pumpkinstrokemarrow

Now completed the fifth jigsaw of the season. Sticking with the 500 piece format but, on this occasion upgraded from Falcon regular to Falcon deluxe, which means that the jigsaw is cut out of much heavier card and the pieces are much pleasanter to handle.

Order of attack was edge, bottom right green, plough team, boundary of field across the middle, sky meets trees, sky, trees, unploughed field and ploughed field. Of these, rather to my surprise, the trees took the longest to get a grip on. Odd how it takes a while for the brain to lock onto the features of any particular chunk of jigsaw which are helpful in matching one piece with another. Perhaps I will get better at this as the season progresses. And the ploughed field was easier than the trees once I had worked out that the relevant puzzle unlocking features in this case were colour and the strong grain running up and to the right.

To vary the diet had a bash at 'The Economist' for the first time in a very long time. The feature of this magazine that had stuck with me from the past was the cocky, know-all tone which had come to be rather irritating. Which seemed to be missing on this occasion, but maybe it will return if I make a habit of reading the thing. Lots of good stuff with an amusing line in advertisements. You could be Director General of the BBC. Lots of opportunities at lots of levels in worthy international organisations. You could consult, for example, for ASARECA, which, in case it had slipped your mind, is into agricultural research in eastern Africa. You could even buy 400ha of prime development land from (adm@) epicurius.com.br. And aiming a touch lower, pots of advertisements for expensive looking MBAs and such like.