I have a confession to make. About forty years ago I went to a fancy dress party dressed as a Nigerian Chief. After the Second World War my adopted father had served as a District Officer in the Foreign and Colonial Service in Nigeria. In his time there he became very friendly with a Yoruba Chief. It became a lifelong friendship between two men who shared enormous mutual respect. So much so that the Chief gave his ceremonial dress to my father, who was deeply touched. I had met my father’s friend and understood totally why he was so highly regarded. He was a great man. Somehow I managed to persuade my father to allow me to borrow the flowing robes to go to my party; on pain of death if I damaged them! The irony was that I had been wound up and when I arrived a little late for the festivities, face blackened and in full tribal chief mode, I was the only one in fancy dress! Everyone had a good laugh and it turned out to be a helluva party. It didn’t for one second cross my mind then that it was racially offensive and frankly I don’t think it is now. If Michael Holding (the West Indian great fast bowler) turned up to my party as Stuart Broad (England’s equivalent-ish) I would think it was very funny, nothing else. Alex Hales, a former England cricketer, has been vilified today for going to a fancy dress party twelve years ago dressed as his favourite rapper. The England and Wales Cricket Board (who haven’t covered themselves in glory anyway) are going to investigate. When is someone going to stand up and say “ENOUGH”. This woke nonsense is really getting out of hand. What sort of society are we going to end up with. Now it transpires that the Pakistani cricketer who started this whole thing by calling Yorkshire County Cricket Club to task for racism, was himself sending anti-semitic texts! If I go to a fancy dress party dressed as Margaret Thatcher (or any other woman) is that sexism and offensive? Is Dame Edna Everage to be banned from the stage? I want to say “God help us” but as I don’t think there is one that’s a waste of breath.

In this world of initials I fancy most people know what PR stands for. A local artist and friend, Nigel Greaves, used a good idiom to explain its importance to me this week. If someone jumps off Beachy Head they know what they’re doing but no one else does, until it’s too late. If you want to be successful in most forms of business you need good PR and Marketing. You need to publicise as widely as possible what you are doing. I am taking on a new role with the Rotary Club that will involve “getting us out there” and letting people know what we do. I must say it’s a little bit daunting as I’ve spent all my life either in the military or commentating on sport and events, which is not the same thing at all, although you might think it is. I’m already confused by the latest initials I heard this morning; LGBTQ+. What’s “Q+”? I have no idea, but no doubt someone will tell me.

Meanwhile I hope I don’t offend anyone……

It’s a sweeping generalisation to say that Americans don’t understand irony. I had a girlfriend once who lived in North Carolina and she certainly knew that irony isn’t a metallurgical state before it becomes rusty. However, it is fair to say that as a breed they tend to be literal, unsubtle, full-on and quite often a little superior. Lest you think I’m anti-American I should add that I’ve had some of the best times of my life on the other side of the pond and have met many lovely people there. It’s just that for the most part they don’t understand my humour; who does!

The point I am somewhat sluggishly getting to is that I am currently thoroughly enjoying a rather large tome called Breaking the Code of History by David Murrin. David has enjoyed a number of careers and you can read all about them on his website, which is worth a visit. The book delves into the rise and fall of all empires since the beginning of time; well it doesn’t include dinosaurs, although looking around me they aren’t yet quite extinct. I am still in the early stages of the 450 odd pages, but having watched a very interesting hour long interview with him on You Tube, I get his drift. He believes that all empires go through five stages before crashing to earth like Icarus. It doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to realise that China is in the relatively early stages of the next great (?) empire. Already it has subtley colonised large tracts of the globe through economic and financial aid. It has a long term plan, meaning many decades rather than five yearly, it is close to becoming the world’s largest economy and it has built up its armed forces to an extent that they may already be bigger and better than America’s. Certainly it now boasts the world’s largest navy. All empires have enjoyed superior military strength. The two go hand in hand. Anyone who thinks that all this is happening because boys like their train sets is living in cloud cuckoo land, wherever that may be. It is categorically an offensive, not defensive force. Mr Murrin puts forward a compelling case that America is getting uncomfortably close to its Icarus moment. He believes that on our present course, a third world war on a grand scale is almost inevitable between 2024 and 2026, if serious action isn’t taken to turn things around. His argument is that the dollar will soon plunge and will no longer be the world’s reserve currency; that America is so terminally indebted (do you have any idea what thirty trillion dollars looks like?!) and so poorly led that it’s decline is inevitable. He goes on to argue that the pound will probably strengthen considerably and that global Britain, unfettered by the anchor chain of Europe, will become a vital cog in the machine that is needed to stop China from its ambition of planetary domination; IF and I don’t have print large enough to emphasise the “IFFFF”, we spend considerable sums of money to expand our armed forces rapidly over the next couple of years. There are of course economic gains to be had from expanding naval shipyards, opening up new aircraft factories and investing in advanced cyber weaponry. But does our noble government have the vision, not to mention balls, to make that sort of dramatic investment? I am inclined to doubt it.

