Tata folks

Well, that’s lambing more or less done and dusted. Not been the easiest this year but we have a decent crop of lambs except for maybe the final pair, born to a yearling, which are so thin my wife has quite cruelly named them the Belson twins. Coincidentally, that is not the only reference to that ghastly atrocity of World War II as there has for some strange reason been a statue constructed in the centre of the Marmande bypass depicting the event. Although the origins of this bizarre stainless steel three metre high model are unclear, it shows three hunched people trudging along, chained together, and is apparently a reference to how the town played a prominent part in providing the train service for the crimes. One assumes it was erected to exorcise their guilt.  

April has, for me, been a month on the road, mainly in a hurry. Those lovely people working in air-traffic control disrupted my first trip, causing me to have to traverse the country by train, bus, taxi and finally, air. Just how in this day and age a few dissatisfied workers can cause so much commuting chaos is beyond comprehension but they do, because they can. With a four day business trip to Scotland condensed into three by their subsequent flight cancellations, the hours were long and painful as I also slotted in a 36 hour stint tiling the bathroom in our seaside house. Just 24 hours back home and we were off again to Paris, via Bordeaux, both of which, it has to be said are beautiful cities. This time we took in a rugby match en route. From there to London, the Midlands, London again, Calais and then finally home, for a week in my own bed – bliss! That week is very short, as I try and tie up far too many loose ends – I currently have 4 writing projects on the go – and get some well deserved sleep before it’s on the move once more. Next up Nottingham, Sheffield, Glasgow, none of which lay claim to UK’s best hotspots! Never being one to wish my life away, I certainly will be glad when the month is over and May brings some harmony and sunshine.

Anyway, hours in hotels, train stations and airports do give me occasional time to observe, and then rant. To start with, we have James Martin, that TV chef and apparent sex god who has, among his portfolio, a restaurant in Stansted airport. Ideal for a spot of breakfast you might think? Wrong. Well, not entirely incorrect, just that a big sign saying ‘proper breakfast here’ is not accompanied by that basic requirement, a menu. Me: can I see a menu? Chef: What is it you are looking for, darling? Me: um, breakfast. Chef: well, you certainly are in the right place, what did you have in mind, darling? I resisted the temptation to sarcastically demand a concoction of Belgian Duroc bacon and south Rhodesian hens eggs, in case they might actually have them! Me: errr, ehm, what have you got? This absurd conversation went on so long my flight is being called. Eventually I settled on a bacon roll, with no idea of what I would cost nor what else I was missing out on.  Twelve quid later and I realise that pretty-boy James is not such a mug after all!

12 hours later I am in my hotel room, battling with technology in order to connect to the internet, whilst simultaneously running a bath. Have you ever noticed how powerful the water pressure always is in hotels? No, nor me, really – until not only is the bath full to the brim with scolding water, but the entire bathroom. Stepping through two inches of the stuff in my socks to try and switch the tap off resulted in near third degree burns and then the hour long job of mopping it up, with one towel, took me past last orders for dinner and I have to take the car to a local garage for a pack of sandwiches.

Just four days after that I get another chance for that oh-so relaxing bath but this time a knock on the door disturbed the peace. Obviously the words ‘who is it?’ translate into French as ‘enter’, and in comes a maid, her eyes like saucers as she hastily retreats with a face as red as a London 2-decker. Thankfully she later resisted to opportunity to mention that ‘she didn’t recognise me with my clothes on’ whilst serving breakfast!

Finally a stay in a rather plush hotel near Stansted airport which has an incredibly large wine tower in the centre of the bar. Holding a good few thousand bottles, the only way each one can be collected from its slot is by a ‘wine angel’ - an athletic girl who ascends the tower in mesmerising fashion supported by a couple of thin wires. En-route she incorporates a few well practiced gymnastic moves, swirling head-over-tail like a beautiful starfish until she gracefully lands back behind the bar and hands it over. I have to admit my wine was a little too shaken up when it arrived - especially the tenth bottle!

