Tolstoy, Woolf, Fitzgerald, Rachmaninov

It's been a while. Less than two weeks since I last wrote a blog post; honestly I didn't think anyone would notice. But an outcry from my readers has motivated me to get my head down. I used the excuse that "I am sitting in the middle of some workmen replacing a gas boiler and associated building works." Which is both true and stressful. And ongoing. Of course, the new football season has begun and the TV is getting my full attention. I've also developed am obsession with the Times Quick Cryptic Crossword; not the full Cryptic, I have yet to graduate to that. Most days I can complete it, although yesterday's was full of Dickensian references and I simply didn't know that "women's hats" referred to Dolly Varden, a character in Barnaby Rudge, whose name was used to characterise various items of fashionable female clothing in Victorian England.

Am I simply lacking motivation? I think not, except that lethargy brought on by an inability to find a way to expand items of news which I found interesting into full-blown essays. Here are some examples:

Scientists have concluded that a duck in Australia has learned to speak English. Addressing the scientist directly, the duck says "you bloody fool".

Speaks for itself. Which effectively stopped that potential blog post in its tracks.

Apparently all US states have official songs. For instance, Georgia's is ... obviously ... Ray Charles' Georgia on My Mind. New Jersey is the only exception because the Governor in 1972 vetoed the "I'm From New Jersey" proposal. I think he thought it was too prosaic. You can see a list of all the US state songs on Wikipedia. It lead me to wonder what song my English county - Cornwall - should adopt. And that's the point at which inspiration - and enthusiasm for the topic - ran out.

Maybe I have been suffering from some form of Writer's Block. Pretentiously putting me on a pedestal alongside the eponymous Leo, Virginia, Scottie and Sergei.

You may be pleased to know that I'm trying. Works on the subjects of the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway, replacement-level fertility, spoken poetry and pooh sticks are on the production line. Amongst other drafts in progress.

For the moment, though, there's footy on the telly.

Suburban wild life

Son #1 and his family live in suburban New South Wales, Australia. Which is obviously a scary place, by the look of this recent visitor:

It's a diamond python. Not poisonous, kills its prey (small lizards, birds, possums) by constriction and suffocation. From the look of it, scared out of its wits by young Australian children. Males twice as large as the females (the snake not the children), so we'd need another for comparison to discern this one's sex. I probably shouldn't scare my grandkids by saying that they (the snakes) typically lay 25 eggs at a time and are "known to occupy the roof space of suburban homes", according to Mr Wiki. Thank goodness they (the grandkids) don't read this blog.

Australia is home to around 100 species of poisonous snake and large numbers of very scary spiders, although only two of the latter - redbacks and funnel webs -  are potentially lethal to humans. Antivenoms are apparently widely available in this calm and peaceful country.

Just to prove this blog post hasn't been sponsored by Tourism Australia, I should mention the box jellyfish - danger rating 10/10 by australiangeographic.com.au - the honey bee (9/10), the bull shark and of course the infamous saltwater crocodile (only 8/10; they need to up their game). I encountered one of the latter in Alice Springs in 2007:

I was invited to feed Terry but decided to watch instead.

In contrast, in Cornwall we avoid the sea when the jellyfish and occasional (harmless, we are told) basking sharks are around, avoid bulls and rams in the mating season and generally curse the behaviour and noise of the seagulls. That's it. Thankfully.

Tagalog

Botham - we'll call him that rather than Sir Ian or, more recently, Lord Botham - has been appointed the UK's trade envoy to Australia. If anything is designed to get up the noses of the Aussies, it's shoving Botham down their throats. How this will influence the prospects of a free trade deal, who knows?

Trade envoys are parliamentarians - yes people, Botham is a member of our revered Upper House - appointed, unpaid, by the Prime Minister of the day. There are currently 36 trade envoys covering 76 countries/regions. Most of them - in fact, all of them other than Botham - are people you've never heard of. One imagines that they have some connection with, or experience of, their target territories. Richard Graham, MP for Gloucester, for instance, speaks Indonesian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, French, Malay and Swahili; so a decent enough fit as trade envoy to the ASEAN Economic Community of Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. Not sure where they speak Tagalog; could it be a fictional language like Dothraki or Klingon? Nope, it's a Filipino language. I picked it up quite quickly:

The trade envoy programme only began in 2012. It's aims are to "support the drive for economic growth by building on the UK’s existing relations with these markets and maximising bilateral trade, thereby generating real and long term benefits for the UK." It's fair to assume there will be more trade envoys appointed in due course. If they follow the example of sending a cricketer to the country that he battered into submission with his determination, we might see the following:

Geoff Hurst (hat-trick in the World Cup Final victory over West Germany 1966) as envoy to Germany.

Andy Murray (beat Novak Djokovic to win Wimbledon singles final 2013) as envoy to Serbia.

Trina Gulliver (beat Francis Hoenselaar to win the darts world championships in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007) as envoy to The Netherlands.

Laura Davies (US Women's Open Golf champion 1987, beating Ayako Okamoto and JoAnne Carner) as envoy to Japan and the USA.

Stand by your phones, people!

Who's in my lift?

Tony (my friend of whom you will be aware) responds to discussions of political personalities (we have much such discourse) with a question about a lift: "who would I like to spend time with in a lift which has broken down?" [that "who" should probably technically be "whom"; maybe even "with whom would I like to" ...but it sounds so ugly and persnickety]. I generally play along with the game: Donald Trump NO, Boris Johnson YES, Prince William NO, Ed Sheeran YES, Greta Thunberg NO, Andy Murray YES. Those are mine, not Tony's.

We learned yesterday that Abba are releasing a new album, Yeh! Here's the second track:

I hope it makes Asda Radio in time for my breakfast on Saturday.

So here is the lift question for you guys: With whom would you most like to share a lift for ten minutes - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Oasis or Abba? Let me know, with reasons.

Liberia

According to worldpopulationreview.com, only three countries in the world do not us the metric system of measurement. I'd have thought that the UK was one of those but no, it's the USA, Myanmar and ...

Liberia.

That's a strange mix of countries, wouldn't you agree? Add to your next pub quiz, if you're the quiz-setter. Do you know when the metric system was invented? Answer: 1789, the year of the French Revolution. No more cubits, rods, poles or perches.

Liberia is a West African coastal country, founded by the American Colonization Society. The  ACS was originally known as the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, was founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of free African Americans to the continent of Africa. Which sounds awfully like sending the slaves back where  they came from. Because of its American roots, the country used the American measurement units.

As for Myanmar, their measurement unit history followed a similar pattern, in this case from the Brits' colonisation of Burma (the Western name for Myanmar). After independence, however, they used their own system of measurement: the taung is two Imperial yards (also known as a fathom, as my retired naval officer readers will know - and probably pine for), a sa le is 1⅛ pints - I'll have a sa le of Burbrit Nevada Pale Ale, please, unless you have some zero alcohol. That'll be 8,000 Myanmar Kyat, please sir.

Both Liberia and Myanmar appear to be on the way to adopting the metric system so the good ole US of A will be out on a limb. Not for the first - or I imagine the last - time.

Tarragona

Tarragon is a city in Catalonia,

not far from Barcelona. citytoursbarcelona.com tells me that "The wines from El Camp de Tarragona have body and aromatic." I found a Baturrica Gran Reserva 2015 in Lidl

this afternoon and am looking forward to tasting it.

Lidl says I should enjoy this with, amongst other things, pizza. So excuse me while I get on to Domino's. It'll be a 7" Texas BBQ with Vegan Garlic & Herb Dip and (to reach the minimum for delivery) Cookie Dough ice cream. On its way. Bye