Mognipotent

I have invented a new word which I think adequately describes the MOGS (Moustachioed Old Gits) which comprise myself and the Wingco’s superiority over all comers on the tennis court.  Mognipotent somehow sums up the biblical scale of our omnipotence over any opponents who dare to challenge us. Yesterday for instance, we were challenged by Mr Clipbeard and Smouldering Nick Davies.

“Smouldering”? I hear you say? Sadly I was specifically forbidden to reveal why he has this new epithet, save to say that in his younger, I was going to say wilder days, a statement that is barely credible given current wildness quotients, there was an unfortunate incident involving fire. That is all I am permitted to reveal.

I cannot even say that he lit up the restaurant, as that may be misconstrued, or that after his tennis defeat he had to be hosed down, I am even precluded from going into the darker side of events that occurred in his childhood (in the late 1890’s?), instead I am asked to concentrate on his “lighter” side. I can say that he was no “match” for the MOGS.

Lunch then was taken at the Auberge St Donat, the French equivalent of a transport cafe except the food is very good. Amongst those present was the Master Mariner Mundell who has kindly invited us aboard L’Exocet for the Cannes Bay firework festival on Bastille day, the 14th of July. I believe that the firework displays are best viewed from the sea rather than the crowded coast. He is currently living on his boat and last week he came to our house in order to clean his car. I cheekily mentioned at lunch that I had expected him to come the next day with his washing. His retort, that it was in a bag in his car, was not quite what I expected, and I can hear our washing machine straining at maximum as I write.

Mr Clipbeard did not attend lunch, which was a bad show, merely partaking of a beer before leaving. His excuse, that he was lunching with his parents, was clearly a fabrication as I am certain that they left for Scotland last night. I believe that he hates being beaten (with the obvious exception of course of being beaten in that kind loving, public schoolboy manner of his youth) at anything by anyone, least of all tennis by an oik like me.

In all there were three Currencies Direct clients at the table and four others whom I have yet to convert. I know where they live so it would be better if they signed up now to avoid the constant sales pitches, cajoling and whingeing which makes up my sales armoury.

Slash and Burn Thornton Allan from The Big Picture sent me a gloomy picture of life in England, where the sky is currently emptying itself of rain to be sure that it will be dry from late July when my exile commences. I felt the need to return the favour, so I took this picture illustrating the privations that we are experiencing at present. Can you see that there is no ice in my post lunch, pre siesta, glass of rose? Life is tough here as well.

Things can be tough here as well.The nearest ice is over 30 metres away in the fridge.

There is talk of lunch today at the charmingly redeveloped Auberge de la Source set in the woods just outside Valbonne on the way to Antibes. So far it is only talk that I have overheard in the form of a muffled one-sided telephone conversation. Doubtless all will be revealed when that nice lady decorator awakens.

Chris France