bonfires

My ancestors loved planting evergreen shrubs such as laurel and to a lesser extent, thank goodness,  ponticum rhododendrons, to give more interest to the woodland walks.  That of course was all very well when there where lots of men, as there where when I was a boy, who every year, armed with sickles, would trim the laurel growth back down.  But then one day there was no money to pay such men anymore and the laurel and ponticum left to itself went rampant till the woodland walks became literally impenetrable jungle.  For more than thirty years I have been happily hacking away at these evergreen monsters using them, in effect, as a form of outdoor gymnasium, and getting not only fitter and thinner as a result  but also enjoying a feeling of immense satsfaction at viewing the resultant improvement in my woodland walks.  A key part of the process is -of course - the bonfire.  I suppose in the current world a whole generation is going to grow up who have never made a bonfire as either they have been forbidden under some Health and Safety rule or banned as contributing to global warming.  That is sad as making a bonfire and getting one going to such a pitch that it will burn anything however green and full of sap it is that you can thow on it - is a noramlly highly skilled process.  Not though at the time of writing.  The hot summer has meant that bonfires virtually light themsleves and burn furiously within minutes. Oh what fun it all is and Oh how better my woodlands look because of the magic of the bonfire.   

London traffic

It takes a lot to get me up to London in the summer -especially a summer like this one - but if a an old firend asks you to come up to celebraste their 50th birthday - well - youv've just got to go.  London and the heat do not go.  However fortunately the night we spent in the metropolis was one of the cooler ones so we survived. Twice during our flying visit we hired a taxi and on both occaisions I was struck that all the good effects of the congestion charge in reducing congestion in central London seems to have gone by the board. I remember when the charge was first introduced the streets empties and suddenly buses roared around like sport cars. Not anymore they don't.  what I just can't understand is why anyone would want to drive their car in London anyway?  It seems to me to be such an utterly pointless and expensive activity that I am.forced to the conclusion that it is all really about showing off.  So come on Boris -if you are short of money for something just do the sensible thing - double the congestion charge.     

banks again

I am sure automated answer machines do -in the short term - boost banks profits - but only at a long term cost of infuriated and angry customers.  So the moronic bank which I use, HSBC as you ask, returned a cheque which I had tried to pay into my account giving as the reason that 'the payees name has beem omitted' even though my name was wrtitten in big letters on the supposedly blank line.  So infuriated I reached for the telphone - what a mistake - a disembodied automated voice answered - asking me to choose from a range of options and then yet more options until at last the inevitable message 'that all our operators are currently busy' to be followed by some truly appalling musical drivel - after about ten minutes of this - with my blood pressure nearing boiling point - some poor girl answered. Now what on earth does the HSBC expect the customer to do next?  (a) to be grovelingly  grateful that at long last you have an actual human being on the end of the line or (b) to be so furious that you vent your spleen on the unfortunated HSBC employee. Well my guess is that it probably breaks down into 50/50 and no prizes for which option I chose. Not that I am particularly proud of it but seriously what do the banks expect people to do? Sure they will say that by employing such practises it makes their operation more efficient and thus enables them to reduce borrowing costs by a fraction of one per cent. Actually they would have been able to reduce borrowing costs by a lot more than that if they hadn't made, in the case of HSBC, the moroinc business decision to buy an American bank some eight years ago specialising in lending money to people who were unlikely ever to pay it back - so far that has cost HSBC some £5 billion an counting - just think how many intelligent young people they could have hired to answere your calls promptly for a fraction of that sum?  As the banks sweat about what new taxes and regulations are going to be imposed on them they might care to remember that every time a customer rings up and gets that disembodied voice asking them to choose from a range of options they have increased the num,ber of people who hate banks with a vengance by one.

summer holidays

I have never understood this obsession people seem to have with going abroad in the summer. It is true that the English weather is variable and can be appalling but as I bask in the current heatwave I can't help thinking how stupid you would feel if you if you where sweating in some awful airport, being treated only one up from farm animals on the way to the slaughter, in order to go abroad and sit on a beach in the sun.  No - the time to go abroad is in Febuary or March when the long winter seems never ending and I strongly suspect the suicide rate is at its peak, while if you want to see the Mediterranean at its best then April or May or early June is the time to go when the hills are still green, the wild flowers are spectacular, and the temperature is about that of a hot English summer day.   But fortunately for the travel companies I appear to be in a very small minority. The main reason of course why people all rush off in August and July is that that is when the school holidays are.  If you wonder why there is this long summer break from education I will tell you.  It is because when compulsory education was mandated towards the end of the 19th century it was realised that farmers would never send their children to school during the summer as they were needed to help with the harvest so someone had the bright idea of making the whole of August and July into a school holiday in order to win the farmers support for more education.    

economy

I admired a new pair of shoes a friend was wearing today. " Oh yes"  he said " Are'nt they smart - very cheap too a Daily Telegraph special offer -unlike yours" He said rudely pointing down to my immaculate black brogues - "I can't afford handmade shoes from  Germain Street"   But he was wrong. For a moment I was tempted to allow him to continue to think that I was the sort of person who could afford to spend two or three hundred pounds or more on a pair of shoes - but only for a moment.  In my world presitge is won not by paying silly money for clothes, shoes, wine, or cars but by paying as little as possible. So I said; "You are so very wrong - my shoes may look like they cost a fortune but actually they were only £17.50 +VAT  in Makkro a couple of years ago!!"   Victory was mine and how sweet it tastes   

london visit &cars

What strikes me at once every time I go up to London is how clean the cars are. Everyones car is immaculate, not only clean of course but also dent free and not that old either. Contrast this to my fleet.  My Toyota Land Cruiser is all of a dozen years old and like a venerrable battleship has been through the wars and shows its scars of many an argument, some lost and some won, with hedges and gate posts. The second car in my courtyard is a Renault Megane which is a mere stripling at four years old and was broughtsecond hand in immaculate condition only just over a year ago. Alas for good intentions.  Already the once pristine bodywork has on the left hand side been badly dented by my son who had an argument with a gate post when parking the car for a party.  In London though no one seems ever to dent their cars and I do wonder whether many of them are ever driven or,  rather like those gleaming yachts in Marinas, actually never ever leave the safety of the harbour - a yacht insurance underwriter once told me that the average such yacht only goes to sea for around four hours a year!  Is it the same perhaps for the Bentleys and Masera\ttis which litter the streets of Knightsbridge and Mayfair. Do the owners just, now and again, go and sit in them and entertain their friends to a cocktail? it seems the only likely explanation as moving around in a car in London must be a nightmare and taxis are so plentiful and comfortable.



 

the elction

I wish I could get excited by this election. I loathe Gordon Brown and his government but the trouble is I find it very difficult to summon up any enthusiasm for 'Our Dave' or, for that matter 'Our Sam.'  so many adjectives spring to mind when thinking of Dave and -sadly - none of them are complimentary - smug - pleased with himself - arrogant - autocratic - and - worst of all - he comes across as a phoney - all that tie less- man of the people rubbish. Actually of course if he had ever had any real contact with 'real' people -although what people are not real? - he would know that most people don't want someone like them leading them they want some one different - a leader. So - I have to admit that if the conservatives lost and our Dave took a caning I could honestly say I told you so and voted for David Davies in the leadership elections. Having said all that the prospect of four more years of a being ruled by a Presbeteryan lowland Scot is more than I can bear so Yes - come the day -I will trot out and vote Conservative - though actually all my sympathies are with UKIP