First draft

Rather earlier than I expected, the first rough draft of Diamond Geezers has been finished. There is still work to be done: I know that somebody has a copy of the family tree of the club showing all the clubs sponsored by Brighton and their subsequent sponsorships. I hope, too, that the secretary has records of past members. Although I have all their names (I think) and the month and year in which they joined the club, in many cases I only have the Lions year in which they left, and sometimes not even that.

Another thing I must do is write to the local rag in the hope that readers will send me their memories of what Brighton Lions have done and how they have been affected.

Meanwhile, I must print out what I have and start correcting and improving it.

Today's useless information

Somebody (and I can't for the life of me remember who - if I ever knew) has been doing some research and has discovered that when a cat pats its owners leg to gain attention, a male cat will usually use its left paw and a female its right. Seems the same applies to dogs.

The alternative solution

I was right: there is another way of dealing with the problem of the drain. The contractor has agreed to dig a new trench beside the old drain and this will minimise the inconvenience to all involved.

It's not often I'm right, so I'll blow my own trumpet as loudly as I can!

What a week

This really has been one of those Lions weeks. Monday (August Bank Holiday) saw many of our club - but not me - at Seaford for the local Lions donkey derby. They were selling books and running the pig races. Tuesday there was a zone meeting (no less than 30% of our members turned up), Wednesday our monthly dinner meeting, Thursday a Lion from Menton was in town so Pete and I met him for a drink in the evening, yesterday evening was sent preparing for the book fair this morning, where I shall be heading very shortly.

Yesterday there were also problems with the Housing Society. There has for some time been a problem with the drains at one of our properties and the solution, it seems, is to dig up the existing drain and relay it. I know nothing about these things, but our chairman runs a building company and does understand them. He told a meeting of the tenants that while the work was going on, the front door would be inaccessible and our manager arranged for the lock on the community room fire door to be changed and all tenants to be given keys. But what about the postman? And how to visitors announce themselves if they can't get to the entryphone? But at least the tenants were told there would be no interruption to their toilets etc. Then at 5.30 yesterday I got a phone call from the part time office assistant (she works Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday mornings) to tell me that a) there would be a pump running outside the block 24 hours a day at 90 decibels and b) the tenants would not be able to flush their toilets at some times. The chairman is away in Spain and the manager left for ten days holiday on Thursday, so it is down to us to sort the problem. She offered to type letters to all tenants calling them to a meeting in the community room on Monday morning which she would run and at which the contractor would be present to explain the situation. I told her to go ahead. Then, at 9.00 yesterday evening, she rang again. The tenants would be unable to flush their toilets at all during the working day. I took an executive decision and told her to stop the contractors from doing anything until the whole matter had been reviewed: there must, I thought, be another solution, even if it means laying a completely new drain a few feet further out from the building.

We must wait and see.

Tit for tat

I was amused by the story in the paper about the mayors of two neighbouring Parisian suburbs. In an attempt to reduce traffic congestion, one mayor declared a street a one-way street. The second mayor was annoyed that this increased the congestion in his suburb, so he made the part of that street on his territory a one-way street as well - in the opposite direction!

Azincourt

"Azincourt" is the name of Bernard Cornwell's last book which I have just managed to borrow from the library. I hadn't realised until I started reading it that the place English know as Agincourt is known to the French as Azincourt. This is a small town, or maybe just a village, in Picardy in north-west France whereas the place known to the French as Agincourt is in north-east France. I am so far just half-way through the book, but it is as easy to read as all Bernard Cornwell's other books have been, and is a great way to learn some of the history of England!

What a nuisance

While I was doing my initial research into the history of Brighton Lions, I discovered several articles in the on-line archive of our local rag which I copied into my notes. Among those articles was one published just before the 1998 carnival in which the carnival queen was named as E.P. When I reached that year in the first draft of the written record, I dutifully copied the details from the article.

It suddenly occurred to me a day or two ago that one of my daughter's friends was carnival queen one year. I couldn't immediately recall which year, but delved through old photographs until I came up with the ones that showed H.F. with me. I was President of the club that year, so it was easy to check which year it was. And it was 1998, the year the Argus said E.P. was carnival queen!

I assumed that I had mistyped the date when copying the article, only to remember that I had used cut and paste. Better check the article, I thought. But the paper's on-line archive has been thinned and none of the articles I had found before are there any longer. I shall have to go the the reference library in town to see if they have back numbers on file.