Dyslexia rules, KO

Oh what a summer? Too hot, too dry, too long – I could complain, or even gloat, compared to the rubbish one that Britain has endured, especially my poor holiday-makers in our Scottish cottage. As usual, this year ours has been spiced up by a large number of guests sharing our house/pool/fridge/dinner table for a month or two. Also we have a new addition to keep us entertained: a ginger-ninja with the body of a small stripy kitten and the mind of a criminal genius. We have named him Outspan – a joke which is lost on anyone under 45 – and I have to say he is quite a character, as he torments anything and everything, much to the discomfort of the dogs. Right now he is even helping me type this page, which is enormously unhelpful! However, he is not the only orange striped menace around this year, as we seem to be plagued with aggressive wasps, each and every one of them hell-bent on attacking me at every opportunity. It was just a year ago that I discovered that I was actually allergic to wasp stings, after an encounter with a nest of them inside the bars of our gate. Since that rather uncomfortable time where my arm swelled up, went black, and itched for a fortnight, I have made strides to avoid a repeat incident. Except this year, it seems I can run but not hide as I have had no less than six stings which has sent me queuing for the doctors surgery so many times I am pretty sure I am now on her Christmas card list! In an attempt to rid us of the pests, I have sought out their ghettos and blasted them with high-octane fuel, something which not only renders them homeless but aggravates them a tad. Maybe the survivors of these haulocausts have good memories as their scouts track me down in revenge for such genocide. With a change of tack, I seek out advice from google on how else to deal with the problem which brings me neatly round to another pet hate of mine – that of people posting videos on Youtube about how to do DIY, when they are about as qualified to lecture on the subject as Bin Laden chairing a meeting on world peace. ‘Hello, my name is John, welcome to my workshop --!moves camera around a tiny basement full of shiny unused cheap tools--! Today I am going to show you how to make a wasp trap out of a plastic milk carton and some string...’ He then proceeds to waffle on in a monotone for about twenty minutes as I glaze over with ennui. In the end I just played the video near to the wasps nest and I am sure 3000 of them all died of boredom!        

And here’s a very tenuous link: Cricket = Boredom. Well maybe sometimes it does, but we have to hail the prowess of the England team and their instant dismissal of Michael Clarke’s Ozzys. Did you see the 4^th test at Trent Bridge? No, nor did I as I blinked and it was gone. In fact it went by so fast I thought I was watching the highlights – with more ducks on display than fairground shooting gallery. What an anti climax if you had bought tickets to occasionally snooze through four days of the sound leather on willow, only to be in the pub by lunchtime on day 2. Honesty, I have seen longer darts matches! And then, just a few weeks previous, we got the opposite, as we rented out our cottage near St Andrews for The Open, only for it to rain so hard for 2 days that even the seagulls were wearing souwesters. I really felt for the 7 guys who had paid over the odds for tickets and accommodation only to have the final day of play run into a working Monday. Ever the entrepreneur, I did offer them the house for an extra day at a reasonable rate, were they able to throw a sickie, but they declined and went home to dry their underwear in the warm south. As it happens, a couple of mates of mine, encouraged by the fact that final day tickets, normally a couple of hundred quid a go, were on sale for just a tenner, got a free bed for the night thrown in. Bargain. 

Anyway, that rain would certainly be welcome here in France just now to green up this dustbowl and give the sheep something to eat other than my neighbours maize. It’s been like Escape from Colidtz here as they continually find ways to get through the electrified fence to quell their hunger. Having said that, we did put a couple ‘away’ last week and I was surprised how well they had done this year considering how dry it has been. It proves a fact that, not many animals enjoy rainy days – with the possible exception of the Australian cricket team!

