Disaster unfolds on several levels

It was a much better day. The rain was only light and irritating, and the wind had dropped to merely quite strong, so almost like summer. It is at times like these that ones thoughts turn to summer and sunshine, and if you are not going to get sunshine where you live, then you go in search of it. I am packing as we speak for that trip to Tenerife in 10 days time.

I don’t know whether any of you have ever been in the situation where you have your fingers rammed in your ears, your head stuffed under the pillows and you are desperately trying to block out the noise from downstairs? Such was my lot the night before last when That Nice Lady Decorator had a reunion with some of her old schools chums. The cracking and caterwauling went in until after 2am, and worse still, they all decided to switch from white wine, for which I have little time, to red wine, for which I have a healthy respect. Well, OK, perhaps not healthy. What is more is that nowadays, and especially at Xmas, the wine store tends only to contain some fairly decent stuff, so a disaster was unfolding on several fronts.

Not being able to sleep, I first thought about Currencies Direct, and, excited, I had  tuned my iPad into Sky Sports for the cricket and so that was the third disaster to befall me, or more specifically the English Cricket Team, who are being systematically and surgically taken apart by a decent, but hardly world-beating Australian side. It is hard to believe that we were the favourites before the hapless tour started and now a 5-0 whitewash has shattered the current English team. There must now be bloodshed in the selection process.

So with disaster all around, the bathroom scales failing to take into account that the day before had been a diet day and as a result not a drop of alcohol touched my lips (no I did not swallow any with the use of the lips for all you cynics out there), and with That Nice Lady Decorator out for a days retail therapy, I was left to my own devices. What bliss! No chores, no barbs about clearing up after me, no looks that suggest I should not be doing or even thinking about doing whatever it was that I was doing, so I was able to spend time preparing for the evenings festivities revolving around the appearance of Screaming Lez and the Mindbenders , or at Arundel Cricket Club last night.

Screamin Lez

One of their fans was either having a laugh it suffering from dyslexia as I spotted this T Shirt at the bar. They are a brilliant rock and roll band with a big dose of rockabilly. Eddie Cochran on one end of the scale, Golden Earring on the other. Radar Love done brilliantly has to be on of the great rock tunes, probably the only one not made by the Brits or the Yanks. Lez has in his band a quite brilliant and pretty young guitarist, who Colin The Pirate (who was there with Sandra, his sultry goddess), who had clearly imbibed freely, spent some time telling me that I should take him to a higher musical level, and then began suggesting that  should take him to Simon Cowell, with whom I worked in the late 1980’s. He did not seem to understand the irony of what he was saying. Simon is superb  at working with pop acts. he does not understand rock and roll or any other artform, except perhaps irritating comedy animal acts. Also, I have not spoken to him for over 20 years, so contact could be a bit problematic.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News