Shoes and Horses

A lot of ranting on Saturday! In order to get a proper perspective on the Derby I purchased a fair spread of newspapers and settled down at the kitchen table to find the likely winner. I concentrated my attention on The Times which is a newspaper I rarely read, having been suckered into “subscribing” to the Telegraph some years ago and not really knowing how to stop the standing order thing. I felt sure that the illustrious “Thunderer” would be the place to get proper, authoritative advice.

God help us, what a mess The Times has become! The tabloid format just doesn’t lend itself to a weekend edition. Little supplements and advertising brochures seem to fly from the pages, littering the kitchen floor. I fought my way from section to section and, when I found the appropriate sports section featuring the Epsom card, the Derby runners were not to be found (having been despatched to another part of this mysterious – and almost impossible to navigate – newspaper). My eventual wager (on “The Geezer”) didn’t do me any good either, and I’ll stick to broadsheets on Saturdays in future.

Sunday’s Telegraph (not a great paper, but at least it’s the right shape) carried an interesting promotion for olive oil – sold in those wine box things that have silver bladders and little plastic taps (sounds a bit like the Ranting Nappa after his next operation).

It reminded me of a rather puzzling dream I had had earlier in the week. In the dream I had suddenly stopped being a down-trodden bookseller and was now employed by an enterprising American specialist “wine box” company. My job was to market a range of really decent wines – in boxes – and to try to change the normal prejudice of serious wine drinkers against the boxes - “Hmm, Chateau Latour 1997 - three litres in a "Stowells of Chelsea" box - well, I'll be damned!"

Intrigued by the dream I did some research on the Internet. Sure enough there have been attempts to upgrade the status of wine boxes, notably in Australia where the boxes are called “wine casks”. Sadly the Australian effort coincideded with the realization by the wrong kind of serious drinkers that the “casks” mean greater quantity, good value and that if you drop them they don’t break.

The Australian government is now considering a higher band of taxation for wine sold in “casks” to try and put an end to the yahoo behaviour of these serious wine box devotees, many of whom are delinquent.

Also in Sunday’s Telegraph was a piece about the French shoe-lady Olga Berluti who claims “A man’s feet never lie”. The mother-in-law (God rest her) used to say that you “can always tell a man by his shoes”. So I suppose it is time to stand up and be counted:

Today I am wearing (as booksellers do) a pair of old, scruffy, unpolished black shoes with frayed laces. Yes, down-at-heel would be an apt description. Look inside for the inner sole and you will also find degeneration. The once sealed welts have cracks, and as for the “uppers”, well, enough of this nonsense…

Old Age, Tapping Up, and the Gentle Art of Self Congratulation

I read somewhere that “old people” are always assumed to be 10-15 years older than one's actual age. Thus if you are 12-years-old, then a twenty-five-year-old is a candidate for a zimmer frame and totally over the hill. If you are 50 years old, then a sixty-five-year-old is a real “ancient”, and so on.

This was driven home today when the young lions in my office (two of them, collective age less than 40) looked at my computer problems. Both the Fat Rabbit (what a name to call one’s only son, bless him) who knows everything there is to know about computing, and the daughter’s boyfriend, who is a highly paid and experienced computer engineer (collective ages around 67), had both performed miracles in recovering lost data and programs on my 100% crashed office computer. However, neither could reconnect the publishing system that operates my business despite hours of effort. The young lions, needless to say, chatted amongst themselves for a couple of minutes and came up with a solution which gave me workable access to the publishing system almost immediately. They just reckoned that Matthew and Brant were a bit past it.

One could rant about the Chelsea/Ashley Cole “tapping up” scandal and a total fine fine equivalent to the National Debt of Brazil (or a week’s salary for Rio Ferdinand) ad nauseum, but I shall only trouble my long-suffering readers with the following questions:

What, for heavens sake, is wrong with chatting (informally) to a player from another club? Isn’t it better to get a rough idea if a player is the slightest bit interested in changing club before getting his employer all excited? Down the corridor an employee from another company was recently “tapped up” and will shortly tell his employers that he is leaving to earn more as a delivery driver. I “tapped up” one of my young lions before offering him a job. Are crimes being committed here because in neither case was the employer formally asked for permission to make an approach? Bah, hokum, Football Association rubbish!

My last thought is on the subject of “self congratulation”. I was reminded by a quick shimmy through the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday at the weekend about the importance of saying “how wonderful” you are at every opportunity. How wonderful the Mail was to have told their readers that France would say “Non!”; how brilliant they were to have picked West Ham for the Premiership; and to have sensationally introduced (yes, bag lady, I know when I split an infinitive, but I split it well!) Sudoku puzzles to the British public; and to have been the very first newspaper anywhere to tip Malcolm Glaser to take control of Manchester United; etc.; etc.

All those years ago when I worked for a mega-corp publishing house, every employee was expected to circulate congratulatory memos for virtually any fatuous reason. It’s probably the reason I’m now a worthless old bookseller rather than a Lord Gnome. But I guess there is a certain satisfaction in that.