As with anywhere else in the world, the hot weather does tempt out the human flesh but this year has been particularly disturbing in France, whose latest fashion craze is to wear tight t-shirts with incomprehensible English slogans on them. I swear, everywhere you look there are girls wondering around sporting baffling things like ‘shopping is my hamster’ or ‘life, spaghetti, elephant!’ How on earth did that become cool? It’s like listening Boris Johnson with dyslexia! My only guess is the manufacturers of such garments must have used google-translate – that incompetent software application that makes up more rubbish than the Daily Mail. Well, in the interests of appearing youthful and hip, I have decided to get the felt-marker out and run up a few of my own. On a farming note I quite like, ‘Eat sheep and be merry!’ I also came up with ‘Keep calm, unless you are actually a certified f**king psychopathic killer!’ which appeared to upset a few people, especially when I was down the cutlery aisle in Intermarche. ‘If you can’t stand the heat – move to Scotland’ is not so much of a slogan as a statement.  As is ‘Football is a load of balls!’ But my favourite has to be: ‘Donald Trump – you are joking, right?’

Incidentally, if dyslexia is a condition for people who have trouble reading – why is it so difficult to spell?

Wont get fooled again!

I make no apologies that I rarely seem to be at home these days as I say a completely unashamed hello from a sunny beach. Today the temperature is somewhere into record-breaking territory, although thankfully the sea breeze is lending a helping hand to cool the sausages. Maybe I should explain that last remark.  Just when all the heavy work was swinging along nicely and the new Scottish house completed in the nic of time last month, muggins here gets home and then manages to fall off a chair while changing the battery on the kitchen clock. Well, I didn’t so much fall off it, as it collapsed, concertinaing inwards and trapping both my feet. The end result was no less than 3 broken toes, two on my right foot and the big useful one on my left, leaving me pretty much crippled for a couple of weeks. Fortunately the time coincided with our hols, so it was not a complete disaster, as I sit with my feet in the Atlantic, avoiding the posing surfers and sun-tanned beauties who frequent these shores. Unfortunately, as soon as said pedes leave the comforts of the cool waters, everything below the ankle swells up like a boiled haggis and it is all quite painful.  Thankfully my wife is doing all the driving and, with the aid of her grandmother’s old walking stick, I can shuffle in and out of some of France’s finest eateries, unaided. Despite our apartment being right on a gorgeous golf course, there will be no chasing after a small bouncing ball for me for a month or two which is a bit of a blow.

No, sport of all kinds will be confined to viewing on TV this summer, which includes golf, cricket and, of course Wimbers. On that note, is it just me or are tennis players getting taller? I have met a number of people from the Eastern Block and they are all a similar height to myself. So where did all these giants come from? One bloke is so tall they can barely close the roof on Centre Court! Does anyone else consider this endless stream of 6 foot blonde leggy Russian girls as slightly suspicious, and that maybe that nice Mister Putin has been running his own ‘Lebensborn’ experiment to create a modern-day Aryan master race, just so he can keep the silver salver on his mantelpiece. You read it here first…

Anyway, it all spices up the day for a temporary cripple like myself, although perhaps I should double up the dose of blood pressure tablets! C’est la vie. One thing I can verify, the older we get, the harder we fall – a fact that my knees constantly remind me of.

With too much time on my hands, I start to question when did this young mind find its way into such an aged body? This must be a question that many a philosopher has asked over the last million years or so, only to find that the longer you take to consider the answer, the faster the whole process accelerates. To quote the dearly departed Terry Pratchett (whose final book I have been imbibing during this trip) ‘Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened!’

Anyway, in this instance, the reference to ageing is all about music. This week, on an evening in my favourite bar in the world, a group of youngsters are having a party. I can tell it is a party because they are all badly dressed, the music is turned up, the walls are vibrating and people are drinking stuff that looks like something my chemistry teacher would have dreamt up after a night on the sauce. Wendy and I are possibly a combined age of all of the other collective ‘in da house’. Yet within minutes my feet start tapping and I would happily get up and dance to this incomprehensible sound, were it that I had some unbroken feet to use for such a purpose. Mercifully, to my wife anyway, I save us the embarrassment, on medical grounds.

