So the Sloop has slipped anchor. The crew have jumped ship.  It'll be like the Marie Celeste. You could turn it into a seabird restaurant!

 

PS Good result yesterday.  I only watched because both sprogs were home and had the TV on.

 

PPS Feeling great today. I had a massage yesterday and am totally painfree.  I'd forgotten what it felt like or rather doesn't feel like.

Why? It would only fill up with Winwaloes. Better to build a small nuclear device and violently irradiate the place so that no one can enjoy it any more!

 

PS. What result? I didn't think there were any beyblade competitions on the telly.

 

PPS. Aha ..... and, in deed, pah! Even with my shockingly limited intelligence I know that the human brain can not sense pain and so can not truly recreate the memory of pain, merely the psychological impression of what you imagine it might have felt like at the time. Therefore, if you can not remember what pain felt like, you can not truly judge the absence of pain ..... unless you're fielding an e-mu from Windy-loe, which I class as the exception that proves the rule!

True.

 

PSWhat result???  I thought you were interested in sport.  Mind you for all the resemblance modern rugby has to the game of my skool days it might just as well have been a beyblade comp.  N E way I thought beyblades was (were/are) on telly.

 

PPS Don't go all psychological on me. Especially after last nights indulgences.

Well, y'see, while I am gladdened to see the England boys do well at the ruggerby (as opposed to what goes on in boarding schools which is a virtual anagram!), I also have a few friends, some of whom are Welsh. So, I take such victories in my stride and refuse to gloat. Of course, some sad wannabecornish twit would point out that England were empowered by three bods of a distinctly Cornish AOC; Messrs. Trevor Woodman, Phil Vickery and Olly Barkley . Which was true but hardly anything the home counties aristocracy should be claiming as their own.

 

PS. Beyblades are real as anyone who believes in the Cartoon Network will tell you. It's reality that's false!

 

PPS. Last night's indulgences, eh? You don't think that there may be a possibility that they are why you are no longer feeling anything from the neck down? You have my symphony, sometimes (in my student days) I had hangovers so crippling that someone could have been sawing my legs off and I wouldn't have cared.

Three esses and nine dees? Hell, you can't even make a word out of that (unless you are a rattlesnake), let alone a living. No wonder you were banished to a Grendel-like existence in the swamps. Presumably, that's where you met BM. Given his ruthless raids on Sharp's Brewery I can only ever think of him as a Beerwolf!

 

So, what (or who) are you feeling? Or is that (or are they) best left unmentioned before the watershed?

It's always dangerous to presume.  In what sense do you mean "met"?  I came to the swamps of my own freewill...........to save my people from the terrors of the Metrolops.  'Tis only natural that in the course of my journeying thro' the Fens I encountered many fair young men ( and a few Hibernian refugees).  Though distant, Sharp's is too easy a target.  But, no doubt, there will be future assaults so that they don't get complacent.

 

Beerwolf's current preference is closer to the mud hut.

 

Best left unmentioned.........................................remind me to tell you on our next trip SW.

Too true. As the Sonics were pointing out to me only the other day after doing History of Humans and Other Inconsequential Beings at skool, being the heir presumptive can be very bad for your health. And then the Shauns revealed that their research in the sheep dip library showed that in the olden days, particularly in the damp industrial ages, many humans ended up coughing their lungs out and dying from presumption. Definitely not a good thing.

 

Hibernians? Which ones? The oirish ones who moved to Scotland and formed a football club, the scotch ones who moved to the Haemorrhoid Isle and introduced sectarianism or the ursine variety who invented hibernation?

 

Yes, Trevor warned me after his pacific experiences that there are often some wicked brews available just down the track from your mud hut at the local shaman's. Just make sure that Nat Geo don't do an award-winning documentary on your doorstep or the next thing you know you'll have a flock of Winwaloes on your doorstep saying, "Isn't it wonderful. So unspoiled. It will have to go if we are going to have a decent holiday and still have time to get back for Henley."!

Yes, but the Winni-walloes of this world can buy the soon-to-be-built executive residences on the now-increasingly-derelict factory site next door. Beautiful views of a road ( reassuringly similar to roads in London), a field (so it must be in the Country) and, depending on the exact location on the site, the Sewerage Works. And London is only 2 hours away by train, except that Anglia Railways have lost their franchise eventhough they are the best company at keeping to the timetable.

