Blog 116. God Save the King; God Save the Prime Minister.

“So let me just get this clear in my mind: you want another prime minister? What did you do with the last one we gave you? Oh, she’s no good despite her winning the month-long selection and election process laid down by the Conservative Party? What’s that – you want to do the whole thing again? You have to be joking”.
So runs a very concise summary of what many British citizens must have running through their minds at the moment along with, “Blimey, surely even the Labour Party will be more organised and united than this lot”. The fact is, in the last six years the UK has gone through three prime ministers with the current one predicted to be gone by Christmas. One threw his toys out of the pram when the children did not follow his grown-up advice regarding Brexit; one said she would honour the Brexit referendum result, but then conveniently ignored it; one got Brexit done and steered us successfully through an epidemic, but then was hounded out for having a drink and a cake; and this current one has been in power for one month, one week and one day, and is likely to be ditched for doing exactly what she said she would do when campaigning for leadership of the party. I despair. Like much of the rest of the world, the UK is in a financial mess after the idleness and spending that resulted from the Covid epidemic, fuelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an energy crisis; and the MPs of the Conservative Party – instead of rallying around the leader that they so recently selected – are squabbling among themselves. Frankly, the party does not deserve to run the country, for it cannot even run itself. I am reminded of an assessment of part of the civil service once given by a soldier in the British Army,
“Couldn’t pour p**s from a boot with the instructions written on the sole.”
As I write, the first human sacrifice has been made to try to assuage the criticisms of the government: poor old Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked as Chancellor of the Exchequer after only 38 days in office – the shortest tenure in British history if you discount interim post-holders and those who died at their desks. A shame, as he seemed very clever, was in complete step with Liz Truss and was a staunch supporter; also I had only just managed to learn how to spell his name. Who knows how many other dismissals will follow though – as I wrote earlier – the word on the street is that Truss will soon follow. I claim no knowledge of economics, but then Kwasi Kwarteng has a PhD in history of economics and look where that got him. I would only say that I could follow the logic of the Truss/Kwarteng approach and thought it was worth a go. Hey ho. That 1% cut in income tax would have been nice, but what you never had you don’t miss.
The irony of the situation is that the Labour Party, if in power, would almost certainly borrow masses of money just like the Conservative Party has done though, instead of offering tax cuts to encourage growth and investment, they would probably throw the money into the bottomless pit that is the non-functioning NHS and re-nationalise the railway, energy, communications and water companies so that we can be held to ransom by the trade unions once more. Excellent: I do so long for those good-old days of the 1970s.

Just to add to this jolly news, the media have lurched from stories of spontaneous combustion in our towns and villages caused by a “heat wave” and a “climate crisis” (Blog 114), passed through the tales of cracked reservoirs and hosepipe bans caused by drought (Blog 115), and now predict – with relish – that we are all going to freeze to death because there will be no electricity or gas to light and heat our homes.  Predictably, there has been a run on candles and correspondents have written to The Times demanding that the government publish leaflets telling us how to put on another jumper and keep our doors and window shut.  I suppose we could always burn the leaflets.  Clearly, in the words of Private Frazer in Dad’s Army, “We’re doomed.”  For my part, I have taken – once more – to skimming through the digital newspapers and not bothering to read the articles on war, energy, finance or politics.  There was a time when I conscientiously read these things in the morning and spat toast and marmalade in expostulation, ranted at Jane, and kicked over the gash bin; then, one day, I had a ‘road to Damascus’ moment and realised that – as an ordinary bloke – there was not a damned thing I could do about most of these things, so there was no point in getting worked up about them.  Since then I have saved a fortune in Valium tablets.