The next time I write this column it may be as an outcast citizen as the nation goes to the polls. The subject of politics is something I tend to stay well clear of, despite the temptation to ridicule the phoneys who haplessly head up the common government. However, these last couple of weeks listening to their childish bickering on every media has made up my mind – which is basically to bid Britain Cheerio faster the country has said Tata to its steel industry!

Dirty Roger's pencils

    This month I write to you from a land far-far away across the sea called France. Remember it? It is a place that the Brits spent 500 years trying to invade, mostly unsuccessfully, and are now equally trying to break away from. Quizzically the locals in these parts enquire: 'What is this Brexit of which you speak?' The standard reply is that it is 'Les Rosbif waving the forks at you guys across the channel, again,' which tends to get the conditioned response of a Gallic shrug. And quite right too? If Britain wants to revert back to being a standalone entity, with its meat and two veg, let zem get on with eet, we never liked each other anyway. Of course, to us ex-pats, the issue appears a little more serious. While Britain aspires to cleanse itself of an unsalvageable immigrant problem, the migrants who left its shores may be cut off without so much as a return ferry ticket. This will inevitably inspire each and every one of them to flock to the postal polls out of shameless self interest. Of course, we won't have the slightest idea about what a non-Exit vote will mean to the country of our birth, nor even a pang of sympathy. Let's face it, in times of threat, it is every beard for himself, right? What may surprise you to know is that, for once, I don’t really have an opinion on the issue, for the simple reason is that I, nor anyone else as far as I can tell, can really get any clarity on the subject through the smoke and mirror deception of EU politics. However, my 'ce que sera sera' cavalier attitude seems to spark outrage from everyone around me, insisting that I register my vote right this very minute and that, in a democratic society, 'sitting on the fence will only get a spike up my bottom!' My actual opinion is that we ex-pats chose to leave the mothership for personal reasons, and thus possibly don’t even warrant a vote on the matter at all. And that one got me into hot water faster that a Parisian lobster, again.  

    Moving swiftly on, but not very far, I would like once again to quote from that Sunday Times best-seller: '1000 Years of annoying the French,' by Stephen Clarke. This time it is to underpin the notion that, along with their other conquests, America really should have belonged to the French. It tells a tale of a defrocked priest, Rene La Salle, who in 1682, having set up home in new-found Canada near Montreal, decided to embark on a search for a river that would lead him to China. Yes, obviously this was before the Tom-Tom was invented and was, of course, a notion that would undeniably declare him barking mad. No matter, along with the son of an Italian banker and a couple of dozen French soldiers, he wrapped up warm and trudged off through the snow until he found the Mississippi. There he built a couple of rafts and jumped on board in the hope of turning up in Bejing in time for spring. En route he passed through some rather nice fertile land until he arrived, some 1000 miles later, in the Gulf of Mexico! Eventually realising, due to the lack of Buddhists temples and noodles, that this was not his preferred destination, he decided to claim the lands anyway in the name of King Louis, famously naming its southern state, Louisiana. Due to the lack of phones at the time, La Salle then travelled back up the river to coldest Canada, to send a message back home to Louis Quatorze that he had claimed pretty much most of America as a French colony. Somehow though, and there are various conspiracy theories here, due to a religious cock-up involving some Canadian Jesuit priests, the King considered the message as a prank and replied that La Salle was to stop this pointless exploration of anything south of Lake Ontario if he wished to retain his head. Unlucky? Even our Louis (the pointless pointer) isn’t that stupid!

