Pigeon gets the bird
My corpulent old mate from up north, Peachy Butterfield, who has been the butt of my humour for some years, has sought to claim that the breeding and fancying of pigeons is an outdated and outmoded caricature of modern northern life, only for me to find, on a visit to Chester some years ago, a designated pigeon feeding area. I do not apologise for showing the photograph of it again today as I have many new readers who I know will be interested.
He is involved in defending the indefensible in a growing number of north versus south banter blogs which we are creating for yachting website Onboard Online. His latest is now published and you can read by clicking on banter blogs. In his latest column he seeks to argue that the pigeon had increased its status to such an extent that it appears on the menu at Gordon Ramsay’s three Michelin star restaurant in London. If that is true then no wonder they are feeding them up. And how easy to pick off a few when the freezer gets a bit low. And how clever to concentrate them all in one area before catching and eating them, or sending them down south for Gordon Ramsay to work his magic on this pestilential bird.
A northern delicacy now being farmed?
So to Guildford yesterday to visit the magnificent but fading Auntie Pam. Even the prospect of a ticket to Lords for the Test Match in July does not seem to be sufficient to spur her on to recovery. Also depressing was that as it was designated a 5:2 diet day, there was no real prospect of stopping at a pub in the way back, a pint of beer being 170 calories of ones 600 calories starvation regime maximum, so I had to content myself with very rewarding happy thoughts of the benefits of having a foreign exchange account with Currencies Direct instead.
Today will be better, infinitely better. Old pal and English Treasure John Otway is coming down to Arundel for the evening. We have important film business to discuss in connection with the Guardian Readers Poll’s 2nd best offering of 2013, Otway The Movie. That should take about 10 minutes and then it will be to the pub for a few pints followed by a curry and some red wine. The subject matter will change little. If we go off message, and that message is all things Otway, he has a wonderful ability to steer the conversation back on course.
It is now less than two weeks to go before we head off to Barbados for the 50th birthday celebrations of another dyed-in-the-wool-northerner, Steve “trouble up ‘t mill” Jackson. I understand about one word in three that he utters and by using inspired guess work and utilising words of one syllable, I am still only able to make sense of one sentence in ten. He is however a thoroughly good chap , as evidenced by his inviting us along to witness all three of the 20/20 cricket matches between England and the West Indies in March. Of course it is not really proper cricket, that is Test Cricket which takes place over 5 days and does not involve the players wearing pyjamas with numbers printed in the back, but I am expecting a fine spectacle and local colour. The West Indies remains my favourite place in the world to watch cricket, narrowly eclipsing Lords, as I have very happy memories of witnessing the great Brian Lara beat the world record innings in Antigua nearly 20 years ago at the wonderful and charismatic St Johns, and again watching Test cricket in Barbados.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Chinese year of the firework
It was at the China Palace, the excellent Chinese restaurant in Arundel where I made my first mistake of the evening. Turning right out of the toilets rather than left, I bumped into a rather aristocratic and well dressed chap with splendid chin furniture (fulsome and interesting beard and moustache) who looked every inch a gentleman. In fact a proper chap, as depicted in the excellent Chap Magazine, to which I have just become a subscriber.
It had occurred to me as I sat down that this particular chap looked a lot like me, and I was right because it was me. These damned mirrors can be so confusing don’t you think? After a day diligently eating my way through the larder (it was “sandwich day”, the day sandwiched between two 5:2 diet days) and saving another foreign exchange customer from the evil clutches of their banks by setting up an account for him at Currencies Direct, we had been over to somewhere called Five Oaks and collected the soon to be Skip 2, That Nice Lady Decorators new 4 x 4 after its tracker had been fitted, and had stopped off for a sharpener at a new pub to us; The Labouring Man at Cold Waltham, for what turned out to be an excellent pint on the way back to Arundel.
These names can be so evocative don’t you think? What would you expect to find at Five Oaks? Also, it was a bit chilly when we got out of the car at Cold Waltham, which reminds me that I must go to that pretty town in Switzerland called Wankdorf, but never want to go to Cockfosters. I don’t know why but I just don’t fancy it.
Earlier I had once again taken to my bike for my daily constitutional and this time I had That Nice Lady Decorator for company, and for a change it only rained a little. It shows how far down the meteorological scale we have dropped when we are pleased that it only rains a little. I refuse to use a photograph of the dull and unpleasant (unless it is one of my friends) so I have used a photograph I took on the one clear sunny half day of the year last Sunday.
The flooded fields of Arundel still looking a bit damp
Appetites whetted, and back home, we decided on the Chinese for a change, which is not the Decorating Operative’s first choice but I has talked her into it on the basis that they served a very decent Thai Green Chilli, one of her favourites. She had satay. I am not saying she was being contrary, but one would not want to be married to a partner who is as quiet as a mouse and who never spoke her mind, and I am not. This means that occasionally, when I have done something wrong, even if I know not what it is, that blue touch-paper is somehow lit and fireworks ensue. All jolly good fun for other diners but slightly less fun for me, but I would not change a thing as it is always forgotten by morning and it makes life interesting.