You see, dance parties, and particularly festivals, are for young people and generally, that is how it should stay. From the time I was ten, I really didn’t feel comfortable about strutting my stuff when older folks were around. So why now do rock festivals still insist on headlining bands from five decades ago? At Glastonbury, The Who still bang on about ‘my generation’ as though they were all 19 year olds with attitude, when they are so geriatric that none of the surviving members of the band would even be permitted to ride a bus unaccompanied, let alone a Lambretta. ‘My operation’ would be perhaps more appropriate! Fifty years have gone by since they made that rebellious and oh-so ironic statement of ‘I hope I die before I get old’, flicking the v’s of disrespect to the septuagenarians of the war years. 1979 was the last time I went to Glasto in the farm Landrover, sleeping in the back in a field, and venturing out at midday to see a few good bands of the time, such as Genesis and Hawkwind. I very much doubt I would have made the trip, if my Dad had come along to wave his flag and jive to Irvine Berlin and Jimmy Shand, while David Jacobs did the intros! Then, in between the old has-beens are slotted some bemused talentless pubescent boy-bands who believe they invented sex and flared trousers or, even worse, some half-dressed teenage harlots whose acts do more to encourage under-age sex than a prison full of BBC presenters! But the one that really got me at this year’s event was a hybrid between a reasonably well known recent band and those two very strange brothers from 1975 called Sparks (yes, him with the Hitler moustache!). Aptly named FFS, this car-crash of a band must have been the biggest mismatch since Michael Jackson married his pet monkey. ‘Won’t get fooled again?’ You bet I won’t FFS!

Scottish assembly

Well, yet again I pen this short column from 35,000 feet as we head back to Scotland once more via the splendour that is Ryanair, sandwiched between sweaty Frenchmen in suspicious overcoats and small sunburned children with earache and attitude! Oh how I miss travelling business class… It has been quite a difficult trip to judge, as we leave 37 degree heat in France for something that may hopefully be above double figures in Fife. After continually grumbling about the weather this year, I can report we have had a nice month, weather-wise, much to the delights of both my sons who have visited and had their feet in the pool. Possibly the daftest thing I have done in a while, along with my eldest son, Sam, was to build a 4 foot pizza oven on the back terrace, over a three day period when the sun was so hot we could have quite successfully cooked pizza and chips on the slabs around the swimming pool, which were certainly uncomfortable to walk on. But on we toiled, first building a concrete platform, then a giant sand-castle which we covered in ceramic bricks and cement, before finally removing the sand and crossing our fingers that it didn’t collapse faster than a house of cheap playing cards. This morning, before we left, we ceremoniously lit a fire in it and ran up a full English, albeit a little on the smoky sausage side. The whole idea was inspired by a TV programme I watched about Argentina where it appears that it is near illegal to eat anything other than beef scorched over flaming coals.  I have to say, as a self confessed bodger builder, I am quite proud of my effort, despite me not even liking pizza!

On a tenuously linked foody subject, often in this column I bring attention to the ridicules of French governmental decisions which are so far beyond comprehension that they are just tail lights through the fog. So, keeping with tradition, let me highlight yet another. France has just made it illegal to throw away edible food. No, hang on a minute, on the face of it, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. So let’s take a little look at this new ruling and its purpose.  Seemingly there are a lot of starving poor people in the nation, and not all the rich folk can manage to eat everything on the shelf in LeClerc before it goes out of date, to the tune of 7.4 million tons of it. ‘So,’ says an unusually unanimous government,’ let’s do the sensible thing and give all the out of date food to the poor. I am sure they love 3 week old chicken. What could possibly go wrong?’ Is it me, or does this sound about as risky as poking your index finger into a socket to see if it is live? If I was to detect something fishy here I might suggest that perhaps some pharmaceutical giant might be working on a cure for salmonella, back handed by the same government? Either that, or they will have to build more hospitals!

Earlier in the month, between the two visitors, Wendy and I managed to shoe-horn in a weekend in the Bay of Biscay in our favourite little spot just south of Biarritz. A couple of days dining on fish so fresh it was still smiling, and a quick round of golf, has whet both our appetites enough to return again, once I get this latest purgatoric trip out of the way. Hopefully, after two weeks of tiling, painting and furnishing, this should be the concluding part of my little house renovation project, and one that will bear fruit in the near foreseeable as we catch the summer holiday rental season in East Fife. It is my intention to spend the surplus ill-gotten gains on some Atlantic oysters and a bottle of the finest wine known to humanity!  To those unaware of this extreme corner of France, Biarritz is one of the most magnificent cities in Europe, underpinned by being favoured as a regular holiday destination of Queen Victoria herself, who, along with her husband, seems to have named every park, street and even car-park after herself. No seventies flat roofed low rise here, with every building resembling a French chateau, if not a palace. Unlike the Med, the rougher seas of the Atlantic coast boasts some fairly hefty waves that are non-friendly to young families, making the inhabitants a mixture of wealthy middle aged French ladies with too much money and beatnik surfer dudes with none at all. Yet somehow, the place just works and I have to say, despite me being neither, I can feel myself drawn in by its charm.