Reading his fascinating insights into the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman Empires did make me wonder why the Pyramids, Parthenon and Colisseum are still standing. After all, weren’t they all built by slaves? At what point going back in history does “unacceptable” become “acceptable?

Phew, that was heavy. Meanwhile, whilst out walking Callie along the seafront the other day I saw a wonderful sight. A stiff northerly wind was wrapping its icy tentacles around unprotected flesh, as the mercury hovered closer to zero than ten. To my amazement I spotted a late middle aged couple strip down to their cozzies and march enthusiastically down the pebble shore and straight into the freezing Channel without batting an eyelid…. as far as I could tell. They’d left their pile of clothes, along with some vital rations and towels etc in a pile well up the beach, presumably lest a tsunami should suddenly strike. The hysterical bit was watching their little grey, long-haired terrier (of some description), rushing between the water’s edge and their lonely cast-offs. It would hide behind the discarded pile looking out to sea as if worried that they were doing a Reggie Perrin and about to disappear beneath the waves. After a few seconds it would again sprint down to the lapping surf, think about it for a moment and then hurtle back to its camouflaged lookout to keep an eye on its Master and Mistress. This repeating sequence kept myself, Callie and quite a few other onlookers enraptured for a number of minutes, before Callie got bored and dragged me off. It was all a wonderful world away from Cop, jabs, sleaze, refugees…….

We’re safely past 5th November and the Palace of Westminster still appears to be standing in one piece, if somewhat shrouded in workmen’s paraphernalia. But it’s inner working has suffered a bigger disruption than anything G. Fawkes might have managed. The very roots of democracy are under threat from a Government that thinks it’s above rebuke and the law, and a Member of the once august institution who thinks it’s entirely reasonable to pocket £100,000 a year to give commercial companies privileged access to the corridors of power. So now the media are trying to suggest that MPs shouldn’t be allowed to have other jobs; and MPs will then want more money because their £80,000 salary isn’t enough. I’m choking on my bread and water even as I write this. The great achievement of our Mother of Parliaments was that Members DID do other things, because we didn’t want full time professional politicians. Added to which there is a huge benefit in MP’s having the experience and expertise of life outside Westminster. I’m so upset by all this I’m thinking of writing to my MP. Funnily enough I saw her yesterday at a Remembrance Service Concert in our local Roman Catholic Church; she had a policeman sitting beside her. More Bleak House than Great Expectations. Where’s Charles Dickens when you need him.

Are you ever worried about bacteria? If so I have some bad news. I’ve just read that one teaspoonful of saliva contains 500 million bacteria, give or take the odd thousand. That’s quite a lot. I’m intrigued to know how the survey was done and how many samples were taken to arrive at that average? Assuming it is an average, that means that some people might only have 400 million and others 600 million. You might be that lucky person with an overdose of the little blighters. Actually of course it’s good news because the vast majority of the vermin are in fact extremely beneficial, especially to our microbiome (otherwise known as the gut), which without a suitable variety doesn’t function very well. I’m most optimistic about the state of Alison’s gut as she’s become a keen gardener and getting a bit of dirt under the fingernails is apparently very good for populating the microbiome with a wider variety of microbes. Alternatively you can just get a fecal transfer…..