I am often told on these rate occasions that I can be loud and garrulous, difficult, a slob, an idiot, and that I never listen, but nothing could be further from the truth (although the not listening bit might have an element of truth to it, especially with my fingers in my ears). On the contrary I once saw a description of Aquarians, such as myself, as “kind, honest, sincere, generous tolerant and good-looking” and I concur.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Reality floods back
That growing body of limericists who have infected the comments section of this column for several months now, are gathering around a more and more lavatorial tone. Several yesterday were quite tasteless and I enjoyed them hugely. I also think The Reverend Jeff’s reference to the Deathside Nursing Home (you will need to have read yesterday’s column) and serving Doombar, the Cornish bitter, was about as low brow as you could get, and long may it continue.
There was also an excellent pun in this missive yesterday when I made reference to my mid drift rather than my midriff. It was so good that even I did not spot it at first. Typos can sometimes be very rewarding. Many of you will realise that there is always at least one deliberate error in each column, an act that allows me to gauge the general grammatical ability of my readership. That and my lack of ability to do anything but speed read, and two dubious spell check systems.
With yesterday being another pesky 5:2 diet day, as decreed by the Nice Lady Decorator, to start with very little of any interest occurred. I noticed some daffodils getting ready to flower, and that the office (read shed) needs a lick of paint, and there is some green mould growing on the Merc’s fabric hood, but that was the extent of it. The moral of the story is that very little of anything resembling entertainment occurs after a great weekend, and there is no prospect of a little alcohol to unlock those interesting cerebral juices. Or so I thought, until there was a knock at the door and a courier presented me with an interesting shaped package. It had come from a dear friend at Adidas and was a cricket bat made for newly retired Kevin Pieterson, which was surplus to their and his requirements. I owe Ben a very large lunch. What a treat! I can hardly wait until cricket practice next Monday, when Colin The Pirate is threatening to join me.
The meadows of Sussex, still under water
I did some work, including writing a new north versus south banter blog for Onboard Online, a touching little piece comparing ballroom dancing to that northern version called Clog Dancing, which made me laugh when I read or back, but them I am a little biased. You will have to wait for a couple of weeks to read the full text on their website. I also concluded the signing up of a new client, a travel agent, for the services of Currencies Direct, but the evening was spent watching the ever-growing number of TV shows so beloved by The Decorating Operative, and which send me to sleep on the sofa. A Touch Of Silent Frost In Midsommer Murder On The Orient Express, starring Poirot, Whycliffe and Bergerac. I can feel myself nodding off just writing these names.
Although we have nothing formal planned for today, at least there will be no more starvation rations until tomorrow and there is a chance we might sneak out to the pub for early doors, or perhaps even for lunch, or crack open some of the lovely reds that I received for my birthday. Nothing as exciting as this happened yesterday.
I had earlier cycled down to the surgery in Arundel to collect the vital medication that should be keeping me alive but I have been without for a week due to various NHS nonsense, and was struck by the beauty of the flooded meadows by Arundel Castle, which is the subject of my picture today. Note to self: get a mudguard put on your bike before trying to negotiate large puddles or streams of water on the road. It looked like I had suffered a severe case of brown tail by the time I got home.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Drip Action Theatre talent floods Arundel
On our way to the Crown and Anchor in Dell Quay near Chichester, we spotted a nursing home which had commissioned a sign for the exterior by a sign writer with either a sense of humour, or an overblown love of swirly sign writing. Personally I thought it proclaimed the Heathside Nursing Home but That Nice Lady Decorator thought it said Deathside. She then looked at me at the same time with that gaze that says “one day that is going to be your fate”. The Deathside Nursing Home, how touching.
The weather forecast was for a very rare crystal clear sunny day, but after a bright sunny morning, although there were some sunny periods, there were enough clouds around to preclude sitting outside by the time we got to the pub. I had earlier been able to sit out in our tiny garden and read the Sunday Times where fellow columnist Rod Little had brilliantly described that idiotic Scottish Independence Party leader, Alex Salmond, as resembling a half gassed badger. Right on the nail! So after then reading the Jeremy Clarkson offering (he is one of the best writers of the modern era; discuss) it seemed but the right thing to do, to enjoy the (partial) sunshine and go for a pint somewhere on the coast. OK, Dell Quay is on the estuary not the coast, but you get the nautical drift.
On the way back we diverted to the Kings Arms for another sharpener, but, in a rigid and entirely uncharacteristic manner, we eschewed the opportunity for a lost afternoon as we were scheduled to go to the Drip Action Theatre event at the Swan Hotel last night, where we were joined by Colin The Pirate and his “nurse”, Sandra The Sultry Goddess.
It was billed as a Valentines night with sketches and humour over dinner. The theatre group are based now at the Victoria Institute, a fabulous but terribly run down old building in Tarrant St in Arundel, soon to be brought back to life as they have very recently taken it over and become a charity. Perhaps I can persuade the management at Currencies Direct that they are worthy of some sponsorship?
The cast of the Drip Action troupe show off their false moustaches
Colin the Pirate was there sporting a new haircut, so severe that it was almost a scalping. A sheep is left with more of the curly stuff after being fleeced, but as he pointed out, he was saving money because it would be a long time before it needed doing again. A matter of years I thought. I had decided to wear my black Homburg to the pub as it was a bit chilly, and I thought the budding thespians might enjoy a bit of style and class. I think it worked because Sandra, the Sultry Goddess, told me seriously that it looked like a hat that might be worn by Boy George. Anybody remember Freddy “Parrot Faced” Davies?
