The New Baby

Yes, they laughed at me. Everybody laughed at me. And I dare say that you would have laughed at me too, during all those months when I remained steadfast in my forecast that the new baby would be a boy, and would be given a strong, virile, dynamic, forename like IAN.

Well, I was proved right. As you can see, Kathy’s new grandson has all the attributes of a fine wing forward - 21.3 inches tall and weighing in at over 9lb.

The proud parents had already agreed on a name for a baby girl, but they hadn’t quite settled on a name for a baby boy. And so the matter remained undecided for the next few weeks, whilst all sorts of alternative male names were successively mooted and then discarded.

And occasionally, I would chip in with my halfpennyworth: “How about a name like IAN?” I would suggest, helpfully.

So I was delighted when they settled on JACK.

You see, IAN is the Scottish for John, and a common nickname for John is JACK. Moreover, the first letters in IAN and JACK (I and J) are alphabetically consecutive, and both names share the same second letter (A).

And if we consider each letter in the alphabet to be represented by its sequence number (A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on), we find that the C plus K in JACK is equal to the N in IAN.

So the two names are virtually identical :-)

But the really exciting outcome is this: the letters J,A,C,K equate to 10,1,3,11 which multiply up to 330, and these digits sum to SIX, whilst the letters I,A,N equate to 9,1,14 which multiply up to 126, and these digits sum to NINE.

The answer is always 69.

Apart from the baby, what can possibly be more perfect than that?
: - )

Six out of Eight

Progressively, over several weeks, a great feeling of lassitude had slowly and insidiously come over me. I felt that little bit weaker by the day, and more and more disinclined to exercise or otherwise exert myself.

I spent much more time than usual reading the financial press and watching the financial crisis unfold on Television, and I became increasingly angry at the state of the world.

My angers were followed by bouts of anxiety.

Then over the weekend, while walking with my daughters around the ponds at Alexandra Palace, I twice found myself losing my balance, to the extent of nearly falling into the water.

By Sunday evening, when back at home, the events of the weekend seemed to fade and become fuzzy in my memory, and I was losing track of conversation.

And I only just made it to bed before crashing into a deep sleep.

------

Next day Kathy joked that I had "Galloping Alzheimer's". But she was very worried when she showed me the small print on the leaflet that was tucked inside the packet of pills which my doctor had prescribed for me 5 weeks beforehand.

Tell your doctor if you notice any of the following side effects:
1. Muscle weakness
2. Excitement
3. Agitation
4. ‘Spinning sensation’
5. Confusion
6. Loss of consciousness
7. Coma
8. Death.

How someone with the latter symptoms is supposed to contact their doctor is beyond me!

I’m hugely better now, because I didn’t finish the prescribed course.

But six out of eight ain’t bad, is it?

:-)

Coincidences! I love them!!

I know I’ve previously written a blog about an amazing sequence of coincidences that happened to me, but something new has happened recently that makes me write again.

I lived in Moorhouse Road up until the age of six, and at the age of eleven I went to a school that had a “House” system. I became a member of Moor House at that school. Many years afterwards, I left college to begin a six-month residential training course at a building by the name of Moor House.

Yes, I know that all this would hardly be considered as the most amazing sequence of coincidences, but please bear with me...

Two weeks ago, an old colleague of mine, David, whom I had last seen twenty years ago, made contact with me again via Skype. We’d worked together for many years as software developers for a firm of international chartered accountants. During our conversation he happened to mention that his son had followed in our footsteps and was now working as a software developer for an international bank.

That certainly sparked my interest, because my son also works as a software developer for a bank. And would you believe it - it emerged that both our sons work for the same bank, in the same building in London!

The building where our sons work is in Canary Wharf. And later in our conversation it transpired that David had recently returned from a holiday in the Canary Islands. And as you know, I live in the Canary Islands, and unbeknown to either of us, we had visited the same island, and been in the same building, at the same time last December.

I really must return that Skype telephone call soon.

You see, I’m wondering if my friend David Moorhouse and I have even more in common than we already know…
:-)

The Lost Blog...

Once upon a time...

