pumpkinstrokemarrow

The third first involved jigsaw 8, a 500 piece Falcon Venture Deluxe, which turns out to a lot less deluxe than the sort without the Venture, back in fact to the standard of jigsaw 3 (see April 7th). The first being the fact that it is the first jigsaw I have bought from a charity shop to have a piece missing, the corresponding hole being visible in the middle of the illustration, with the piece from some other jigsaw next to it. Presumably this other jigsaw has my piece. Luckily the missingness did not cause much additional confusion, quite enough having been caused by the coarse texture of the painting from which the jigsaw was taken, it taking me some time to get the measure of the thing.

Having done the edge, for some reason I thought that the fence would be a good place to start. Gave that up after a while and moved onto the train, it being obvious enough after the event that this was the place to start. Then the rails, then where the hills & trees meet the sky, then the two boys and only then the fence. After that it was a relatively routine matter of filling in the gaps.

The second first was my first drive of the car. Which all went well enough once I had worked out how to wear the seat belt with both some comfort and some safety.

The first first was my first two visits to public houses for the purposes of drinking, rather than eating. With the 'Half Way House' at Earlsfield being awarded a red star on two counts. First, having bought a bottle of their best vino, I asked for some still water. I was asked whether tap water would do, upon which I was presented with a large bottle of the stuff and a couple of glasses, without charge. Which I thought decent of them; they could easily have sold me a chargeable bottle. Wine OK too. Second count was the presence of a decent disabled toilet. It has been quite a pleasant surprise how many places sport such things these days. The second public house was TB, into which I had popped to remind them of my existence. No hard feelings there and the warm Newcastle Brown was on the bar before I reached it - just in time to stop them opening it and to explain that I had become a wino since my last visit. Not quite ready to sit in such a place with a glass of orangeade - although there are people who do.

The bad news is that I have an error to report. On December 12th last, and probably on a couple of other occasions too, I was smug about the English record of colonial non-violence, at least when compared with the brutality of the French in Indo-China and Algeria. A couple of days ago, Mr. Monbiot reminded me, in a piece in the Guardian, prompted by I know not what (maybe it was one of those articles one keeps by for a day when one has nothing to say), about Kenya. Where our end-of-empire record was pretty dreadful, so by way of penance I have got myself a copy of the full story by one Caroline Elkins from Harvard. The tone is a bit irritating, a regular bash the brits fest. But I suppose it is as irritating to them when we do the same thing in reverse. And, given the story and the way we have drawn a veil over it, with the veil drawing apparently including much destruction of records, deserved.

I also notice another piece in the Guardian, about the plight of the 4,000 or so women languishing in our jails. Perhaps another filler for a rainy day, in any event notable for its vacuity and ending with a plea for an approach which identified the importance of preventive and support services. No problem about identifying the importance of something. But what are we to do about it?