I got nothing...

...and plenty of it.

As sure as a couple of eggs

I haven't heard that expression used for ages.  Over 60 years, to be a little more exact.  I wasn't sure then - and I'm not sure even now - quite whether that wording is what the man meant to say or whether he really meant 'as sure as eggs is eggs'. My considered opinion, refined over these past 60+ years, is that he was trying to be clever and paraphrase the well-known saying.  It would have been in character, or as near as I can tell, my pre-teenage self not being into character reading to any great extent.  (I'm not saying that I'm pre-teenage now, you understand, but that I was when I heard those words.)

It was at school, back in the days when the teachers (we called them masters in those days) always wore jackets, ties and GOWNS, although mortar boards had been put aside.  This particular gentleman was the deputy headmaster and was standing in for our regular master (I have a feeling it might have been a history less) who was sick or attending a funeral or something.  Anyway, this deputy headmaster, by name of Parsons, was Welsh.  I'm not sure that his place of birth really has any bearing on the matter, but then again, it might.

Because Mr P was unfamiliar with the names of the boys in my form (we weren't called students back then) he had fallen into the habit of making up names. Well, not so much making up names, as using objects as names.

"You, Tomato," he would say, pointing to a pupil. (Just an example, you understand.)

One of the pupils had what turned out to be the unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your sense of humour) name of Gammon.

You, there, Bacon. What's your name?" demanded Mr P.

He took some convincing that the answer was not a leg-pull and threatened the whole class with a visit to the headmaster.  "I'll have you trotting along as sure as a couple of eggs!" he exclaimed.

I've never heard the phrase since, and I can find no trace of it on Google so I think he must have been making it up.

Mad dogs and Englishmen

I have recently re-read a book by possibly the most anglophile American. Although I did from time to time find myself becoming a tad irritated, it did remind me why I am very happy to have been born a native of these islands.  Mr Bryson - for he was the author - waxed lyrical about the whimsical nature of England and Englishmen.  It took an Englishman - Noel Coward - to put us on a par with mad dogs.

That, to Mr B, is one of our endearing traits, the ability always to see ourselves as not as good as other races (or nationalities).  We frequently sell ourselves short.  Mind you, many of us like to see that as eccentricity rather than madness, and eccentricity is something we admire.  It is something we do rather well.  Take place names, for example.  Many of them are pronounced completely differently to the way they are spelled.  Gloucester, Worcester and Leicester are pronounced Gloster, Wooster and Lester.  Belvoir is Beaver and - wait for it! - Woolfardisworthy (an eccentricity if ever I saw one!) is Woolsery.  And in Norfolk there are two neighbouring villages called Tivetshall.  So as to distinguish one from t'other, the names of their parish churches' patron saints are added to give Tivetshall St Mary and Tivetshall St Margaret.  Some names almost invite sniggers, names such as Nether Wallop and Parsons End.  And to think that we consider Kalamazoo odd!

But it's not only place names that are endearingly eccentric.  We have an innate need to apologise. We apologise to people who bump into us because they are not looking where they are going. We apologise when asking for something.  "I'm sorry, could you move your bag off the seat so I can sit down?"  "I'm sorry, can you tell me what time you serve breakfast?" It could be described as a sorry state of affairs.

Our people invent things and we let other nations reap the benefits. Football was 'invented' in this country - and now almost every other country plays it better than we do.  We have won the World Cup once - 50 years ago!  We invented cricket and our national team is frequently beaten by others. Mind you, cricket qualifies as an eccentricity itself!

I mentioned that the names of places are sometimes (often?) not pronounced as written but this quirkiness goes further. We spell the noun for the place where plays are staged the French way - theatre - albeit without the little hat over the 'a' but we say it almost in the American way - theater - although the emphasis is on the first syllable rather than the second. Then there is the habit we have, probably irritating to some, of adding a silent 'w' to words starting with the sound 'r' and sometimes 'h' - write, wring, who. But the 'wh' at the start of whistle, when and where is pronounced as a 'w'!  And perhaps it would be better not to get entangled with the 'ough' ending of words!

Personally, I am quite happy to live in a land of oddities.

Confusing

There are some things I do from time to time that really do come into that category of 'stupidity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results'. Almost every day I check out the website of the local newspaper. Now, I'm not saying that is a stupid thing to do, although the paper is not exactly renowned for cutting edge journalism. No, the stupid thing is scrolling down to the readers' comments and hoping to read something that is correct in both grammar and spelling and not blaming either the Tories or the Greens for everything while at the same time insulting just about everybody else who has commented with a different point of view. And it is mainly a dozen or so people  whose noms de plume appear every time. Every time I look I resolve never to do it again. But I still do.