 

A pity there won't be affordable housing for the indigenous swamp-dwellers

 

 At least when that's been redeveloped the value of my mud hut will go up to IRO squit all. Nat Geo, David Attenborough, whoever, can make an award winning documentary about the mud hut and those who eake out a living in the bayou............providing they offer me a huge amount of dosh to recompence the upheaval, intrusion and general bothering.

 

's odd you should mention strange brews.  When we had the back parlour floor up last autumn we (re) discovered some bottles of elderberry wine.  Now I haven't made wine for at least 12 years so it must be either a terrific vintage or drain cleaner.  Who's going to get the short straw?  When did you say the RT would be visiting?

A cunning plan with only one possible drawback ..... you'd have Winwaloe as a neighbour!

 

What's a franchise? Come to think of it, what's a railway? I think we've still got the tracks somewhere but as for anything to run on them goes ... They terminated (with extreme prejudice) the overnight mail train to Penzance a month or two back. Now the post is an absolute lottery. Sometimes it turns up in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes you get nowt for a couple of days and then you get a wodge all suspiciously rubber-banded together as if they've been saving them up until someone can be arsed to give them to the postie to deliver. The way things are going we'll be reverting to mail coaches and staging posts. Won't that be a bugger for all the lawyers, stockbrokers, bankers, etc. when they find stagecoaches trundling in and out of their converted 18th century coaching house retreat in the country. Especially the overnight service!

 

Elderberry, you say? Hm, I think that it will have to be safely tested on humans before the RT have a snifter. It's not so much the potential alcohol content I'm worried about as to what might happen if the colour in the wine isn't fixed. Purple hedgehogs!

 

PS. Had a magnificent diatribe from a new correspondent supporting Winwaloe and the skateboarders and claiming that SSI was written for the emmets! Had fun with that one.

Its even more cunning than you thought.  The masked rider would be unmasked!

 

At least you still have the tracks - with some (however remote) chance that a train might run on it again.  Our track was demolished years ago.  Beeching axed the service and the developers (them again) ripped up the track. Its now a small estate of starter homes on roads with imaginative names like Railway Terrace and Hawks Ridge (!!! what?) 

 

Purple hedgehogs sounds OK to me.  You may have noticed (or not as you're a bloke) that I'm quite partial to the pink/purple end of the spectrum.  I'd be more concerned about what it would do to the Shauns.  No, on second thoughts, not concerned at all - I'd have ready-dyed wool for my winter woolies.

But what if he is a figment of his own imagination?

 

Hawk's Ridge? I thought you said that you had buzzards. Actually, come to think of it, given the ruthless developers theme perhaps Vulture's Pickings would have been a more appropriate name.

 

Purple hedgehogs, however, do not sound good to the Sonics. They have spent many years cultivating their unique blueness as part of their TV/Videogame business. Going purple, while appealing to some new markets, might alienate their existing customers. More research needed, methinks. On the other hoof, the Shauns are game (actually they're livestock, pheasants are game!). Send them a vat of the elderberry and they'll give it a whirl. Should the juice be applied internally or externally?

His figment would be disfigured - no, that doesn't sound right. Nor does unfigged. 

 

No, I didn't say WE have buzzards.  Even the Mucho Bravo Catto Macho wouldn't risk sticking a whisker outside if there was a lurking buzzard.  There are buzzards in the larger environs of East Angular. 

 

I really do think the Sonics ought to be consider expanding their appeal.  Perhaps Sonicsons could embrace other hues.  Change, as we are constantly being reminded, is a Good Thing - not sure who for ( or if you're feeling picky - for whom)

 

Judging from the interesting and unique shades on the tablecloth - either. 

Perhaps he should just be left to stew in his own self-appointed fig-role?

 

What? No vultures either?

 

It's not that the Sonics aren't interested in experimentation (only last week they tried to throw me off a cliff to see how bouncy I was) but you've got to remember that they are under contract to the video/tv studios and, as anyone who has watched the Simpsons knows, primary colours are best.

 

Perhaps you could flog the elderberry hooch to the secret soap powder laboratories to see which dissolves the tablecloth first; your home-made plonk or new, improved biological Spazz!