    Bringing the subject of exploitation of China a little more up to date, I recently read an article about a British entrepreneur who surely has to be knighted for his ingenuity. Discovering that some of China's biggest cities are grossly polluted, he decided to send them some air, in a bottle. Yes, for no less than £80 a time, he is selling jars of fresh air from the English South West and Home Counties and people are actually buying it. When interviewed - and this is the best bit - he said: 'Why not? A few years ago, people thought buying bottled water was madness, and now look at the size of that industry.' You have to admit, there is some logic in there somewhere. And so, here it is, my latest brain-child. Instead of all those town-folk cluttering up the local lanes in a bid to get near some greenery every weekend, they will soon be able to buy some countryside smells online to save them the trip. My catalogue of fresh aromas will start with a basic wild flora and fauna, made from a couple of crushed daffs and a few stale mushrooms, stepping up to 'inspiration of spring' - lamb droppings & grass cuttings - to the top-of-the-range: 'that full farm feeling.' The latter will include a mélange of 'cleaning out the cow shed', 'flooded crop-store' and 'bag of deceased lambs',  and will be accompanied by an 'Archers-like' farmer's soundtrack, complete with swearing!

    Meanwhile, back on the homestead, lambing is now underway here at Chauffour, something that we are quite pleased about if only to prove the fertility of Dirty Roger. Some of you may recall that back in October the immaturity of our new young ram was of a slight concern. Well, to open the batting, Lilly had a triplet which she seems to be managing to rear well enough herself without the intervention of Wendy as a wet nurse. Next up, Edith has, er, another set of triplets and my worry now is that a trend is appearing. So, it turns out, not only did Roger have lead in his pencil after all, but seemingly a whole box of crayons in his satchel as well! Careful what you wish for!

Reddybrek's it

   To Brexit or not to Brexit, that is the question - and quite a silly one it is? I don’t know who first came up with the word but it could just as easily apply to us ex-pats who Brexited UK some while ago. Or did we Frexit? And what about those voting for Scottish independence, did they want to Scexit?  Now the UK government has given its citizens chance to vote on whether to stay or go, my mailbox and social media page is immediately filling up with propaganda about what it would mean for us ex-pats if we suddenly discovered we were foreigners in our own land. Will all our houses be given to the French state when we die, or maybe our habitation tax will double on our 'second' home, once we have no mother country's laws to fall back on? Well, despite the scaremongering, the bottom line is that we have no idea. And that, I am afraid to add, is something that is far more scary than the question of EU membership itself. 175,000 ex-pats live in France and, despite us all choosing to inhabit a country where the weather is better and the cheese nicer, we all have a vote on the situation in UK, in the same way that I was allowed to put my cross in a box in 2014 that decided whether Scotland stayed with the status quo or became a third world non-entity. In that particular instance, I did exercise my vote as I believed the 'locals' were being hoodwinked into a historic hatred campaign with no clear understanding of the consequences. In June this year, the same arguments will be put in front of us again? Will Britain get out of Europe because what happened at Agincourt, or Hastings, or the 1958 football world cup?

   Having made my home in France for the last ten years, I have to admit that British politics don’t really interest me but they will to the many who live overseas, to the tune where 2 or 3 million ex-pats around the globe who will have a postal vote. Personally I am not sure that is fair. As overseas citizens do we want Britain to cut us off? Of course not. Would Britain leaving the EU or even re-negotiating its stance be good for us who ran away from its shores? Doubtful. Would it be a good thing for the Brits who still live there though? Possibly so. Democracy is a strange thing when you look closely at it. Letting passionate people with their own agenda and yet very little subject knowledge vote on a matter so important? That can never really make sense, surely. Didn't UK actually vote a government in to make those decisions on our behalf? Despite still holding a British passport, maybe I am one of the few who believes that in this case it is none of my business.  

Mr Spanky stays indoors

I think I invented a new sport last week called gyro-skiing, where you career down the side of a snowy mountain in a gyroscopic fashion! I am not certain it will take off - not like I did anyway! Bruises were incurred. And, to quote Forest Gump, 'that's all I have to say about that.'