The Crazy Frog and Other Lessons in Modern Awareness

As the years advance and the brain seems to be begging for “early retirement”, so the need to stay mentally alert and in touch with modern trends becomes more imperative. “How can they afford to advertise like that?” demands the wife (bless her) as the hugely irritating Crazy Frog does its “beh-ding ding ding” ring-tone thing on TV.

It had me a bit foxed for a while until the Sunday newspapers pointed out that people buy the froggy ring-tone for the sheer, irritating awfulness of it and that “froggy turnover in the UK alone has reached £10million and is still rising”. The beauty of the operation is that there are no middle men - your Asdas, Tescos and Amazons don’t get a look in – you just download the “beh-ding ding ding” to your handset and you pay your money via your mobile phone bill. Fortunately for the wife and I, we have a suitably irritating ring-tone response. The Ranting Nappa’s multi-decibel snoring is being recorded – not just for posterity, but for conversion into an even more irritating ring-tone than the Crazy Frog and will be marketed for SMS download in the near future.

Keeping the brain active depends also (as has already been noted) on doing mental puzzles like Sudoku. The numbers game craze has gone completely loony however with this weekend’s Telegraph answering last week’s Daily Mail’s twelve-face Sudoku with a multi-dimensional “Rubik’s Cube” Sudoku puzzle involving no less than nine interlocking layers.

Accordingly I’m back to crosswords and was embarrassed to find a word – DECALOGUE – which was the only possible answer and yet I had to go to a dictionary to find what it meant. As you know, gentle reader, it is a term used to describe the Ten Commandments and I shuddered to think what my Mum (bless her) would think of me for not knowing that. On Saturday evening I met up with her at a family gathering and was much relieved to find out that not only was she unsure of the word, but mercifully her elder sister - my Great Aunt Chelmsford (bless her) - was equally puzzled by “Decalogue” as well.

Other recent findings have been a wine-making expression “Green Harvesting” which is sorting out the men from the boys with the 2004 Bordeaux vintage. Weather conditions in the year perversely meant that although huge quantities of grapes were harvested, these included a lot of poor quality fruit which needed to be thinned out by expensive student labour which not all vineyard owners were prepared to employ.

And then there are “Scovilles” – the units to measure the “heat” of a chilli. The index was pioneered in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville and this is mentioned in a pleasing Spectator piece about different chilli pepper types by Aidan Hartley who is considering turning his Kenyan farm over to chilli growing. He concludes that a good thing about chillis “is that elephants – which routinely raid our vegetables – fear and loathe them”.

Grey Day Miscellany

A grizzly, dank, rainy day – much of which was spent re-packing boxes and angrily counting books against a big exhibition order which arrived in a parlous state from DHL. Why I bother…rant, rant.

Depressed at the news that John Wiley (big mega-US publishing house) has taken over Sybex, one of the few remaining privately owned publishers in my line of business. I like several Sybex UK employees (one is a very good friend) and worry that their jobs are on the line.

And I have to take up Sudoku again (having only just hurled it aside because everyone is so much better at it than me). Apparently it is very good for people of my advanced years as it keeps the brain active and (according to the Mail on Sunday) also keeps Parkinson’s Disease at bay.

I’m nearly half a stone down on this GI diet that everyone is doing (the one with the traffic lights). I’m pretty confused though, as beer and red wine are okay but alcohol is banned. Seafood is a “green light” (hoozzay!), and grilled steak is fine too. The wife (bless her) says that pistachio nuts are fine but the type that I stocked up on in France last weekend are “red light” as they are salted. Rats!

When in France I started to pen the “Ranting Nappa’s Guide to Small Business Survival” but got bored when I reached the chapter on Business Plans.

I watched some of the Premiership/Championship play-off matches on TV and, while sympathising with the plight of the elder brother (bless him), felt that the it’s a pretty stupid system as all the teams looked and played “championship” rather than “premiership” football and the winners will almost certainly come tumbling down again at the end of next season.

On the subject of football I can only cry “Play up the Arse(nal)” next weekend. Those Manchester United “supporters” are still getting on my nerves. At least they still have a team to support. The whole idea is to back a team through “thick and thin”, but no-one has pointed that out to the self-pitying United fans.

Red, Blue, North, South…

We English are, in the main, a factious and unprincipled bunch. We are famous for loutish behaviour, the ability to go to war with just about anyone without always checking on the reasons (Edward III and Tony Blair particularly come to mind), for treating foreigners as lesser mortals from another planet, our kindness to dogs and cats, a general fondness for sport, and a series of assumptions such as “an Englishman’s home is his castle” and “there’ll always be an England”. There is a North-South divide, and a Red-Blue divide, and most Englishmen remain loyal throughout their lifetimes to a political party (“my family has voted labour/conservative for as long as I can remember”) and to their chosen football team (the older brother – bless him – is a notable exception to this rule).

