'Nother Solent

Sorry for the gap in posting.

Turned out that the lack of energy that I simply put down to the heat might actually have been caused by some sort of lurgy creeping through the defences of my immune system. I'm still a bit below par and suffering from earache and sinusy disgustingy thingies.

Too hot to blog.

But worse weather is forecast.

More French perfidy

. In Touch, a radio programme for the blind and partially sighted, reported earlier tonight that the French blind football team are accused of fielding a sighted player.

The 1960 Penguin Dictionary of Quotations

- reprinted 1961, 1963, 1964, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 (twice), 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 - and for all I know umptillion times after that - gives four quotations for Harry:

- breed again such a king H. 154:254
- but H., H. 323: 17*
- H. the King, Bedford and Exeter 324:24
- H. with his beaver on 321:31

and one for Hatchet:

- did it with my little h. 410:7

...and not a single one of them are any good for this. Unless he put a beaver on to write the article, of course. Or has been chopping up his fellow Guardianistas. He might have been; anybody might be provoked by Hugo Young on a day like this. Especially if wearing a beaver.

*That Shakespeare. Overrated, I reckon. I tried saying "but H., H. 323: 17" in all sorts of dead dramatic voices and none of them sounded any bloody good at all.

Long, long ago

I was reading my new Brownie handbook. There were pictures of Brownies and Girl Guides from countries around the world engaged in helpful deeds. I enthusiastically told my mother (who, it belatedly occurs to me, perhaps did not fully attend to my constant stream of Junior One wisdom) all about one picture, of an African girl pounding grain. "We. Don't. Say. That," came her response in a very odd voice. I was confused. Why didn't we say that the picture showed a Niger Brownie?

OK, so later I figured out that I had innocently said something bad. What I didn't figure out until - er, today, as it happens, was that even my corrected pronounciation of the word Niger was wrong. Being a Francophone country it's said Nee-zhair. Sometimes news junkies, who get their news from text, don't know stuff that ordinary people who watch the News at Ten do

Mugabe to go. Pity it's not at the point of a bayonet, but anything's better than him staying.