Finally, as I sit crammed into a seat made for slim people I get chatting to the girl next to me, as she is clutching a rugby ball, and a silver trophy. On further investigation there are a number of other young ladies also clad in tracksuits and around me it transpires that this is none other than the Caithness girls rugby team, on tour. Having spent some time in Caithness in my younger days and, more recently, being married to a girl with family from that area, I have to say I am somewhat terrified. Whilst catching a mountain sheep with one hand, diving for lobster in the icy waters in a bikini or throwing large rocks over goalposts may seem a pastime for the mentally insane, it is this very grounding that gives these lassies the genetic make-up that would send the fear of god into an All Blacks national side, let alone some poor slight French schoolgirls in chic shorts and a selfless love of ponies. However, despite winning the tournament by a fair margin, these hardy land-girls complained that the weather was far too hot and they couldn’t wait to get home to some familiar squally showers and a plate of mince and tatties!  

An addendum: with permission from the recently sun-tanned editor, this column is actually finished off  a few weeks later, while resting my weary knees on the Ektorb, sitting on the Wrorstob with my feet up on the Elkatort, all of which ache like a miner’s elbow! Yes, against all my wishes, I have made that intrepid pilgrimage to Ikea, without which no holiday home would be complete. I will admit I am still twitching after 4 hours in the godforsaken giant Swedish shed but, with helpful assembling skills from an unsuspecting visiting friend, the house looks almost habitable. The final 2 weeks of painting,  polishing and positioning have pushed me a long way outwith my comfort zones, as I do my best to provide relaxing surroundings for guests who may shortly be queuing up to rent this - though I say it myself - rather swish home-by-the-sea in East Neuk. It has been an interesting journey over the past 6 months, in a village that has only just discovered round tea-bags, let alone the internet, but one where the pace of life still lives in an age when people are polite, shops close at 5pm and nobody is in a desperate hurry to be in front of anyone else.  In other words, the ideal destination for a UK holiday!  This weekend, I will return to a similar environment, with identical values, only a few thousand miles south with a bit more sunshine, for a well earned rest.

Royal Baby Potato

As the swingometer is wiped down and put back in its box for another 5 years and the country resigns itself to lengthy spell of blue rule, green is definitely the colour of the day here in Chauffour. This month nature has taken a very firm grip of everything that grows, propelling it toward the sky with haste until the garden resembles a Borneo rain forest. After a three week absence, my return to France this week has been one of even more physical work than I left behind in Scotland. I have to say it was pleasant to see my wife again, complete with a pair of great tits, in the nesting box by the front door!

For all it totally disinterests me, I suppose I should give the election a mention, if only to congratulate Mark Garner on his Westminster seat. But what the heck were the opinion polls all doing? I mean, had they asked all the wrong people, to get their predictions so far out? Or maybe everyone they asked had been lying, or changed their mind last minute? All smells a bit fishy, if you ask me, especially in Scotland where the Sturgeon pulled down the red flag. I think I could have successfully predicted that one, but seemingly all the super intelligence of the media had no idea Labour would be toast North of the Border. Anyway, enough of politics, of which I think we are probably all bored now.  However, I do have to question the absurdity of some of the rules that the government puts in place to save ourselves from ourselves. The other day I walked into a shop to purchase a pack of cigarettes for a friend, only to be treated like a 10 year old. It appears that I am no longer able to view the packets on the shelf in case I instantly contract a lethal lung disease. ‘What sort do you want?’ asked the bored Cyclops behind the counter. ‘Urrh, not sure. Can I have a quick look, and then I will recognise which ones they are by the colour of the packet.’ This draws a venomous response. ‘NO. You are not allowed to SEE the cigarettes.’  ‘But you will have to open the cupboard to get them out, so when you open the door I can make a decision?’ I might as well have asked to see her underwear, such was the preposterousness of my request. Whoever came up with such ludicrous nanny-state nonsense?