Now regular readers of this blog will know that the Ranting Nappa does not support Manchester United or their fans. But, as a former scarf-wearing/season ticket-carrying/cup final-experienced supporter of the late Wimbledon FC, I might be expected to show some sympathy and support for the plight of the followers of what is arguably one of the best teams in the country (excepting two London clubs who are in a league of their own, and one Merseyside club which is getting better by the minute). Mr Glazer’s acquisition of Manchester United may not end up as being the total calamity that some Talksport Radio commentators and most fans predict, but it will almost certainly lead to change – both in the club’s fortunes, and maybe in the structure of the Premiership.

Last Tuesday’s match (Manchester United’s last home fixture in the Premiership this season) against Chelsea was en encapsulation of Englishness. Here was the North-South divide, here was the Red-Blue divide, and both teams had points to prove. It was a hugely entertaining match with Chelsea having the lucky breaks (if that’s what you call Tiago’s brilliant goal which caught commentators, Jose Mourinho, most of the spectators and the Manchester United goalkeeper all by surprise) and victory by a margin of three goals to one.

When the final whistle blew the players were pretty courteous to one another (many being team-mates on their various national sides), and the Chelsea players left the pitch. Sir Alex Ferguson however rather gallantly kept his players back in order to applaud and thank their supporters on this, the last full appearance of the year at Old Trafford. Sadly for the Manchester United players most of the “fans” had already left the stadium and there were vast areas of empty seats for the team to acknowledge. Maybe with so many of these “fans” burning their season ticket re-booking forms Mr Glazer will be able to attract some more loyal and worthy new supporters.

Winners and Losers

First it was squash, then it was Sudoku. I must have been in my early twenties when I was completely trounced on the squash court by the then elderly Dr Bobby Wright. My humiliation was such that I don’t think I’ve picked up a squash racquet since. The good doctor is now in his nineties and has very poor eyesight, but I have no doubt that if I challenged him to a re-match the result would be the same.

I was reminded of that game of squash last weekend when I met up with my sister and the younger brother (bless them both), and was surprised to find that they are both much, much more adept at Sudoku than I. So good, in fact, that I’ll have to find another pastime, especially as the younger brother does the “Fiendish” Sudoku in “two cigarettes” (around 15 minutes), while the sister criticises him for annotating the squares with possible numbers (rather than carrying them in his head). I was still struggling with “Gentle” and “Moderate” Sudoku games and reckoned that completing one of those in two or three days was a not inconsiderable triumph.

The gathering of members of my family was because of a party being held in Wimbledon as part of a summer-long series of celebrations to mark my sister’s (forthcoming) historic second term of marriage. Here were great friends from our past and it was heartening to see them again. Many were curious about my failed business ventures and relocation to deepest West Sussex. Rumours were also spreading about my “blogging” activities (“What’s a Blog? Why Nappa? And what does he Rant about?”).

But it took the brazen-ness of the Irish to put matters into a refreshing new perspective: “Well, your business was doomed from the start wasn’t it; those stupid computer books – no-one wants to read those things – it couldn’t possibly succeed”, declared my old pal Francis O’Toole, who I hadn’t seen for several years. “And what is more, it is all to the good, because of course you can now make pots of money out your lack of success. Just sign up as a professional after-dinner speaker and people will listen in wonderment to how you almost made a success out of such a damned silly idea – seven and half thousand pounds a time I shouldn’t wonder, and maybe more.”

Fortunately my business advisor (bless him) was out of earshot during this tirade, and now that I am safely out of range again, I will admit that Frannie’s idea, though fanciful, does betray a certain elegance. I don’t think however that the after dinner fees will roll in automatically, and so I have decided to write a memoir to fall somewhere between the “Humour” and “Business” sections of your local Waterstones so that I can be referred to as author of the best-selling “How to Make a Complete Arse Out of a Successful Business” or something similar. However I’ll have to complete the other masterwork (my French-English Dictionary of Fish) first…

The Banjo Player

My former employee Emma now sings with a band (or group), but her music will be far removed from the stately renditions of jazz favourites performed by the members of the Portobello Jazz Band I went to hear performing in a West London pub last night. I went with the brother (elder, bless him) who wanted to give the banjo player (a friend of many years standing-at-bars-pint-in-hand) some moral support. The brother also had business to transact with the banjo player's charming and gracious wife.

The band were in good form - the clarinettist had remembered to bring his teeth - the lack of which had caused difficulties at their previous gig - and our friend the banjo player looked sublimely happy as he strummed along with the music. The audience was also in excellent fettle and can be described in three parts: first the pub regulars who were mainly seated at tables at the far end of the pub, but who were pleased with the complimentary entertainment and applauded each session warmly; second came the band groupies (like the elder brother and myself) who braved the part of the bar closest to the band; and third came the "drunks".

