Allowing for the odd extra illegal immigrant or two, the population of the United Kingdom is about 66 million. Multiply that by 5 and you get approximately 330 million, which, applying the same rules and allowing for the odd Trump Wall jumper and burrower is the population of the United States. I learned from a lady in the know the other day that there are roughly 1,300 McDonalds outlets on the Eastern side of the pond. Multiply that by 5 and you get 6,500, which is approximately 25,500 less than the number of McDonalds on the west side of the Atlantic. In other words, each McDonalds in America caters for 10,312.5 people, while Britons have to put up with 50,769.2 persons attending each of Ronald’s establishments in Brexitland. Either we Brits eat a lot less burgers or we spend a much more time queuing than Americans? I think we are entitled to an answer. Personally, now that my body is a temple and good nutrition the essential order of the day, I will be delaying no one in their attempts to poison themselves.
The lady in question is Richard Bland’s new girlfriend. Well she may not be that new but it’s the first time I have met her. Unlike her European Tour professional partner, she claims to know nothing about golf, but she is an expert in marketing for McDonalds. Her annual budget is £120 million, which represents about 4% of the company’s profits. Those sound like quite impressive numbers to me. I mention all this with no great end in mind, merely because I thought it was quite interesting. I could be wrong.
Luckily there was not a burger in sight when we were entertained to a slap up feast last night by our hosts at Heritage Resort Le Telfair. Actually banquet is probably a better word as the delicious seafood, shellfish and meats of every distinction just kept on coming. It all proved too much for my friend and colleague Alan Michell who later returned large quantities to sender claiming a nasty dose of food poisoning, when we all know it was the result of sheer gluttony. I concede that is a trifle unfair as I don’t believe anyone ate as much as I did. It was a most enjoyable evening and great thanks must go to our extremely generous hosts here.
Having been soundly thrashed on a late night snooker table by John ‘Hustler’ Morgan, I took to the skies over Mauritius this morning in an Ultralite seaplane, courtesy of Afrasia Bank, the tournament sponsors. Ludwig the long-suffering pilot kindly allowed me to take control once we were airborne and I managed to avoid putting us into a stall or a spin that might have ripped the delicate wings off. The pre-flight briefing had incorporated the comforting knowledge that should a wing become detached, one merely had to remove this red pin, pull the lever hard and a parachute would deploy, thereby returning the extremely light craft safely back to earth. Apparently this is now standard on all Ultralites and Microlites. As a former paratrooper I was greatly comforted by this knowledge. As a former helicopter pilot I took even greater solace as helicopters and parachutes tend not to go together. The views from above were spectacular and I would have taken lots of photos had Ludwig not said that his last two passengers dropped there phones/cameras out of the window. Plonkers. Anyway, I had my hands too full flying the sensitive craft and enjoying the scenery.
I maintained excellent control until about two hundred feet asl, at which point Ludwig wisely reclaimed command of his vessel. (I am not sure if a seaplane is correctly called a vessel or an aircraft?). We executed a safe and trouble free landing in amongst the unpredictable kite surfers.
The day then passed uneventfully until the evening, when I was late for a team dinner because, while writing this, I failed to notice that my free-standing, cast iron, Victorian bath was overflowing and creating a fairly serious flood in my beautiful bathroom. When I finally made it to dinner everyone else was seated and waiting to order. This is a situation that I find myself in not infrequently. Our Producer, David Mould, with whom I have been friends for a very long time, then said some nice things about me because I am leaving. Well truthfully, I have been sacked and this is my last tournament ever. My colleagues then did their best to embarrass me with an array of compliments, apart from Dale Hayes, who reaffirmed his position as an alien from Plankton 2 and then tried to soften his words by pretending we were friends.
I have to be up early to go swimming with dolphins so will end the day here. I am assured it will be great fun.
I have just realised this is Blog No 69 and I have avoided any reference to resuscitation, whether it be mouth to mouth or otherwise. Well I had until that point.
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