Hoot

My mother was a great storyteller, and one of her favourite stories was about me when I was a little boy. She had taken me to visit a friend of hers who lived in a house with a large garden. It being a sunny day, she’d allowed me to play in the garden and after a while she and her friend had looked out to see me sitting on the lawn, surrounded by birds.

And it appeared as if I was holding court, engaging the birds in earnest conversation as they took turns to fly up and land on my outstretched fingers.

I’ve no memory of that incident today, but I’m sure my mother wasn’t exaggerating. I’ve had a lifelong interest in birds, and for my sins, I can still do a very good imitation of many different birdsongs today. I suppose that’s reflected in my choice of a Canary as my blog avatar, and why I spend so much time in the Canary Islands, where there is an astonishing variety of exotic birdlife.

I’m mentioning all this because Kathy and I are now back in the UK for a brief visit, and in the evenings I’ve been busy making friends with a tawny owl. I haven’t actually seen the owl yet, but we’ve exchanged hoots.

Barn owls in the UK tend to hoot, while those in the Canary Islands are mainly screech owls. I’ve become quite good at imitating the characteristic “Scree!” of the screech owl, which is absolutely ear-shattering at close range. So you can imagine my delight at the opportunity to practice my tawny owl “Hoo!” while I’m back in the UK. And Kathy is quite pleased too, because she seems to like my hooting much more than my screeching.

Anyway, I’ve been out in the garden every night waiting for the tawny owl to hoot. And I’ve not been disappointed, because it has made its presence known at around 11pm each evening. On the first evening, we only exchanged a brief “Hoo-Hoo!”, after which it fell silent. I’m sure that like me, it was being a little cautious. Tawny owls are extremely territorial, and one has to exercise a great deal of patience over many evenings before they will accept the presence of another owl in their vicinity.

But we’ve now got to the stage where we can exchange a full range of friendly hoots. I was up last night until 2am, teaching the owl to count, by replying to each single hoot with a double hoot, and then replying to each double hoot with a triple hoot. We got as far as six hoots, after which we ended the conversation by slowly counting down back to one.

But the really amazing thing is this. Kathy tells me she has just met the lady who recently moved into the house next door. And would you believe it? That lady’s husband is also a keen bird-fancier, and he spends a lot of time in their garden in the late evenings, just like me.

I can't wait to meet him...
:-)

Ashen Faced

.

Well, here we are in Tenerife, with our flight to Gatwick booked for the coming Saturday, and this happens. A volcano erupts in Iceland, again.

So we've been busy going over our various Plan B's, just in case...

The Plan B that I really, really like involves booking into the opulent 5 star hotel just down the road and reclaiming the costs from our nice benevolent airline. Yes, I know I wouldn't get away with it, but I can dream, can't I?

But seriously, the claims procedure does seem to be very complicated nowdays. I've just read an article in today's Telegraph which tells me what to say to the airline if our flight is cancelled.

Here's the advice given by the Telegraph:

"You should tell them that under Regulation (EC) 2004/261 Article 5 you are entitled to be reimbursed or re-routed under Article 8 and also offered assistance, including accommodation, meals and transport under Article 9.

You should also state that under Article 5, airlines are able to not pay compensation in accordance with article 7 in the case of 'extraordinary circumstances', but crucially that this extraordinary circumstances clause does not apply to the entitlement to assistance under Article 9."

Blimey! I turned quite pale at the thought of saying all that. But then I realised my bigger problem.

How could I say it with a straight face?
:-)

Another book nearly finished...

.
The final page in the book I began on 9th October 2006 will soon be writ. It will be the ninth book that I’ve written.

I began writing in 1966. That was 45 years ago, so on average, I’ve managed to complete one book every five years. That’s an indication of my character; if nothing else, I’m a painstakingly methodical researcher and writer.

1966 was the year of my first marriage, to a childhood sweetheart whom I’d known since I was twelve years old. Gosh, that was a happy year. Both families were ecstatic that we’d decided to tie the knot. And there was a mood of joy and elation in the general population, although that might have been more to do with England winning the World Cup.

It was my marriage, that hugely important step forward in adult life, which prompted me to begin writing. I was acutely aware of my lack of worldly experience – I’d been in my first proper job for less than a year since leaving university - and I desperately wanted to prove myself.