Wendy and I did have a great trip in the Alps though, punctuated by an overnight stop in Clermont-Ferrand, an industrial conurbation set in a valley in the Massif Central surrounded by volcanic mountains. Once home to the French Grand Prix, as you enter the sprawling city it is hard to ignore the fact that this is the birthplace of, and home to, Michelin Tyres whose factories dominate the suburbs. However, rubber is not the only black thing in this city as, nestled in its quaint ancient centre, with its cobbled streets and vibrant bars, stands a huge gothic cathedral built out of volcanic rock making the vast black structure appear rather macabre as its two spires extend over 100 metres into the sky. As for their rugby team, well this year's efforts would have been greatly aided if the goal posts had been of similar height, as the fabled yellow and blue jerseys bowed out of the Heineken cup in such embarrassing style that the whole town population were also wearing black to mark the occasion. We were allowed a moment of gloating as it was our minnows from Bordeaux who administered their dismissal.

Yes, of course, it is that time of year when large burly gentlemen pull on bright lycra and knock lumps out of each other in an organised fashion every weekend for a few months. Considering myself a multinational, I will inevitably be wearing my collection of white, blue and red hats throughout the Six Nations although so far it has started well when the Jocks have waved us Sassenachs off home, once again carrying the silverware with us. This annual bloodied encounter between England and Scotland always reminds me of an occasion some twenty years ago when a Scottish rugby playing friend of mine, known affectionately to one and all as the White Shark, was out celebrating a Scotland victory on Edinburgh's Princess Street only to demonstrate how best to take a drop goal. The solid silver Pilkington Cup still has the dent in it to this day as proof. And still he missed the target, although he was quite severely told off for the faux-pas!

We appear to have arrived back to monsoon season here at Chauffour, when 400mm of rain, nearly two thirds of our annual expectancy, has fallen since Christmas, much of it through a leaking skylight window into an array of buckets which require emptying every three hours. Thankfully lambing is not yet underway but it is imminent and we are considering relocating to higher grounds. There are even small trout in the puddles by the back door, not that Mr Spanky would notice as he hasn’t been outside for six weeks. Our lake that was bone dry up until New Year is now a sea and the polytunnel has concertinaed in under the weight and has become a 10000 litre reservoir, should we require it during the dry summer. Let's hope so.

In a recent interview I was asked where I grew up, to which the statutory reply is always the same, I haven’t grown up and have little intention of doing so! However, I did spend my childhood and teenage years in Rock village, when a gang of Fraziers, Notts, Neaths and Whitemans would tear around the lanes from pub to pub in our Minis, taking in discos on Clee Hill, games of spoof in the Alma and the odd fence post on the way home. Next day we would all be back at work, driving tractors or feeding yards of livestock, no harm done. Back then I can vividly recall Bernard Birch senior saying to my Dad, when they heard about the death of their pal John Whiteman senior: 'Jack, they are pulling them out of our pen now.' Well, with the passing of one of our crowd, Fooey Neath, I guess the cycle has just gone around again. A sorry thought, I suppose. RIP big fella, we had some good times.  

Anyway, enough of that; this column wouldn’t be complete if I wasn’t complaining about something and this time it is a simple gripe about the price of Muesli. Up until recently, this isn’t something that would cross my breakfast radar, but of late I have been making a gallant attempt to be healthy. Three euros fifty - that's over three quid - that's what it costs for a box of rolled oats and barley with a few raisins thrown in. I know I am no longer in the farming business but I still have friends in that game, each of whom assures me that a ton of grain sells for just over one hundred pounds. So how on earth does one company manage to pimp the price up to £6000 per ton and get away with it? On every news bulletin we hear that the world population is growing sideways and there is Jeremy Hunt talking about taxing sugar to keep us all healthy, and making sure we get our five a day. Is he missing something here, or am I? Well, yes I am actually, my bacon butties - but not for much longer.

Oh, btw, Mr Spanky is our cat, in case you were wondering!