Wife, daughter and I tuned in to a new Crime drama on the telly last night. The very first scene featured the male lead, a Detective Inspector, having a lover’s tiff with his partner and then making up with a full-on snog. As both actors involved have penises it wasn’t a scene I felt particularly comfortable watching. Of course the Inspector’s sidekick is a black woman and we will no doubt get the full panoply of LGBTQXYZ diversity as the series progresses. A producer friend of mine told me recently that there is no longer any point in even considering a new series for TV/Netflix/Amazon Prime etc unless it covers all those bases. As far as I’m concerned anybody is free to do whatever they like, as long as it’s legal, moral and ethical, but I don’t understand why it has to be stuffed down our throats all the time?

Postscript. Parliament discussed the whole Pattinson incident today. A junior Conservative minister was left to make a fulsome apology for their idiocy because the man in charge was “honouring” a previous commitment to visit a hospital in the North East of England. Presumably all private jets were booked up. You do wonder what size of mallet will be required to bash Boris’s head before he gets the message. He’s pulling off the almost unimaginable achievement of making Sir Kier look good.

I’ve been consuming oxygen on this planet for seventy years, but I saw something today I’ve never seen before. A lady who is undoubtedly collecting her pension (or is at least entitled to) was walking her little fluffy black pooch along Blackwater Road. When I spotted her she was bent double, with a hand encased in a biodegradable green pooh bag, stuffed underneath the aforementioned pooch’s squatting bottom as it tried to force out something distinctly smelly. She appeared to catch most of the rather liquid deposit and curiously the four legged friend didn’t seem remotely bothered. I guess if the critter in question allows it, it’s easier and cleaner than trying to wipe it up off the pavement.

I am totally familiar with the delicate art of pooper-scooping as Callie the Whippet seems to produce rather a lot for a relatively small canine. Sadly our top lawn has become a favourite defecation facility for a number of visiting creatures, including the neighbour’s seventeen year old moggy, our resident squirrels and a selection of foxes. I’ve become quite adept at recognising who was responsible for each undesirable pile. Why is it that cats invariably find neighbours’ gardens so much more attractive for conducting their ablutions? Callie derives great pleasure from chasing this one all round the garden but sadly so far it’s managed to avoid her chomping jaws as it takes hastily to the branches, out of reach of imminent danger.

In the past week I’ve had to erect another sixty quid’s worth of wire netting to keep Callie within our perimeter. Having already spent about £400 over the years, I thought I had finally cut off all escape routes, but in the pursuit of Reynard the fox she manages to squeeze through the tiniest spaces. I think that, finally, I have plugged all the gaps, which is not helping our bid to create a mini Kew Gardens, but sometimes utility has to take precedence over aesthetics.

Talking of gardening matters I hope Mrs T has protected the dahlias…..they’re predicting the first frost of the winter tonight. It seems a little early in the piece; whatever happened to Global warming? The news coming out of Cop 26 today appears to confirm that methane is a greenhouse gas of massively destructive proportions. Seems simple to me. Everyone stops eating beef and drinking milk, turn the redundant pastures over to forest and woodland, dramatically reduce the need for polluting tractors and hey presto, it’ll be the second Ice Age before we know it. It’s certainly feeling pretty icy tonight; might need an extra blanket.

It’s still mighty mild, but as the evenings draw in you may feel a slight sense of depression, if not impending doom as months of grey, wet, stormy weather lurk just over the horizon. But consider, without Autumn and Winter there would be no Spring, the most joyous of seasons. Remember the thrill of those early snowdrops poking through the frost and leaf mould, the banks of pale and bright yellow daffodils populating roadside verges, colourful camellias bursting forth in profusion, trees taking on their green cladding to disguise the wintry skeletons and eventually the carpets of bluebells coating the forest floor. Anyway what would Vivaldi have done; we would have been deprived of marvellous violin concerti.

If my Spring therapy fails you could always have a matchbox sized pacemaker fitted to the brain. It’s been developed by neuroscientists at the University of California San Francisco and disrupts suicidal thoughts with electrical impulses. It has a one hundred per cent success rate. Mind you Sarah is the only recipient to date. If you think it might help, please apply to UCSF, where they are enrolling more patients to assess its true efficacy. My source doesn’t reveal whether the matchbox is fitted internally or whether it’s worn externally as a detachable item of jewellery, only to be switched on when needed? Perhaps it comes with its own turban. I would be slightly alarmed at the prospect of finding room for a matchbox inside my already overcrowded skull; not that I possess an oversized brain, merely that nothing seems to rattle around inside so presumably all space is accounted for? Still, they are scientists and experts in their field so they obviously have a workable plan…..