Most young writers that I knew at the time (remember, this was the height of the Swinging Sixties) were writing about sex, feminism, the Vietnam War, or something called “New Wave” culture. I wanted to do something radically different. After careful thought, I decided to write a journal that reflected life as it really was for a young married couple.

So I began. And the book was a huge success, because it covered the realities, the detailed minutia of everyday life. And the book became truly great because it helped predict the future.

I’ve got a photograph of my current book, which you can see below.





Each entry in the book shows a date, a shop name or an item purchased, the cash paid, and a running balance of the cash I have in hand to last me for the rest of the month. You can see some recent entries below (a bit out of focus - sorry!).



And guess what? I've never gone into the red!
:-)

SCARAMOUCH

Here's a self-portrait of my famous Rugby scar. The scar runs down from the collar bone to just below the mole on my chest. It is majestic, isn't it?

I took the photo on my balcony, and you can see my favourite plant, a Dipladenia (or Brazilian jasmine vine), behind me. It is an energetic climber and flowers from late Spring through to the end of Autumn.

For proof positive that the scar is mine, you can click on the photo to enlarge it. And click on it again if you really, really like! Just above the balcony wall you can see the back of the sign above the infamous STARCO complex in Las Americas.

I've titled this blog Scaramouch because I'm a very boastful but cowardly person. Whenever I fear attack, I tear off my shirt to reveal the scar, and I scream. This sometimes frightens my attackers off. If that doesn't work, I start reminiscing about my time in Special Forces in Vietnam. If that doesn't work either, I launch into my pre-prepared speech about my open-heart surgery which had gone wrong because they'd operated on the wrong side of my chest. Otherwise I leg it.

But the really, really wonderful thing about my scar is that Kathy likes to run her finger along it.
:-)

Bijou Property for sale

How could I resist sharing this photo with you? It appears on the website of a North Kent estate agent, and depicts a garage that is available for sale at an advertised price of £7,500.

Did it make you smile, too?
:-)

Carwash Solution

Hello again!

After my previous blog we went back to the carwash and tried again, with great success.

See below!



And then we drove off to the local opticians...
:-(

PS Now we can see what an upside-down ticket really looks like!

Carwash

Kathy and I had a bit of bother today when we took our car to the carwash.

Just to set the scene, here's a photo that I took of the carwash in operation on another car while we were waiting our turn.


Our problem was with the green-faced box which you can see fixed to the wall on the left. It has a keyboard on its facia which enables a customer to enter a six-digit password. This starts the carwash. Simple!

We'd been given our six-digit password on a printed receipt when we had paid for the carwash.


Well, as soon as we had parked the car inside the carwash, Kathy whizzed off with the receipt to enter the password into the box on the wall, while I did mundane stuff like checking that all the windows were closed, unscrewing the car radio aerial, and pushing the wing mirrors in.

When I joined her, Kathy was still busily typing the password into the box on the wall. "It's not working!" she exclaimed,"And I've tried ten times!"

So I had a go. I entered the password. And nothing happened. And I tried again, and again, and again, with no result. A queue of cars was building up in the waiting area behind us, and some of the drivers started honking impatiently.

Time was ticking on, and we had an appointment to keep. So we decided to leave the carwash and return again tomorrow.

It was while we were waiting at the exit to turn into a busy road that I glanced into the rear view mirror. And I could see the carwash operating perfectly normally on the next car in.

I wonder why it wouldn't work for us? Have you had a similar experience? We'll try again tomorrow, but in the meantime, we'll be interested in your ideas!

:-)

Chain Gang.

I had a bit of bother today when I went to fetch a trolley at my local supermarket.

You are probably quite familiar with these trolleys, each embedded one into another, that are parked outside a modern supermarket. I call them "chain-gangs", because the back of each trolley has a dangling chain with an attachment that plugs into the lock of the trolley that is stacked behind it.



You have to push a coin into the lock of the rearmost trolley. This releases the chain from the lock, and you pull your trolley out. The chain is left dangling from the back of what is now the last trolley in the chain gang.

Simple! Then off you go into the supermarket with your trolley, with your coin visible and protruding slightly from the lock.



