It was a beautiful, warm morning in East Sussex today, perfect for cavorting Callie to roam in the Beech forest that is her regular playground. Passing through the tall timbers was reminiscent of leaving church on one’s wedding day with a profusion of leaves fluttering down all around like confetti. The forest’s abundant canopy is rapidly dissipating as green turn to yellows and reds and now to brown as winter’s icy claws take hold. Actually there hasn’t been too much sign of ice as yet, but the trees are preparing just in case.

Listening to Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 (a practice I try to avoid as much as possible) there was a welter of complaints about the British public’s brazen refusal to lock down for a second time. Until recently my instincts would have been to agree with the complainers, but I now think we have this hopelessly wrong. Bojo and DimCum, with the “help” of Hancockup and the Brothers Grimm (the Modellers, or meddlers, in Chief) are doing their best to destroy so much of what we cherish and value in this country. The sad thing is that considerable numbers of people are ignoring Lockdown 2, hence largely negating its purpose, but all those shops, businesses and theatres that have been forced to close are still taking the hit and many will probably not survive. Then came the news this afternoon that a Pfizer vaccine is almost there and we could be out of the woods in a few months. World markets rallied like thoroughbreds on Speed, gold tanked and an air of optimism pervaded. Except it won’t change our leaders minds (for want of a better word) and the pain will no doubt continue for weeks to come. Historians will look back on this phase of our lives and wonder in stupefied bewilderment at our ability to self-destruct.

Ironing my son’s school trousers last night brought to mind how I became such an expert ironer. (No false modesty here). When I joined the RAF as an eighteen year old we were put through the mill of bulling shoes and boots, pressing shirts and uniforms and doing all those menial tasks that you see in the movies that are designed to instil discipline and teamwork. The daily uniform of the officer cadet was thick wool, itchy and extremely uncomfortable. To get a razor sharp crease was almost impossible until you learnt the tricks of the trade. The secret was to shave the inside of the seam so that it was smooth and then run a bar of soap down it, before ironing it hard. The seam was impressive! The American habit of sewing in a seam was severely frowned on. It’s interesting how in the British military everything was made as hard as possible. Hobnail boots had to be polished and bulled until you could shave in them. We had to wear puttees (a legacy of WWI), but only around the ankle not all the way to the knee. There was a very special way of tying them so that they looked super neat. The combat trousers were supposed to be tucked into them and then folded over. It was only after serving with the Americans that we discovered elasticated bands that you could fold the trousers under, which was much neater and smarter. Everything was made so much easier for American servicemen, with their perma-shine shoes and stay press shirts and uniforms. We felt more authentic and therefore superior, no doubt to their intense irritation. I think it says something about our respective societies though.

Expect some fireworks today; despite BoJo and his Merry Men choosing this very day as the start of Lockdown 2. How mean spirited is that? All those bonfires and firework displays that have been planned for ages and paid for, now under threat. Standing outside on a beautiful cold November night surely can’t pose too much danger from Covid? I fancy a lot might go ahead anyway.

Somewhat belatedly (I’ve been on the road for a few days) let me report back on the Rotary puzzle mentioned in 156. My dilemma was somewhat pre-empted with the news that upon further investigation the Committee realised that half the planned project was way beyond our means and had therefore been abandoned. Phew! However, I did stick my head above the parapet and ask a few salient (I hope) questions, mainly relating to the fact that the Plan still involves raising £400,000 by October 2022 to help fund homes for the homeless in Eastbourne. It’s an admirable but daunting task. It looks like my broadcasting skills might now be required to make a promotional video.

