477

RULE BRITANNIA
The map above tells you just about all you need to know about Britain’s glorious imperial history.  It shows - in pink - all the countries Britain has invaded...

* * *
STRANGER THAN FICTION
A luxury beauty spa in New York (where else?) has started offering traditional Japanese facial treatments.  They’re not cheap, either.  Each session costs $180 and about 100 people a month - women and men - pay up.

The main ingredients of the potion that’s clagged liberally over one’s visage are rice bran and imported Asian nightingale shit.

True.

* * *
AGM XLII
Our Magnificent Summer Outing To The Tanfield Railway takes place at 1030 (note the special time) on Thursday 15 August.

Miss it at your peril.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all…

* * *
THE ROYAL OAK QUIZ
Thanks again to Ross for sending me yesterday’s Royal Oak quiz, which he sets himself, clever lad.

Here we go…

01 Traditionally, what gift should you be given on your 30th Wedding Anniversary?
02 Which newspaper was formally called The Daily Universal Register?
03 Who is President of France?
04 Which composer wrote The Planets?
05 In which decade was the board game Monopoly created?
06 Name any three of the Famous Five.
07 Who wrote the Horrible Histories books?
08 TV Star Clayton Moore is the only person to have his character name listed on his Hollywood Walk of Fame star.  Which famous character did he play?
09 Which brothers in the film industry were ‘Jack, Sam, Harry and Albert’?
10 Which famous book title is translated into English as My Struggle?
11 In sport, what piece of equipment stands 4 feet high and 6 feet wide?
12 Which fictional character rode a horse called Phantom?
13 What colour is ‘meridian’ a shade of?
14 What was the name of Juliet's cousin killed by Benvolio in Rome and Juliet?
15 What is the name of the new Alan Partridge movie, released this week?
16 What was the name of William Shakespeare’s only son?
17 In the Bible, Jesus walked on water.  Which other biblical character did this?
18 Which 80s band had a smash hit with Tainted Love?
19 What was the Spice Girls movie called?
20 Sir Bernard Ingham was Press Secretary to which Prime Minister?

TIE BREAKER
Excluding children’s books, how many Discworld novels has Terry Pratchett written?
  
SNOWBALL
How many goals were scored in the last FA Cup competition from Round 1 onwards?

Good luck.  Answers next time…

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com

476

 The only village on Halki - population 478

 Some of the houses on sumptuous Symi.  

The bloke on the balcony of the green-shuttered house is...

...me

HALKI AND SYMI
Thankyou for the splendid comments you’ve made, both in the Comments box and via email, about my cats Halki and Symi, who played such an important part in the the last blogposting.

They are named after two of the most idyllically beautiful places I’ve ever been in my whole life.

Look at a map of the Greek Islands and home in on the Dodecanese group down in the south-east corner.  By far the largest island in this group is Rhodes.

Off the north-west coast of Rhodes lies the tiny island of Halki.  Its near neighbour to the east, lying in a claw of the Turkish coast and only marginally bigger, is Symi.  Both of them are breathtakingly pretty.  I visited them in the autumn of 2004 and will truly never, ever forget my time there.

Because they are both so photogenic, you can find lots of pictures of them on the internet.

When we acquired our two kittens - who are sisters - and were thinking of names for them, we scoured our wayward predilections for something appropriate.  Brahms and Liszt seemed disrespectful (not to say pretentious) and Hansel and Gretel seemed positively mawkish - and just as pretentious.  And then, almost simultaneously, we thought of Halki and Symi.

And I’m glad we did.  Each time I say their names, even if it’s out of frustration that Symi has been demanding attention by knocking my coffee clean out of my hands or Halki has tripped me up by weaving between my ankles, I remember those wonderful little islands - and sometimes even ask myself why I didn’t ‘do a Shirley Valentine’ and stay there.

They were oooh-aaah kittens then, of course.  Their names are hopelessly inapt now.  Such is their in-yer-face assertiveness that, if we’d adopted them only recently, we would have called them Corfu and Crete.

* * *
AGM XLII
Our collective Grand Day Out at the Tanfield Railway this year will take place on Thursday 15 August, starting at 1030 (so that we can catch the 1100 train).

You need bring nothing but your sense of humour…

A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

* * *
KEITH AND LINDA’S INTELLIJOKE
Last night I went out with a synonym ...what the hell, that is what I met 'er for!!!!

(Think about it.)

* *
AND FINALLY…
...let’s pause to congratulate three of our most faithful truckshunters...

Vivienne has successfully moved into her lovely bungalow, which is good news enough.

But it doesn’t end there.  O my word no.

It's Sid's birthday this upcoming Friday...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Sid!

And, to top it all...

Brenda has got married and is now a de facto respectable woman. 

Congratulations, Brenda, to you and Mick.  On behalf of us all - have a wonderfully happy, rewarding and fulfilled life together.

Much, much love from all of us.