I seem to recall a Griffon Vulture terrorised the good and wealthy folk of Southwold last year - or was it the year before? It perched on the vicarage roof ( now that must be a Sign) and persecuted the vicar's cat. Allegedly it (the vulture) was an escapee from a local wildlife park (zoo to you and me) and seeing the poor thing's cramped quarters I'm not surprised it made a bid for freedom.

 

Hadn't clocked that one - the Simpsons being PC

 

Oh, Spazz every time.  The hooch colouring is so good it doesn't need a mordant.

 

PS Did you? Bounce? 

Yes, Rolls Royce did design some fantastic engines but I do think they could have made a bit more of an effort to ensure that they didn't escape into the wild. At least it wasn't a Merlin that escaped otherwise you'd have probably ended up with Winwaloe camping in your local churchery trying to prise the sword out of the stone!

 

Still, it does fit in nicely with the aeronautical theme we seem to have developed recently. What with Winwaloe's R S Hawker-Hurricanes and your Griffins and Vultures we'll soon have enough parts to start building the Cornish Air Force!

 

Simpsons? PC? Perish the thought! Popular, maybe, but politically correct? Blasphemy! Anyway, I think the colour scheme is something to do with the fact that the colouring in is (or was at the onset) done in Korea or some such place so they wanted to stick to straightforward colour concepts to avoid aberrations and mis-translations when the original animations were sent over from the US to be coloured in for the TV production. I kid you not! Saw an interview with Matt Groening once and that's what He said so it must be true.

 

I bow to your superior knowledge. As you know blokes are contractually required to fail to understand the operation of washing machines. (A bloke at our krikkit club a few years back claimed that when he had to wash his whites he just stuffed them into the washing machine and turned the dial to K ..... for kit!). Just make sure you don't end up washing with elderberry wine and drinking the Spazz!

 

PS. Squelched but survived the drop. RT still debating fiercely as to how to classify the result.

No, not polically correct (even I had figured that one out), primary colours.

 

Your krikkit-kit story reminds me of one time that BM & I were going on hols and younger sprog was at home.  I left written instructions about using the washing machine, starting with "make sure the plug is in the socket and switched on".  Caused a severe sense of humour loss.

 

Spazz is not unlike most of the capuccinos you get - lots of froth and tastes disgusting.  Well, most coffee does to me which is why I very, very rarely have anything that even whiffs of the stuff.

 

PS perhaps they should have tried a higher cliff?  I should think they can classify it as a "result" but not necessarily the one they wanted/were expecting. 

Sorry, I was being distracted by at the time by the RT who are divided as to whether to take up the elderberry offer. It's about 50/50 at the minute with Soupie holding the casting vote (but she prefers G&T, which is colourfast and adds a natural gloss to the scale!).

 

Sprogs today, huh? No sense of humour. At that age I'd have been leaving my laundry in a heap to fester while I flogged the Spazz powder to gullible skool kids!

 

Totally agree about the coffee thing. You are talking to the ultimate anti-coffee anal-retentive who used to delicately nibble away the outer coatings of suspicious looking Revels to ensure that I didn't inadvertently scoff the coffee flavour one. (Mind you, it worked in my favour at Crimbo because my sisters used to like the coffee Quality Streets but hated the toffees and so, on the basis of their relative binomial distribution in the tin, I did rather better than they did in the exchanges!).

 

PS. They are waiting until the coast path firms up a bit more after the recent weather. The apparently 'there is something absolutely vital I just have to see' at the top of Hellesveor!

 

PPS. Winwaloe has unmasked/unfrocked himself. Expect much controversy in this week's update!

Then (depending on which way your preference swings) you had better (or not) tell Soupie about the vast quantities of Gin we brought back from la belle France on the pretext that it (2003) was a very good Sloe year and we would make gallons of sloe gin.  What with one thing and another, autumn had turned into winter, the birds had nicked all the sloes and (alas) we were left with rather more gin than we could cope with.  Last trip we didn't even bother to bring any more back.

 

Ah, so that's why you're in hiding in SI. I bet they were so mad that they were foaming at the mouth.

 

Cripes, I didn't realise there were even more in the Kelly gang.

 

Back to the Kernow Air Force.  There are plenty of bored young pilots hearabouts who do nothing all day except fly their planes and make a lot of noise and annoy peeps.  (Not dissimilar to the disaffected SI yoof.)  You're welcome to them!  I know you won't accept as that would increase the emmettry, but thought I'd make the generous offer anyway.