I was in Bath a couple of days ago. There can be few more beautiful cities on earth on a bright, frost coated November morning, the classic Roman and Georgian silhouettes rising out of the surrounding carpet of frozen white ground, highlighted by the brilliant colours of autumn. The Georgian City still boasts a significant number of privately owned shops, but the number of empty premises seems to grow almost daily, thanks to Covid and Lockdowns. One of the City’s most prestigious is Rossiters, a general trading emporium where you can buy anything from an exquisite double bed to a fancy mug or finely tooled leather bound diary. It was obvious that they had only recently re-stocked in preparation for Christmas. The shelves were groaning with upmarket Christmas tree decorations and a surfeit of “wow I wouldn’t have thought of that” presents. The greatly dispirited checkout lady confirmed that they would be shutdown by Lockdown 2. As I suspected, she also confirmed that somewhere between eighty and ninety per cent of their annual turnover is taken in November and December. It really brought it home to me just how ruinous this policy is. I can’t help thinking we are on very dangerous ground.

Meanwhile congratulations are due to Rafa Nadal who has won his 1,000th tournament tennis match, joining Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and Roger Federer as the only men to have achieved that milestone. According to a European Tour tweet he is also a scratch golfer, although the accompanying video of his swing looks more like an 18 handicapper. His pre-shot routine mimics his pre-serve calisthenics, with a hitch of the trousers, a bum scratch, a tweak of the sleeves, adjust the glove, touch the lips, give the peak of the cap a little shake, before addressing the ball with a few more twitches and then a lurch back and forth that is highly reminiscent of so many occupants of driving range bays on a wet Saturday afternoon. It’s not unlike a Catherine Wheel spinning into action….hopefully the end result isn’t a damp squib.

Schadenfreude. A most useful German word that we have poached. In essence it means taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune, something Brits are not supposed to do; or certainly not admit to anyway! I concede I experienced a little of that feeling yesterday when I was blamed for the lack of cream for her Ladyship’s coffee. Stomping off in high dudgeon, she had almost reached the local Tesco, with rain pouring down, when she realised she had left her face mask behind. About turn, trek home and start again. South Africans have a wonderfully sardonic one-word expression that covers the situation; shame. I had forgotten about the aforementioned German word until a friend from that Country reminded me of it. I guiltily confess I did experience a little schadenfreude at Mrs T’s misfortune.

That same German friend is a professional barista who used to make the most delicious coffee at our local deli/cafe. Sadly the cafe side has been forced to close courtesy of Covid, but I have been able to seek her advice when it comes to making Americanos at home. Grinding my own high quality beans, I feel as though I should immediately be ahead of the game. If nothing else the lovely smell of freshly ground coffee is a great way to start the day and it’s an instant check on whether you’re suffering from Covid or not! I have a new Bialetti Moka percolator, one of those Italian aluminium creations that sits on the stove and bubbles away with rather pleasing gurgling sounds until all the water in the bottom half has passed through the grinds and up a central tube into the upper reservoir, from which it is easily poured. The issue is knowing how fine to grind the beans and how much to put in the hopper. According to Barista lady, if the coffee is bitter it means the grinds are too fine (and perhaps too plentiful) so that the water lingers too long passing through them. If the coffee tastes acidic it means the grind is too coarse and the water has passed too hastily through them. At least I think that’s what she said. I am going through a lengthy process of experimentation to find the right combination. It’s not terribly scientific and I confess is somewhat frustrating. It’s a bit like the old Artillery practice of “bracketing”, where you deliberately shoot over the target, then adjust so that your missiles fall short, then try going long again, but shorter than your first shots, then go short but longer than your first short shots (I hope you’re following this) and so on until you hit the target….assuming it hasn’t moved while you pratted about!

Talking of which I heard today that they are considering appointing a senior military person to try to rescue the mess that is Test, Track, Trace, Isolate and generally screw up people’s lives. If they do, I just hope they find a suitably competent person and not someone who’s risen through the peacetime ranks by keeping their nose clean and doing what they’re told. There are plenty of those I assure you! However, it is the sort of thing that a senior officer, used to planning major campaigns, should be able to organise well. The thing they must remember though is that in the Army, when you say “jump soldier” the response will be “Yes Sir, how high?” Civilians don’t always respond in quite the same way. I would put myself forward for consideration but as I am no longer serving, nor was I very senior, means I sadly don’t qualify. The fact that I would be bloody hopeless is irrelevant.