* * *
CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com

475

 Halki

Symi

 ...when they were kittens

In a few weeks’ time, I’ll be embarking on what will be - without any overstatement at all - the greatest adventure of my life.  I’m hoping that, like the two Grand Tours I’ve undertaken so far, it will change my life by giving me totally new experiences and new perspectives - new vistas, new places, new people and, of course, new memories.

Planning it, though, has concentrated my mind wonderfully, as you’d expect.  I’ve not only been pre-occupied with schedules, timetables and venues but also - surprisingly - with what it all says about the kind of life I lead now.  I found myself asking if my enthusiasm for travelling is fuelled by an unsettling dissatisfaction with my daily life.

Am I (I asked myself) secretly unhappy or frustrated?  To help sort this out, I started to draft a kind of Typical Day In The Life Of Ian Robinson.  It goes like this…

0100
Am usually asleep by now but that depends on the book I’m reading or whether I have podcasts to listen to.

0130
Asleep - with Symi, one of my two cats, also asleep right on top of me.  I’m used to her snoring away on my chest and anyway I couldn’t stop her sleeping there even if I wanted to.  She’s the kind of cat that does whatever she likes.  Whoever said that ‘cats don’t have owners, they have staff’ was absolutely right.

0140
Asleep

0145
Wide awake.  Something has spooked Symi and she’s suddenly leapt off my chest, waking me up with quite a shock.  I curse her roundly and drift slowly back to sleep, lulled by the ticking wallclock.

I know that some people find the tick-tock infuriating but, whenever I’m abed in a room with no audible clock, I just can’t sleep. 

0210
Asleep

0215
Wide awake.  Unspooked, Symi has clambered back on my chest and woken me up.

Asleep until 0600, when Symi starts her neurotic ‘paddling’ - pressing her claws repeatedly into the continental quilt.  I’m used to this, too, and have the scars to prove it.  I quickly doze off again.

About 0830
The alarm sounds and spooks me and both the cats - Halki, too.

I stagger out of bed and make for the kitchen, narrowly averting utter catastrophe because the cats are weaving between my ankles or collapsing flat on the floor in front of me.  Why do cats do that?

I pour myself some fruit juice - blood orange juice, if I can get it - and put the coffee machine on.

After I’ve fed Halki and Symi ( - Purina Senior Recipe Meaty Chunks in Jelly, £5 for 12 pouches, Thankyou Good Morning - ) I stare out of the window and wait for the coffee machine to finish hubblebubbling.

I flop down in Mam’s old fireside chair, slurp my coffee and read that day’s To Do List.  I started drafting To Do Lists five years ago because, like many newly-retired people, I found that I suddenly had far too many things To Do each day and got hopelessly confused.

It might look like this…

Meet Hildie 1130
Text Paul
Put that picture up
Send birthday card to Kathy (or whoever)
Draft blog - it’s late!!!
Buy batteries, porridge, flour, washing-up liquid, cat litter
Check emails (you forgot yesterday)
Reply to Martin, Peter, Susan
Listen to back-podcasts…

And so on and so on.  I sigh heavily because I know I will never get through this lot.  

This realisation, though, spurs me into action.  I pour another coffee, sit back down again and finish reading yesterday’s paper.

That done - it’s breakfast time. 

What I have for breakfast depends on what day it is - I’m a bit OCD about this.  It’s always porridge on Mondays, Oatibix on Wednesdays, yogurt and fruit on Fridays and croissants on Saturdays and Sundays.  I'm not sure why I don't legislate for Tuesdays or Thursdays but I don't.

So if it’s Monday, I will have mixed up my oats with milk the night before because everyone says you should.  I take the mixture out of the fridge, bung it on the stove, stir it as it boils for a few minutes, lace it with sultanas and maple syrup (if I’ve been able to afford them) and sit back down - again - to eat the resulting heavenly gruel.

I really, really love porridge…

Somehow, I seem to have daydreamed away most of the morning.  My To Do List remains unticked - and its almost 1030.  If I don’t bestir myself now, Hildie will be left sitting all alone on the steps of Grey’s Monument - an experience to which she is not altogether unused.  I blush with shame and make for the shower.

The phone rings.  It’s Barry, my wonderful brother.  He’s overexcited because he’s seen a very rare moth in his garden - or a particularly beautiful species of moss on the foreshore or an unusual plant on Tunstall Hills - and wants to know when we’re going to get together so he can tell me all about it and I can tell him about my latest trip to France…

At this point, I stopped drafting my Typical Day In The Life Of Ian Robinson and read through what I’d written.

A day that starts like that, with a list of options and opportunities as rich as that - and cats so affectionate - can’t be bad. 

No, I decided.  The reasons why I long to travel - to be moving - must lie elsewhere.

But I knew that already, anyway.

* *
AGM XLII
Please don’t forget that the Great Truckshunter Summer Extravaganza will once again be taking place at the Tanfield Railway.

The date - Thursday 15 August.

The time - 1030.