The short performances were very entertaining and been well presented and I thought it was apt that the event was being held on the same evening as the BAFTA’s. One might say the it was then Arundel version (the AAFTA’s?) although a little more parochial. It was past midnight before we were eventually ejected and, with no pub still open, skulked home to bed.
So another epic weekend is behind us and a 5:2 diet day beckons. Some quiet time is required at some stage and that stage is now. If I am to get into that bikini, or even those speedos in Barbados in a couple of weeks, then I shall need to attend to the slight swelling around my midriff. A stone lighter than when I returned to England from France in mid October, I must be vigilant to ensure I retain my now customary Adonis like stature. Thus the bike will be forced into service again this morning whilst my damaged ankle continues to heal. Walking is off the agenda at the moment.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Beach erosion at Clymping
Living in Valbonne, France; Monday, you go to the drawer containing the vital drugs required to keep you functioning and find to have run out. You ring up Dr Pat, who leaves you a prescription in his anti room. Result; you collect it 20 minutes later and within half an hour you are at the pharmacy and the drug alert is over. Living in Arundel: you go to that very same empty, but English drawer, and realise that you have forgotten to request a repeat prescription. You cycle to the surgery to deliver said request which takes 2 working days to be available. You cycle back on Wednesday to collect said prescription and deposit it at the pharmacy. You are asked to come back in an hour. You cycle back an hour later and are told that they do not have said drug in stock, but they expect it on Thursday. You go to London for work, lunch and drinking. On Friday you cycle to pharmacy to collect said drug, pharmacy informs you that there are supply issues with said medication, and ask you to return to surgery to ask for an alternative prescription. Receptionist at the surgery says she will ask a doctor and to come back tomorrow. Tomorrow is Saturday and surgery is closed for the weekend. Result, man suffers through lack of vital medication for a week and wistfully dreams of being back in France.
I would love to say that this scenario is a fabrication, but sadly it is all fact. I know you will think that such a healthy looking specimen as myself would never require drugs, and it is true, I do not, but these doctors do like to fuss. Anyway, I live (just) in hope that the problem will be solved on Monday. If I cannot hold out then may I take this opportunity to say that it has been a pleasure providing a platform for all you mad limericists and potential future Currencies Direct clients out there. I am humbled that so many of you feel moved to celebrate my daily musings with rhyme, and hope that one day, you will all need the foreign exchange services for which Currencies Direct are renowned.
Clymping beach after the recent storms
Saturday morning was spent lamenting the ridiculously cumbersome workings of the NHS, and nursing a febrile hangover acquired as a result of spending an evening with the beautiful, fiery and Mighty Omega, and James “Desperate Dan” the Landlord of the White Hart at the err… White Hart the night before. If I needed reminding of the many bottles of a cheeky St Emilion that we had consumed whilst chewing the cud of life, I was reminded as I mounted my bike for yet another abortive trip to the surgery when I encountered Terribly Tall Timothy Taylor outside the pub weighed down with empty bottles of said French nectar. He was complaining that the table at which we had sat, and the surrounding area, which had needed bleaching due to the amount of wine that had been spilled. I pointed out, rather testily , that I had not spilled any wine and that perhaps he should seek an explanation from his god and Landlord.
Amazingly, it did not rain much yesterday, although there were two fierce hail storms, so we went to Clymping Beach to see the destruction wreaked by the recent run of storms, as my picture shows. It was sufficiently sobering that we felt in need of something to offset that sobriety. The Holly Tree at Walberton was the pit stop on the way home, and an afternoon cap, inevitably at The White Hart should have been sufficient for anybody, so why was I dragged up to the most haunted pub in Britain, the Kings Arms for early doors yesterday evening?
Perhaps the reason was to show some solidarity with landlord Charlie Pistorius Malcolmson, who had suffered a fire upstairs at the pub the day before, but had manfully opened for business as usual.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Rain avoided by going to the pub
They say there is no such thing as a free lunch, but lunch on Thursday courtesy of Davenport Lyons in Covent Garden appeared to be a gesture from one’s lawyer, which is something that immediately a rouses suspicion. Profligate when it comes to charging out their time, on this occasion they were a little less generous when it comes to serving food. The first warning came at the introduction, when the assembled salivating, free-loading guests were told that the address by Hugh Tomlinson QC would take place after the main course and before desert. Those of you living in the south of France will have already noticed a grave omission; no entree. One gets 5 courses at the Auberge St Donat, but only two in the West End. Although the wine flowed freely (as long as one was able to catch the eyes of the waiters), food was at a premium. Two pieces of fish, the size of very small plums, albeit very nice fish, and 4 pieces of an indeterminate root vegetable comprised the main course, and a small portion of a similarly indeterminate crumble the second, adorned by a thimble full of custard. It was at Victoria Station at about 3.30 that the hunger pangs hit me and Ronald McDonald was the lucky recipient of my largesse. He kindly supplied me with a cheeseburger and chips to assuage my being.
My second banter Blog has been published on Onboard Online, and can be read by clicking on the highlighted text. Please do have your say at the bottom of the column, either in support or against. I shall know whether you are from the civilised south or the tundra strewn north depending upon your comment. Peachy Butterfield’s riposte should be published on the same page shortly.