The most notable of the "drunks" was an elegantly-turned-out lady, possibly in her late thirties but still with a handsome cleavage, who had obviously been in the pub for several hours. She was drinking vodka shots and suddenly became absurdly interested in the three of us (the brother, myself and the banjoist's wife) begging introductions and giving each of us a good look-over. To our relief the brother and I did not pass muster, but the charming and gracious wife of the banjo player (to her alarm) was found to be just the sort of companion that Ms Vodka Shots required for the rest of the evening.

Now I'm pretty sensible, and so is the charming and gracious wife of the banjo player. Within minutes we had each disappeared to our respective homes and beds. We left, needless to say, the elder brother to deal with Ms Vodka Shots. I shall endeavour to pen the sequel to this piece in due course.

Rats, Weasels and Baseball Hats

The general intention of this particular piece was to have a little rant about weasels - the little baseball-hat-wearing men who only seem ever to get out of their cars (usually rather aged but “done up” Citroen Saxos, small Peugeots or the like) in Halfords car park. Here they fix extravagant new spoilers, exhausts or wheel enhancers to their precious vehicles while not forgetting to not turn down the vehicle’s ample music system.

I was going moan about their overtaking techniques, the way they shoot through the village at about 70 mph when schoolchildren are making making their way to the bus stop (and when the ranter-in-chief is out collecting his morning papers). But I’ll spare you all that, gentle reader, for there are more important issues to deal with.

You see I’m “disenfranchised” and won’t be going to vote next month due to some domestic mal-administration, forgetfulness, or whatever. Anyway I therefore feel it time to break my silence on election issues as you, my readers, will have to get out and vote for me!

We appear to live in a world not dissimilar to Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, and like Toad we have allowed the Great Hall to become over-run with Rats. The Rats are not much good at anything short of drinking our wine and spending our money (much of it on their own personal remuneration). I could go on like a Daily Telegraph or Spectator columnist about the inadequacies of their actions on Iraq (King Rat), Rover and Railtrack (Byers Rat), Immigration (Blunkett Rat), Pension Fund Raids (Brown Rat), etc., etc. I could mention Ruth Kelly, Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, or the hairy one – Charles Clarke – and don’t get me going on the other women in the last Cabinet.

I think that giving the Rats another term of office would spell absolute disaster to the country. Everyone knows that there is global economic turbulence coming into view (otherwise, why call an election 15 months early when you already have a thumping majority). We don’t want more government by overpaid, overindulged MPs and bureaucrats. We do want a caring government, a socially-aware government, an astute and responsible government. The only way we’ll get it is by voting the present holders out. So vote Liberal, vote SNP, vote UKIP or Kilroy Silk, vote Tory, but don’t vote Rat. We need a parliament that has an in-built safety mechanism. The only way to get one is to get a coalition of some sort, and therefore gentle readers, please vote tactically.

The daughter (bless her) lives next door to a weasel. He owns three cars, a baseball hat, and lives off Income Support. He, like the millions of newly appointed bureaucrats in the Public Sector (as opposed to nurses, policemen, etc.), will be voting Rat. "Votez Non, et Votez Souvent" as they say in another place!

Salad Days

If, over the last thirty years or so, I had worked a little harder and ranted a little less then I might have stood a chance of a visit to the Rockpool restaurant in Sydney, Australia (as opposed to Sydney, anywhere else).

Now I had never heard of the Rockpool restaurant in Sydney before today when strangely a newspaper article caught my attention. “Strangely” because the subject of the article was Salads - not normally something I get excited about. Yet Neil Perry, the enterprising Australian chef, even made a Carrot Salad sound interesting (the main ingredient seemed to be raisins soused in Earl Grey tea - rather than carrots which appeared somewhere half-way down the list). The article also hardened my resolve (as they say) to find out exactly what a remoulade* is and so to add a new word to both my English and French vocabularies.

Thinking about salads must mean that Summer is approaching and true-to-April-form today included some vibrant sunshine and some rather drizzly rain. I’m never quite sure exactly when Spring stops and Summer starts. There doesn’t seem to be a particular day to mark the event (if there was it would undoubtedly snow, freeze over or similar), although our local French farmer and my Mother (bless her) both use exact dates in mid- to late-April to establish events: “Les vaches” will arrive in our kitchen field for their Summer grazing on a particular date determined months before; and the horse chestnut tree by my mother’s flat also has a predictable date in late-April for coming into flower – whatever the weather.

Anyway, back to salads. This Summer I am vowing to do two things: first I shall banish plastic bags of pre-prepared lettuce from the house (only fresh ingredients from now on); and secondly I shall teach myself to make a good mayonnaise – you know, the mustardy type that the French serve with a good Plateau de Fruits de Mer.

* A first cast of the dictionary informs me (uncannily) that a remoulade is a mayonnaise with bits in it (chopped capers, gherkins. hard-boiled egg, etc.). I’m not 100% convinced and so more research will be done. It does sound though that if my mayonnaise-making is unsuccessful then I can pass the offending mixture off as a humble remoulade and possibly vice versa.