Once again, I am on the horns of a dilemma. (It seems to happen a lot these days). The Rotary Club, of which I am a very new member, is pursuing a course of action that is laudable in its intention, but in my very humble opinion, stark staring bonkers to attempt. The project will be discussed at length in a lunchtime Zoom meeting and my conscience tells me I should speak up and proclaim my misgivings. I don’t think I am the only one (I certainly know of one other Thomas), but as a new boy I am reluctant to stick my head above the parapet. What to do? I suspect it will come down to a momentary decision; the easy life or stand up and be counted? I’ll let you know. As far as I know there’s no German word or expression for this particular dilemma.

I am relieved to report that humiliation was averted in Wednesday night’s Rotary Quiz. All the best scores came from members who had their wives alongside them (unsurprisingly!), but I scored well amongst the solo runners. Phew!

Did you notice the extraordinary story yesterday of the Diabolical Ironclad beetle? It’s a flightless little thing about two centimetres long that mainly inhabits oak trees along America’s Western coastline. Without the ability to fly, its defence against predators is an extraordinarily strong exoskeleton that can withstand over 39,000 times its own body weight. To put that in context, if I had a similar facility, you could pile up sixty Challenger main battle tanks, one on top of the other on top of me and it wouldn’t crush me. A Challenger weighs sixty five tons. How incredible is that! No wonder scientists have been analysing its shell to see what they can learn from it in terms of creating strength in composite materials.

Oops, it’s now Sunday 28th and winter has set in. The clocks have gone back and storm and pestilence are battering our portals. I fear it might be a long march till April. Having arisen somewhat late, even for a Sunday, I have just been berated because “you know who’s” first coffee of the morning was ruined by curdled cream. Why, when I shopped on Friday night didn’t I get her some more? Because there were two cartons in the fridge already. Yes, but they were time-expired. (She’s been away for a couple of days). Of course it was my silly fault for not checking. How to ruin a nice atmosphere early in the day! I know it would be a dull world if we were all the same, but I sometimes wish we could be a bit more alike!

It took me well into my sports broadcasting career to realise the importance of having someone else to blame when things go wrong if you are an elite sportsmen. They don’t all do it, but I have often witnessed players at the top level blaming anything and anybody for their failures. To do otherwise would be a sign of weakness; that actually you are fallible and perhaps not quite as good as you thought you were. Probably the absolute master of this, in my experience, was Colin Montgomerie, a very fine golfer who dominated the European Tour for years, but never won the Major that his undoubted talent surely deserved. He was absolutely brilliant at passing the buck to anyone who happened to be in the vicinity, whether it was a cameraman, buggy driver, spectator, commentator standing fifty yards away or passing butterfly innocently examining the interior of a daisy. His entourage of managers and goffers always knew what was coming if he’d had a bad round. I suppose making millions was his justification, but thankfully there are plenty of decent, humble, likeable sporting people who still manage to achieve greatness. Men like footballer Trevor Brooking, cricketer Chris Woakes and golfers Nick Price and Lee Slattery immediately spring to mind.

I must remember, next time I do a Zoom quiz, to have a partner alongside me to blame for my inadequacies.

I finished No 153 with mention of impending bricklaying and how good life is in Geriatrica. Unfortunately, hefting a ton of bricks has rendered my neck immobile, which means turning to see around corners involves rotating from the waist rather than the neck. This has its drawbacks when seated at the wheel. The passing of the years is a trial indeed. Sadly the days when a man with a red flag would walk in front of your vehicle have long since passed.