 

BM's being massaged at the mo.!!  Not by me, I hasten to add.  My turn on Saturday - for a massage, not to be a masseuse

How cruel. Now poor Soupie is torn between two agonising choices; pass on the G&T or travel to East Angular and risk leaving Mademoiselle Soupette with the RT as baby-sitters. Oh, the dragonity!!

 

Actually, I did a roaring trade. The skool sprogs would rather die than admit they had been taken in by soap powder and so told all their mates that it was the best stuff they'd ever had and the parents, who had resigned themselves to having their sprogs turn into drug-crazed imbeciles anyway, were at least relieved to find that they returned home whiter than white!

 

Actually, between thee and me (as no one else reads these things), I'm not sprog-ist. I'm not racist, nationalist or, as the RT would confirm, even humanist. I treat everyone on their individual merits. Back in the good old days when I was reconstructing the wrinklies residence we had a very affable pair of teenagers (Chris and Damon) as nearly neighbours. (They moved to Carbis Bay so that Charlie the GTi Tortoise would have room to ramble!). So, I know it's not as if there isn't an alternative to living under siege from teenage terrorists.

 

The Kernow Air Force is, I must admit, a bit of a thorny issue. In principle I am in favour of it but it would mean that Dubya's mightiest aircraft carrier, the USS East Anglia, would be deployed against us. Cornwall would probably be completely safe in the ensuing conflict but I would hate to have all those British 'friendly fire' casualties indirectly on my conscience after the yanks had finished shooting down (and up) the RAF (and Army).

 

PS. Massages, ummmmmmmm. I envy you. Did I ever tell you about my blotting paper epidermis?

You didn't have to tell her. Soupette could come too that would solve one problem.  Not sure where we would put 50% of the RT - definitely NOT in the cellar.  Too close to temptation.

 

PS No you didn't - how do you cope with ablutions and precipitation?

Sounds like a good deal. Only one problem I now foresee and that is, despite my grim reputation, I am a caring Jelly and would certainly not be prepared to let Soupie and Soupette try to traverse the breadth of the country on their own. Trouble is that I couldn't even afford the postage let alone the train fare for me to accompany them. Can't you get BM to find some fire stations to fix down here and then you could bring the goodies with you. (Also solves the problem of what to do with 50% of the RT. They wouldn't like a cellar anyway, I think, because they are free range cuddly peeps).

 

PS. With great difficulty. Way, way back many centuries ago (not long after the bible began) I was a sproglet and had quite bad eczema in my deformative years. I was the only kid in infants skool with long trousers (civvies no less) because I was so smeared in gunk they had to cover me in bandages to stop me leaking everywhere. Fortunately, I grew out of it eventually but ever since I've had skin like a chronically dehydrated rattlesnake. So, as I'm sure you know, as massage requires a modicum of lubrication to achieve the best results I did present a bit of a problem. Everyone else got a few drops of finely scented natural oils to ease the manipulative processes, when it was my turn they brought in a 40 litre tub of chip oil!

I thought dragons could fly, so you wouldn't need to accompany them.  We'd just have to make sure our cousins from across the Pond aren't practising friendly fire. Though heaven knows they do it so frequently they don't need any practice.  Ryanair were doing a surferdude special, Stanstead to Newquay for a tenner last year. Don't know what it costs now.  Hope they bring it back as it would make the journey to SI a lot quicker.  Could be a bit of a problem bringing vats of Doom back.

 

PS Lucky BM's having daily massage.  I've got to wait until Saturday. 

Aaaaaaargh! Don't mention the W word. (Close inspection will reveal that S and Miss S have arms instead of wings). I suppose if you've evolved by working in a soup mine arms are a hell of a lot more useful than wings but it's a subject best not brought up in their presence. Besides, it would be rude. You don't go round pointing out that years of de-evolution have rendered Vile Jelly into a hideous blob with a face like a baboon's bum, do you?  ..... Well, maybe,  ..... but he deserves it!

