Friday 21 July 2017

The strange case of the vanishing town


I have been listening to the news since 6.00am this morning, and it has - for once - thrown out quite a few things of interest.

The last snippet was about how they have just exhumed the body of Salvador Dali to take a DNA sample to compare with a woman who claims to be his only daughter.

They said that the body was in remarkably good condition. Even his trade-mark waxed moustache was still pointing upwards. Why would this little observation be so interesting?

The latest blow in the downfall of Trump (main legal advisor resigns, reputedly because of being asked to dig up dirt  on the panel who are looking into his son's dealings with Russia prior to the election) was just ticked-off with quiet approval, but the Dali's moustache fact will stay with me for a long time.

O J Simpson begs to be let out of jail before he has done his 33 years.

They are scrapping the toll charges for crossing the Severn Bridges. No more 'Get out of Wales free'.

The police are interviewing more and more children for possessing knives. The youngest so far is 4 years old.

Then there was the earthquake in Kos - birthplace of the lettuce. Yes, two people did die when the ceiling of a bar came down late at night, but - to my shame - I find myself dwelling on the resulting little tsunami which washed the harbour-side restaurants in Bodrum, Turkey. I have been to those restaurants and tried to imagine the sight of the inconvenient 12 inch wave arriving from out to sea and washing the pavements in old Halicarnassus. As earthquakes go, it could have been worse.

A couple of years ago, there was a small earthquake with its epicentre in Bristol, 12 miles from Bath. I have friends who felt it here, but I slept right through. There were many reports of broken crockery as china slid of mantlepieces in Bristol, and the worst event was a large wardrobe which fell over. It must have been unstable to begin with I think.

When I looked at my phone this morning, I found two emails - one from Weave who confirmed that the antique print of Guildford which I posted to her days - if not weeks - ago has still not arrived.

The other was from a friend in Somerset who I sent the DVD of 'The Searchers' to (it being her favourite film) months ago, and she never seemed to have received it.

I was beginning to have real doubts about Royal Mail when I read that one of her office workers had put the DVD on her untidy desk, where it has been buried for months until its discovery today.

Maybe there is hope for Weave's print after all.


13 comments:

  1. My main memory of Kos is not of Lettuce, but of Hippocrates's tree.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indeed there is hope for the print. Looks as though it might just have arrived at the sorting office.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am now ashamed. You will have to pay an extra £1.50. I hate Royal Mail management...

      Delete
  3. Thank you for the morning news. You seem to have read more than I have. I did not know there were quakes in the UK by the way. Our postal system works like this - I can mail a card at the farm, they drive it 100 miles to post it in the city, then return it overnight to the town near the farm. Seems the larger facility is better for routing it or so they say. Crazy, but it gets there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. We live next to the Guildhall and so I hand deliver stuff. If I didn't, the mail would make a round trip of 30 miles to go 30 yards.

      Delete
  4. Now I am interested in the town of Guildford. Does it look like there is a square body of water on the left? It looks like waves. I compared it to today's areal view of Guildford but could not find anything that looks like it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a river. Guildford means, 'Golden Ford', due to the flowers that grew there in the Spring.

      Delete
  5. Oh no .... I hope Weaver's pressie isn't lost ...... best you don't send me that diamond in the post !!! XXXX

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, I will insert it personally to make sure.

      Delete
  6. I listened to the news in the bath at 8pm
    Apparantly 340,000 kids are suspended from school every year!
    God help us

    ReplyDelete
  7. Indeed there is hope for the print. Looks as though it might just have arrived at the sorting office.


    หีฟิต

    ReplyDelete