Going slightly off my normal piste I wonder if you saw the match between Everton and Liverpool at the weekend when the Everton goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, made an extremely clumsy (at best) feet first tackle on Liverpool’s highly valued Dutch striker Virgil Van Dijk, that has put him out of action for the rest of the season with a knee injury? Had that same foul been committed by an outfield player anywhere else on the pitch I’m sure the offender would have got at least a yellow card and probably a red one: an immediate sending off. For some reason, referees have historically tended to protect goalkeepers, but this incident caused immediate outrage amongst the players and commentators and had there been a crowd present, it would probably have got quite nasty. Amazingly, the referee saw no foul and neither did the VAR referee sitting back in Stockley Park who had the benefit of a multitude of angles to analyse it in slow motion. Someone like Van Dijk is worth many millions of pounds and his loss is huge. Surely Liverpool and/or the player should have every right to sue Pickford for recklessly causing damage that will have a huge impact on the player and his Club? The referees failure to punish him at the time would probably make it harder, but all the evidence is there for anyone to see.

Whilst out shopping in Eastbourne’s Beacon Centre today I saw a sight that was truly stunning. A youngish man (I’m guessing early thirties) was walking with his wife (I presume) and child. He needed to sit down and gasp for air and it was no surprise. I have seen many extremely large people in my travels, particularly in America’s Deep South, but nothing quite this extreme. It wasn’t that he was huge all over, like so many truly obese folk with massive arms and legs and face, he just had a monumental gut. The protrusion started at his chest and it just kept getting bigger and bigger…….and bigger, as if he’d somehow managed to insert a giant pumpkin into his stomach whole; in fact make that three. His girth must have equated to a fairly mature Giant Redwood. It would take at least two people to join up their arms around his waist, and they’d need long ones at that! It’s impossible to imagine how someone could get into that state, but with the threat of Covid one has to fear for him and the NHS staff that will inevitably end up having to care for him, if he’s unlucky enough to catch it.

I am starting to feel nervous. My local Rotary Club is holding a Quiz Night on Zoom in an hour’s time and I recklessly agreed to take part. I am quite a good quiz team member with a reasonable general knowledge and good on sport, politics and history. However, there are yawning gaps in my knowledge, notably popular music and films, that I fear will be horribly exposed as an individual competitor. My growing inability to remember names could also be a serious handicap! Being the competitive type that I am, I am fearing serious humiliation. Wish me luck.

If you dipped your toes into JaJa99 No 152, you may remember I was impaled on the horns of a dilemma when it comes to repositioning my neighbour’s generous gift of unwanted red bricks. The good news is that I have found a small hole in the wall where I can pass the bricks through without damaging them and from there it’s only a short carry to their final destination. I thought it important to share this with you.

Also, further to my “modern language” thoughts, I heard two more new words today, or at least new uses for old words, whilst listening to the BBC World Service at some ungodly early hour. (Why isn’t God around at 3am? Just a thought). They were doing a lengthy documentary on Tik Tok, where apparently (I’ve never used it) there are now thousands (millions?) of people making videos which have considerable commercial value. These people are called “Creators” (God again) and where you have a herd of “Creators”, you also need “Moderators”; people who will check the creators’ creations to make sure the content is acceptable to the few people left who aren’t “creating”. As you may imagine with all these multifarious videos, that needs a lot of “Moderators”. It could even be that I’ve met a Moderator without realising it. I always thought they had something to do with the Church of Scotland (God again!). Another word that’s taken over the airwaves is “pushback”. I’m sure it means something and it’s possible that some of the people who use it may even understand what it means. To me it’s what you do to an aeroplane to get it off its stand and ready for take off. But then I’m just very old fashioned.

Old fashioned and hard of hearing I fear, because nowadays I often struggle to hear what interviewees on the radio are saying. Although it’s just possible it has nothing to do with my poor hearing and everything to do with the execrable quality of the mobile phone lines that they insist on using now. When I was on the BBC Radio Sports staff in the 1980’s we had a phrase that dictated everything we did; Broadcast Quality. That meant that we couldn’t put anything out on air unless it was of the highest audio quality. Very, very occasionally you might use a good phone line or perhaps a slightly dodgy satellite connection from the far side of the world if the content of the piece was so important that it justified the difficulty of hearing. Otherwise everything had to be recorded (or done live) on a proper broadcast quality line, of which the BBC had many, connecting all parts of the country. That all seems to have gone out of the window, along with a few other standards, the passing of which I mourn, not least the ability amongst presenters to speak the Queen’s English or Received Pronunciation as it used to be called. Still, I’m just an old fart and moronic according to my lovely children.

