Global warming; a solution?

Those bathroom scales and I have fallen out. How is it possible that I spend two days out of three on a starvation ration of 600 calories, march 12 miles in 3 days at 4 miles an hour up hill and down dale, clad in 10 pounds of wet weather clothing, to lose no weight whatsoever? There are only two explanations; either the scales are lying cheats, and were made in Germany after all, or my body is such a finely honed fighting machine that there is no fat to lose. I prefer the latter explanation, although it is not a view shared by many, if any if I am honest. In fact I don’t even believe it myself.

Paradoxically, yesterday, after a sumptuous lunch in Kingston Upon Thames, including a couple of glasses of the most wonderful Chateau Musar, the only Lebanese wine of any repute, a few pints and a bottle of wine last night, I have lost a pound. I think what the fat gods are trying to tell me is that eating and drinking is good for weight loss. Again, it is not an opinion share by That Nice Lady Decorator.

I have maligned dear old Lenny Peters from popular seventies singing duo Peters and Lee. I had suggested yesterday that he had refused surgery to cure his blindness, on the basis that his income might be reduced as a result of a reduction in the sympathy vote. However, I was informed yesterday that he did indeed have that surgery, but that he undid the good work of the surgeons by getting out of bed to help a fellow patient who had fallen out of bed. A more suspicious chap than I might suspect that he had the surgery, could see perfectly well, but allowed this story to circulate in order to increase the warm feeling in the eyes of the public, a case of seeing his cake and eating it, one might say.

A rare sunny day in winter

I have discovered that eating lamb shank at lunch time has a volcanic effect on my gas emissions. After a lovely lunch yesterday chez the stately and wonderful Helen Blackburn, widow of Bryan, who wrote the lyrics to Welcome Home and a plethora of  other songs such as Love is Blue, covered by scores of famous artists, and a string of TV shows and sketches, I was in the Merc on the way to my second meeting of the day. It was a journey that was a punctuated on a regular basis by the enforced opening of the car windows. I am sure drivers behind me must have thought that the electric windows were faulty.

I have long been a major source of methane production, and have contributed mightily to the myth of global warming caused by greenhouse gases, so it should not have come as a surprise to That Nice Lady Decorator. She had unwisely chosen to accompany me on the trip in the hope of getting a nice lunch (she did) and some retail therapy (she did not). Her claim that if she could have found a shop selling pegs and corks she would have bought a supply and used them to arrest the aroma and solve the global emission problem, was a slightly hurtful sentiment, but she did have a point.

Anyway, the result of the day was that I have talked myself into doing a great deal of work in respect of the late Bryan Blackburn, for what may end up being a meagre reward, and then found a new customer for Currencies Direct, when I was trying to organise a Steve Marriott box set release. One of my duties is to his estate, and it is perhaps a sad reflection of my age that most of my clients are dead. The good news is that one is no longer awoken at 4 in the morning by some errant artist one represents, and dragged to the police station to bail them out. Also there is no compunction to pay their coke dealers, but that will all have to wait for my autobiography.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News