A day later I am grabbing some quick shopping from the Co-op and chuck a cheeky bottle of Chardonnay in my basket only to be confronted at the till by the error of my unhealthy ways. ‘Not allowed to sell alcohol before 10am, sir.’ WTF? I am not going to drink it till this evening. ‘Sorry sir, it’s the rules.’ Despite it being nearly 9.45am, I had to leave the shop dry handed, to save me from my alcoholism! Is stopping people buying booze before breakfast really going to help Scotland over its drinking issues? Lifemeddlers, please stop.

By the way, ‘lifemeddler’ isn’t a real word yet, but I am running it in for the NEW Oxford Dictionary who update their good book a few times per year.  Sad though I may be, I do like to peruse their lists to see what’s new in the world of words, if only to confuse my spell-checker. This spring I particularly like Floordrobe, a form of hanging up your clothes by throwing them to the carpet! Others include Unrecyclable, something so dangerous that it will bring the world to an end, Unriveted and Unpunched! One assumes the latter may have something to do with not yet having met Jeremy Clarkson!

When we returned to France in March, I couldn’t help noticing that our friendly local speed camera had been removed. Oh joy, one less hazard to encounter when I pop out for a loaf of bread. Well, I am pained to announce that a new one has been erected in its place, possibly one which works. Except, it no longer does as, within 2 days of its installation, someone has already defaced it by spraying the lens blue! See, this is what the French think of laws that they don’t agree with. The latest news is that they are now going to install a camera to watch the camera and maybe catch the culprit and his aerosol can in action. Mind you, if he any common sense he will manage to overcome that little obstacle with yet more paint, in his vendetta against the ruling classes.

Nearer home, since the aforementioned lengthy wet spell, I can openly admit that this year I have an excellent, if not prize-winning crop of potatoes. Although I am not an aficionado on the pomme de terre, I am aware of a number of varieties which do well in our soil, among them the Balmoral, Queen Royal and the King Edward.  Yes, it is a pure coincidence that these all have Royal connections but it is commonly known, to most farmers anyway, that The Royal Family has often shared naming conventions with tubers, as it does with roses. What is perhaps the biggest coincidence, to me anyway, is that by far the best suited tatty to my garden is named Charlotte. I wonder if the right royal couple considered that one while picking names out of the upturned crown?

Flye Maybe?

Welcome to Flye Maybe, the world’s most inefficient airline. Please stand in a queue for an hour while we totally ignore you, before looking vacantly at your checkin details for 10 minutes, while holding a conversation with our colleagues in the next booth, by telephone.   Eventually we will press a few random buttons on the PC keyboard and hope to get a boarding pass printed out that will take you somewhere.  This may take some time.

You will now need to run like the wind to gate 472 to ensure you make your flight. Once you get to the departure lounge, you can stand up for a further 30 minutes while we work out firstly how to open the doors and then which aircraft you might be on.

Once on board, we will walk importantly up and down the aisle killing time while the pilot finds out what all the controls do, checking the manual, and Google. We might then glance at a few random boarding passes to make sure you are on the correct flight – don’t build up your hopes. Warsaw is lovely this time of year, stop complaining.

We would consider apologising for the hour and a half delay for this departure but, to be honest couldn’t give a monkey’s testicle, as we still get paid whether you get there on time or not. Statistically you are more likely to perish in an air crash than to land on time with Flye Maybe.

If you require anything other than a venomous glare whilst on board, please press the buzzer above your head, so that we can ignore it. About three minutes before we land, we will pass through the cabin with a trolley full of grossly overpriced snacks, none of which are in the slightest bit edible. Warm beer and gin will also be available but please don’t ask for ice, this is an aircraft, not a night club.  Scolding hot drinks can be ordered, so you can burn your hands and lips to blisters. Incidentally, nothing that we sell bears the remotest resemblance to the pictures in the menu which can be found in the seat pocket in front of you. If you do require something from the menu, we will have run out of it weeks ago. Should you wish to pay in euros, our appalling exchange rate would bring the World Bank to its knees. We can also offer you a range of knocked-off perfumes at highly inflated prices, should you have been imbecilic enough to have yours confiscated at airport security.

