Harlequin Duck

Come on, guys, this beautiful creature (it's a Harlequin Duck) is no more the result of a random collision of molecules than is the gorgeous person lying next to you in your bed. Or, if you don't agree, turn over and tell her/him that s/he is just the result of a random collision of molecules.

Tote dat barge, lift dat bale

As I am sure the whole of the UK and most of North America know by now, strong north winds blew down a part of my fence. A 6'x6' panel to be precise. Formerly held in place by two 7' x3"x3" posts.
Not any more.
The right-hand post (see diagram) was secured in the ground by Alvah Peck, an ex-policeman with time and a bucket of concrete on his hands. The left-hand post was secured into a metal box on a peg by Gary Jacobs, present whereabouts unknown.
The right-hand post has snapped off just above the concrete; the left wobbles in its metal box (the box having split open). As to the 6x6 panel, better not to talk about it: it might have killed someone on its flight south from here.

But, you know me, I am not one to be deterred by die Tuecke des Objekts, the bloody-mindedness of inanimate objects, so, armed with a big hammer and a glass of Argentinian Merlot, I went out today and STARED at the fence.

For a long time.

You know, I quite like the gap where the fence panel used to be. It's airy, it's liberating, it gives one a new view on the world. And once you put your mind to it, you can even find beauty in a neighbour's dustbin and compost heap.

So, after a reasonable amount of staring, I put the big hammer back in the toolchest and poured myself another of Argentine's finest.

When it comes to DO-IT-YOURSELF, nobody can tote dat hammer and lift dat glass de way dat I can.

Quick-quick-slow

If you watch a typical disco scene, you are witnessing something dedicated to St Vitus: an aimless twitching and gyrating which does not involve human contact of any kind (Thus Spake The Old Scrote). Me, I belong to a more gracious age:
I can do the Quickstep.
I can do the Foxtrot.
I can do a snazzy Viennese waltz with variations.
Given warning, I can still do the Gay Gordons and the Valeta.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, I am sorry for you. It was called "ballroom dancing" and I took lessons when I was 17-18. I, and my fellow acne'd sixth-formers from Wellington Grammar School for Boys made our way to a dance academy in the Square to get to grips, terpsichoreally-speaking, with sixth-formers from Wellington High School for Girls.
The music issued from 78s - it's a fair bet the gramophone was the wind-up kind - and was of the kind known as "strict tempo ". If you have never heard of, or listened to, Victor Sylvester and his Orchestra, you have escaped one of life's soul-numbing experiences. But, to give him his due, the old maestro did his bit to keep our feet moving properly and at the right pace.
The essential stance for dancing the quickstep, foxtrot and waltz was that the gentleman put his right arm round the lady's waist, decorously, held her right hand in his left, decorously, while the lady put her left hand on the gentleman's left shoulder, decorously, and then away, to the music and the instructor's voice: quick-quick-slow quick-quick-slow, or whatever.
Talk about a navel engagement without loss of semen. Never mind, it was all very innocent. More importantly, it was a way to civilise us brutish boys, and a chance for the girls to realise that if they didn't have boyfriends, they weren't really missing anything.
Tango, anyone?

Mary Kidd, I salute you

This morning I found it hard to get out of bed. Not because I was tired. Not because it was cold outside. Not because I would rather do anything than work on the bloody book.
No, it was because of Mary Kidd.
We had a real teenage pash, Mary Kidd and I. Lots of what we called necking, VERY steamy, but not, of course, going "all the way" - we didn't do things like that in my day. Someone - it could have been the Admiral of the Fleet - described this kind of heavy petting as "a navel engagement without loss of semen".
And during last night, without warning and for no reason, I dreamt about Mary Kidd. It was a lovely dream, full of love and warmth and cuddles, and that's why I didn't want to get out of bed this morning.
Mary Kidd was a big girl, tallish and plumpish and blonde and buxom and blue-eyed and eager, with a labial grip that could have raised the Titanic. We used to play duets on the piano between snogs (Her favourite composer was Leroy Anderson, bet you've never heard of him). And when her mom and dad came back from wherever they went in the evening, we all made polite conversation, the four of us, until I could decently escape and leg it the three miles back to my adolescent bed and my adolescent fantasies.
I loved Mary Kidd. In my fashion.
And I think she loved me. In her fashion.
But mostly, we both seemed to float on a sea of pneumatic bliss, waiting for the next grapple.

I haven't seen her since I was seventeen, and I have only heard about her once since, when someone told me she was married with two children and had put on a lot of weight. By which time, I was married with two children and had put on a lot of weight.

Please don't read anything into this event. And I would like it to be clearly understood that the fact that Mary Kidd was my oneiric companion during last night is no disrespect to, erm, Janet Lovatt, Maureen Partridge, Alicia Ball, Maureen Jones, Cynthia Brown or Cicely Whatshername from Shifnal, or Deirdre Thingummy from Attingham and the rest. Their turn will come if I have anything to do with it.

Can't wait for tonight's instalment. I might even strike really lucky this time and dream about Hornby Dublo trainsets.

What a dish!

I have been thinking some more about pornography. It's a curious phenomenon. Imagine that you are hungry, really starving, so you phone up a restaurant and ask them to read out the menu. Or you fire up Google Images and look hungrily at pictures of succulent dishes. It's a funny business and no mistake. Or am I missing something?
Anyway, for those of you who are hungry, here is a really erotic picture. I know I'm wicked, but I just couldn't resist!

Pelagic trip

On the first of January every year, the San Diego Field Ornithologists take a pelagic trip (four and a half hours, from 8 to 1230 am). This year, for the first time, I went, hoping to keep my breakfast in my stomach and to add a couple of lifers to my birdlist. I succeeded on both counts, the birds being Cassin's Auklet and Black-vented Shearwater.
But what really made the trip for me were the dolphins that accompanied our boat for a lot of the time. There were two species (I don't know from cetaceans, this is what I was told): Common Dolphin and Pacific White-sided Dolphin. The pix is of the latter.
You know, we human beings think we are some punkins, but I suspect that cetaceans regard us as an interesting but generally unsuccessful species. Well, that's how I interpreted the look in their eye.
So, in my next life, I want to come back as a dolphin, but not the kind that gets tangled in fishing nets, ok?

Hillary for President. Or not

What is the most important thing about Hillary Clinton as a potential Democratic candidate for the Presidency? What is the first thing that springs to everone's mind?

Yes. You got it in one.

My personal view - with which you are free to disagree, especially as I might be completely wrong - is that Hillary Clinton is a totally unsuitable person to be the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

But she is a woman, isn't she?, so I am in a very dodgy position if I oppose her candidacy.

Well no, not really. I am paying her the compliment of not thinking about her gender, but about her unsuitability for the job.

I've also ranted about race issues in the same vein. If you believe - as our damned Commission for Racial Equality believes - that the most important fact about a person is their ethnicity, we will get nowhere. Not only will we get nowhere, we will perpetuate racism by being racialist, if you see what I mean.

I want the freedom and the right to assess a person as a saint or a sinner, as a good egg or an asshole, on the basis of their performance as a human being, not on the basis of their gender, wealth, race, religion, nose shape or hair colour.

I don't rate my chances, though, in the present climate.