Saturday afternoon in Jesmond, Newcastle

The Troubles, prophecies

There were signs to be read:

"For the remainder of labour's stay in the office (until June of the following year), it proved possible to represent the cabinet's irish policy as a success story. And the Tories did show bi-partisanship. But one can't help feeling that there was more than a touch of symbolism about the manner in which Ted Heath, the Tory leader, came to the problem. He was taking part in the Fastnet yacht race, off the coast of Cork, when he was contacted by radio to discuss the statement which Quintin Hogg, the Tories' Northern ireland spokeman, intended to issue on the sending-in off the troups. The toing and froing over the wording of the statement used up so much power that the batteries of the yacht's engine went dead. Because of the sitting of the mast it proved impossible to get at the engine to recharge the batteries. Then the wind droped, leaving the Conservative leader helplessly adrift in Irish waters".

Tim Pat Coogan, The troubles, 1995, p. 93

The cunning bearded baddy

The cunning bearded baddy had finally reached la puorta del sol, a notoriously infamous tapas bar situated in the west of Paris, not too far from the defensive outreach of the city. At the bar, he ordered a chili con carne, for he had travelled a long way to lay his evil plots and he was hungry. It looked as the place wouldn't be too much of a problem, though you never knew in those shark infested waters, better to keep an eye open. He sat down with his glass of surprisingly good wine in the main dining room of the dingy hole, which also surprisingly boasted of some rather excellent modern art on its walls, and a suspicious looking library. Was this really la puorta del sol his cousin Juan had recommended? 'You had better watch yourself', he thought to himself as he nervously took another glance at the other customers in the room...

de-icing

"De-icing is the process of removing frozen contamination, snow, ice, slush from a surface".
Yes, well I didn't know about de-icing, and, should it be cold and snowing, it’s a necessity for the purpose of aviation.
At Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport they seemed completely taken aback by the fact that it was snowing this Monday. To be honest, they do seem completely incompetent most of the time. So we were delayed. But we were in the plane, ready to go. We queued for two hours, to get the de-icing thing, and then we had to queue another hour to take off. We were getting somewhere when the captain informed us we didn't have enough gasoline anymore to reach London, let alone Liverpool. So it was back to the stand, this time to fill the reservoir to its maximum capacity (4 tons, is that possible?). That being done, as it was now snowing heavily, the only available track was used for… landing, of course. But it seemed a great injustice had been committed, and we were awarded the first next available slot. More de-icing, and after eight hours we did get into John Lennon airport. Nacked.

Run

On the first day of the new year, I do my traditional jogging.
It takes me to Bougival, then onto the island of the impressionists via the Bougival bridge, pass the golf of la Grenouillère, where I did spot a lonely golfer, then along the narrow and muddy lane, pass the Bouglione circus, then back on the Rueil bank via the Chatou bridge.