Photograph Quiz:
Photo number 126:- How was this neck tie changed to become the Godiva Harriers club tie? Who arranged the alterations? Which company obliged?
Dear Blog,
I don’t know about you, but I must be getting old, inevitable, or feeling old, avoidable, illustrated by the sad sight of me trudging along not lifting my feet up, tripping up and rolling about in the gutter. The embarrassment is so acute that I am relieved that the winter nights are here again, cyclic, and I can creep out into the gloom, unseen to trudge to my heart’s content. And the aging process is nowhere exemplified better than the uncontrollable desire to reminisce. I start to recollect tales of yore and the glazed look appears on the face of my victim! I know they are bored, desparatly seeking a means of escape, but they are trapped. I know they are trapped. And they know that I know that they are trapped and I cannot stop. I show no mercy. It’s an addiction. Like a druggy needing another fix. It’s Lance all over again! You heard it here first Blog, reminiscing the new crack cocaine!!!
Another sign of my aging progress is the feeling of unease engendered by the Bank of England insistence of having dozens of different designs on the 50p coins … sort of smacks at a third world country’s attitude to gaining few bob at the expense of all the muggles who collect the said designs. Has anyone told that nice Mr Cameroon that the country’s economic woes are being caused by the Bank of England insistence in producing the multiple 50p designs, which the muggles collect, hoard away, thereby causing a chronic shortage of small change on the High Streets of this country. That nice Mr Cameroon’s friend, Ozzy Osbourne, could solve all our financial ills in one stroke; one 50p design only. Sorted.
Another sign of my aging progress is observing the weeds growing between the sleepers on out railway lines … never saw that when I was a kid growing up in good old God’s county. Not that I can afford to travel on a railway train any more as I don’t have enough 50p pieces to pay. Can’t find the dam things! Weeds on the railways and at the road sides was something you saw at the pictures when there was a scene from Eastern Europe, or America on the cinema screen. Never in real life. And what about our postage stamps? When I collected stamps as a kid, [there we go reminiscing again. Come back Methuselah all is forgiven] a GB commemorative issue was a big deal. You got all these pretty coloured stamps from around the world, different shapes as well, but you could rely on the good old GB. Square. Liz steadfastly staring to the left, unfazed by the shade of dress she was wearing. There was an occasional variation in colour in the stamps when the printers ran short of supplies of a particular hue, post war austerity and all that, but shape and design was an unfailing, reliable part of life, with the occasional touch of excitement caused by a larger commemorative design, still with sober colouring, still with none of your flash African issue types.
Another sign of my aging progress is that I still miss the HP sauce bottle, with the French language on the side, the wonderment of being able to translate after a few weeks ‘doing’ French at Grammar School. Todays’ plastic squirty bottle is anathema … would you believe Blog, I still use a glass bottle for my HP sauce, decanting from the plastic monstrosity every time I run out. Fish and chips wouldn’t be fish and chips without my glass bottle of HP sauce. And have you ever tried to ask for a handful of scraps when you order your fish and chips, Blog? [there we go reminiscing again. Come back Methuselah all is forgiven] You are observed like you might observe some repulsive specimen that has just crawled out from beneath a stone on an unpleasant day in the Derbyshire Peak District. Scraps were standard with scone and chips when I was a kid. We were so poor, we could never afford a fish with our chips; we had to make do with a scone, ‘scone and chips please with a handful of scraps, please.’ A ‘scone’ Blog, pronounce ‘skown’, was a micro thin slice of fish, sandwiched between two micro thin slices of potato cooked in lard until it formed a crisp brown batter on the outside. A ‘scone’ Blog, pronounced ‘scon’ was a lump of cooked dough, sliced in half, buttered with strawberry jam. Although we were poor Blog, margarine pronounced ‘margareen’ was something advertised at the pictures (cinema to you Blog) and used by who knows who??? We bought out butter from the local grocer Mr Wicketer [we had great difficulty pronouncing Whitaker] who cut a chunk off a huge barrel shaped lump of butter with a long serrated knife and wrapped it up in grease proof paper. The great thing about Mr Wicketer was that he smoked. He smoked cigarettes. All the time. Non-stop. And at the end of his cigarette was a long drooping cylinder of ash which refused ever to drop off onto whatever he was cutting despite us putting all our efforts into willing it to fall onto the cheese, the bacon, the butter ...
Another sign of my aging progress is my deteriorating memory. For example, when I ….. err???
Colin
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