Talking of comments; many will know that there is a feverish limerick writing coven inhabiting that section of this column. This morning, whilst lying in bed with a cup of tea, That Nice Lady Decorator took to reading some of the posts and some of the comments. I was pleased initially at taking an interest, although slightly concerned in case I have been rude about her recently, but that satisfaction was to be dealt a slap in the face for this columns author when she expressed the opinion that the material from other contributors was more interesting than that provided by its author.
Stormy seas at Brighton
Yesterday it rained. It has rained at some stage on all but two days since December 15th, exactly two months ago today. I have tried to ignore it, tried the SAD light, been to Tenerife for a week, been to Cannes for a weekend, watched some travel programmes but nothing, not even the benefits that can be bestowed by opening an account with Currencies Direct is working. The continual damp and the wet is getting to me. Thank goodness we are off to Barbados in a few weeks time. If I wasn’t already going for a 50th birthday celebration, I would have been booking some sunshine on-line today.
So, after a very wet dash to LA (Littlehampton to you non Arundel residents), getting wet, a dash into town and getting wet, we decided to go out for a lunchtime pint and get wet. The Bridge at Amberley for a halumi salad and fish cakes, plus a couple of pints, a siesta and I was ready for the annual ritual of opening the Valentines cards. I usually set aside a couple of hours to open the biggest ones, and, after unloading the pantechnican from the post office, decide where to place them all, then it was off to the White Hart where the new restaurant JAK is getting underway, of which more tomorrow.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Pooh sticks, a different view
One of the ignominious things that afflict you when you turn 60, apart from hair growing from places where it has no right to exist, and stubbornly refusing to grow in places it would be welcome, is that you get sent things like kits to screen you for bowel cancer. The general idea is very laudable, but when you look at the practicalities, the nasty reality emerges. At the age of 50, you suddenly get letters and offers from Saga, which is a shocking reality check, but reaching 60 is another big step towards to great abyss. I went along with the whole unpleasant bowel cancer (although some of my literary critics may suggest that I should be checked for vowel cancer) episode because it is worthy, but it is one of the least dignified activities in which I have ever been involved. In six decades of debauched rock and roll and ex-pat south of France living, that is saying something. The only episode that came close in terms of undignified was the “grot contest” in the early 1970’s; a group teenage dare to meet in a pub with the ugliest girl you could find on an evening out. This used to be a bit of fun at the Derby Arms in old Aylesbury when I was growing up. There was one poor girl known locally as The Mousse who was excluded, because if you turned up with her it was a walk over.
Anyway, I digress. I don’t want to be too graphic here but the cancer screening involves using a small cardboard stick, lovingly provided by the NHS, and smearing it with samples of your own faeces, and then posting the smeared depository off to the Bowel Cancer Screening unit. Please do not ask me to go into the exact mechanics. It took me about an hour to work out how best to achieve that. And who would be a postman? This whole (hole?) operation has to be done on three different days, and lovers of A A Milne will know of what I speak when I say that I shall never again be so enthralled by his concept of Pooh Sticks.
These are the green fields of Sussex, viewed from the train…
So on the way to the station to go to London on Currencies Direct business, I diverted via the Post Office to leave that little treat for Postman Pat, and caught the train to Victoria. First stop was the offices of Sony/ATV where an old pal is employed as Deputy Managing Director. He was once a lawyer so he has clearly worked his way into the real world pecking order. Having established that Currencies Direct is an obvious partner for this publishing house, it was off to meet with Al Yiddley in Covent Garden for lunch.
Davenport Lyons were staging a “publishers lunch” and I had mistakenly expected it to be rammed with crusty old music publishers, much like myself, but I suppose an address by Hugh Tomlinson QC, an expert on libel law, about the impact of the new Defamation act, should have alerted me to the fact that the publishers present were newspaper publishers, not music biz chaps like myself as I had hoped. Thus I found myself in close proximity to the legal eagles from The Guardian and Mirror Group Newspapers and the like. I did meet one chap worthy of comment. He moonlighted in a band with a name somewhere between the Doobie Brothers and the Dangerous Brothers. The Dubious Brothers (I like them on the strength of their name alone) are about to reform after 24 years for a reunion concert, and I for one want to be there.
Holding court in general, and on my table in particular, was Al Yiddley (not his real name) who I am about to engage to ensure that one of this columns resident limericists and widow of the late great song and comedy sketch writer Bryan Blackburn, receives her or his just deserts. “Welcome Home” he may once have said to Peters and Lee, and it is my duty to make sure that his royalties will be coming home soon.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Wind and vegetables; a link?
Wild West Wednesday they were calling it and it did not disappoint. Trees down, flooded roads, fields that were lakes and will be for months, and the wind. Best not talk about the wild wind.
You see on a 5:2 diet day, just about all you can eat is vegetables, and I don’t know about you but for me that creates wind of the most unpleasant type. A fresh spring breeze it is not. 600 calories can be taken in 4 decent glasses of a good Bordeaux, 4 pints of beer or, get this, 5 tablespoons of olive oil, so the only thing you can eat in bulk are vegetables. If you are an olive oil freak and cannot do without it, avoid this diet.
That Nice Lady Decorator has become particularly adept at finding interesting ways of serving a main meal using little more than swedes, carrots and broccoli, and very tasty these can be as well, but the fact is they are predominantly vegetables and with my constitution that makes me, quite reasonably, a pariah when it comes to close social contact. Actually, come to think if it, it does not eve have to be close.