The death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II hit us hard, as it did most other people in the UK and Commonwealth.  She was a very old lady and we all knew she would die soon, yet somehow she seemed invincible and we thought she would always be there – a quiet figurehead guiding us gently and setting the standard to which we should all aspire. It is almost as if she set herself the final tasks of enjoying her jubilee and welcoming her last prime minister, before quietly dying.  To most of us in Britain she was the only monarch we knew – certainly that was the case for me despite the fact that I was born in the reign of King George VI.  Her face was on stamps and coins and other currency; envelopes were labelled “On Her Majesty’s Service”; warships were “Her Majesty’s Ship”; my cap badge and the buttons of my uniform bore the Queen’s Imperial State Crown, not the King Edward’s Crown.  Now it is all gone and we are into a new era in which ignorance is bliss: I read the other day that King Charles will be “coronated” next year.  Try “crowned” you idiots.  Anyway, King Charles gave a good sovereign’s speech and we must move on.  I think we gave Queen Elizabeth a good send off; Jane and I watched the entire funeral on the television and I could find no fault with any of the ceremonial, which was impeccable.  Mind you, we were maxed-out on funerals by the time it was all over.  Does anyone know who those ladies were who were leading the cortège wearing court shoes and carrying billiard cues?  Their stamina could put us all to shame.

So, here we are in mid October. All that hot weather that I wrote about in the last blog disappeared almost overnight and Britain returned to its seasonal state once more ie “it might rain”. It is a shame, because I did manage to buy that wet suit that I alluded to in Blog 114, but the autumnal weather has meant that I have been unable to try it out. Jane had forbidden the purchase of such an outfit, you will recall, citing the shortage of funds as the main reason. Naturally, I accepted her wise counsel. However, we were shopping in Lidl one day and I was told to stop following her around and saying, “What do you want now?”, then dispatched to the centre aisle to go and amuse myself. European readers will recall that the centre aisle in the supermarket Lidl is a pot pourri of mixed goods: a positive cornucopia of bargains, cheap but good-value clothing, and tools that men never knew they needed, all headlined by the warning, “When It’s Gone It’s Gone”. There, in the middle of this treasure chest, was a wet suit being sold for £39.99. What a bargain! I had seen suits advertised on the internet at prices ranging from £150 to £500 (hence the memsahib’s ban on a purchase). This could not, surely, be overlooked. I pondered for a considerable time (purely hypothetically you understand) on the correct size for me: height would be a key dimension, as I am quite compact and one would not want the crotch of one’s wet suit to be dangling in the region of one’s knees; equally, I am of a muscular chest size out of proportion to the standard beam of a man of my height (I was once described, overall, as being ‘of comfortable build’). I finally concluded that – if I were to make a purchase – and only if – then I would chose based on height and let the chest size sort itself out, these things being meant to be tight fitting.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped, guiltily, as Jane materialised silently, like a genie, beside me (how does she do that?)
I gestured casually at the wet suit and indicated the price.
“…absolute bargain at less than £40, but of course, I understand…you know best”
I sighed and put on my hung-dog puppy face and went to walk away.
“Oh for God sake, get it then,” she said in capitulation.
Reluctantly, I added the wet suit to the shopping cart.
At home I was anxious to try it on. Not being of a sporting disposition, I have never worn a wet suit before: if there had been such things in the 1960s on Tyneside when I used to swim in the North Sea, the owner of such an outfit would have been called “a Nancy”, so it would have been non-U anyway. With difficulty I clambered into the suit and zipped it up. Fortunately, it had a small ‘M’ logo on the front that helped with orientation and encouraged the wearer in the belief that he had turned into Marvelman. Or possibly Mighty Mouse. I found the collar to be a bit high and it forced my head back and very upright, like the wing collars that we used to wear in the evenings when I was a Cadet at Dartmouth; my arms also stuck out oddly, but hey, I reasoned, for the price these are small niggles and I will soon get used to them. I waddled robotically to the top of the stairs and called Jane to come and admire her aquatic hero.
“Yes, very nice dear,” was her noncommittal comment. ”Collar looks a bit odd”, she added helpfully, then returned to baking her cakes or whatever she does in her laboratory. Wives can be so discouraging, don’t you find? I waddled back into the bedroom and managed, with difficulty, to get out of the thing. It was only then that I read the instructions (men never read instructions or ask for directions, did you know that girls?). Ah. It seems I had put the suit on back to front – hence the stiff collar (should be at the back) and the odd arms. Honestly, how was I to know that the zip went at the back? It is illogical – how would you do it up if on your own? It also transpired that there was a larger ‘M’ logo, which went to the front and brought Marvelman to full life, which was most pleasing. So there you go: the full scuba kit now lies in a locker onboard APPLETON RUM, simply waiting to be given its sea trial. I can hardly wait.