Picking up Tips from the Royal Family

Our friends Christopher and Kathy came down from their home in Chiswick on Saturday to see how we country folk make do without red buses and “a tube station at the end of the street”. They were impressed by the cold wind, the bantams which forage in our garden, and the huge views from the top of the South Downs, although they were a little jumpy as we checked the panoramic southerly view from the members entrance to Goodwood racecourse (too close to the Mother-in-Law who resides somewhere the other side of a clearly visible Chichester). Christopher surprised us however while we watched the “Charles and Camilla” service at Windsor on TV by stating that he is extremely supportive of the Duke of Edinburgh – a terrific sponsor of the arts and sciences, blah, blah.

Neither the wife nor I can recall meeting anyone before with a good word to say about the Duke, although it is true that we haven’t yet consulted our friend Mr Angry (see passim) on the subject.

Anyway the “blessing” at St Georges Chapel got me thinking about my sister (bless her) who will be married for the second time in June. She is extremely fortunate in being able to pick up some hints and tips from Charles and Camilla’s church service.

Now it would be nice for her to get Timothy West to read Wordsworth’s Ode on Imitations of Immortality – his rendition was as near to perfection as anyone can get – but he would undoubtedly be expensive. So she had better use the money saved by not using Timothy West to get the wonderful contralto Ekaterina Semenchuk to sing the electrifying Russian Orthodox Liturgy setting of The Creed which provided for me by far the most memorable few minutes of a really very good service. I know that the sister would have to negotiate Ms Semenchuk’s fee with the Marinsky Theatre of St Petersberg, and that the Philharmonia Orchestra and Choir of St George’s Chapel don’t come cheap, but wow!

The new Archbishop of Canterbury might also be a useful adornment her service. His shaggy dog appearance makes him look so utterly kind and benevolent.

Another good idea concerns speeches at the reception afterwards. What a masterstroke of Charles to have his mother, Her Majesty the Queen, make the first speech! Maybe the sister should follow suit and have our mother say a few words.

Rumblings

I’ve commented on Cousin Tim and his cycling exploits before. He bravely cycled from London to Paris last year raising lots of money for the Royal British Legion and is planning to do so again in September. He has asked me to give some ranting space to the “the rudeness of many British motorists to cyclists”.

Now I’m a motorist and he is a cyclist! I’ve experienced the daily tedium of driving along the Kings Road/New Kings Road at rush hour and having cyclists bashing the roof of my (stationary) car because you are “*!*?!!!*** in the way”. I’ve lived in South London where councils spend literally millions of pounds to create cycle lanes which are then totally ignored by the cyclists who prefer to obstruct the wider vehicle lanes. I now live by the South Downs where cyclists – sometimes three-abreast – spoil some of the best “driving” roads in the country. So Tim cannot expect me to rant entirely to his tune.

But I have recently taken up cycling as well. I have been spotted tottering along the lanes of the three counties on two wheels - looking rather precarious as I endeavour not to get so close to the kerb that the road surface becomes so rough that I’m likely to lose balance. It is not an enjoyable experience however. Cars, lorries, double decker buses, caravanettes, tractors, more lorries, sodding horseboxes, and other cyclists seem to crowd around me, even on the minorest of minor roads. It’s as if some GPS system has informed the local radio stations of the Ranting Nappa’s whereabouts and people have come out specially to witness the spectacle and join in the fun. And, to add to my misery, mountainous hills seem to pop up where the car had hadn’t even noticed them.

The bike has now been moved to France where things are much better because the place is so much less crowded. The other weekend I took a ten mile circuit through the local villages and was scarcely bothered by vehicles (or bloody hills) at all. The few people who are out and about give me a cheerful “bonjour”, the passing motorists expect the roads to have eccentric cyclists wobbling along, and on hearing the massive rumbling of an approaching sugar beet lorry (or the like) I have ample opportunity to get out of the way. Much better. The French understand cyclists whereas England is so damn congested that every form of vehicular activity presents itself as a menace to someone.

Talking of rumblings, why has the General Election been called now and not in a year’s time? There must be a reason and that reason seems hauntingly ominous. What perils await us (apart from £1 or more for a litre of petrol, the collapse of the Stock Market, a few terrorist attacks, Manchester United actually winning something, more taxes, more horseboxes, more council tax, and (yes, Tim) more roadworks)?

Shedding a Tear

Cynical, old and gnarled I may be but I’m not so cynical, old and gnarled that I can’t shed a tear or two for the passing of the Pope. What is more I am proud to have shed a tear for the him, for suddenly, in the midst of our national preoccupation with football (and brawling Newcastle players) and pre-election fever (and brawling party politicians), comes an event that not only touches the heart but has a real depth of significance for literally millions of people.

Somehow anyone’s death comes as a surprise, even if one has spent weeks or months preparing for it. We all knew the Pope’s death was imminent, the obituary writers had plenty of warning, the press were able to post journalists in readiness, and yet the actual event still causes a sudden jolt. As long as a person lives we think of that person as a living entity – breathing, suffering maybe, but with active brain cells and the potential to communicate with us. But when a person dies there is an abrupt closure on their actions (in this world at any rate), and it is that finality that seems to draw a different emotion.