I had the rare pleasure yesterday of witnessing mother (my wife) and daughter play in the same Eastbourne Hockey Club team in a match that I was due to be umpiring, until the opposition showed up with their own umpire and I was rendered surplus to requirements. It did mean I could sit back and savour an outstanding performance by Tiggy. She grows in stature and confidence as each week passes; it’s lovely to see. My whistle-blowing skills were tested later in the day however, for the Men’s 5th XI. It’s largely a team of once highly skilled performers who continue to prove that sixty is the new forty. In my Richmond Hockey Club playing days we had one stalwart who still played aged sixty two which we all thought was incredible. Now there’s a whole team of geriatrics, the oldest of whom is seventy, who would put many a younger team to shame. That’s great to see too.

Alison is about to serve a delicious roast lamb lunch, to be followed by tennis, golf and brick-laying. Life is good in Geriatrica.

Death. It is a scenario that will face us all sooner or later. Most people hope for the latter, I suppose. But since Coronavirus has been a regular feature of our lives, “death” has become a statistic that is now an essential feature of the BBC’s nightly news. Am I alone in being slightly offended? Could somebody not have died? Would it not be marginally more humane to report that ninety seven people have lost their lives today as a result of Covid? I sense that it dates back to the daily media briefings from Number 10, when the expert scientists would invariably talk about ‘deaths’ and how there might be over half a million ‘deaths”, if we didn’t lockdown and cease all life as we knew it. That was according to their ‘models’, which is another word that should be handed back to Airfix and Triang to describe the very beautiful toys, boats, planes and trains that we used to make, paint and play with. Yesterday’s Times reported that we could be heading for another national lockdown. If we wish to totally destroy the economy, encourage rampant unemployment, drastically hinder our children’s education and return us to something rather worse than the 1970’s then that is a brilliant idea. Not sure I wouldn’t rather be a ‘death’!

One of the many drawbacks of septuagenarianism (like spelling long words and staying on top of technology for instance) is keeping up with the ever changing language. Fortunately my teenage children help me to keep abreast of a lot of the new words, but I’ve recently come across one that’s new to me; influencer. Apparently it’s now been defined in law that if you have 30,000 followers on anti-social media you are officially a ‘celebrity’ and therefore an ‘influencer’. Seemingly that makes you quite valuable when it comes to advertising and marketing. As, to my certain knowledge, I only have three followers of JaJa99, my ability to influence a dyslexic squirrel is somewhat limited, let alone a heaving pile of the great unwashed. Imagine having the influential power of a David Beckham with 55 million twitter followers or The Donald with over 80 million. Have all those people nothing better to do with their lives?!

Meanwhile, I am facing a dilemma. My kind neighbour has generously agreed that I can help myself to a large quantity of nice old red bricks that are currently housing two raised veggie beds, that are now time-expired. (Our furloughed neighbours went mad in Lockdown and had visions of The Good Life before realising that even small kitchen gardens are quite hard work!). I have a choice. Throw the bricks over the wall and risk losing a percentage to breakages, or load up my wheelbarrow to transport them more lovingly. Unfortunately, the wheelbarrow will only go through our narrow garden gate on its side, which makes carrying bricks tricky. It also has a punctured tyre which means pumping it up for every journey. I can get the barrow to the bricks and back to our gate, where I have to deposit the bricks before carrying the empty barrow through the gate on its side and then reload the barrow to take them to the building site…….an area of bare ground where grass will not readily grow under fruit trees. (This is beginning to sound like Gerard Hoffnung’s ‘The Bricklayer Story’ at the Oxford Union. It’s on You Tube and hysterical). My plan is to create a brick patio with pots and a birdbath or perhaps a garden sculpture. There is no easy answer. Except perhaps buying a new, slimmer wheelbarrow.