For your inconvenience, we will be flying through turbulence for the entire journey. Take a look at those wings shaking outside the window. Crazy, isn’t it? You will find a sick-bag under your seat, possibly still full from the last passenger who sat in your place. You may also find other interesting things under your seat, for which we take no responsibility whatsoever. The cleaners only come round every second Tuesday.

Please use the minuscule toilets during your flight as they are fitted with cameras so we can have a laugh at you pissing all down your trouser leg, or attempting to sit on the wet seat as the captain weaves between the clouds pretending to be Hans Solo in Star Wars II.

Also for you maximum discomfort, above your head you will feel a constant blast of warm air that will eventually dry your eyes to dust and give you excruciating earache. These devices cannot be switched off. To take your mind off the worrying noise coming from under the aircraft, why not have a look through out dog-eared magazine which contains endless drivel about destinations you are highly unlikely to visit, as well as a list of randomly useless gifts to commemorate your journey. By the way, the pilot is pretty certain the rattling sound is coming from a loose bearing that may get tightened up in a few weeks when we next get an overnight stop in Romania, as they are the only mechanics who will work at our patronising hourly rate.

If you have younger members with you on your flight why not play a game taking a look out of the window to try and work out where we are. We sure as hell haven’t a clue.

Finally, we would ask you to sit back, grip the armrests until your knuckles go blue and pray silently. If we do happen to crash, Flye Maybe takes zero responsibly for your welfare, as we are the ones sitting nearest the door. Please check our website for a list of legal disclaimers so long you would die of old age before your read it all.

In the event that you do arrive at the correct destination, Flye Maybe hopes that you had nothing too precious in your luggage which is now dumped on a runway in East Africa. Your best hope of seeing your belongings again is to keep an eye on ebay. You never know, you might be able to buy them back for a very reasonable price! Keep a look out for your confiscated perfume too - selling your toiletries contributes enormously to our pension scheme.

The Master Race

How come when you buy an electrical appliance in UK you get instructions in German, Russian, Mandarin and 3 dialects of Arabic, yet trying buying a new phone in France and you get, er French. That’s it, nothing more, unless, of course you phone a premium helpline, which is also in French. I will admit, after 8 years living in France my language skills should be better than they are but generally I can get by ordering plasterboard, concrete and food – but the Livret Utilisateur (instruction manual) may as well be in Gaelic. For all I know, it possibly is! To be fair, it is not just a new phone but a complete internet system with satellite dishes, routers and modems all making baffling beeping sounds, and doing bugger-all. Anyone within 2 miles of Chauffour may have heard a few more beeping sounds, coming from me, as I tried to configure the whole charade – all in a effort to get a usable connection to the cyberworld, rather than the lamentable service we have at present, which is little faster than the old dial-up.

Anyway, this month in France is always an endless chore of battling with the overgrown garden, roof repairs and academic workload, prior to summer. A new swimming pool pump has also added another 500 euros to the cost, something else which had me scratching my head as I converted 3 phase to mono and 60mm fittings to 45mm. Why aren’t things standard anymore. I blame, er, the French…

Today is my first, and possibly last, day off this year, while I sit in the sunshine, trying to relax with a spot of Marler and a Pimms, as summer has well and truly arrived a few weeks early. Forecasters tell me to expect some soaring temperatures and inferno-esque days for the next week or two. Typical, as we are just heading back to UK. This latest trip is for more renovation work on the cottage in East Fife, taking in a couple of days at the World Snooker championships en-route. Keep an eye out for me during the semi final at the Crucible – I will be the one asleep in the third row!