I am so pleased that last year (with the wife and elder brother) I got to visit Rome at last. Even if rugby was the prime reason for the visit I will always remember the weekend for St Peter’s Square - far ahead of England’s try scoring and the match. Being a humble tourist in the Vatican City gave one an awesome perspective of the sheer magnitude of the Catholic Church, and it is appropriate that John Paul II is now being lauded and celebrated for the undoubted achievements of his reign. Appropriate also to note that the Italians mark death with hand-clapping – I thought it was only the French who did that.

Ringing the Votes

The daughter has a new mobile phone, the wife has a new mobile phone, the daughter-in-law has a new mobile phone. No money has changed hands (it's all to do with the monthly contract) but the technology marches on impressively.

Being somewhat backward in these matters I spent a few minutes in the pub last night trying to figure out what the daughter’s new (and very small) handset can do. It has a digital camera with flash and video (moving picture) capability; it is a calculator and personal organiser; it has an MP3 player; it is a bluetooth phone which means that she can use an earphone thingy when driving and be totally hands-free and unencumbered by cables; it is an alarm clock; it has some sort of Internet capability and can probably double as an electric toothbrush. Translated into the real world of the Ranting Nappa it makes the following possessions obsolete: carphone kit, diary, digital camera, video camera, alarm clock, adding machine, address book and, of course, my BT telephone line (with broadband). Needless to say the Ranting Nappa has no truck with MP3 players, but it does make his beloved Psion Organiser (a 5 Series MX, no less) look positively prehistoric.

As I write a BBC News programme is imploring viewers to phone or text their views on the poor Pontiff’s (likely) demise, and one wonders what the next big thing in phone technology will be. Will you be able to vote by text message in the next-but-one general election? How long before transmitter masts are enhanced with large dishes to enable Sky Mobile TV on your phone? The Archers and Desert Island Discs? Satellite navigation? Obviously ski gizmos such as walkie-talkies, radio locators and GPS thingies – I can almost hear the older brother (bless him) groan - will be rendered useless. Watch your favourite film on your phone? The Green lobby enforcing legislation to make new phones dependent on solar power and be manufactured only from recyclable materials. The Home Secretary announcing that there will be no identity cards or passports in future but, instead, every man, woman and child will be issued with a “personalised” mobile phone activated by Optical Retina Identification.

Probably I’m behind the times (again) and all this has already happened.

The Sound of Silence and Clashing Simbels

Pschaw! You either rant too much … and people complain; or you don’t rant enough … and people complain!

There is, however, a certain je ne sais quoi about silence. What is Prince William expected to say to the BBC when asked “What do you think about your father’s forthcoming marriage?”, or better, what is Phil Mickelson expected to say when questioned by journalists about Colin Montgomerie’s likely omission from the Augusta Masters?

The Ranting Nappa has (courageously) been stifling his natural inclination to touch upon the great debate surrounding the forthcoming election (you think I’ve nothing to say about the blessed H. Flight, and school dinners, and the blessed Gordon Brown, and Ruth Kelly, and spin doctors, and the fragility/buoyancy of the economy?), and has instead been concentrating on some of the marginal issues raised by the Easter holiday.

The first has to be the incredible ten mile stretch of the the M20 which was “coned off” for the holiday between Ashford and Maidstone. No sign of road works, no heavy machinery, no broken tarmac, just ten miles of speed cameras and an inviting “Prescott” lane formed by the 200,000 cones. Ashford is presumably a marginal constituency.

Then there are Easter cards. As at Christmas I found that M&S were keeping the greetings in check with a silly multi-ethnic message – “Greetings at this Time of Joy” or similar nonsense.

And then there is the “Simnel Cake” thing. Everyone knows that Simnels are the early berries garnered from young elderflower bushes. No they’re not, Simnels are very small fishes supposedly miracled up by Jesus alongside the loaves. Rubbish, Hermann Simnel was Germany’s goalkeeper in the 1976 Olympics; or was “Bart Simnel” the comic strip Ranting Nappa sound-alike when translated into Croatian? Have you never visited the tomb of Abu Simnel? Wrong, wrong, wrong. “Simnel” has the same fine flour derivation as “semolina”, and I cannot have being paying proper attention when my Mother (bless her) explained (as I am sure she did) that a true Simnel Cake is dotted with exactly eleven dollops of marzipan - the disciples less Judas. That is unless you purchased your Simnel Cake from our Village Stores where they just smudged marzipan all over. The wife (bless her) has a surgeon friend who purchases Simnel Cakes every year from Betty’s of Harrogate, and she claims that apart from being very expensive, Betty’s will give you the proper eleven dollops.

Old Hats and London Pride

Coleridge gave us The Ancient Mariner, P.G.Wodehouse created the golf club’s Eldest Member, and the White Hart has “Charlie” – gnarled and grey haired, an unkempt grey beard, roll-your-own with liquorice paper, bobble hat with leather trim (pretty much a permanent fixture in my brief experience of Charlie and the village) and a fund of information about how the village was when he was a child – the blacksmith, the garage, the sweet-shop and greengrocer now all gone.