Afterwards, when you've finished shopping and you've loaded your car with goodies, you return your empty trolley to the chain gang. You push your trolley into the back of the rearmost trolley, then you plug the end of the chain hanging from that trolley into the lock of your trolley. This relinks your trolley to the chain gang and releases your coin from the lock. Bliss!

They are clever people, these trolley designers. I've often tried to prise my coin out, whilst wandering around the supermarket, in the hope that this would relieve me of the chore of returning my trolley to the chain gang. But no way! The trolley lock has clamped its jaw, bulldog- like, around the coin and the only way to get your coin back (short of a hammer and chisel) is to return the empty trolley to the chain gang.

But I digress. Or perhaps I should say that today the supermarket digressed from its usual policy of totalitarian control and order. The entire chain gang, fully chained together, had been pushed out of its railed enclosure to enable a cleaner to sweep the tarmac. And for the first time in my life, I found myself approaching the chain gang from the front, instead of the rear.

I admit I should have thought more deeply about this, and I should have walked to the back of the chain gang to get my trolley out in the usual way. But I didn't. Instead, I chose the easier option, which was the front trolley, which was nearer. And I inserted my coin into the lock of the trolley behind, which broke its link to the chain of the front trolley.

That's when disaster struck. Kathy was with me, and she was in a hurry. The supermarket was running a special promotion of cut-price goodies, and she was worried that these would become sold out. So she grabbed the front trolley that I had freed and disappeared into the supermarket.

I hope you can visualise the scenario: Kathy had disappeared with a trolley that had no coin in its lock. And I was left alone, at the head of the chain gang, which had my coin clamped into the lock of its foremost trolley.

What would you do?
:-(

Well, I'm sure that you can think of all sorts of solutions that I didn't consider in the heat of the moment. What I can say is this; people who had finished their shopping were arriving with empty trolleys and plugging them into the rear of my chain gang in order to retrieve their coins. And they outnumbered the fewer new arrivals who wanted a trolley from the back of my chain gang. My chain gang was growing by the minute. Something had to be done. So I panicked.

Determined as I was not to abandon my coin in the front trolley, I pushed the entire chain gang into the supermarket in order to find Kathy. I admit this caused some inconvenience to the shoppers inside, as well as some minor damage to the supermarket entrance, and to the special offer promotion display in the entrance foyer, and to several aisles. But I did find Kathy in the frozen food area, where she was examining some pork chops which were on special offer at a 30% discount from yesterday's price.

"What the hell are you doing!" she yelled, as I approached, pushing my chain gang. Somehow, I managed to bring the meandering train of trolleys to a full stop when the front trolley (the one with my coin in it) got wedged between frozen pork and frozen chicken container units.

I can't quite remember the exact detail of our subsequent conversation. But we did agree that a coin in the lock of a front trolley in a chain gang is irretrievable.

Maybe the supermarket knows this, too...

PS
Here's a photo of Kathy's coinless trolley.


PPS
I'm using this photo as a template for the production of copy chain attachments. I see an opportunity for making money in the supermarket aisles if I have some of these attachments to hand....
:-)

I need Ad-vice

English newspapers like the Times and Telegraph cost a fortune here in Tenerife, so instead I follow the news on my laptop, or on television (we can receive Sky, CNN, and BBC World News).

However, there are several English language newspapers published in the Canary Islands that are aimed at the expat and tourist market. These newspapers are distributed to shops and hotels and are available free of charge. I usually browse through these whilst waiting in my local unisex hairdressing shop.

These free newspapers carry very little actual news; most of the pages contain advertisements. And since most of the advertisements are placed by small and medium-sized local businesses (mostly Spanish), the standard of written English often leaves a lot to be desired.

Here's a selection of very odd advertisements, possibly mispelt, that I discovered just inside the back page of one of these newspapers , under the mysterious heading "Services".

Los Cristianos Laddies, do Greek, various kisses, in front of bus station.

Las Galletas, French with dour glass figure, discret apartmento.

Las Veronicas, Transvesti 20 years, blond, 140 breasts.

I don't understand; what on earth are these advertisements all about? It's a problem, and when I'm confronted by a problem, all sorts of mental images flash through my mind. My imagination is still working overtime on the examples above, but I think I'm nearly there with the one shown below.