A couple of birds together on the bridge at Arundel
There was another decent crop of limericks in yesterday’s column, and long may it be so. My coterie of followers are diligent in contributing original limericks based on the contents of this daily missive, and that does tempt me to write about certain things in a way that I hope and know will tickle their fancy (that is a typical turn of phrase which I expect will be seized upon), and so leads me into new areas. The most vibrant of these in the last week have revolved around cricket boxes, and although some of my regular contributors did not have the balls to publish, many grabbed the chance with both hands.
Today, assuming there still exists a functioning railway to London, I have important Currencies Direct business to attend to. A major corporation in the West End has called me into advise them on how best to deal with their foreign payments and receipts, and after sealing that deal, I shall be off to lunch in Covent Garden with my northern Jewish lawyer Al Yiddley (not his real name, and I cannot reveal what it is as he is a partner at respected law firm Davenport Lyons), who has invited me, probably at my expense, to join him for their Publishers Lunch. It is an excuse for all us crusty music publishers (yes, I still maintain a foothold in the music industry) to chew the cud of the music publishing world and at the same time eat and drink, nominally at my lawyers expense, until I get the bill, where I shall be looking closely any disbursements. There will also be an address by Hugh Tomlinson QC, about the new privacy laws which will be amusing and informative (I have been told).
So I shall be a London commuter for a day, (leaving directly after lunch of course, and am not looking forward to the travel. I am told that there is no longer the opportunity to take breakfast or afternoon tea and scones in the First Class compartment, and that in fact trains nowadays are predominantly comprised of Second Class carriages, a truly ghastly prospect. The last time one was a regular commuter one would usually battle through the smoke and steam from the engine to go to the front of the train to the driver and thank him for the journey.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
The Buzz of a cricket box
There was a predictably full response to my piece yesterday about the value of an abdominal protector, or cricket box when playing the finest game man has ever invented. Cricket practice at the Arundel Castle indoor cricket school was so much more relaxing once one has inserted the inverted soap dish into the trouser department so that it could carry out its vital work. The limericists who, with almost no encouragement from me, have made this column their home, had a field day with a very fine collection of limericks, all aimed at the testicles, a bit like a fast bowler will aim if irked.
The fact that my personal protector (each discerning cricketer has his own as sharing is not something a gentleman would contemplate, and I pretend to be a gentleman, especially if it comes down to borrowing one) is bright green also brought out the worst or best in some contributors, and was so popular, that it took the total number of hits on this website close to 130,000. Thus I feel duty bound to show a picture of the offending item today, mainly for my coterie of French readers who are fascinated and confused in equal measure about the game of cricket.
Thats Buzz on the right, sporting a very fine green cricket abdominal protector
Obviously, I had to purchase the extra-large size due to, well I think it must be obvious. I am a big chap with big prospects. The traditional colour of these boxes is white, but the only one they had in the store in my size was in a quite fetching, some may say virulent green. You can see it here, being modelled rather startlingly by Buzz Lightyear, in besides of some of my cricket trophies, which That Nice Lady Decorator has banned from the house (they now languish in my shed office on a shelf cluttered with other unwanted – by her – memories of earlier days. Note Woody, also from Toy Story, taking little interest on the left). As you can see it matches his plastic uniform perfectly. I think he might have made a cricketer. Too infinity and beyond!
With a sprained ankle, caused by leather soles slipping on the street last week in the eternal wet, keeping me from my usual march around the new bogs of Sussex, I took to my bike for some exercise and to see just how bad it is becoming, and also to decide where to build my ark. The rain is so unremitting that It is that or move abroad, in which case the services of Currencies Direct will be of enormous benefit to you. I would say I wished I was at my house in France, but it seems this pesky jet stream which is causing so much flood havoc in England, is having a similar, if less dramatic, influence in Provence. I trust that will have changed by mid April, when I intend to spend late spring and early summer in my house in the gorgeous village of Valbonne to dry out.
Last night then, as it was not a diet day, but a day of plenty, sandwiched (unfortunate description?) between two 5:2 diet days, we decided that a pint of beer early doors would be an agreeable way in which to build up strength for the trials and tribulations that will face us tomorrow. We therefore popped into The Swan for a pint of the best beer in the world, Fullers London Pride, before settling down to the roast chicken dinner that had been scheduled for Sunday afternoon, but was replaced by left over, warmed-up curry due to inability of That Nice Lady Drinker to coordinate sufficiently to pull it all together. I ate heartily knowing what will happen today.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Green cricket box causes amusement
There was a lot of rather ignorant tittle-tattle yesterday in the comments section of this inspired Currencies Direct inspired column about my use of the word “awry” in the headline “Sunday Plans go awry”. The English Dictionary definition of awry is “away from the usual or expected course” so I used the word rather than saying it wasn’t awright.
After the maelstrom of a weekend which was all great fun, it was back to the reality of a 5:2 diet day yesterday, so if you don’t mind, and frankly you have no choice, I will dwell on events that occurred over the weekend. It was a sensational three days, starting on Friday with a take away curry at the Kings Arms, then through Saturday evening for Thai food in Storrington ending up in the White Hart, and then Sunday lunchtime back in the Kings Arms, where we met some new and in some cases very poorly dressed individuals. It was all great fun, but all good things must come to an end, with then possible exception of that diet.
