Fine filly in Chichester

Vindicated. After reporting on my problems yesterday using my new iPhone, and suggesting that I myself may have been to blame, I am delighted to be able to reveal that it was a faulty handset rather than an attack of old gitism as I had suspected. This was as big a surprise to me as to you, given my track record with technology.

So with an unscheduled trip to Chichester to change the illphone, from where I took today’s picture of a charming young filly, we did not get to the beach for cycling until too late. Too late, that is, to avoid the temptation of a  pint at the Black Horse in Clymping, and then to The Bridge at Amberley for another disappointing pint of the second best beer in the world, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. I had heard that it is a difficult beer to keep and the landlord at The Bridge does not seemed to have mastered the art, which is very disappointing given how infrequently Landlord makes its way south. It is far too good a beer to be allowed to languish in the frozen tundra-strewn north that is Yorkshire.

Fine young filly in Chichester

Later in the afternoon The opening theme tune to Strictly Come Dancing was certainly not the tonic I needed to raise me from the sloth of depression, which had developed as I surveyed England’s lack of sporting achievement this afternoon; massively underachieving in India for the test match, and then getting soundly beaten by the Australians at rugby on home turf. This was exactly what I did not need just before setting off for the penal colony. The whole idea of going to Australia was to rub their noses in the Australian lack of sporting achievement on the cricket pitch, the rugby field and the Olympic Games. Their comeback into the real sporting world is ill-timed and very unwelcome and has denied me at least part of the entertainment I was banking on to make the trip more fun.

With that Nice Lady Decorator declining to cook, we decided once again to avail ourselves of the very far-sighted offer from The Kings Arms in Arundel to eat a takeaway in the pub . They even have menus on a rack from the Chinese and Indian restaurants who will deliver from the pub. I had wondered how the pub expect to generate income from offering this facility and discovered it last night; there is a fine of £1.50 for making a call and £1 for receiving a call on a mobile phone, so by the time you have called the Indian twice (because I had forgotten to order any rice during the first call) and the restaurant had called back to find exactly where we were, I was £4 out of pocket. Actually I am being slightly disingenuous here, as all fines are donated to the RNLI, a very worthy organisation that recently rescued a certain “Desperate” landlord off the Cornish coast last month.

Taking of James “Desperate Dan the Landlord”, it is with he and some other pub regulars with whom we are scheduled to venture onto the tennis court this morning. The day has dawned bright and sunny and crucially, without the wind that blew off course our previous attempt to play .

So, off to Bangkok tomorrow via Manchester where I shall be on the lookout for people who can benefit from the foreign exchange services of Currencies Direct. I do not expect to discover any new clients in Manchester, that will have to wait until I reach warmer and more affluent climes.

Chris France

@valbonne_news