At least that is consistent, unlike that site which encourages travellers to write reviews of hotels and restaurants. I go there occasionally out of some masochistic tendency just to see what other people are saying about restaurants I know.  It is always restaurants that I check as I almost never stay in hotels.  But how is it that one reviewer raves about a restaurant while the next advises us never to cross its threshold?  I know that each is stating his (or her) own opinion and that one man's meat etc - but I am still staggered by the wildly different comments..  Having said (written/typed) all that, I have just checked the reviews of our local Italian - where we shall be eating tomorrow - and find that of 121 reviews, 88 rate the restaurant excellent and 27 very good.  Just goes to prove me wrong!

But another review site that provides reviews of tradespeople also puzzles me. The reviews seem to be consistently good, very good or excellent.  But every time I try to use one of the highly-rated tradesmen, I find them almost but not quite disastrous.

Is it any wonder I'm confused?

Match of this Day

Just a few days ago some 9 million people in this country alone watched the women's hockey final in the Olympic Games.  What a contrast to the 22nd August 1964 when a mere twenty thousand watched the BBC's first Match of the Day between Liverpool and Arsenal.

(For the non cognoscenti that was a football [soccer] game.)

The match was played at Anfield, Liverpool's home ground, and was won 3-2 by Liverpool.

This was, apparently, a trial run by the BBC in preparation for their coverage of the 1966 World Cup.The programme was aired during the evening on BBC2, a channel broadcast only in London and that could be watched only on the new-fangled 625 line television sets.  three years later, despite moves by several football clubs to prevent it, the programme was moved to BBC1.

Match of the Day is now recognised as the longest-running football television programme in the world.

It never rains but what it pours

That really doesn't sound grammatically correct but it is how I remember the saying from my childhood, although I grant that quite a lot of rain has fallen since those days.

Anyway, the other day I was saying how we came home from France to a water problem - specifically water from the shower pouring through the kitchen ceiling. Now we have problems with water in France! Our son, his partner and three children arrived there on Thursday only to find that the boiler was not working so they had no hot water.

So, in between all the usual running around shopping, walking the dog, taking the Old Bat for her weekly treatment and so on, I seem to have spent hours phoning and texting (in French, even!) attempting to suggest solutions and even more hours searching the internet for suitable tradesmen to call out.

Just to rub salt in the wound (as it were), I went to feed the various animals my son has (cats, chicken and a rabbit) on a reasonably warm and fairly sunny afternoon.  As I walked down the garden, the heavens opened.  When I got back home, the only clothes I didn't change were my socks!

Frustrated

I sometimes wonder if companies really want business.  Or maybe it's the staff who just can't be bothered.  Either way, it causes potential customers enormous frustration.

With the annual fireworks display getting ever closer, it is becoming more important to get all the ducks in a row.  In past years there have been several aspects of the arrangements that have been managed by, for want of a better description, partners of Brighton Lions.  This year, pretty much everything is down to us.  As the treasurer, it is down to me to deal with the money handling.  One of the more vital jobs that has to be outsourced is the secure collection, weekend storage and eventual banking of the cash takings on the day.  No way am I prepared to carry that sort of sum to my car, keep it at home for a couple of days and then take it to the bank!  When I explain that in past years the figure has been as high as £30,000 you will see what I mean.  Not that I anticipate it being anywhere near that sum this year.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I got down to making the inquiries.  There are just two major companies of which I am aware and - for some inexplicable reason - I decided to phone them in reverse alphabetical order.

Having selected the option for new business (it was one of those dial 1 for sales, dial 2 for complaints type of thing) I was asked to provide brief details.  Which I did.  I was then told that the person who would deal with my inquiry would call me tomorrow morning (as it was then.  Today as it is now.) I'm still waiting.

So I called the second company.  This time I was asked to email brief details and the person who would deal with my inquiry would call me tomorrow morning.  Again, I am still waiting.

I wonder if either will try ringing this afternoon despite me having emphasised that I will not be available?

On the other hand, I rang the box office at our local concert hall to ask if they would sell tickets for us.  Of course, they said.  It would take just a couple of days to get everything set up, for which they would charge £25, and they would produce the tickets and sell them for 10% commission.

Nice to know some things work out well.