Objet trouve

I’m house/dog sitting for friends from HK.  They are posted here in London but have gone home for their annual leave for a month. The house is in Mortlake, near the Mortlake Brewery, (once Watney’s, now Budweiser,) where my Grandfather worked before the war, commuting daily from Millwall on his twin-pot BSA.

The riverside here is OK, not outstanding, but pleasant for a stroll and walking the dog – at least as far as the Ship inn, a so-so pub but a nice place to sit on a summer Sunday afternoon.

I thought this made an interesting composition…

And I have been adopted as a surrogate Granddad – this is Julian, my friends’ boy.  He is two and a bit, so our vocabularies in Cantonese are about the same 🙂  (Though I can usually mangle my Mandarin to get by in most situations.)

The once and future frontier

 

 

Apologies for hogging the headlines this morning but I was struck by the similarities between the US Airforce’s latest, if flawed brainchild and the highly successful craft we all knew in the ‘fifties.

Not being of a scientific bent, may I be allowed to comment on the amazingly prophetic illustrations from 60 years ago?

Do we owe both to the pioneering efforts of experts in the infamous Peenemünde laboratories in the ‘forties? Or was Leonardo da Vinci the real originator of rocket science?

 

 

Absurdity to the Nth Degree

In order to avoid having to rush about without the benefit of a car in Minnesota to make my now empty, in the process of undergoing proper cleaning flat ready for my imminent inhabitation, I arranged with the highly co-operative property management to have most of what I would need shipped to my new address. Everything from a Keurig coffee maker with the special reusable home-brew capsule to a rack for drying clothes was ordered. Then the credit card company struck…

As I’ve had to spend a fair amount of money preparing for my move, and as my credit card has a relatively low limit, I’ve been in the habit of paying for purchases within a few days of making them. Having long thought it good sense it never occurred to me that any sort of problems would arise because of this. Yet problems did arise. My account will now be frozen for the better part of a month. The reason, if it can be considered a reason at all, is that I simply paid too much money. Not only is there a limit of how much I can put on the sodding thing, there is a limit to how much I can pay. As I well exceeded the payment limit, I have a mark of “possible fraud” on my bank record now. While it does not get reported, it does mean that I can’t use the card — even though everyone from the local bank credit card agent to the director of the credit card department at the main bank find the charge absurd to the nth degree, considering my long history of  financial integrity.

The mystery of the hot house

The neighbours were complaining of the heat. The top floor apartment of the modest Forbes building was owned by Herman P. Herman and he wasn’t answering his door. It was agreed by the other occupants that the caretaker should be called. While they waited, the heat was getting worse.

The caretaker arrived with a spare set of keys. He inserted them in the lock. He did not need to turn them in the slot.

“The door’s not locked.” he said. “It must be locked from the inside. I’m going to call the police.” Continue reading “The mystery of the hot house”

Summer holiday poem: a villa on the edge

A villa on the edge

My daughter swimming laps.
I lose count after 200,
she’s not best pleased.
For my penance I take her down the cliff
to the rocky beach.
She snorkels in the pools.
I dread the journey back;
she beats me by a mile.

Continue reading “Summer holiday poem: a villa on the edge”