PROFESSIONALISM Members of Mrs BB’s painting group are concerned about her eye op. One is visiting us this morning “elevenish” and as I left to pick up the paper Mrs BB had started making little cakes. Such casualness
CLICHÉ STUFF The forecasts were gloomy last night: hard frost. It was mild and sunny when I set off for the paper, cold and windy when I returned. The walk lasts six minutes.
BABBLE Deafness. The problem is distinguishing what people are saying against a noisy background. The supermarket check-out for instance.
VALUE Currently the best quality bargains in French wine (ie, in the £8 - £12 bracket) are Coteaux du Languedoc AC. Of those look for villages with their own AC, especially Montpeyroux. Also Faugères and Picpoul de Pinet.
HORRIBLE The first motorbike I owned was a 125 cc BSA Bantam (see pic). Wretched. Note lack of rear suspension and pillion seat - but then it further lacked the power to tote two people.
DQ I’m 48 pages from finishing the 760-page Don Quixote. Would I recommend it? Yes, and for the same reasons I would recommend that every male youth in the UK does military National Service. Now I’ve done mine.
BROS K Plutarch suggested I read The Brothers Karamazov so I’ve bought a second-hand copy via ABE Books. It’s 985 pages. In the past I’ve made three attempts, the most recent failing at page 150.
LONG WAIT I am replacing my car with another of the same make and model. The waiting list was initially three months. Now it’s twenty-two weeks. Various reasons for the delay are offered: rarity of DSG automatic gearboxes and (the much more likely) rarity of RHD.
CLICHÉ STUFF The forecasts were gloomy last night: hard frost. It was mild and sunny when I set off for the paper, cold and windy when I returned. The walk lasts six minutes.
BABBLE Deafness. The problem is distinguishing what people are saying against a noisy background. The supermarket check-out for instance.
VALUE Currently the best quality bargains in French wine (ie, in the £8 - £12 bracket) are Coteaux du Languedoc AC. Of those look for villages with their own AC, especially Montpeyroux. Also Faugères and Picpoul de Pinet.
HORRIBLE The first motorbike I owned was a 125 cc BSA Bantam (see pic). Wretched. Note lack of rear suspension and pillion seat - but then it further lacked the power to tote two people.
DQ I’m 48 pages from finishing the 760-page Don Quixote. Would I recommend it? Yes, and for the same reasons I would recommend that every male youth in the UK does military National Service. Now I’ve done mine.
BROS K Plutarch suggested I read The Brothers Karamazov so I’ve bought a second-hand copy via ABE Books. It’s 985 pages. In the past I’ve made three attempts, the most recent failing at page 150.
LONG WAIT I am replacing my car with another of the same make and model. The waiting list was initially three months. Now it’s twenty-two weeks. Various reasons for the delay are offered: rarity of DSG automatic gearboxes and (the much more likely) rarity of RHD.
4 comments:
I think you have to be young to read the Brothers K, because it asks you to believe so many things that life experience tells you aren't true.
Hattie: When I was young I was far more cynical than I am now. In fact a thick core of cynicism, plus an unfailing and impolite form of curiosity were the only qualifications I brought to a working life in journalism. Now I'm an aged fuddy-duddy, ripe for any of Fyodor's extreme suggestions. But it's the length rather than the contents that may discourage me.
Babble:
I agree. I am not deaf, it's just all the "surround sound" that makes focussing hard. However, I guess a lifetime's motorcycling has not helped the hearing (wind noise). Especially as ear plugs did not become de rigeur until the late '70's. Which brings me neatly to:
Horrible:
My first bike was a BSA Bantam, too. I guess that many of us started our riding on them in the '50s. However, mine was the "swish" 150 model with rear springing and a dual seat. It was no better or worse than the other offerings at the time. The cynical, self-satisfied British motorcycle industry deservedly disintegrated when the meticulous Japanese machines began to be imported - serve them right, too.
DQ:
I never managed to finish Don Quixote, but did finish my 3 years in the army (twice the pay of a National Service 2 year enlistment). I agree with your recommendation, but why for the same reason as reading DQ?
Avus: Re. "Horrible" judgement. This involves two viewpoints: horrible in retrospect, thereby driving out any tendency towards nostalgia, and inferior to most of the contemporary Villiers-engine bikes such as Francis-Barnett and James.
DQ and Nat Serv recommendation. Let me put it another way: in both cases I suffered, as a result I'm recommending that other people should suffer with me.
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