A word with myself, by Andy Frazier

I had always wanted to write, that's probably an opening line that every writer, successful or otherwise, uses in interviews. Well, I was already a writer when I started to write, if that makes sense. Having somehow found myself in the computer industry, I firstly taught myself to write Visual Basic, a mathematical coded language telling computers to do real things. It was fun, challenging and, for some reason, I was quite good at it. Oh, and it paid well. After evolving in a business analyst, whatever one of those is, and commuting in and out of big cities in a suit, I got board of writing dull documents and yearned for the outdoor life I once had. Unlike many others in my plight, I took the plunge. That was 2006 and I was 45.

My first novel was the one we all have in us, based on life's experience, in my case about cows, or one cow in particular. Told through her eyes it was fast paced, humorous, heart warming and, as it happens, a rip roaring success. That is not to say it went global, but achievement is all relative and, after arrogantly punting my brilliant novel to a hundred agents, with no rewrites or editing, the constant rejection led me to go down the self publishing route. Pah, what did they know? There is a simple reason why this book sold a hundred copies in its first month, and a thousand in a year, 3000 in the next, and that was because I wrote it specifically for a targeted audience.  

Buoyed with the fact that writing novels was piss-easy, I had been told that this kind of work, talking animals etc, was more suited to a children's style. So, over the next year I wrote not one, but 4 more novels about the same animal, taking the dialogue down to the level a nine to eleven year old could read. I tested the books on a few classes of school children who all said it made them laugh and cry, the two essentials of any story. So back to the critics I went, sending samples and synopsis to every children's literary agent in the country, expecting to be hailed as the next Mike Morpurgo. The rejections were hard to take, some of which gave me faith in my skills, all of whom said the children's book market is flooded with great writers and new ones are hard to sell into that age bracket, especially about talking animals. They were bang-on, of course, but it still hurt.

No yet completely deflated, I had written a biography of my father, then in his late eighties, and given it him as a present. As a spin off from this I extended a story about him growing up during the war in our local town into another children's book and this one had a better reception. Getting great reviews from a dozen or so who trialled it, after just a couple of 'no-thank-yous' from the agency world, I again self published, and soon the copies started flying off the shelves in the local tourists centres. It even got a write up in the local paper and I did my first reading at a book festival. In my mind, it may be the best book I ever wrote. The interest waned after a year, probably due to my inactiveness to do any more promotion whatsoever.

Now back on the horse, I picked back up on my favourite subject, humour and animals, with a long and hilarious tale about a pig that kept getting into trouble. Hearing folks guffaw with laughter when reading you own words is a great tonic for any writer but, sadly, it was a difficult one to sell as it fell between two stools, they say, being neither quite children or adult genre. It still remains my favourite.

Another children's book was already underway, when I had tried to get some history on an ancient windmill which sits across the field from our house in France. When nothing was forthcoming, I made up a rip-roaring adventure about two boys on holiday there, complete with time travel, templar nights and, of course, cows. It took a while to write and I think that shows in the book's lack of enthusiasm, compared to my earlier work. To be honest, I didn’t even try to find a publisher and probably only 100 people have ever read it. They all liked it though, so they said.

In a bid not to confuse the boundaries of my children's writing, I then penned a couple of quite funny stories under a pseudo name about a poor confused man called Trevor Hard. I will admit reading a couple of Tom Sharp novels whilst on holiday blatantly influenced these two books and, although never doing justice to the master, they came out quite well. I picked up one of the very few printed copies the other day and re-read it in a day, laughing my socks off the whole way through. That is when writing is at its most fulfilling - a career that the great Terry Pratchett described 'the most fun a person can ever have on their own'. Anyone who ever reaches that goal of making themselves laugh time and again has made it as a writer, regardless of whether they have sold one or a million copies.