Such are the compellingly daunting challenges facing an out of work septuagenarian. (Well ok I’m only 69, but let’s not be picky)

It’s often been quoted that the pen (or latterly the computer) is mightier than the sword. I’m afraid I have singularly failed to open the laptop whilst testing the veracity of the quote with a week of duelling whilst learning the subtleties of the foil, epée and sabre.

I have had time to watch (chief Spin) Dr Sean Conley (A.k.a. James Bond) and the men in white coats lined up like apparatchiks in Red Square proclaiming that the President of the United States of America is suffering the slight inconvenience of a mild bout of coronavirus that he picked up from the Chinese Ambassador, who deliberately spread it throughout the White House and that despite being given every drug known to man plus some stress relieving oxygen (perhaps), he was absolutely fine, no need to panic and would be back pinging out Executive Orders in the curl of a blonde lock. Indeed, he is now back at HQ, despite apparently still taking dexamethasone, a powerful steroid that addresses the symptoms rather than the virus itself, with side-effects of mood swings, aggression and confusion; sounds ideal for the Leader of the free world. Would anyone notice the difference?

A friend is contemplating handing in her beautiful Mitsubishi Outlander Hybrid in exchange for something newer and racier. Being of German extraction, she fancies a steed made in her home country. An Audi convertible was high on the hitlist but she doesn’t like the dealership. A BMW Mini was briefly on the radar but came off it when she learned somebody who draws her opprobrium drives one. Curiously she has rejected my suggestions of an Aston Martin Marquise convertible, a Ferrari or a Tesla in favour of a BMW 3 Series Touring. Other than the fact that these are manufactured in Bavaria and the alternatives have a less Germanic heritage, I can’t understand her choice?

I think she may well go for a petrol model. Reading about the petrol v electric argument today a point was made that had escaped my attention. The Government takes shedloads of our hard earned cash in tax on petrol/diesel. Once the bulk of the population are driving electric vehicles, (green and cheaper to run), will they still be so cheap? The Chancellor will be forced to find an alternative form of income which will either bump up the cost of electricity or perhaps road tax or maybe…….what? We’re talking tens of billions of pounds here. Why would anyone want to be Chancellor of The Exchequer?!

I did, of course, start this short dissertation with an outrageous lie. I have just been rather lazy. Like my son, sadly.

It’s quite possible that you are unaware of one very significant anniversary. On this day in 1066 William the Conqueror and his army of barons, knights and peasants landed in Pevensey Bay, which just happens to be on my regular cycle route from my current home in East Sussex. It’s not an awe-inspiring place. Seventeen days later in nearby Hastings (well, nearby, nearby Hastings) one of King Willie’s archers showed extraordinary accuracy in piercing King Harold of England’s left eye, (or was it right?) thereby gifting the invaders victory and our Crown. With that injection of Frenchness, how come our culinary skills have, until quite recently, been so mundane, so lacking in imagination and creative artistry? Thankfully things are changing now and not just on the food front. English wines are rising up as serious challengers to the traditional viticulturists across the Channel. Ironically Sussex is proving to be a particularly productive region for the new vines. It’s also a hotbed for delicious cheeses of all hues from sheep, goats and cows, any one of which is a match for Le Fromage de France. It would seem that we have all we need to survive without the EU.

Watching the BBC News last night (I am a masochist), I was pondering what will happen when Coronavirus is but a distant memory (hopefully) and Brexit is signed, sealed, delivered and our fishermen are pulling cod and haddock from the North Sea uninterrupted by a fleet of cheese-eating surrender monkeys and other noble europeans. What will the news editors find then to fill thirty five minutes of air time every evening? Listening to the BBC World Service News at 5 am this morning my question was answered. There is stuff going on all over the World that is really interesting. I mean, really interesting. Things that have nothing to do with Coronavirus or Brexit, that we should know about and should be part of the daily reporting on our screens. Hopefully the new Director General and yet to be appointed Chairman will have some influence on the newsrooms and their thinking……or lack of it.