Being a warm and unseasonably sunny Thursday afternoon I had came back home from work earlier than normal and, as the church bell struck six, I decided to down a quick pint at the village local. But I chanced on the bar stool next to Charlie and the quick pint extended to three and, more worryingly, the evening became uncannily like an omnibus edition of “The Archers”.

For a start Charlie is the postman’s brother but they haven’t spoken for ten years. You see the postman is going to marry a young African girl who is only 23 and Charlie doesn’t like that sort of thing. Rather sad really with the postman sat at the other end of the bar. And then Charlie is epileptic and likely to have a fit at any time, more so since his wife died in December (and the cost of the coffin, you know), and then there are the herons (shoot the buggers, we say), and of course there used to be more pubs in the village, and there were more buses (double-deckers to Chichester on the half-hour, and to Petersfield) and of course when the village flooded …

In the middle of all this a well-dressed, middle-aged (but rather wild-eyed) man entered the pub and, spotting Charlie in deep conversation with your narrator, interrupted with the unforgettable words “Give me back my bloody hat. You know that hat is mine”. The pub went quiet for a moment while Charlie considered this question. “You can have the bloody hat” he answered removing it to reveal some rather untidy bald patches, “but it’s not yours, I got it in Petersfield”. The man took the hat and stormed out of the pub. “Twenty five pence that hat cost me, but I don’t care. They’ve got four more in the shop”.

Big drama, especially as I felt that the evening was only just beginning to get started and that there would be further episodes to come in the matter of the “hat”. So I took my leave and walked slowly back to the wife and the (getting cold) toad-in-the-hole. As I walked past the churchyard I pondered on one chance remark from Charlie that worried me more than everything else I had learned about him – his age. You see Charlie was born in 1946 and is actually younger than the Ranting Nappa. Oh dear!

Ships of Thules and Thuribles

Sometimes concept is better than reality. When I read about the “Ship of Fools” website (http://www.shipoffools.com/) I thought it was a terrific idea. To have “mystery worshippers” leaving their calling cards in collection plates around the country and posting reviews of individual churches and their services had my mind racing. Sadly the site is rather dull and far too international and inter-denominational in scope.

Anyway a review of Peterborough Cathedral found me a word which I have been looking for (or nearly) - thurible. It is of course an incense pot and these are sometimes swung around in places of worship:

“…the way in which the thurible was swung was pretty eye-opening. The celebrant and thurifer must have been trained by baton-twirling majorettes, as they were of the school that likes to rotate the thurible through 360 degrees!”

Suddenly thuribles are everywhere. There are loads to them on eBay, mainly from China, but sadly it is not quite the word I am looking for. The thing I want a name for is the item with which each member of the congregation makes the sign of the cross in front of a coffin (in France). Maybe I should open the blog to comments and receive a steady stream of “censers” and other suggestions. Maybe not.

Talking about “th” words, the daughter (bless her) is back from another skiing holiday and looks like a panda (the big white rings around the eyes which, set against suntan, are the giveaway trademark of ski goggles). Anyway she went to an Italian resort called La Thuile (somewhere near Mont Blanc) and coincidentally I have been reading a review of a fascinating-sounding book about Thule -the land discovered by the ancient Greeks about six days sail north of Britain and believed to be the northernmost place in the world. So La Thuile is presumably the Northernmost part of Italy, and a Thule box on top of a Ford Mondeo estate is the northernmost part of a passenger car. Very droll, but the Thule Society (Thule-Gesellschaft) founded in 1918 by Rudolf von Sebottendorff will quickly wipe any smile off your faces, gentle readers, for here are the formative elements of Naziism and the Third Reich.

So much perceived knowledge, but it’s amazing what an aid the World Wide Web can be when one is in full rant, specially with sites like wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org to add to one’s armoury.

Ring Tones and Terrorists

I have done my bit for Comic Relief. There was the lady who ambushed me in the Petersfield branch of Barclays Bank and obliged me to buy a raffle ticket and then, unexpectedly, I purchased (for the benefit of Comic Relief) a ring tone for my mobile phone.

Now purchasing ring tones is not something I do every day. I had heard about the special offer on the Today programme while taking my Friday morning bath and the idea amused me. The ring tone is a replica of the BBCs “pips” which still mark the hour but, boy, what an uninspired purchase. After the initial excitement of receiving the “pips” by SMS message I soon realised that I had been sold a lemon. Who in their right mind wants such a boring (and to my deaf ears virtually inaudible) ring tone? I’ve already reverted to the Nokia standard “Polska”.

Now it’s about a week since my last blog and my silence must have something to do with my self-imposed ban on ranting about political issues until after the election. Or might recent sporting events have been occupying my mind - Manchester United out of the European Cup (hurrah!), Arsenal going out of the European Cup (to be expected), Liverpool and Chelsea moving to the Quarter Finals (well done, them), Britain winning at tennis without the aid of the “retired” Tim Henman, etc.?