Get there if you can.  Bring a friend, too, if you like.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all…

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com

474

In this blogposting…

* Truckshunters Day
* AGM XLII

* * *
July seems to be an auspicious month, one way or another, for whole troops of people.  The USA and France mark their national days in July - on the 4 and 14, respectively.  Venezuela has hers on the 5, South Sudan on the 9, Somalia and Rwanda on the 1, the Solomon Islands on the 7, Peru on the 28.  The regrettably long-memoried people of Northern Ireland goad each other into acts of defiant violence on the 12.

Amidst this bustle of international flag-waving, one small, quiet voice is raised in the name of wayward sanity.  Ours.

And our day is today - July 24, the feast day of our very own patron saint.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen; the day has once more come round when we must show the appropriate respect for St Christina the Astonishing.  Truckshunters are Astonishing by nature and St Christina was Astonishing by name - a perfect match.

So - for just a couple of minutes today - lay down your daily burden of cares, of getting and spending.  Switch off your mobile phone and your tv.  Remove all distractions - present and possible.

Make a nice cup of tea and retrieve a digestive from the biscuit barrel.  Stare out of the window.  Look at the trees.  Stroke the cat or the dog - or both.  Dunk your McVitie’s then slurp your tea from the saucer.

And think of St Christina.

When you’ve finished, pick up the daily threads again, safe in the knowledge that your Astonishing duty has been done and that St Christina can rest peacefully for another year.

Happy Truckshunters Day.

(Incidentally, you can find out all about the Astonishing St Christina in blogposting 381, from July last year.)

* * *

 

A GRAND DAY OUT
Today also seems like a good day to confirm that our Annual Grand Day Out at the Tanfield Railway will take place on Thursday 15 August.  It will start half an hour earlier than usual - at 1030 - so that we can catch the 1100 train from Andrews House station.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all.  You’d be a fool (or a mountebank) to miss it.

If anyone needs a lift on the day from Newcastle city, please get in touch in the usual way.

See you there…

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com  

473

It’s Gay Pride Day in Newcastle and I’m feeling good.  So here are some jokes I’ve been sent over the last few weeks...

A pirate walked into a bar, and the bartender said ‘Hey, I haven't seen you for a while.  What happened?  You look terrible.’

‘What do you mean?’ said the pirate, ‘I feel fine.’

‘What about the wooden leg?  You didn't have that before.’

‘Well,’ said the pirate, ‘We were in a battle, and I got hit with a cannon ball, but I'm fine now.’

The bartender replied ‘Well, OK, but what about that hook?  What happened to your hand?’

The pirate explained - ‘We were in another battle.  I boarded a ship and got into a sword fight.  My hand was cut off.  I got fitted with a hook but I'm fine, really.’

‘OK - but what about that eye patch?’

‘Ah,’ said the pirate, ‘One day we were at sea, and a flock of birds flew over.  I looked up, and one of them shit in my eye.’

‘You're kidding,’ said the bartender.  ‘You couldn't lose an eye just from bird shit.’

‘It was my first day with the hook.’
* * *
This next one’s called The Perfect Husband...

Several men are in the locker room of a golf club.  A mobile phone on a bench rings and a man switches on the hands-free speaker function and begins to talk.  Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

Man: ‘Hello’

Woman: ‘Hi sweetheart, it's me.  Are you at the club?’

Man: ‘Yes.’

Woman: ‘I'm at the shops now and found this beautiful leather coat.  It's only £3,000; is it OK if I buy it?’

Man: ‘Of course - if you like it that much, go ahead and buy it.’

Woman:  ‘I also called at the Lexus dealership and saw the new models.  There’s one I really liked.’

Man:  ‘How much?’

Woman:  ‘£90,000.’

Man:  ‘OK, but for that price I want it with all the options.’

Woman:  ‘Great!  Oh, and one more thing... I was just talking to Janie and found out that the house I wanted last year is back on the market.  They're asking £980,000 for it.’

Man:  ‘Well, then go ahead and make an offer of £900,000.  They'll probably take it. If not, we can go the extra eighty-thousand if it's what you really want.’

Woman:  ‘OK.  I'll see you later! I love you so much!’

Man:  ‘Bye! I love you, too.’

The man hangs up.

The other men in the locker room are staring at him in astonishment, mouths wide open.

He turns and asks ‘Does anyone know who's phone this is?’

* * *
DOCTOR MALEVOLENT:  THE TWO AUSTRIANS
In posting 472 I posed another of the Evil Doctor’s inscrutable questions, namely…

Two Austrians are waiting at a tram-stop in Graz.  One Austrian is the father of the other Austrian’s son.

How are they related?

The answer, of course, is that they are husband and wife.

Numbskull.

As evidence in support of this fatuously obvious solution, please see the picture at the top of this posting, which shows the Austrians themselves.  (It really is a picture of two Austrians; no other blog gives you service of these high standards of authenticity.)

If you have any mindboggling puzzles like these, send them to me or accept the consequences…

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com