Along the way, the initial lesson of 'know your audience' kept haunting me and, after a time of procrastination based on failure, I picked up the keys again, penning something some of my old pals had been baying for: my own life story. Writing an autobiog can be as humbling as it can be smug but I was only picking out a certain era, that time that I spent in the cattle years, two of the best, friendliest, most rewarding and hilarious decades of my time on earth. The book, entitled In Bed With Cows, really hit the spot with a close nit crowd of cattle enthusiasts, many of them concerned that their own antics may have been spilled onto paper. It got dozens of reviews, made it into hundreds of Christmas stockings, and had lot of people laughing. Still does. Using a formula I had stolen from Nick Spalding, I wrote to the reader on a one-to-one. The book was swiftly followed by the more risky In Bed with Sheep but inevitably it was difficult to get sales outwith the close farming community and, let's face it, not many of them read anything other than the farming press. These books still haul in good sales around the end of each year but it was never any use trying to put them out to a 'real' publisher when my own life history needed to sit alongside the literary genius of supermodel Kate Moss or Tony Blair on the shelves!

After that I sort of gave up for a while. A friend persuaded me to write a novel for Nation Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) in 2012 which I knocked out in 28 days. It was one of those that are great fun to write, where you have no idea where it is going and the characters develop themselves, some jumping out off the page screaming to take the lead role. Loosely pointing the finger at Scotland's bid for independence, I subtitled it a 'political satire, with some sheep in it, obviously!'. It is doubtful I will ever have as much fun writing again and equally doubtful that a half-man half-sheep riding a Harley through the hills of Scoutland will ever see the literacy light of day.

Deep Breath! Having written a column for a local magazine in UK about my life in France for the previous five years, something which I actually got paid for, some small publisher picked up on my blog and asked me if I fancied writing some travel guides about our area. In a simple formula, I sent them one 10,000 word ebook but then soon found their antics less than professional and that some of their other writers were being prosecuted for plagiarism. Just before I signed a contract with them, I decided to instead put the book out under my own banner, etravellers guides. Here was a chance to build a small brand and it got me to travel to nice places, eat loads of food and then write about it. The real win-win was that people actually bought my books, in their thousands.  OK, I only made a quid a copy but this was proper writing and great repeat business. In all I wrote ten and wish it had been a hundred. I vow one day I will complete some more, travelling around the world in a camper like John Carrowack.

I will own up to being nothing if not tenacious and here's the thing about tenacity. Once I found a little writing success, purely by chance as it happens, I got a phone call out of the blue to write something else. This time it wasn’t just a few words on the local restaurant and how clean the toilets were, but an entire history book, thick as a seam of coal, on my own chosen subject, cows. Even more importantly, I wouldn't have to market it, I would just get paid to write the tome, and then sit and sign copies at National events. Admittedly, in my excitement to agree the contract, I slightly underestimated the time that conducting 100 interviews, sourcing 1200 photos and writing 200,000 words into coherent factually correct chapters would take me, eg: nearly three years, but I did it. I fucking did it. And you know what? I don’t think it is over yet, because from that little job arose another one, this time a true story so far-fetched, it even makes sheep on motorbikes seem day-to-day. And, just for once, this one may have a commercial value.

New knees please

Well that soon went by. Not just the month, but the last ten years, which is how long it is since I left Britain’s shores to seek my fortune. I’m still looking! Yes, this time a decade ago I was heading to Amsterdam to live and work, something I did for 8 months before retreating to France for a bit more peace. I can’t say I really miss the place, Holland nor England, for that matter. OK, the beer and the rolling hills around my ancestral home do get me a little nostalgic from time to time but generally I am happy with my lot, and that’s all that matters. Each year sees a few more funerals but I suppose that is inevitable once you pass 50 and start spiralling towards the prospect of Saga holidays and incontinence. 60 is the new 40, they tell me, which I assume means 80 is the new 60 and I won’t see a penny of my government pay-off until I am four score years and five. Does this also imply that the Queen will no longer send out telegrams, or emails, or whatever medium they now use, until we reach 120? Oh well, it will save on the ink, I suppose.