When I get back, tired and thirsty, in mid May, the house will be full of guests and doubtfully dry, as they all huddle by the log burner with their mouths open waiting to be fed. And so it continues, this merry-go-round that appears to go faster each year. No, of course I am not complaining, how could I? I am aware some folks would give the eye teeth for our lifestyle, especially with emerald-tinted glasses on. What are eye-teeth, anyway? Or is it i-Teeth? Ha, sounds like Apple getting into the denture market!  Thankfully, one thing I will manage to escape is the battle of the idiots known as a general election, as I stuff cotton wool in my ears to blank out the lies. That is, of course, if there is any cotton-wool left over since the whole House of Commons has their heads full of it! I would like to think, as a resident of France and Scotland, I am exempt from the perils of a British government enough not to care a hoot who gets their feet under the cabinet table but, in our latest business ventures, a wrong-un could still push a stick in the spokes of my front wheel, so I suppose I will have to put my cross somewhere. But therein hangs another tale; as an overseas resident I am reliant on the French postal service to send in my vote, who will obviously be on strike that day. The reason for their militant action will be in sympathy for the poor hard-done-by air-traffic controllers who are about to wreak havoc on my travel plans, as I spend three nights in a sleeping bag at Bordeaux Airport. No doubt the bin-bags at home will be piling up at our gate as well, while we all contract dysentery from the expanding rat population who dine on rancid poulet-pot, but we are unable to get into hospital because all the junior doctors also realise that they earn less that the bloody air-traffic wardens in the first place. In truth, I have no political preference, but one thing I do note, sheep-mentality Socialism is extremely disruptive to the honest man.

On the subject of sheep, after last year’s barrier breakdown, I have taken evasive action on the fencing front. As I write, potatoes, onions, courgettes and tomatoes are all growing nicely, within a few feet of the sheep field, since I moved my entire vegetable patch nearer the house this year. At present there is plenty of grass growing in the field and the sheep generally seem content – well, as content as one can be with a few dysfunctional brain cells. Each evening, as the lambs gamble and skip in the sunshine, all the ewes make a daily pilgrimage up towards the fence and then stand in a line staring longingly at my tomatoes. Honestly, it’s like a soap-opera to them, only mildly more inventive. If I could credit them with any intelligence at all, I am sure they are trying to hatch a plan to break through and cause carnage, like they did last year. Occasionally I catch a glint in the eye of the ringleader, one Skippy, that gives me a hint that he may have the body of a mere sheep but perhaps underneath it, there is the mind of a criminal genius? So, for once, I am one step ahead of them, as I have wired it up to the mains! OK, that might sound a little drastic but needs must when Aries is at the gate! Let’s just hope we don’t get barbequed lamb before the summer begins.

Which brings me neatly round to something else that has been bugging me. Mastermind. Can someone please explain the criteria that constitutes a special subject? Name? Barry. Occupation? Bricklayer. Specialist subject? The life and works of someone so obscure, nobody has even heard of them! I swear, in this year’s final, one bloke answered questions on one 200 page novel and another one on his granddad! How difficult is that? That’s like me answering questions about my next door neighbour? Or about myself? Name? Andy Frazier. Specialist subject? Andy Frazier? Having said that, there are probably some things about me I don’t even know myself…. Anyway, I have decided to enter next year, answering questions about the ‘thoughts of my sheep.’ If they are still alive by then.

Cracking cheese

Oh what a multicultural life we seem to lead. Although I still consider my roots to be quintessentially English, I have been known to wear a number of different hats during the rugby season , including Scottish, French and - dare I admit it - Welsh, over the years. However, in general, I would like my nationality to be classed as 'rational'. i.e. someone who lives, works and plays amidst an ethos where normality retains a stronghold. But herein lies a problem.  Try though I might to live in a bubble which excludes day-to-day global lunacy, each year I find it increasingly harder to escape the idiosyncrasies of life that make me want to scream from the upstairs window. And guess what? It very often involves Americans. Let's take a website someone highlighted to me recently called something like ‘healthy living dotcom’. The page I was concerned with was one advocating the benefits of eating cheese. Paragraph 1, and I quote, says 'cheddar, an American cheese, will improve my bone health and lower my blood pressure!' while cream cheese, rich in saturated fat, is healthy as it will 'help fill me up!' I admit I enjoy my cheese, but come on, even I know it is bad for me! Is it any wonder USA has health issues, with everyone 6 stone overweight and dying of obesity aged 45? And yet, when I watch those oh-so glamorous TV series, everyone, even the ‘janitor’ – whatever one of those is – has the toned body of an Olympian gymnast. Maybe it's all a ploy on behalf of the cheese industry?

