A bit close to home

Back in 1974 I drove past all three pillar boxes in central London shortly before the IRA blew them up.  I saw the smoke rising from the Old Bailey car bomb.  Parson’s Green underground station was the home end of my daily commute around that time.  I took a holiday one year in a certain hotel complex in Sousse.  Somewhat later, I was a regular user of Maelbeek metro station and Brussels airport.  We quite often catch a bus from the stop on London Bridge next to Southwark Cathedral.  And we quite often filled the car up at the Super U in Trèbes.  Fortunately for me, there were suitable intervals, though some longer than others, between my being on the spot and the terrorist acts, but I sometimes wonder when my luck will run out, as it has for the poor innocent victims.

As I’ve said before, these acts of tribal barbarism are as old as mankind, and are an egregious abuse of the privilege of living on a habitable planet.  Almost all are inspired by differences between the various factions of god-botherers, each of them presuming that they alone have got it right (when, some might say, none of them has).  This morning brings the news that the heroic Lt Col of gendarmes, who offered himself as a hostage in exchange for the woman the killer was holding, has died of his wounds.

My view of the world is a little jaundiced at the moment because the back is playing up, probably a consequence of all the coughing and sneezing that followed a nasty dose of the lurgy in December. 

The week has not been without its modest satisfactions, though.  On Wednesday evening our team won the annual quiz in aid of Disgustedville Citizens’ Advice, so we each took home a bottle of decent cava.  We came fourth last year and fifth the year before, each time after ties for second place.  We were lucky this time with the marathon questions, since one of them was all about railway and underground stations, hence right up Martyn’s street.  Another was anagrams of dog breed names (only the Rhodesian Ridgeback defeated us) and the third was a list of dingbat clues leading to clichés or other common expressions, eg M CE, M CE, M CE: three blind mice.  Our hobby colleague Mary was so good at them that we suspect she has a murky past in GCHQ, even though she masquerades pretty convincingly as a retired dental surgeon...

Arran seen from Kincraig, Bute

On Thursday, I managed to knock out another little watercolour vignette at the art class.  At Christmas, Miss gave us each a little packet of small sheets of good watercolour paper, so I’ve stretched four of them on to a board, using the technique that she taught us over a decade ago.  Another bit of her teaching that seems to have stuck is how to lay a flat wash wet on dry.  Maybe I should persevere with watercolours.