? And why didn't they leave a message?: "Not allowed to:  Data Protection Act".

By now I was getting a little restive, so I dropped this and asked my original question: whether it was true that they had sent off the goods without asking the thief for any proof of identity. She said yes, and that this was normal practice among internet retailers. I found this difficult to believe and said in quiet, measured tones: "Bollocks".

She took umbrage at this mild expletive and we parted with expressions of mutual distaste.

But I had asked Chelmsford Police about this and a week later, I had a phone call from a charming and able woman police officer. She told me that only the victim's local police could do anything about such an incident and since in this case it was not me who had lost any money then only the retailer could report it. And further, that this was indeed a very common occurrence: many retailers simply don't bother to make checks but reckon that if it's not a big item then it's better to suffer a small loss than get involved with an investigation.

So what the Applications woman who had last spoken to me told me was quite right and I perhaps I should apologise to her.  I don't feel inclined to do so because my comment was justified; it is appalling that this is allowed to happen; besides, I had spent money on the first phone call and wasted a lot of time writing letters.

Anyway, I didn't care for her tone.

Warm Heart

Winter is not yet upon us, so why am I making use of a piece of equipment designed to help Antarctic explorers type up their diaries when it's -20°?

At the moment I am totally deprived of fingerspitzengefühl (in the literal sense, not the figurative—there's nothing wrong with my strategic intuition). This is caused by peripheral neuropathy; it may not be permanent but means that at present my hands are cold and my fingers are numb. My friend Grumio (the Bruton Boulevardier) has very kindly sent me a pair of Heating Gloves; plugged into a USB port, these suffuse my hands with a pleasant warmth. This is not only comforting but enables me to achieve my normal level of clumsiness in bashing the keys.

This post must be a short one. Like Captain Oates, I have to go outside and may be some time.

The happiest days

When I was at school, during the Second World War, our teachers were men who had been drafted in because they were not in the forces. Some had been dragged back from retirement and the younger ones were there because the forces wouldn't have them. Most of them were senile, exhausted, ill, drunk or just sunk so deep in Weltschmerz that nothing much, not even sadism, held any pleasure for them. Some of them had been had up for indecent exposure before the First World War.

But, my word, they were a splendid bunch of characters who enriched our lives beyond measure. Even now, the names we gave them them still conjure up affectionate remembrance:  Little Man, Gloom, Daddy Parr, Uncle Tom, Golly, Hack, Stodge... Only those we really despised were not given nicknames; Holy Joe was an exception; he was despicable but we felt a bit sorry for him as he was a lone pious voice in a singularly godless establishment; as I recall, the Christian Union there had only three members, and one of these was deaf.

A few of them had been brilliant, with honorary degrees from several European universities, but they had forgotten much; one man had been fluent in a dozen languages but by the time he came to us had difficulty with expressing himself in English. But somehow they managed to impress us with the remnants of their erudition, for we knew no better. 

There was only one man who really couldn't cope, and that was our PE (we called it Gym) instructor. His problem was that he could no longer do many of the things he was supposed to demonstrate to us: "Now just pull yourselves up onto the beam with a nice easy movement, in this way.... EURARGGH!!! The sweat would pour off him and the veins would bulge out on his poor old forehead. We all spent every lesson praying that he wouldn't die before it ended. But he survived until we spent a whole term in arduous rehearsal of an intricate display we were to put on at the end-of-term concert; the morning before the great occasion, he was taken very ill, and we never saw him again. The item was replaced by a sixth-form barbershop quartet harmonising "Home on the Range". Ah, they were good times; funny how trivial events like these stick in the memory, as does the occasion when a tree blew down, a large branch of it fell on the headmaster and he was away for two months.   

The fact that no-one actually taught us anything much was unimportant, for wartime standards in public examinations were very low and you could pass them with little more than your name written neatly at the top of the paper and then some cheerful and confident-sounding ramblings with a vague relevance to the questions. This was one of the reasons why I later found myself trying half-heartedly to get a degree in a subject for which I had no talent and in which I had no interest.

Six things to do in Andalusia...

...if you are seven years old:

• Pay an official visit to the local Comisaria de Policias
• Lead an underwater expedition
• Try out the local delicacies
• Learn dressage
• Get a degree in Spanish literature
• Make your first parachute jump

For further guidance, look HERE