I am finding a certain mordidness can envelope septuagenarians, even in the height of a glorious summer. Where before one felt impregnable, the dawning realisation that the cooker might be calling is hard to avoid. It’s quite humbling to think that we make such a short contribution to Earth’s life cycle. The first dinosaurs printed their proud hoofs in the receiving earth roughly two hundred and thirty million years ago, in the Triassic Period (whatever that was) and lasted through the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. Once they’d all had enough it was another sixty five million years before some sort of humanoid appeared. It does make you wonder where God was all that time and what he was doing?

The front page of today’s Times has a picture of four Brighton College students in various stages of mirth. Apparently they are having hour-long laughter therapy classes to ease anxiety amid concern over the effect of Covid lockdowns. The lessons, run by therapist Emma Jennings, start with pupils being instructed to laugh in the style of a James Bond villain. (Try it) Research shows that laughter can reduce cortisol levels, the main stress hormone. The story doesn’t relate what sort of laughter you finish the class with…or whether everyone has been reduced to tears. I have a much simpler remedial recipe. I just call my old colleague from BBC Radio days, Tony Adamson, and my oxytocin levels soar. Let me know if you want his number, he’s not a qualified therapist (as far as I know) but as quack’s go he’s gold dust.

It is reported that Romans are complaining that the lack of litter collection means their beautiful City is attracting wild boar from the countryside into the popular piazzas and plazas. Clearly they haven’t been to Westminster where there’s been plenty of rubbish for years and The Palace has been overrun by wild bores, with an albino Bor-is in charge. Not sure we wouldn’t be better off with boars. “Four legs good, two legs bad”, with apologies to George Orwell.

Whilst dashing from the excellent coffee emporium that is Urban Ground to another Deli of Delight called Barley Sugar, I happened to notice an old red letter box outside the chemists with the letters G R writ large below the mail-gatherers door. Why I noticed it on this particularly haste-fuelled morn I have no idea, but I did and it set the rusty cogs whirring. To which George Rex did this ancient box belong? The Royal Cypher that has adorned our land for very nearly seventy years is EIIR; i.e. Elizabeth Regina The Second. If only the second of two Elizabeths requires a II, how come King George, of whom there have been six, gets away with G R? Knowing that the renowned Penny Black stamp originated in Queen Victoria’s time, I was guessing it must refer to a George after Victoria. However, further investigation reveals that the Post Office dates back to 1660 when it was established by Charles II. As the GPO it expanded across the British empire, with the first uniformed postmen taking to the streets in 1793. The first purpose built mail facility was the hugely impressive porticoed headquarters of the GPO in the City of London which became fully operational in 1829. The adhesive postage stamp was invented by Sir Rowland Hill in 1837 and the Penny Black was established three years later. However, the first red Post Office pillar box was only introduced in 1852, less than halfway through Victoria’s reign. George V was King from 1910 until 1936. Could he be the elusive G R? Or was it his son George VI who reigned from 1936 until his death in 1952? That would seem more likely, but either way it’s a little piece of history that has been standing there unmolested (and unnoticed, certainly by me) for perhaps a century or even longer. See if you can spot a red pillar box that has anything other than EIIR on it. I’ll bet there aren’t many.

When I eventually made it to Barley Sugar, I was intrigued to see a metal basket perched cunningly on the countertop right in the customer’s eyeline when paying, containing nice little tins of Nipits, which, the lid proudly proclaims are “pure liquorice pellets” that “clarifies the voice and clears the throat”. What a thrill. I had been searching for these for ages, knowing how effective they are for broadcasters, let alone opera singers. (I am the former with no pretence of being the latter). They used to be called Nigroids. I’ve no idea why they changed the name?