I have to remember these events due to the virtual nil by mouth regime that befell me again yesterday. The dream of food and strong drink is over powering when gruel is all that is on the menu. Good quality gruel, but I know how Oliver Twist must have felt.
An iconic tree on the periphery of Arundel Castle cricket ground.
Yesterday morning I went to Chichester to buy cricket gear. The Over 50’s, 60’s and 70’s cricket nets were taking place at the Arundel Castle Cricket indoor cricket school on the castle cricket grounds, featured in today’s photograph, and I needed some new cricket gear, having jettisoned mine when I retired to concentrate on golf about 10 years ago. It was a surprise that I could source cricket equipment in the middle of winter, and somewhat ironic to be thinking about returning to the cricket pitch when most of the country is under water. If it stops raining tomorrow, and according to the weather forecasts that is about as likely as Kevin Pietersen being asked to return to the English cricket team, then we might get to play by the end of June.
So armed with a new batting gloves, shiny new pads and a very trendy looking bat to go with my green box, at least I looked the part before being humiliated by a couple of 70 year olds, being bowled twice in a 25 minute net. I know that one of my dedicated French readers and limerick writers, of whom the lovely Winnie is one, who seem to have taken up literary residence in the comments section (some are very good if you get a chance to have a look), will want to know the relevance of a green box. The colour is of no consequence, except to my fellow cricketers, who derived a great deal of amusement when it fell out of my new cricket bag. It is what it does that counts. A cricket ball is five and a half ounces of rounded hardness that could do some serious damage if it were to make contact with ones wedding tackle (Actually I am getting into colloquial deep waters here, but stay with me). It is a cricketers description of an abdominal protector, basically a hard plastic soap dish type of construction designed to protect ones testicles. That other English colloquialism “the wedding tackle” has nothing to do with rugby, it is an expression that refers to, well… I am sure she will work it out.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Sunday plans go awry
It was a very sound plan. That Nice Lady Decorator had decreed that Sunday, that day of rest for all us non religious types, should be spent relaxing on the sofa, reading The Sunday Times in front of a roaring log fire in our old cottage in Arundel. The weather forecast was desperate, suggesting strong winds and rain, the staple diet of this winter in England, and what better antidote could there be to such a disgusting scenario? Anyway, she found one.
It had stated innocuously enough. We had driven over to West Chiltington to collect the Merc, having taxied back from our close encounter with Barry “Teddy Bear” King the night before, and had popped into the Roundabout Hotel for a restorative, but frankly quite poor, pint of Doom Bar prior to the planned lighting of the fire and settling down for a quiet afternoon ahead of a roast chicken dinner. She will insist on calling lunch dinner, but she spent a long time up north and still has some bad habits, but I forgive her. It was as we arrived home that the best laid plans began to unravel.
It was actually quite pleasant outside. There was no sign of the wind and rain with which we had been threatened, and so the Decorating Operative suggested, at complete variance to what she had said earlier, that we should pop down to the Kings Arms for a pint before retiring to our living room to implement plan A. It was a good plan, but sadly doomed to failure.
The Kings Arms in Arundel is all that you could ever want from a local pub on a Sunday lunch time. A collection of locals, none as yet Currencies Direct clients, from the widest range of backgrounds and ages, gathered together in a quintessential English social environment, to pay homage to beer, and keep an eye on the 6 Nations rugby match between France and Italy, (Ok I accept that this aspect is not entirely a part of a traditional English Sunday lunch). From 91-year-old David Goulding, DFC, a veteran of the Second World War, down (and I mean this in the most literal sense) to one Ian Porter, probably 60 years his junior, the age gap mattered not a jot. However, anyone entering such an environment who dares to make a dreadful fashion statement must accept the opprobrium that is that hallmark of English mickey taking.
Mr Porter, whom I had not met before, was wearing the most appalling trainers it has ever been my misfortune to tread on, deliberately. I have a picture of them today. Forget the laughably straight legged jeans, concentrate on the footwear.
No,no and no
This sartorial sin was compounded by his shirt. Now, when one is wearing a tie, as was our favourite local war hero, it is necessary that one does up the top button of ones shirt. There is no other occasion when this is either acceptable or desirable, Mr Porter begged to differ and had his shirt buttoned up to the top. Perhaps I should not have mimicked him in such a cruel way, and in retrospect I think it was unwise to draw attention to his faux pas in quite such a public fashion, i.e. by buttoning up my own shirt in a similarly disastrous fashion, but my sense of what is right and wrong was coursing through me, and I know when something is wrong. I did not look beneath his rather trendy jacket but I have a sneaking suspicion that his underpants would have been visible above his trouser line. His one saving grave was that he was accompanied by his rather gorgeous wife Jane (?), well, whatever she was called is good by me.
Also in attendance was flame haired siren, the lovely red-headed Carolyn, who insisted on ruining a good pint of beer by adding lemonade to it, so in terms of good taste, she had a good companion in Mr Porter. Anyway, at about 5pm, and having adjourned to the White Hart for a pit stop on the way home, I was looking forward to the promised chicken lunch (dinner) but, by now, something as technical as that was beyond the capabilities of That Nice Lady Decorator, so we had warmed up curry left overs, and very delicious they were too.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Beer is medicine; the proof
Yesterday morning, I was feeling dreadful after far too much wine, curry and beer the night before at The Kings Arms in Arundel. I was feeling somewhere between whinging and moaning. Some may have said I was minging. It had been a great evening, enlivened by a number of locals, and I was not alone in over imbibing, in fact I had to pour the beautiful and Mighty Omega into a cab as she was incapable of walking the 300 yards back to her weekend home, the White Hart. Any suggestion that it was I that required motorised transport will be hearing from my lawyers Mssrs. Lye, Shout and Deny.