Any member of the boating community will tell you that the word ‘boat’ is but an acronym for Bring On Another Thousand, and so it has proved with my own motor cruiser (actually recorded by the British Register of Shipping as a ‘Motor Yacht’, which I find very gratifying).  All boats with an inboard engine draw sea water into the boat to cool the engine, discharging it afterwards.  All boats with a fitted heads (= lavatory) also draw in water to flush the pan and the effluent is discharged overboard at sea.  These connections to the sea must be isolated using valves, or cocks, known as sea valves or sea cocks which – naturally – are located in the bottom of the boat in the bilges.  I had been having difficulty in opening and closing the sea valves in APPLETON RUM for some time, a process exacerbated by having to hang upside down into the engine compartment with arms outstretched to their full extent in order to undertake the task.  When I found that the valves were so stiff that I was actually bending the operating levers rather than moving the mechanism I realised that the they would have to be replaced.  However, to do that the boat would have to be lifted out of the water and chocked ashore.  And that is where the “bring on another thousand” came in”.  Lifting out and re-launching vessel: £600; replacing three sea valves: £750.  Thank God it’s only money, that’s what I say.  Ho hum. Lucky I bought that wet suit when I did.

We had an interesting time last month visiting a racehorse stables during National Racehorse Week. What’s that? Never heard of it? Neither had we. Jane came across an advertisement for this annual event somewhere, and as part of the activities you could sign up to be given a tour of a local racehorse stables. Well, we knew nothing about racehorses other than what we had read in Dick Francis books: we have never been to a racecourse, never been in a betting shop and never betted on a horse. True, I had done a little riding when I was a Sub Lieutenant as I thought it might be useful in my naval career one day (well, you never know…). I used to hack across Dartmoor every Wednesday afternoon and, naturally, I had all the accessories: the cream jodhpurs, the highly polished riding boots, the hat, the quirt. I did try continuing my recreation when I was home on leave in South Shields, galloping a horse along the South Foreshore, but was called “a big pouf” by a local ruffian as I returned to the stables, and vowed then to confine my equestrian skills to Dartmoor where my sartorial elegance invited no comment. I digress. The thing I learnt from horse riding was that horses were generally not called ‘Trigger’, that they had complete minds of their own, and that they loved throwing you off. The last never happened to me, but my best chum, Christian (aka Hand Major – see Blog 67), who accompanied me once, was sent flying into a ditch by his nag. I have often wondered since if this changed his genes and explained why his later-to-be-born son joined the Parachute Regiment. Anyway, to continue my saga about National Racehorse Week, we tried to sign on for a visit to the nearest racehorse stables, but they were fully booked. In the end, we managed to get booked into a stables a considerable distance away, near Amesbury in Wiltshire. I pondered for some time on what to wear for this event. The jodhpurs and black riding boots were long gone, but I did have a pair of elastic-sided ankle boots that would fit the bill; the beige cavalry twill trousers were an automatic choice; the tweed hacking jacket with double vent, naturally; the Charles Tyrwhitt twill checked shirt complemented by the maroon National Trust tie… I did not own a brown trilby, but I did have a range of tweed flat caps and chose one to match the coat. Thus attired I drove with Jane to Wilsford Stables, pacing our journey to arrive exactly at the appointed time, as directed on the joining instructions. In my mind’s eye I saw myself strutting purposely through the stable yard on my personal tour with Seamus Mullins, the owner, asking searching and intelligent questions about fetlocks and martingales, odds and penalties, while dodging piles of manure. When we arrived I was gobsmacked. An enormous field by the stables was already full of cars and more were arriving by the minute (so much for our precisely timed arrival, achieved by waiting in a lay-by en route for seven minutes). I thought it was going to be a personal visit with, perhaps, just half a dozen other country chaps like us (note, ‘chaps’ not ‘blighters’). Far from it. What looked like the whole of Wiltshire was there: complete families with pushchairs, grandparents and dogs. There was cake. There was tea. And do you know, most of them wore jeans and ‘trainers’. I couldn’t believe it after all my effort with my ensemble. Never mind, once I had overcome my shock (“Stop grumbling”, said an unsympathetic wife) we enjoyed a very good tour. We patted the very sleek-looking horses in their stables, had a fascinating lengthy chat with one of the jockeys, and watched a farrier shoeing one of the horses. This last was a very impressive demonstration of what proved to be a lengthy and very skilled process. The shoes he was fitting on the racehorse were actually aluminium alloy: very light yet robust. Different sizes are needed for different horses, just like for humans, and they are cold-forged into the precise shape of the horse’s hoof on site (‘on the hoof’ you might say). The hoof itself has to be trimmed and levelled to take the shoe and the nails are hammered in at an angle for security. Each shoe must have taken about an hour to fit and we were assured that the whole thing would have to be done again in a few weeks’ time. I was intrigued by the whole process. Later, there was a demonstration of how racehorses are trained and looked after from foal to retirement, taught how to jump in steeplechases and so on. Overall, it was a most informative morning and Seamus Mullins and his staff must have gone to a great deal of trouble to organise and run the whole thing; it was very much to Mullins’ credit bearing in mind it was all free to the public and purely an educational exercise. Jane and I vowed to participate again next year (we are now ‘on’ the system) though, perhaps next time at a stables nearer to home. If you are interested, and live in the UK, go to www.nationalracehorseweek.uk/ for information – the event happens every September apparently. By the way – they do not send retired racehorses to the knacker man for dog food; they sell them to nice people who look after them in the horses’ final years. Yes, of course I asked.