Many things happen nowadays that make me realise I am now the person that my father was when I was a teenager; i.e. an outdated techno-prat; a person for whom modern technology has swept past leaving a confused and befuddled shadow of a once clued-up genius. (Ok maybe that bit’s a wee self-proclamatory). Today’s dose of humiliation came in a headline that read “Welcome to the Metaverse”. I am familiar with the meaning of verse, but needed to consult the Oxford Dictionary for Meta…….”(of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre: self-referential”. Unfortunately that didn’t really help, as this Metaverse seems to be something that Mr Zuckerberg and Facebook are particularly interested in. That immediately sends shivers down the spine. This is some virtual reality-powered version of the internet with non-fungible tokens or NFTs. I am concerned I may not sleep too well if I go any further. Good night and good gaming.

Whilst walking along the sunny Prom with Callie this afternoon, I spotted three dodgy characters lurking in a well hidden shelter, who looked at me most suspiciously as I wandered past. They were clearly foreign and speaking in an alien tongue….well one I didn’t recognise anyway. They might have been Syrian or Afghan or anything in between. Had they just landed and were plotting their next move? Or had they escaped from a refugee/asylum centre and were plotting their next move? Or were they totally innocent and I am guilty of awful prejudice and unwarranted suspicion? I suspect these are rhetorical questions that will never be answered. It did make me wonder though what I would do if I saw a small, overloaded dinghy heaving into sight and landing on the beach? Would I dial 999….or wander down with arms outstretched and warmly embrace them with a cheerful “welcome to Britain, you poor sods”? Or would I be the Philistine that turns and walks off in the other direction? It’s quite hard to know until it happens, but I’m fairly certain that I would dial 999 and then at least wait to see what happened, if not wander down to ask where they’d come from; being the nosey journalist that I am!

The skies above Eastbourne must have been filled with the sounds of Merlin engines eighty one years ago, as well as the sounds of whatever engine an ME109 had. (Pardon my ignorance) Yesterday a lone Spitfire Mk IX reprised that sound as it overflew The College in honour of a very distinguished Old Eastbournian who had flown Spitfires in the war and whose Memorial Service it was in the College Chapel. It reminded me of my adopted father’s farewell. He had been a Battle of Britain pilot and Treasurer of The Battle of Britain Association almost until he departed this mortal coil at 92. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight overflew our very crowded garden after his Memorial Service. It was magical. John was a member of the Caterpillar Club having baled out from 18,000 feet when his Spitfire was getting a bit too hot to handle. Getting burned was the big fear of most pilots. Imagine you are at high altitude, on oxygen, in a dogfight with a Messcherschmitt and suddenly you have a shooting pain in your ankle where shrapnel has entered uninvited and your beloved pristine airborne sports car is suddenly not working quite the way it should. There were no ejector seats then. It required a conscious decision to disconnect from the oxygen, pull back the canopy and climb out over the side. Jumping off a burning machine (just really picture that and imagine what it must have been like!) free falling through the air with no experience or training, then pulling the ripcord and watching a parachute deploy for the first time, was far preferable to trying to land an airborne incinerator. Very, very scary. He deployed his ‘chute pretty quickly so it took a long time to come down; long enough to light up a cigarette and wonder what might happen. Descending at about ten feet per second, it would have taken the best part of half an hour. Typically free fall parachutists jump from 12,000 and the air is quite thin even at that height. They will skydive down to about 2,000 feet before deploying their canopies. Fortunately John landed in Kent, although there were a few hairy moments while he convinced Dad’s Army that he was a true blue Brit and in no way related to the Red Baron. Corporal Jones was apparently quite threatening with his pitchfork. The Caterpillar Club was instituted by Leslie Irvin to recognise those who had used an Irvin parachute to bale out of their not-so flying machine. You were given an enamel lapel badge that looked like a silk worm with your name engraved on the back. (The parachutes were made of silk). There were 34,000 members of the club by the time the war ended. Ironically John’s wife worked in a parachute packing factory during the war. We will never know if she packed the one that saved his life.

In later life it always used to amuse John that I had chosen to become a paratrooper. “Why on earth would you voluntarily jump out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft?”. I came to understand that thought when I graduated from paratrooper to helicopter pilot. They’ve yet to devise a method of safely leaving an underperforming chopper, so the aim is always to try to put it down vaguely in one piece. Anything that you can walk away from is considered a success. The good news is that you can invariably cope with an engine failure. It’s the loss of the tail rotor or tail rotor drive shaft that is a lot more tricky. Damage to the main rotor tends to be terminal! Fortunately I never experienced any of those things, although we used to practise “engine off” landings all the time. Once you switch the engine off you only get one chance so there’s a reasonable amount of pressure not to screw it up.