Thus yesterday morning I was suffering and that theme continued through the day. I tried a long walk across the sodden Sussex countryside from where I took total days photograph, but that did not work. Even some diligent graft in connection with Currencies Direct which is normally enough to lift anyone’s spirits did not improve the situation. Paracetamol was applied but again, without discernible benefit. As a result I was not in my usual ebullient mood when we popped into the White Hart for a quick beer before leaving, and a brief look at the 6 Nations rugby match between England and Scotland. Here I must extol the virtues of beer as a medicine. A pint of Harvey’s and I was back to my normal bouncy self and, as horse racing followers (which include the Reverend Jeff) might say, I was ready for the off.
Looking from the back of the Arundel Castle cricket ground over the flooded Sussex countryside
We were heading up to Storrington for a Thai meal at a restaurant called Thirteen Church Street, which I understand is cunningly named after the number and the street in which it is situated. This did not seem so clear to some.
We were meeting up with Barry “Teddy Bear” King and his son. Barry is now to be known as “Teddy Bear” in this column in deference to his position as the publisher of that most vital of magazines, Teddy Bear Times. His son Alex, will now be known as “Son Of Teddy Bear”. You may consider that this is a bit obvious but let me explain why. We were talking about the (very fine and quite tiny) restaurant in which we were dining and Son Of Teddy Bear, admittedly after the second bottle of wine had disappeared, commented that he thought its name, Thirteen Church Street, might be a reference to the number of covers it had. A quick scan of the interior showed that there was seating for more than 20. He has some financial/accountancy background so clearly cannot count, but he seemed surprised when I pointed out that the restaurant was in Church Street Storrington, at number 13 in fact. So I decided that he needed a very obvious epithet that he could not misinterpret. Anyway, he is far too young to read this column.
It was a very fine meal, after which we adjourned to Teddy Bears house and gave his wine rack a very serious going over. After several more quite agreeable bottles of Rioja and even some Italian, I began to lose the will to live and, as I am want to do and renowned in some circles, went to sleep for an hour or so until the taxi came. It seems that the going to sleep bit is not as remarkable as for my ability to drop off mid sentence. It is not an ability of which I am proud, but it does at least elicit some amusement.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Low tide Mark
If any of you could ever be bothered to look in the Oxford English Dictionary, you may know that there is a verb which means”to emit gas from ones anus”. In other words, it is now entirely respectable to fart in public. In pursuit of respectability, I have become an expert in this area and am proud of my achievements in this gaseous and underrated sport, or perhaps pastime might be more accurate,?
We had lunched well at the Crown Inn at Chiddingfold with Mr and Mrs Clipboard, that is the rather lovely Ashley and the rather less lovely Mark, and to a man (and a woman) we had decided on the lamb shank. Lamb often has the most peculiar gaseous effect on my bowels. I have this wonderful ability to be able to clear vast areas with just a single toot.
Over lunch, discussions were centred on Cuba. We have been lucky enough to spend 10 days in Havana, and the Clipboards were keen to garner some information before their first visit shortly. After the negotiation about how many and what marque (Mark or marque; did you see what I did there?) of cigar he should bring back for me, the usual reminiscences began. The wonderful Ashley talked us through an event that happened a few years ago at a restaurant in the south of France. Restaurants down there tend to be much more doggy friendly than in the UK, flouting all manner of silly health and safety rules that are rigorously enforced here. Ashley had a furry handbag and had placed it under the table during lunch. The waiter appeared a few moments later with a bowl of water, mistaking said handbag for one of those annoying silly little dogs that the French love so much. You know the sort of things, not enough meat for a decent sandwich.
Almost inevitably there was talk of the 5:2 diet. I say inevitable because contented Currencies Direct client Mr Clipboard has rather to many pages on his clipboard if you get my drift, and the gloriously slim Ashley is understandably concerned about living with a fat blob. The results of a (less than keen) adherence to it were plain to see as I now resemble a whippet compared to the shape I was when I left France in October. Mr Clipboard is less than enthusiastic about commencing such a regime and suggested that perhaps he should start on. 6:1. He said that a friend had tried it but it did not work, but when pressed about what happened, said he suspected that his friends interpretation of the diet was to have five drinks and then use two fingers down the throat to throw up.
The beach at Elmer Sands
Before lunch, we had ventured over to Elmer Sands to see what, if any, effect the recent storms had wreaked on the coastline and I have to say it was quite shocking with over 30 metres of land eroded in places, despite the huge mounds of rocks places below the low tide mark, presumably to impede the action of the sea.