Oh dear, Jane has been in the wars yet again.  Almost a year to the day since she fell over on a walk in Devon (Blog 105), Jane did the same thing again as we trekked down a rough country track.  Down she went like a guardsman on parade, only this time her face took the impact, bursting her lip, grazing her nose and damaging her glasses.  Mindful of my mistake last time, when I simply grabbed her by the armpits, heaved her upright, dusted her off and told her she was fine, this time I let her lie for a bit to recover her senses.  Blood poured from her mouth and down her face, into her lovely blond hair and ear.  She looked awful, but at least she hadn’t broken anything.  The problem was, we were half way around a seven mile walk and there was no alternative but to carry on: no access to a cold compress or basic first aid.  Onward we plodded.  Poor Jane: she looked like a cross between Daffy Duck and Adolf Hitler, but she is made of strong stuff and she is gradually recovering, saving all her kisses for me (assuming she forgets that reference to Daffy Duck and Herr Hitler).  She is almost back to normal as I write, but her chest still aches from the impact and repairing her glasses will cost almost as much as repairing my boat.  It’s a funny old thing isn’t it?  When you are a child you are falling over all the time, but mummy kisses it better or swabs it with Dettol and you are running around again, unmarked, a few days later.  When you are older, recovery seems to take forever and the whole thing is much more traumatic.  Jane reckons that part of the reason is that when you are older you have further to fall, and she is probably right.

Anyway, we have just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary and to mark the occasion we are off for a few days in a hotel in Sidmouth.  This is unusual for us as we normally hire a self-catering cottage on holiday, it being cheaper and free of constraint. The downside, of course, is that such a holiday offers no break for Jane, who still has to cook.  The hotel we have chosen ticks all the boxes in terms of luxury and cuisine, no children screaming or vaulting over the sofas, no shorts or leisure suits, no dogs in rooms; it even has a dress code requiring gentlemen to wear a tie for dinner.  Excellent – sounds like my kind of place.  I will let you know how we get on.  After that we are imposing ourselves on some old friends in Plymouth, my old stomping ground, for a few days then back to the boat in the hope of an Indian summer.  I can’t wait to try out those new sea valves and that wet suit.

17 October 2022