Meanwhile Captain T Kirk has just gone into “Space, the Final Frontier” for the first time at the age of 90. I wonder if he said “Live long and prosper” when he landed? Sadly he was boldly going where quite a lot of people have already been before. “Warp drive Mr Zulu”. “Aye aye Captain”.

Helloooo….testing, testing…. Ah there you are! What a joy and a privilege to be back. I won’t bore you with all the technical details as to why I have been silent these past weeks, suffice it to say it was an electronic curse and not idleness or lack of motivation on my behalf.

Probably the most exciting thing to happen since I last put pen to paper is ER winning the US Open Tennis Championship. EIIIR. We have a new queen, albeit her court has a different hue to that of Good Queen Bess. For Orb and Sceptre read ball and racket, for throne…..well I hesitate to comment. With the diverse background of Tiger Woods, the smile of the future Queen of England (K not C), the athleticism of an Olympic gymnast and the fearless attacking philosophy of a battalion of Gurkhas, she is the marketing man/woman’s dream. With the ability to string quite a lot of interesting and intelligent sentences together in a voice to gladden Henry Higgins’ heart, she presents such a complete package it’s almost beyond belief. Gal Gadot should surely be fearful when it comes to casting Wonder Woman III.

The next most exciting thing in my life has been a Richmond Hockey Club Golden Oldies reunion. This is an assemblage of old mates from forty years ago, that takes place intermittently, but typically every ten years or so. Needless to say, many of the folk who I had not seen for decades were slightly more wrinkly, stooped and hard of hearing, not to mention forgetful. I fear I may indeed have given a similar impression. Nonetheless, our three day sojourn in the beautiful Saunton Sands Hotel in North Devon was well worth the seven hour drive. The highlights were firstly a round of golf in gorgeous late summer weather on England’s oldest links, Westward Ho!. (The ! is part of the title of the Club and therefore it is perfectly accurate to follow it with a full stop, lest you were thinking otherwise in a moment of grammatical pedantry!). My 36 stapleford points were only good enough for second place behind a very good seventy two year old four handicapper who shot his age for 40 points. For some reason he was miffed that I was allowed to claim that my missing ball had been taken by a dog that had been seen in the vicinity. I duly took a free drop and made a birdie for 4 points. I just don’t understand his rancour? This was followed (after a night of ribald revelry that saw almost all the old knackers in bed by 10) by a gripping croquet competition on the hotel’s extremely undulating and ill-prepared lawn. Playing in pairs the combination of Mike Barford (Batty an outstanding cricketer and hockey player) and Nigel Draffan (ditto, not to mention real tennis) quickly established themselves as favourites in the knockout competition. Nicknamed Dratty they duly scooped the honours and the historic trophy; a small plastic replica of the Claret Jug. The exciting news (can it get more exciting?) is that the whole thing has already been booked in for a repeat performance in 2023. It was universally felt that as the majority of us have now passed our allotted three score and ten, more frequent gatherings might be wise to avoid the Law of Diminishing Returns….albeit in a King Neptune like manner.

I have been writing this either side of a major software download. Miraculously it still seems to be “here”, but will it be “there”. I shall now attempt the daunting moment of pressing the “Publish” button and hope that it doesn’t all disappear in a puff of smoke. If you are reading this I have clearly been successful. Lovely to be back in your Living Room….

It’s been one of those relatively rare Sundays when the weather matches the name. In fact it has been utterly stunning. Hot, cloudless and still, the oxytocin levels have been punching holes in the roof. Alison, Callie and I have spent the day enjoying our beautiful garden; Alison cutting, pruning and planting, me digging up my abortion of a vegetable patch that has singularly failed to match expectations and Callie moving from one favourite sunny spot to another favoured shady location, all of which are conveniently placed to keep a sharp eye on the overhead activity, which consists of a family of squirrels flying from the sycamores on the left, across the tops of the cherry and apple trees to the conifer on the right. Despite racing from one side of the garden to the other and back, barking aggressively and leaping six feet up the tree trunks like a demented dervish she has as much chance of catching them as I do Usain Bolt, although they do occasionally venture down onto terra firma, just to tease her. Occasionally the Hunt takes on a whole new level of freneticism when one of the many urban foxes that infest our locale ventures into No.12 territory. I have had to put up high fencing all around our plot to prevent Callie from disappearing into the suburban wilderness in hot pursuit of Reynard, but even so she has managed to find a way out on the odd occasion, with the smell of blood in her nostrils. The lovely, cuddly little things are becoming a serious menace. Sadly the East Sussex and Romney Marsh Foxhounds probably wouldn’t be appreciated in downtown Eastbourne.

