Only one eye in Colin

In all the furore concerning Otway the Movie, which now has a YouTube promo, I have omitted to update you on sales of that colossus of literary achievement, The Valbonne Monologues, sales of which are now standing at a very impressive 105, after a couple of lucky Otway fans tracked me down to buy one in Cannes, and after the launch of the title on Kindle.

With Sprogs returning, locust like from various educational institutions, to visit their parents (read fleece parents for as much food and drink as possible in as short a time as possible), it was perhaps inevitable that we ended up for lunch at The Black Rabbit, that picturesque pub on the River Arun just outside Arundel. Having had a partial fill there, and then their having returned to the house almost to empty the entire contents of the fridge, liquid refreshment eventually became the next most pressing need of the day. Unaccountably, the Sprogs like The Eagle, the pub in Tarrant Street, which is rocking when there is a band on, but dead as dodo when there is no entertainment. Last night there was no entertainment. Worse still, there was no proper beer. How on earth can this pub survive when all three of its proper beers are off? Another that may be looking down the barrel of new management shortly, unless there is a business model here too obscure for my understanding.

There was however a very real and wonderful alternative close by in The Kings Arms, run by Charlie Pistorius Malcolmson, who does at least have a leg to stand on, but only the one. Talking of one, in the pub we bumped into the sultry goddess Sandra and Colin the Pirate formerly known as One Eyed Colin before that Nice Lady Decorator ruled that name out-of-order, and, having persuaded the Sprogs to leave the Eagle for the Kings with promises of London Pride and sickly ciders respectively, we were able to tell them the story of last weeks dinner party when One Eyed Colin celebrated his new epithet in this column of Colin the Pirate, by greeting us at a dinner engagement with an eye patch and a talking parrot. Naively perhaps, I thought at first that this might be his normal attire when at home, but the dawning realisation that he did, in fact, read this column, came quickly.

Regular readers will know that Colin had preprogrammed a mechanical, furby like talking parrot to respond to certain words; but what I had not spotted was that when prompted with the name Colin, the parrot had said “there is only one I in Colin”, the sort of joke (there of course being only one I in Colin) that I would normally devour, but which I totally missed at the time.

Rape seed field before the rain

After an uncharacteristically sunny bank holiday weekend, the disgusting weather which pointed up the beginning of autumn yesterday was something of a blow, but one cannot have everything, although some in my family do not believe that. My walk yesterday was as muddy as the trenches and exacerbated by losing the senior dog Max, the amiable of the two dogs in our family, In a rapeseed field, meaning half an hour became an hour and I was to find out first hand what trench foot was all about.

A brighter day today is promised so I shall be up with the lark, a song in my heart and with Currencies Direct in my mind. There are still those untouched by the foreign exchange missionary work and that knowledge drives me on. Then we must begin to prepare to go to Cheltenham on Friday, a pop festival on Saturday and then Cornwall for some beer walking for a few days on Sunday.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News