Dog Bins & Pop Kings.

How useful, looks a bit small though.

All this dry weather of late has been causing some consternation and confusion down here in the far West. We are just not used to it. There have been a few grey days though, when, as is more usual, all the roads became clogged with tourist cars. If the sun isn’t shining our visitors get in their cars, 4X4s and camper vans, and take to the roads to pass the time. Marks and Spencer’s is a favourite destination as they can compare it with the one back home. “Oh look Harry; these are exactly the same socks as you bought last week!” Any kind of shopping is good, but just sitting about in traffic jams is obviously the best relaxing entertainment. (You are still using semi-colons I see! Ed.) One nice thing about taking your holiday in the UK is that you can take your dog with you. I can remember our family driving from Streatham all the way to Falmouth in the Austin Seven; dog and all. The dog was always sick if it didn’t have its head out of the window. There was’nt anywhere to put your dog in those days; no “Dog Bins” then!

One advantage of the dry weather is that I can drive through the back lanes to Redruth without getting the cat lagged up with mud from the ‘Grundie’s’ farm. The lane past their farm is always wet though. It is either a permanent spring, or a main-water pipe that has been leaking for the least twenty years or more. Talking of cars; the pretty cat had to be let go after seven years in my employ. It was beginning to cost just too much in repairs to justify its petrol, so I advertised it in the local paper, “Cheap to a good home”. Her replacement is another S-Type, but male this time. He’s a later model with much improved handling and superior six speed automatic gearbox that doesn’t hesitate for a couple of minutes before letting you have a gear, and it’s a diesel! My carbon tyre marks are now a little smaller and he does twice the mileage of the old girl. Amazingly, in spite of being a diesel of a smaller cubic capacity, there is more muscle. He is faster and sportier than the earlier petrol version; he flies!

So, the “King of pop”, Michael Jackson, has died at the age of fifty. Not old I guess, but not in the same league as other young musicians who died while their careers were still full of promise yeah? Me, I am amazed that he lasted so long! He wasn’t just weird, he was scary! Let’s hope he rests in peace, yeah? He didn’t get much of it while he was alive.

Pip, pip, The Leg.