Category: General

It is late on a Thursday evening and I am trying to put off washing the dishes for as long as possible.
After a week’s holiday, a joyful time of frolicking in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, I returned Sunday evening to San Francisco. The the that followed, to this point, was at the beginning slightly painful. A week of peace, quiet, and harmony in an area with clean, fresh air and miles of rolling hills is difficult to leave behind in exchange for one of the world’s most congested blocks of concrete. As the week progressed, however, things would grow better. My Japanese lessons resumed and the teacher was rather surprising. An Edoko, Tokyo-native, judging on her accent she is a case apart from the average Japanese woman. While not a great beauty, she has a husky, gravelly voice and a sultry demeanour more akin to a Nipponic Marlene Dietrich than the stereotypical Japanese woman, much less a language teacher. My luck further continued in my weekly Kanji (Japanicised Chinese characters) when my memory had not fully abandoned me and I was able to score 90pc on my quiz. Tomorrow I will return to the Sierra Foothills, but only for the weekend. My excuse this time is a trip to buy a bottle of wine, a locally-produced Moscato.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.
Douglas MacArthur

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
Fred Allen

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.

It may well only be a question that is a dilemma to those of us with English embarrassment genes, but I’ll be interested in all points of view.

What does one do when someone smells?

I had a long boring day at a conference in a hot dusty room with the only motivation a scrummy all you can eat carvery luncheon. Kept me going anyhow. We queued up for the delicious feast and sat down politely at a table in the restaurant talking shop as you do at these things, mixing up with others from the group who I hadn’t yet spoken with, a bit of social networking if you like.

Along comes the ‘waiter’ asking for drink orders, all promptly given, no alcohol allowed as it is these days. The five at my table held a pregnant pause until he left and then went collectively….”Urgh, how disgusting!”
Continue reading “Social quandary – to say or not to say!”

I discovered yesterday that the King of the Belgians, Albert II, has not only  the problems of a country splitting at the seam and without a government for several months – though looking at some Belgian politicians such as van Rompuy, HM may count this as a blessing – but has also a difficult younger son, Prince Laurent.  According to the article in yesterday’s FAZ this lad has now been forbidden to set foot in his father’s palace. Prince Laurent recently went to the former Belgian Congo, now the DRC, because of his concern for the environment there.  His hotel bill was settled by a Congolese businessman, because apparently not one of the prince’s party had a suitable credit card about his person. This has caused disapproval in Belgium.  The prince had already raised eyebrows when he turned up at the National Day parade last year in a lounge suit instead of his naval uniform. He explained that his old uniform had shrunk in the wash and the replacement wasn’t ready on time. It is apparently true that Prince Laurent has recently put on some weight.  A former tutor has been quoted describing him as not very bright, but he has shown a certain facility for numbers, as when he reportedly offered pictures of his newborn twin sons for sale for 150,000 euros.

I don’t know if the King and Queen of the Belgians are invited to the royal wedding. If they are, they will have at least one subject of conversation with HM and Prince Philip.   I do feel, however, that Laurent makes our Prince Andrew look almost a perfect son.  I hope you like this, Janus and other anti-royalists.  Sorry I can’t put up a link since this article has now disappeared behind the FAZ’s paywall.  But I do feel sorry for Belgium and its monarch.  Not all the chocolate in the world can help.

A young Chinese couple get married. She’s a virgin.
Truth be told, he is a virgin too, but she doesn’t know that.
On their wedding night, she cowers naked under the sheets as her husband undresses in the darkness.
He climbs into bed next to her and tries to be reassuring.
“My darring,” he whispers, “I know dis you firss time and you berry frighten.
I pomise you, I give you anyting you want, I do anyting juss anyting you want
You juss ask. Whatchu want?” he says, trying to sound experienced and worldly, which he hopes will impress her.
A thoughtful silence follows and he waits patiently (and eagerly for her request).
She eventually shyly whispers back, “I want to try someting I have heard about from other girls… Nummaa 69.”
More thoughtful silence, this time from him. Eventually, in a puzzled tone he asks her..
“You want… Garlic Chicken with Corrifrowa?”

David Cameron, a man with at least as little principle and grasp of reality as Blair, has chosen to apologise for the Partition of India and its still unsettled consequences. There is really no reason for this, nor does it actually show any understanding of the issue. While the bungled partition of Bengal, one of Britain’s least successful policies on the subcontinent, did have some implications the British were not responsible for the degree to which things would spiral out of control. Indian Muslims, having tasted political power for the first time since the fall of the Mughal Empire, did not wish to cede power back to the long-dominant Hindus. Nor was it Britain’s fault that Kashmir was made part of India. One of the quirks of the Raj was the number of princely states which remained, some of them with rulers not of the same religious background as the majority of his subjects. It just happened to be that the ruler of Kashmir was a Hindu in a Muslim-majority area. That he chose to go with India rather than Pakistan is not the fault of the British. If anything, the goading of Nehru, a Kashmiri himself, had more to do with it. Nor could the largest share of the blame for the poorly-drawn partition of the Punjab be blamed solely on the British. Both Mountbatten and Nehru feared the same thing — a full-scale civil war breaking out, once long fomenting along religious lines, especially at the prodding of Jinnah who was determined to have his Pakistan. Cameron cannot accept the blame on behalf of the United Kingdom for something which was ultimately the fault of the Indians and the Pakistanis themselves, even if that is something that Pakistanis and Indians might want to hear.