pumpkinstrokemarrow

Having got that off my chest, the first thing of import today was a dream about being slated to appear in a duel. The duel was to be held in a rather small room and while waiting there while a bit of space was made, I rapidly lost my nerve. Apart from anything else the hilt of my sword no longer seemed to fit my hand and in any event was longer attached to the blade. My opponent looked very calm and collected. Plus he was a good bit younger than me. No-one that I knew. Perhaps it is as well for my pride that I woke up before the point of no return; I don't think I am made of the same stuff of all those chaps who got themselves killed by professional duellists rather than lose face.

Then, after I had woken up a bit, BH told me that she had found some nuts on our lawn, underneath our nut tree. I wondered why she was picking them up as I have only ever seen them with small holes in the side where the grey squirrel which knocked the things off has checked that there was nothing inside. On this occasion, no small holes in the side but there were some small nuts inside. So, somewhat later, passing the clump of hazel bushes outside the main entrance to Hook Road Arena, notwithstanding my remarks of 8th August, I thought I would try picking a handful, from the quite reasonable crop there. They were quite small but they were starting to turn brown. We opened them up after lunch today to find quite reasonable nuts inside. A little damp for my taste but if one kept them that would soon go. Shall we leave them as long as a week?

All credit to the council for thinking to plant such things. An interesting experiment in urban nuciculture.

We then moved onto the day's post which included an important communication from an outfit called 'Life Line Screening', a communication which was so important that they had got their computer to address the letter in something like the handwriting of an old person so that we would know not to drop the thing straight in the bin. But while each character was suitably old-style, to the point of illegibility, each instance of any one letter was the same, something of a give away. As was the ink with which the address was written being very like the ink with which the accompanying bar code was written. In case we needed further encouragement, the screening was to take place in that well known watering hole, the British Legion Club in the bit of West Street running up towards Rosebank. This bit of today's post has now passed on, through our shredder on its way to the compost bin.

I close with a suggestion for the powers that be. They should investigate the possibility of turning mobile phones and other such devices off in areas where there is trouble. A cheap option would be to have jamming devices installed on the top of police landrovers (see http://www.landrover.com). The sort of thing that you used to be able to buy in Tottenham Court Road. A smart option, but one which I would think could be organised in a week or two, would be to turn them off after they have been picked up by an aerial. Maybe one could be quite picky about exactly what area was to be blacked out. Maybe good phones could be excluded from the blackout. Maybe one could target particularly bad phones.