Tonight we are scheduled to go to a Thai restaurant in Storrington early doors. I think it is called 13 Church Street, but I am not sure how we are going to find it. We are meeting up with old pal and mover and shaker in the fascinating works of dolls houses and teddy bears. He is the publisher of that must have publication Dolls House World and some monthly magazine about Teddy Bears. And he will be getting his customary hard time about not having a proper job.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Moustache envy
The skip is gone, and with it the smell. I had been referring to the family 4×4 as the skip for some years as it was always full of rubbish and smelled of dog. One particularly smelly dog. That Nice Lady Decorator now has a new car, or rather a slightly newer one. The smelly old 4×4 has been part exchanged for a shiny smart and soon to be smelly newer 4×4 which, once Banjo, that infernal hound owned by the Decorating operative gets to work on it, will swiftly and surely become Smelly Skip II. Actually that sounds a bit like a Hollywood blockbuster. The newer soon-to-be-smelly skip has a special plastic base in the back, designed to impede creeping odours of all kinds but she underestimates that aromatic hounds’ ability to make anything with which he comes into contact wreak almost overnight. I give it a week before it gets the first Fabrese treatment.
The Reverend Jeff, a leading limericist in the comments section of this column (dedicated to explaining all the benefits of opening an account with Currencies Direct for all your foreign exchange transfers) made a good (or a god?) point about yesterday’s missive in which I missed a good joke about the irony of drinking Doom Bar at a wake. I told him I would nick it and I have. More and more limericks are appearing daily and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it, but as long as the occasional contributor becomes a Currencies Direct client, I will be content.
After collecting the new transport, and battling through the interminable rain to and then from Guildford, we arrived home to a pile of chewed up cardboard. The disaster dog is getting worse. This time it was a cardboard centre from a toilet roll. Clearly, he had not been able to reach the rubbish bin, now conveniently placed on top of the cooker when we go out, in a so far successful attempt to keep the horrid hound out of it.
Mr Clipboard tries on a moustache and I think it suits him
Today to celebrate the fact that we have completed the two days of fasting called for on the 5:2 diet, we shall journey to Chiddingfold to lunch with a man who could really do with a 7:7 diet. Mr Clipboard will be accompanied by his much easier on the eye blonde bombshell of a wife, Ashley and lunch will be taken this time at The Crown Inn. I don’t know why we are not going to the Swan Inn as it was superb on the previous two occasions we had visited, but as you will know, these decisions are seldom left to the men.
I am intrigued by his clear moustache envy. He had previously shown himself jealous of my long beard by orchestrating its removal some two years ago by a coterie of public school types, in a restaurant accident in the south of France. I think it must be his almost complete lack of hair in the places he would want it, and a surfeit of hair in places where he certainly would not want it that drives him in. I am talking the back, the nose, the ears and in the backs of his hands as they drag along the gutter. I know he only reads this column when he thinks he will be in it, so as we are seeing him today I did not want to disappoint him.
Then it will be the weekend and who knows what trouble lies ahead. On a need to know basis, I do not apparently need to know. So I don’t know what I don’t know. What i do know is that Peachy Butterfields northern banter blog for Onboard-Online has been published
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
Pretty in pink
What is going on with the weather in the UK? We must have had three storms a week since mid December, and there seems to be no end in sight with the same pattern continuing for the next fortnight at least.
I suppose there is a parallel in my life. Like I yearn for some sunshine and calmness, I yearn for a few days when I am not scheduled to drink and party. I mean we went a funeral yesterday and that turned into a party (it is what she would have wanted). You might be excused for thinking that a funeral is a sombre occasionally, as indeed it was, but the furious dedication to consume alcohol exhibited by those attending the wake had to be seen to be believed. I joined in for a couple of pints of Doom Bar, but as I was driving, saved myself for later at the launch JAK, the new restaurant at The White Hart in Arundel. I don’t suppose I am alone in hating funerals, but when I go, apart from getting everyone not to wear black, I do not want tears, unless they are tears of joy at my departure.
The lovely saintly Anne King, to whom we were saying good-bye at the Worthing Crematorium, had also asked for no one to wear black, but to wear something pink instead. I had dug out a light grey silk suit which I had hand-made in Hong Kong about 20 years ago, found a pink shirt, a pink tie and some pink reading glasses, which, together with my real crocodile (effect) shoes, made me the epitome of sartorial elegance, or so I thought. There was no time to change before going to the pub so I went as I was.
The beach at Clymping yesterday between storms
I think it was the beautiful flame haired siren Carolyn who was the first to laugh, but she was by no means alone. I will be having words with Nearly Hairless Nick. Some people just do not see class when it is right in front of them. I am sticking to my guns here, I know I looked good, especially as my wonderful waxed Dali like moustache was in peak condition and set off what I was wearing. I did not much care for the chorus of “Go compare”, a reference I think to a popular TV advert in the UK which features a large male opera singer with an unfeasibly large moustache, although I was touched by a charming French lady at the funeral who told me she reminded her of Hercule Poirot.
Anyway, I digress. I began by alluding to my desire for good weather and a few days off the social bandwagon. There appears to be no chance of the weather improving but I thought I saw a window of opportunity to have a few quiet days starting today, but now it appears we are committed to getting hog-whimperingly drunk tonight with Barry King and sons, who have just lost a wife and mother respectively. Don’t get me wrong, I am now looking forward to it, but a day off in between would have been good. What am I saying? I must be getting old.
Before that I need something to restore my equilibrium and that is normally done by diligent concentration on my work promoting the services of Currencies Direct, and attending to my now slightly smaller music business empire. Today will be no different. The good news is that the 5:2 diet day scheduled for today has been postponed. What the hell? There are 7 days in a week. I am sure That Nice Lady Decorator will find another one that fits.
Chris France
@Valbonne_News
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