This little burst of Indian Summer has now created the perfect conditions for anticyclonic gloom to accumulate. (Please see No.207) With the mercury rising in both barometers and thermometers, cloudless skies and a temperature inversion all is set for the polluted air to be trapped close to the earth’s surface, meaning that viewing oil tankers one mile out in the English Channel is impossible, let alone catching a glimpse of marauding immigrants casting off from Dunkirk or Calais. If those impressionable youths who profess to be ‘Weather Forecasters’ would tear themselves away from their computer screens for one moment and risk looking out of the window, they would observe what Anticyclonic Gloom actually is!

It seems appropriate that we should be having a late burst of summer with the Indian cricket team providing high entertainment on the playing fields of England. The remarkable thing about the 4th test (of 5) at the Oval is that both sides have fought tooth and nail and England have, so far, declined to collapse in their usual frenzied heap. However, they have to bat all day on the final day to either force a draw or even, roll of drums, secure an improbable record-breaking win on a fifth day turning pitch. For the unenlightened, that doesn’t mean that the pitch is somehow miraculously revolving, merely that when the spinning ball hits the turf it can change direction sharply and quickly, making batting more hazardous than crossing Piccadilly Circus in the rush hour.

One thing is for certain. The high pressure system means that neither rain, snow, nor bad light will curtail the day’s activities. If things go badly for England, the best we can hope for is pestilence. Fingers crossed the Land of Hope is also filled with Glory.

Today is notable on two counts. Firstly, it is the meteorological start of Autumn. Now there’s a thought to send curdling blood through your quaking veins. Except it’s surely completely meaningless. What it does mean is that somebody in high office has decided that the year should be conveniently divided into four equal portions, to be known as Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. People in that office who call themselves meteorologists have been putting it about on our transistors and tv screens this week that what we are currently experiencing is “anticyclonic gloom”. Some ignorant person at High Command has obviously been briefing that, as the current grey cloud cover is gloomy, it must be anticyclonic gloom (AG). Actually what we have is a mass of cloud that is being dragged down from Scandinavia by wind that is circulating around a high pressure system centred to the north of Britain and keeping the temperature down and the atmosphere pretty clear. That’s exactly the opposite of what AG is. Normally in summer an anticyclone produces calm, hot and sunny weather. When that lasts for more than a few days, the high pressure system, often allied with a temperature inversion, causes a build up of pollutants and dirty air that can reduce visibility quite considerably, hence Anticyclonic Gloom. It’s yet another example and there are many, of ignorant people putting forward ideas or language that are then perpetuated by other ignorant folk until it becomes “fact”.

Secondly, on this day fifty two years ago Mrs T took her first breath. Thankfully, her lungs are still working well, but her day has been dedicated to the youthful newbies and their parents, experiencing their first day at The College. Suddenly, from the relaxing calm of school holidays, it’s been a day of constant presenting and talking; exhausting. We did manage a candlelit supper, prepared with love and care by yours truly, but the call of early slumber was greater than the need for a dollop of baked Alaska. Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are already feeling like a distant memory. Perhaps those meteorologists are right after all!

Meanwhile, I have been wallowing in a bath of self-pity, watching my former colleagues on the golf tour enjoying a spectacular week in Crans Montana in Switzerland. There are many stunningly beautiful places on this planet and I have been most fortunate to visit quite a few over the years, but the incomparable high alps of the Rhöne Valley, snow-capped and sun-kissed, always rated as close to the summit of perfection in my peripatetic life. Watching it at home on the high definition big screen is small compensation.

Meanwhile, Autumn can wait for the equinox on 22nd September.