Viber-rator failure

Banjo, the calamitous cocker spaniel, is mostly black and brown with a little bit of white, so I reckon he should be renamed Birmingham. He was foisted on this household by that nice lady decorator who wanted a guard dog masquerading as a pet. It was a failure on both counts, he only barks at the lawnmower and pizza delivery boys, and if ever there was a burglar he would probably sleep through it.

Someone who shall have to remain nameless was discussing acute angina over the weekend, but I think that nice lady decorator misheard. At least that was my judgment made by assessing the scowl with which I was blessed when the conversation was all but finished. I can only think she was worried about my heart.

At lunch, after administering the usual thrashing to Mr Clipboard on the golf course, which once again he refused to accept on the basis of his girls handicap, he admitted to using some kind of phone application called a Viber. I have no idea exactly what it is intended to do to benefit the user but the suggestion was made that perhaps it was a viber-rator? In any event it seemed to vibrate with alarming regularity. Perhaps it has some kind of wake up call facility? In which case it failed miserably this morning as we were on the second hole before he “arrived” yesterday. Bearing in mind his overbearing and frankly brutal interpretation of anyone failing to adhere to his daft deadlines, I do hope he will punish himself thoroughly for this timing aberration, perhaps he should set his viber-rator to stun?

Common decency does not permit me to suggest that he had used said application to help his needs at any hole or on the golf course, or indeed prior to playing.

Also present for the golf, and unlike Mr Clipboard, on time, were Paul Thornton Allan of The Big Picture and Pete Bennett of Blue Water Yachting and much discussion took place at lunch in respect of Currencies Direct and how much they could contribute towards the long-term success of his Blue Space project, a state of the art on-line portal for all yachting needs. Thus I shall be submitting the receipt for lunch today to my accountant and I trust there will be no argument as to its veracity in terms of setting the cost against my tax bill.

The web. Once in it is very hard to get away

Whilst the chaps, well, some of us, were beavering away (on our viber-ators?) on a working lunch, the girls, including that nice lady decorator, decided to lunch in the square at Valbonne. Just after lunch, at around 6pm (!) She arrived back into the web, the newly named outside terrace and bar area, pictured today,  for an early evening glass of rose, obviously thirsty having no doubt drank nothing throughout the luncheon gathering. Several other female miscreants were in tow,  whom were also unaccountably thirsty, making considerable inroads to my wine stocks, until at least 8 30pm. At this stage it became clear that cooking would be an activity far too complicated to contemplate for that nice lady decorator, so I adjourned to the pizza van for dinner. 30 minutes to wait for a pizza? I am afraid I could not accept such a delay so headed up to the Kashmir for a take away curry, where I briefly met Tony “inventor of the internet” Coombs and his lovely wife Pat. However they were accompanied by a drunken Irishman in the shape of John O Sullivan muttering something about cricket, so I was glad to collect my curry and head home.

There is the delicious prospect today of a bank holiday in the UK, and no social occasion in the diary, well, that is as I write. It is entirely possible that before I write Saturdays column, I shall have one again be dragged kicking and screaming to some social event.

Chris France