Anyway, after three weeks of constant rain, the sun is shining here before breakfast at Chauffour, backlighting the sheep in a golden glow amidst a covering of white frost. On mornings like these it is hard to imagine anything wrong with the world. Long ago I stopped taking a daily newspaper and now I even refrain from seeking the news on TV or the Interweb, else it might spoil the illusion of tranquillity and satisfaction. Occasional news does filter to me eventually, via post, text or social media, the former about the financial problems, mine in particular, and the latter either about more funerals or what one of my cyberfriends is having for lunch. I will admit that Facebook and Twitter are an unwelcomed distraction from my busy schedule, which currently includes getting a 60,000 word novel out of my head and on to paper, after two years of cluttering up my mind. However, at present I am writing a true story about an American, which involves me looking up jargon online, only to be presented with adverts for things I bought for Christmas. Yes, the online marketing people are now so smart that they now know what I have been recently buying. Here’s a tip, Amazon. If I have just purchased some bath taps, a new pair of shoes, and some loft insulation, why the hell would I want to buy more of the same? Surely you would be better offering me some cheap paint and socks? Or better still, the services of a reliable plumber. Oh no, I forget, they are as mythical as unicorns and Boris Johnson’s hairdresser.

The reason for the urgency in my latest literary panic is that at the end of this month we are heading off to the slopes for a week and, following that, I have another stint in Scotland sorting out some business. Then comes lambing, a few month’s building work, the summer visitors, and all of a sudden it is next Christmas and the page is empty. As the confines of my desk allow me no more exercise than the shake of a wrist, and my ski suit doesn’t fit, I try and find time to get half an hour each day with the cross trainer. No I don’t mean Reme Garde – sorry, had to get an Aston Villa joke in somewhere – but a piece of apparatus that allows me to run like hell, without getting anywhere – a bit like Villa, actually (ha, that’s 2, Ed!). Only problem is, in an attempt to build up a few extra leg muscles that will carry my weight on the snow, I find that my knees are not getting stronger, but weaker. And they hurt like hell. After a word with a friendly doctor, I ascertain that the joints in my knees are, to use a technical term, buggered, and grinding them away with physical movement isn’t helping. A wee touch of arthritis comes to us all eventually, for one reason or another, and mine can be wholly attributed to years of kneeling down in cold damp sheds, lambing sheep. Damn things should carry a health warning!

Going back to my earlier point about online shopping, here’s one for you marketers: when I bought a new pair of ski goggles from lookwhatinicked.com, you could have checked my age and then offered me some new knee joints as well? Because that it is what it is coming down to, since all the doctors have gone on strike because they have been asked to work weekends, that we can buy pretty much anything prosthetic online these days and jump the 15 year NHS queue. I kid you not, there are dozens of websites out there pedalling everything from a plastic toe to a whole new abdomen. From a link alongside that, you can make an online booking into a clinic in Korea that, for the price of a London suburb, will fit the bits while you wait, a bit like that twelve year old apprentice outside Halfords who will attach your new windscreen wiper-blade for you.  Not only that, but with some pre-ordering, you can go green too when your new carbon foot print will actually be made out of recycled bits of Natalie Bennett, or Bono. It’s a win-win for everyone.  I’ve already got my name down for a new liver made out of Janet Street-Porter’s teeth!

A bridge too far

Seasons Greetings, Bon Noel, Deck your balls with prickly holly, etc...
 Currently we are still in East Fife, sheltering from yet another storm with an inexplicably stupid name that, according to the national press, is wreaking havoc across the country. Seemingly Brian or Eric, or whatever it is called has dropped 13 inches of rain in one day, although nobody could actually measure it properly as everyone’s rain gauge only goes up to one foot. It appears that the North West England flood defence was about as useful as England Rugby’s World Cup defence, but nobody really cared much because it was not in London where all the important people live. Dave ‘don’t-f**k-with-me-or-I-will-carpet-bomb-you’ Cameron did pop up to the sodden area and pull on his Hunter wellies for a few minutes where he patted a few locals patronisingly on the head, promised to send some rubber dingys, and then nipped into the Sheep and Garter for a pint of ‘craft’ beer.