Puerto Colon, Miss age, Dutch, in privy place.




Do you think I'm on the right path here?
:-)

For love of the game

It is a popular myth that the origins of the modern game of rugby can be traced back to an incident at Rugby School in Warwickshire, where there is a commemorative stone that celebrates the event. The stone is shown below:


The inscription has faded somewhat, and reads as follows:

THIS STONE
COMMEMORATES THE EXPLOIT OF
WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS
WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL
AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME
FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT
THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF
THE RUGBY GAME
A.D. 1823

An alternative theory, and one that is enthusiastically promoted by some followers of Association Football, suggests that Rugby was invented in Neolithic times, by Stone Age cave-dwellers.

THE ABOVE IMAGE
IS A REPRODUCTION OF
A PREHISTORIC CAVE DRAWING
DISCOVERED IN THE TWICKENHAM TUNNEL
AND WHICH IS BELIEVED TO DEPICT
THE AFTERMATH OF A PRE-MATCH ENCOUNTER
IN WHICH RETALIATION WAS GOT IN FIRST
BEFORE A GAME OF RUGBY
B.C. 13,823

So there we have it; two contrasting images, two quite different views. So which is the superior sport? Rugby, or Association Football? Is it possible to present a balanced and reasoned opinion in favour of one or the other?

I've got my views! And so, dear friends, lend me your ears!



If I were to present a serious case, I'd support rugby. A game of schoolboy rugby gives eight more boys the chance to participate; rugby provides more than just one way of scoring (try, conversion, penalty goal, drop goal); the oval ball provides greater technical challenges than the spherical ball; and the game offers opportunities for players with a wider variety of physical attributes to participate and to excel.

But why be so serious about this? There is a man who lives in my apartment block who comes home from work, and spends an hour outside practising football with his two teenage sons. And I'm reminded of me doing some similar stuff, using a different shaped ball, with my son.

It's all about love, really.

This is Me!

I've just completed an on-line quiz!
The result is shown in the graph above.

I'm told I am a "centrist moderate social authoritarian".
(Left: 0.18, Authoritarian: 1.78).

I wonder where you chaps might appear in the graph?
The link is shown below.

http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/political-spectrum-quiz.html

:-)

Espionage at the Conference

I've received an email from a lady I knew very briefly in New Orleans. That was a long time ago. I’ve no idea how she traced me, and I’m still unsure why she should wish to make contact, or what she is trying to say.

Yes, I’m sure the email is from her - from Maria - the lady in the audience. Gosh, I remember her. I remember that prickly feeling, like a wave of electric shocks, running up and down the back of my neck when I saw her enter through the doorway at the back of the hall. She inclined her head apologetically and sat down, and I carried on with my speech.

I caught another glimpse of her later at the evening cocktail party. She was talking to two other speakers, who I recognised as competitors of my company. Was she one of them? I didn’t know.

It was exactly a year later, at the same venue, when I saw her again. There’d been no cocktail party this time. Instead, the conference organisers had decided to throw a party in a Carnival Warehouse across the water. I’d decided to give the party a miss, because I had a morning flight to catch the next day.

And those electric shocks happened all over again, because there she was, in the hotel restaurant, dining alone. I guess you can guess the rest. I left her sleeping as I tip-toed away the next morning. And, not exactly inadvertently, I’d packed her delegate dossier together with mine in my briefcase.

In the following year, my company made nearly a quarter of a million dollars pure profit out of the contents of that dossier. We realigned our systems and created an advertising blitz that blew the other company away.

And now I’m sat here, looking at her email. And she’s writing to me in exactly the same slightly stilted, crazy English, virtually devoid of punctuation, that was her style of writing in her dossier:

”Canary - i want a man who knows what love is all about you are generous kind thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. you have ruined me for other men i yearn for you i have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart i can be forever happy will you let me be yours Maria”

Well, I’ve unscrambled this text, just like I did her dossier all those years ago, and it reads as follows:

”Canary, I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will you let me be yours? Maria.”

:-)

I showed all this to my beloved partner (we have no secrets about our past lives). This is her take on it:

”Canary - I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn. For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours, Maria”

:-(