You Take the High Road and I'll ...

One of the many joys of incipient old age is that one's hearing is less than perfect. So when Dearest asked me the other day what the hell I was doing,  I told him I was practising my clutch-control. He disappeared back behind the newspaper, sharpish.

I think he thought I'd described some pelvic floor manoeuvre. Made him squeamish. Until I reassured him that I was fine-tuning my brain in readiness for a return to the road.

I immediately wished I'd shown no sign of weakness, as he then suggested I took a driving lesson. Admittedly, I haven't been driving for nigh on three years. Do you know what? There are some people who would get on their high horse at this point, but not me. 

Very sensible, I said and immediately booked an appointment with a friend I'd not seen for some years. We spent a very happy couple of hours: an hour driving and an hour catching up. It's true. It is like riding a bike. 

That was a week ago. Tomorrow is the big day I collect my red mini. I have asked them to remove the Go-Faster stripes because I believe this sets up false expectations amongst fellow road-users. I will not be going too fast. Unless I need to get myself out of trouble. Rest assured, I will then be going like the proverbial manure off the spade. (You can tell I have spent the past week in the garden.)

My first ever car in the 80s

How do you define exotic?

I don't like throwing food away. I'm a post-war baby, through and through, brought up to waste-not-want-not.  As a child, I never suggested giving away my unwanted peas to the starving infant in Africa; I forked up every last one of them.  And as an adult, it grieves me, when I find a furring red-pepper at the back of the fridge, that has to be jettisoned.

Today, however, I have thrown away some brand new mushrooms. Yes, nowt wrong with them. Pure lookism on my part. And the fact that they came all the way from South Korea, which, as we all know, is not North Korea where the man-in-charge seems intent on making mushroom clouds of his own. I could say that I didn't like the air miles they'd clocked up. I could say that I should have taken more notice of the country of origin. But really, I just didn't like the appearance of them. I didn't trust them. Because they look like Mutant Mushrooms. Really, grotesque gothic mushrooms, the stuff of nightmares.

Rude?

I know I am prone to the occasional bout of hyperbole but I would like to share these pictures with you. You make your own mind up. Would you fancy this lot, accompanying a fry-up? Or am I being incredibly parochial?

Or simply artistic?

George Lets the Side Down (Badly)..

Look, I have to say straight away: he was not my pin-up boy. I don't have a pin-up boy. Haven't had one since I tore Steve Marriott of Small Faces, from the pages of  "Jackie," and sellotaped it to my bedroom wall. So when I bring up the case of our ex-Chancellor, George Osborne, I don't want you thinking I held him previously in some kind of esteem. Nevertheless, I viewed him with a certain amount of respect. Sympathy even, when he was unceremoniously sacked by the incoming Prime Minister, Theresa May.

But that has been blown to smithereens by last week's press when, as the now editor of The Evening Standard, he is reported as telling colleagues that he would not rest until Mrs May was "chopped up in bags in" his "freezer." Revenge is evidently not served just cold, but in freezer-bags in his house.
So much for sticks and stones, Georgie Boy, these words are shards and axes. They do you no credit whatsoever. And you have been summarily admonished in a Bunion Blog.
How are the mighty fallen!

George should heed old Russian advice

Biscuits and Billions...

The opening of Billions should come with a government health warning for the over-sixties, or should that be the over-sexties? If I hadn't had a recommendation from one of my dearest friends in Cardiff, I would have thought it was time to pull the plug, in the first twenty seconds. Biting on a Bourbon biscuit sharply, I told Dearest  that this was standard viewing in Cardiff. And that (gulp)  we should stick with it. Which is what the screen couple... oh, never mind. Well, once we got over that rather novel way of grabbing the viewer by the Bourbon (which I shouldn't have been eating anyway) the rest was plain-sailing.

Not exactly plain and not much sailing. But an extremely slick, well-crafted drama that moves along apace and carries you with it. Even though as an ordinary hedge-fundless mortal, I grasp at meanings of short-longs and long-shorts. You get the gist, because this is the setting for a power-struggle between an attorney and a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur who has made a financial killing on the back of 9.11. The plot pivots and twists between the the two adversaries, leaving the moral compass vibrating. There is no classic good guy; they are both fatally flawed, but with redeeming features.

So this is my recommendation: don't watch it with your Granny or your children, and keep a packet of crisp biscuits at the ready. And maybe a warm cocoa for dunking..

Alternatively, embrace it with a stiff gin. My idea of a short-long. Or maybe it's a long-short? Either way.... Mine's a double. Easy on the tonic.

Norwegians have a way with diplomacy..

We went to Oslo on Saturday night. It was showing at the National Theatre, fresh from its lauded Broadway run.  If we want to brutally frank, then son et lumière  booked Follies for Mummy and Oslo for Daddy. I can't think why. His father loved the frou-frou of the dancing girls and I was totally engaged by the politics behind the Israeli-Palestininian peace. But I know what he means. I did love Follies with every highly-tuned thespian sinew; but I did have to stretch every critical faculty to keep up with political prancing of Oslo. It wasn't difficult. It's just that at three hours long, it requires focus. But it was truly fascinating.
I had no idea how the Norwegians were responsible for brokering a deal between between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In 1993 the Oslo Accord took place after months of secret diplomatic meetings where the chief representatives were closeted in meetings until they came out with a sensible fair solution. It's a serious topic but there were moments of surprising mirth. However, the important message that we take from this play is that we need to talk. Why can't the representatives of  the UK and the EU be holed-up  on neutral territory until something reasonable is thrashed out? Away from the press who require statements every whipped stitch.   There's too much posturing going on in the world, Mr Trump and Mr Kim Jong-un. More jaw-jaw required.

So pretty serious stuff, enlivened by light touches. Interesting that the two Norwegians responsible for this momentous achievement, Mona Juul and her husband Terje Rod-Larsen are very much alive today. Mona Juul is Norwegian Ambassador to the UK. She has been to see the play and given it her stamp of approval. What I want to know is what was it like seeing Toby Stephenson playing your husband? She would probably be far too polite to go, "Phwoar!"

Naturally he had to tame his mane for this part....

Every picture tells a story...

The Great British Bunion has returned from the Continent. That's what we used to call Europe when I was young. My paternal grandmother who liked to appear more worldly than she was, would insist that we should all go a little continental and have afternoon tea on our laps. "You know, thé chantant," she'd announce with flair but little understanding. I asked my mother what it meant. She shushed me, and said that it was Grandma Jones's version of French.

We have spent a few days in Italy, travelling across the continent by train to Stresa. We have two watercolours of Lake Maggiore at home and one wet weekend, Dearest decided that we should visit  and see it for ourselves. It is indeed exquisite. The islands are beguiling. At the end of the season, nowhere was crowded. We went in search of sun which was in meagre supply. But what impressed me was the warmth of the welcome wherever we went on our travels: France, Switzerland, and Italy. Brexit has not seemingly coloured the attitudes of the locals towards well-intentioned travellers. May it be ever thus.