Meanwhile, it is a boat that is also required here in Fife since the announcement that the Forth Road Bridge will be closed until further notice following the discovery that one of the nuts that hold it together was on cross-threaded. The government has now devised a plan which will take 150 PWC consultants two months to write down and a further year and a half to find the correct spanner to tighten the bolt. Currently those who voted YES in September, all 122 of them, will have a real taste of their Independence as their Southern relatives are unable to visit the area with Christmas gifts and they get to keep all their home-grown potatoes and oil to themselves. Unfortunately Amazon, the world’s greediest online supermarket, also has an eggy-face after it decided to locate its main distribution warehouse just north of the bridge so it can pay its s­­taff tuppence-an-hour instead of the English National wage. Obviously the book the SNP ordered online entitled ‘Bridge Repairs for Dummies’ now has to be sent by carrier pigeon, so should reach them by early February 2017. I cannot help but smile at the irony that currently the only way from Fife to Edinburgh, unless you want a sight-seeing tour of Glencoe and Ben Nevis, is across its old rail bridge, constructed out of Meccano over 100 years ago by men in flat caps. Based on this fact, while the old rail bridge made of steel is still pretty rock solid, but the road-bridge they built out of string in the fifties has now fallen apart, then I suspect the brand new one due to be completed in 2017 and made out of recycled cardboard milk-cartons will struggle to survive a decade at best!

Although we are due to head back to France in a few days I have gotten quite attached to the Firth of Forth which I can now happily gaze at while seated on the toilet. It may sound rather strange but it has always been an ambition of mine to have a sea-view from the kazi, so I can now add a tick in that box, since completing a new bathroom in the attic, which includes the original old Victorian bath in situ. I suppose I should apologise in advance to my neighbours, should they wish to spy on me with binoculars, and even more so to the one downstairs who got a warm shower when she opened her back door just as I was emptying the bath-water. Well I wasn’t to notice a cracked downspout, was I?

Anyway, I am a little hesitant about returning to the country we call home, not because of the frequent terrorists attacks on the French, but because we have a pandemic of Bird-Flu in the Dordogne, according to the Daily Mail, who are experts on such matters. As a consequence Japan, possibly the most paranoid nation on Earth, have banned imports of our local delicacy, Foie Gras, in case they contract the disease when spooning duck pate lavishly onto their morning toast. Despite being advised by Professors of Intelligence that implying they could catch anything other than gout from the product is like suggesting you could catch Mxyomatosis from Welsh Rarebitt has done nothing to quell their suspicions. So, now we will have to run the gauntlet every time we visit LeClerc supermarche of having some moustachioed fragrant peasant trying to sell us tins of the stuff at the door, before it goes out of date. Call me Mr Picky but, personally, I would rather French-kiss a skunk than eat the slimy mush that has been reared in such a barbaric fashion.

Finally I have to report that Louis the pointless-pointer – possibly France’s waggiest tailed dog – has made not one but two trips to the dreaded vet this week. Firstly we have a stomach bug, probable cause, eating too much seaweed; measurable outcome: well, let’s not go there! Then, during last weekend’s hurricane Norman, the garden-gate slammed shut, trapping and injuring his tail in the process. Poor thing has been in such pain and cannot understand why it hurts so much when he wags it. Trying to persuade an otherwise happy dog NOT to wag its tail is like attempting to explain to the gullible American electorate that Donald Trump is nothing more than a war-mongering racist megalomaniac who is out to tailor himself a pair of million-dollar trousers before you have time to say ‘oops, where’s all the cash gone!’