Trouble Up t’mill?

The Sunday Times is a weekly purchase to enable being abreast of events in the UK. Its pronouncements on exchange rates for instance has always been accurate.

Yesterday it carried a piece on the north south divide which backs up what I have been saying and I quote “people in..Leeds…earn less and die earlier..”. So those that have been complaining about what they think is my harsh descriptions of life in Yorkshire should be mortified, I was right all along.

Apparently my aversion to all things “up north” is nothing new, William The Conqueror apparently took such a dislike to northerners that in 1069 he ordered villages levelled and crops burnt! Personally I would not have gone that far, I would have stopped after little raping and pillaging, well quite a lot of raping….

I thought a team picture from last week featuring MP’s, actors and other ner’ do wells should be my picture today.

MP's, TV folk, actors and Australians, all braving the weather to play cricket

An afternoon swinging in the hammock in the warm breezy sunshine is just the tonic for the working week ahead. Not that I was relaxing you understand, merely lateral thinking, that is to think whilst lateral, and resting ones eyes while the brain works furiously. I also find that a couple of cold beers and some Provencal Gris rose helps that particular forward planning activity.

Later this week we have been invited to friends who have rented a boat on the Canal Du Midi over near Carcassonne. That is the kind of boating I can cope with, no waves to spill ones drink, no motion to stir up ones insides. However, as children will be present, I may find my workload this week too much to spare the time, unless I get that steely eyed stare from that nice lady decorator.

It’s not that I don’t like children, who was it said “I like children but couldn’t eat a whole one”? I do like my own, well quite like them, sometimes. I like them when they are not losing their jobs for re-enacting jeddai knight battles with lawn rakes at a clients house, as happened this summer with my son.

I remember when I was his age and got a summer job as a dustman, refusing to consider university because the UCCA handbook (some kind of guide to Universities) was priced at 25p and being in my communist phase, I thought it should be free. Of course, unlike Julian Dismore, I grew out of that stupidity very quickly and instead aimed to become a bloated capitalist. Sadly I appear at the moment to be more bloated than capitalist – I blame the Yorkshire diet.

No responses to my comments about the lack of any proper wine in yorkshire surprised me, until I realised that internet penetration up north is very limited, in fact the whole mobile system is a disaster back in the UK, not one of the houses I have stayed at during the summer, even in the south, had good mobile reception, whereas we all know down here that you can even get great reception on the beach, or at the top of a mountain ski lift in winter. I do not plan to return soon, although I suspect I will be dragged back in early September for a wedding…

Chris France

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