I have also to comment on another USA invention, that of the Taser gun. On this subject, I have no experience, apart from it making the headlines recently, for all the wrong reasons. Government research announced that this rather painful weapon had been used on at least 400 children in the last year. At first, I found this alarming enough to make me turn up the radio for a second with the consideration that, perhaps, parents were deploying drastic tactics to get their 5 year olds upstairs to bed. However, it turned out that for 'children', read 'feral teenagers' who were nicking cars, looting shops and other unruly behaviour that the police are unable to counter with a kick up the arse.   One 'child' was only 14, says the Daily Mail. Well, if he was 14 years old, he should know better than to break the law? And why wasn't he at school, anyway? Come to think, perhaps they should arm the headmaster with such weapons, like they did in my day! Except, back then, these things were known simply as cattle-prods!

After adding some substantial miles on the clock, we are now back in situ at Chauffour, where new born lambs and grass are now in abundance. With the daffs out and shrubs budding, one could be forgiven for believing all was right with the world - were it not for the constant reminders for this-and-that that keep pinging at me from my new phone. I admit I am a bit of a list person and, during those rare moments I find myself with nothing to do, I often check that ever-expanding list to see where to best apply myself next. Stupidly, in a peak of madness, I downloaded an 'app' and now there is nowhere to hide as it constant nags me to cut the lawn, mend the roof and pay the milkman. There was me thinking I had a wife to do that sort of thing! It is quite amusing though because as well as politely offering me reminders, it also begs to be told what to do (the phone, not the wife). Every time I so much as pick the thing up, a polite lady asks me: 'what would I like to do? Just say the word?' Well firstly I told it to shut up, and it did, for a few minutes. Then it started to learn all the swear words I shouted at it, mostly ending in off! But, when I actually tested it, it does have its uses. 'What time is the next train to somewhere?' gets a response of 'just checking Google,' - silence - then 'half past four, from platform 3 at so-and-so, if you hurry you'll just make it.' It even tells me the cost and offers to order me a ticket. You have to admit, that's pretty smart. And it doesn't stop there either: I can ask it all sorts of stuff like how far is it to the moon, who is Jihadi John and why is Scotland so useless at rugby? All questions are answered in a positively polite way, except it is unable to shake it head in despair at the last one!

On the subject of Jihadi-John, don't you think that MI6 could be a little more imaginative with their nicknames? Are Terry-the-terrorist and Bertie-the-bomber on their wanted list too?

For the last few months, we have been consolidating our possessions and 'clearing out the trash' as my American buddies would say. Box after box of old letters, accounts, manuals and photos have found their way on to the bonfire, along with redundant Ikea furniture.  This is what people do in France, unlike in the UK where everybody and their dog wants to hoard all their unused crap for a rainy day by stacking it in stupidly named 'Self Storage' warehouses. What on earth possesses people to think, 'oh yes, that bright pink Formica coffee table, with matching foot-spa will come in handy when I reach fifty?'  and 'we couldn't possibly throw out grandma's pair of painted donkeys she brought back from Torremolinos in 1974 - she would never forgive us, despite the fact that she's been dead for 11 years.' So, in it all goes, at a cost of a grand a year, cluttering up the world as it bulges at the seams. In fact I have a theory that there is probably more Ikea furniture in storage warehouses that there is in its massive stores.  Where will it end? Will our kids be storing great-great-grandad's garden gnomes for eternity? Time to have an amnesty, I say. Rid yourselves! November 5th would be a good day?

I will admit that this is a year I have been looking forward to as we start to hatch a few plans towards a distant 'putting up of the feet'. It was some time ago that I made a vague plan to retire in the 'year of the sheep' to keep, er, sheep. And here it is, all of a sudden, and I am about as ready as Oscar Pretorious on a rusty day. Amongst the pyre of burning documents, I find a pension statement which is worth about as much as a Greek taverna in February, that will provide me with a salary of sixpence a year if I am lucky.  That is assuming I don't live past the age of 67 when it will run out completely. However, driven by the fear of shoeless poverty, in the words of Baldrick 'I have a cunning plan...' It may take some hard work and a little risk but nobody helps those who don't help themselves. Bring on the next challenge.