Regular readers will know that the current President of the United States is not high on my Christmas Card list. It was intriguing therefore, to read the New York Times’ assertions about his tax affairs; namely that he has contributed only a few thousand dollars in Income Tax to the IRS over the last fifteen years and is claiming a tax refund of $72.9m after declaring net losses of $47.4m in 2018 alone. Of course The Donald has dismissed it as Fake News, which it may be, although it does appear to be remarkably detailed and well sourced. Assuming the story is only half right, it would seem the great entrepreneur, businessman and philanthropist isn’t quite as great as he would have us believe. Is it possible that he is in fact a multi-talented conman who has duped the American people from start to finish with his bullshit? In business, his motto has always been to think BIG. The trouble is, when big edifices crumble they tend to come down with a helluva crash. How long will it be before he gets rumbled and crumbled? Of course, I could be completely wrong and he might turn out to be the ultimate hero of our times, in which case I will apologise abjectly.

Until then I will make do with Huw Edwards droning on about revolting students and sparring negotiators and ponder what might have been had that fateful arrow missed?

Today is Oliver’s 15th birthday. Happy Birthday Ollie. He is delirious about his new Arsenal shirt and training pants and will no doubt now wear them relentlessly for the next 56 hours, until school regulations demand the donning of a rather smart new “preppy” uniform. Having grown up alongside the Spurs training ground I am finding it hard to come to terms with my son’s affiliation with their great North London rivals, but then I remember that I don’t really give a toss about football and all is well. Alison made a shrewd investment of a set of pre-owned Taylor Made irons which also seem to have hit the nail on its proverbial bonce. Happy days. It’s an exeat weekend so we have our boarding daughter home as well as the birthday boy, so we don’t need a set of cards to play Happy Families this evening.

After a wonderful week or two of an Indian summer, the weather has turned. The heavens have unleashed dramatic cascades of badly needed water, combined with a brutally chilly gale out of the North which has dropped the ambient temperature unnecessarily below the desirable and made any thoughts of golf disappear rapidly back from whence they came. In Northern Scotland the mercury has plunged to a very unseasonal -5c…….in September!! However, my immensely reliable BBC weather app is predicting a calmer, drier and slightly warmer weekend so the trusty persimmon might yet be wielded in anger. I went to the driving range yesterday, convinced that I now had the answer. Having spent an hour pull-hooking, snap-hooking, pushing it, fatting it, thinning it, shanking it and very occasionally flushing one down the middle, I realise that joining the local tennis club was a shrewd move. At least I know how to play tennis. Even if I no longer can. In my final year before I have to put a seven at the start of my age, I really had hoped that I had enough good shots left in my locker to at least be able to walk a course without going through a whole bag of golf balls. I fear philately, campanology and bridge nights with the geriatrics are all I have to look forward to. Actually, now I come to think of it, I haven’t heard our nearby church exercising their Monday evening right to disturb the neighbourhood for months. Surely you can socially distance while yanking up and down on a bellrope? Perhaps Mr and Mrs Woke have complained. After all it is probably synonymous with our evil past….those happy days when “witches” would be drowned or burnt at the stake; when Dick Turpin declared “your money or your life” and then took both anyway; when sharpshooting outlaws roamed the forests, robbing the rich to give to the poor (did that really happen?!) whilst Good King John and the Sherriff of Nottingham pillaged and taxed the peasants and when asylum seeking was a profession yet to be invented.

My dear departed adopted Mother was a keen campanologist. She was very musical, although apparently that’s not a requirement. You just need to be good at maths and able to read charts. The closest I’ve come to a Bellringer is when visiting Abbey Ales, Bath’s oldest brewery. It’s a fine brew.