 

Actually, Nukie airport is a bit of a tender subject. I've been busy jousting with Winwaloe this week and one of the points touched upon is the thorny subject of who benefits from Objective One and other project financing. Y'see, Nukie is staggering along on its last legs because it has fallen foul of this 'no government/EU subsidies to be spent subsidising Kamikaze Airways (or whoever)' while at the same time airlines have pulled out because paying the full whack on landing fees is not economically viable. Consequently, Nukie airport has recently been taken over by a 'whatever committee' to try and work out how to keep the airport operational. The local residents have (not unfairly) said "we're not going to get hammered on our council tax" to sudsidise Nukie airport all by ourselves. I would argue that not merely continuing but expanding Nukie is vital for Cornwall not to be left behind by the 21st century world, so why the hell aren't these Ob 1 funds being put into that sort of project? Like you said, business or pleasure, the prospect of flying makes a trip to Cornwall a hell of a lot more enticing than if you have to go either on a Magical Mystery Tour with the Thomas The Tank Engine or spend half your available time with nothing but the inside of your car to entertain you as you crawl along.

 

PS. Pull a sicky or just put the clocks forward early!

I thought they had both, arms and wings I mean.  They're flying reptiles/animals not birds.

 

Do you really look in the mirror every morning and think ' 'morning hideous blob with a face like a baboon's bum'?  Which is the quickest route to Hellesveor?  After watching "Trouble at the Top" last night I think I prefer you the way (I think) you are.

 

Did you watch it?  Tom Aiken, ex- 2 Michellin stars and his pretentious wife. (You couldn't cook this at home for the price. tell me where you could get lobster, raspberries and scallops for 2 people for £80.00?) Er, what?  Well, here in East Angular, actually. Fish straight off the boat - back to Rick- and the berries at a farm just up the road.  Now my creation won't look as if it ought to be in the Tat but the air in the kitchen will be less blue and the ambience of the dining room a lot nicer.  I will never use the f*** word again, it needs a rest. They achieved 1 star but who wants to eats a sculpture?  Mind you it was a wonder that the sculptures arrived at the tables intact as the poor waiters had to carry them on enormous trays up a steep flight of stairs.  AA Gill didn't like it! 

 

The evening wasn't ruined as we'd also watched Chalkie and His Man.  (Oh, still my beating heart - and RS isn't too bad either.)

 

Enough of that.  Its just when things irritate me I worry at them terrier-like (back to Chalkie again) until they are no longer of importance. 

 

Talking of which, you could do worse than use all this spare energy and time campaigning for something or other - hands off Nukie Airstrip.  T'would keep you off the streets and out of the pub - and out of mischief !!

 

PS Why should I pull a sickie when I'm at home anyway?  Its not as if I can say to BM ' I don't feel up to cooking tonight' 'cos nor is he.  Which should make this evening fun as we have some friends (oh yes, we do still have some) over for a vegetarian meal. 

Yes, that's the theory but look at the piccies on SSI. No wings. Besides do you think the CAA would let Soupie fly while she is awash with G&Ts? Imagine the chaos. It would be like Spain when the air traffic controllers have their annual summer strike!

 

I'm afraid use of the F word is mandatory in kitchens, as are delusions of grandeur for head chefs. Still, if people are so stupid as to pay through the nose to have something that's nice to look at and impossible to eat, more fool them.

 

Get out and campaign? Are you kidding? It has taken we all week to fend off Winwaloe's e-mails and devise a cunning plan to save Cornwall. Maybe those who say 'get off your bum and do something' to me should look at their own contributions. At least I'm publicising the issues which is more than be said of nearly all the other websites you might care to peruse. But while I have to expend all my energies defending my position it is unlikely that I am going to make much forward progress out of the trenches.

 

PS. Pull a home sicky and get BM or your mates to do the cooking. Failing that, as it's veggie nosh, just give them some raw carrots and save on all the prep/cooking time. Anyway, how come he gets to spend all his time in massage parlours when he is supposed to be working and you are spending all your time working when you are supposed to be off?

Point taken.

 

Is that because of all the testosterone that Anthony B was on about?  Perhaps that's what's missing in the hospital kitchens - all female staff.

 

PS Only one to the best of my knowledge unless there's something you/he aren't telling me?  A change is as good as a rest - or so they say

As it is in commercial kitchens. Usually by the KP at the hands of a megalomaniac head chef! When you see all the rage and bad temper that goes on in those places it's a wonder that they are allowed to play with sharp knives. Hospital kitchens are probably full of female chefs because all the male chefs are in the detox and knife wound wards!

 

Nuffink to do me with me, mate. You were the one who said that he was having daily massage, a phrase that would definitely indicate multiple occurrences!