Actually I have been pondering on whether or not writing about the Home Secretary Charles Clarke is “political”. I know that the National Lottery is not allowed by its charter to give money to the poor or needy, or hospitals, or computers for schools and things like that because such donations might be construed as “political”; but can I just make a tiny observation about the bearded one without breaching my “politics” embargo? You see the man (like several others on the government front bench) is basically a schoolmaster. When he speaks he does so with such assumed authority that you know better than to question him lest he might throw a blackboard duster at you, or give you detention. It doesn’t matter at all about the actual content of the information he imparts, he does so with such conviction that you know better than to doubt him. One is reminded of our friend Mrs C who diligently taught her boys multiplication tables by rote. Unfortunately her “nine times” table differed from the standard version and her boys have been “mathematically confused” ever since.

The First (and Last) Political Rant

I am more than a little concerned about the impending General Election. My concern is that I’ll get so angry about it that the Ranting Nappa site will implode. To soften the blow I might as well summarise the whole thing now - in rather less than the billion words that the British media will give to the event:

* Labour will of course win with a substantial majority.

* The overall turn-out by the electorate will be a record low. (“Who cares? It won’t make any difference, I’m off to the pub…”).

* The Conservatives will fare badly (probably badly enough for Michael Howard to resign). Liberals will fare not much better. UKIP, etc. won’t even figure.

* The only point of interest in the entire proceedings will be the “Gordon Brown” question. Will he remain Chancellor (no)? Will he become Foreign Secretary (possibly for a short while)? Will he be Prime Minister in five years time (almost certainly)?

The real issues will be ignored or swept aside. Why has the New Labour Government seen fit to add nearly 900,000 people to the State payroll over the last nine years? Seeing that these additional people are not doctors, nurses, military personnel, teachers or policemen, what are they doing? Why has the cost of “government” (MPs and associated costs) trebled in the period? Why are there still so many homeless on the streets, when Mr Blair (when he originally came to office) vowed that New Labour would sort out the problem for once and all? And, as for immigration…?

That’s it. I won’t say another word about the election or political matters until the end of May. There should be plenty of other things to rant about – Tim Henman, Manchester United, Jeep Dealerships, The good old Church of England, Charles and Camilla, Wheelie-Bins and Recycling, Family Matters (and there are enough of them), the French Connection, the strange incident of the shrinking steak (and other local restaurant issues), the Business Plan, Countryside Matters (no, they’re counted as political nowadays), Car Insurance, and the Swiss.

That lot will keep me busy!

Sportsmanship and Credit Control

Three cheers for Neil Warnock. Not only did his Sheffield United side play their hearts out for 210 minutes against Arsenal in their FA Cup tie (only to lose on penalties) but he had the heart to say after the match "All credit to Arsenal, they rolled their sleeves up and knew they were in a fight. I shouted to Ashley Cole with about 10 minutes to go 'I bet you're glad you don't come here every week' and he replied 'too right'. Nights like these make me love the Cup and I hope Arsenal win it now."

Such a change after the recent complaining tones of Messrs Mourinho, Wenger, Ferguson and, even, Andy Robinson for England’s Rugby XV. I agree that some of Jonathan Kaplan’s decisions last Saturday had me reaching for the brandy bottle, but you have to draw a line under it and look ahead to the next match rather than endlessly moan and complain. I really hope that Sheffield United prosper under Mr Warnock (they now have a closet (ranting) fan in deepest West Sussex).

On the subject of human endeavour today is the day when I solved my first Sodoku puzzle (see passim). It was published in the Telegraph and entitled “moderate”. Do they mean that the puzzle is “moderate, or the solver? Either way there is a glowing-with-satisfaction Nappa writing this blog (until he checks tomorrow’s solution and finds that he got it all wrong).

Talking of human endeavour I think that I’ve found a handy way to reduce my customer base. This week I took up the cudgels of credit controller for my small business. I tried two tacks – the forceful rant on the phone to one customer, and to another the fearsome “ranting” collection letter. I think that the score is two-less-customers and no cheques received. Oh my! Things were so much easier when the fearsome Mrs T from South Woodham Ferrers harassed the customers into paying up. Somehow they reacted positively to a seventy-year-old Essex woman with a voice like chalk on a blackboard. It’s what you expect from a credit controller and you reach obligingly for your cheque book. A ranting Nappa on the phone just doesn’t have the same effect. Anyway Nil Desperandum as the Prep School motto goes, you can always resort to gin, or as my old Dad once tried, the personal visit!

Tired and Foolish

The daughter (bless her) is back from skiing in Canada. More elks than last year in Banff she says, and her boyfriend wore, for the first time a GSPS satellite navigational aid (as all good skiers now do) so that his progress and speed could be monitored from afar (60mph on the fast bits I think she said - but he is a very good skier).

Meanwhile the elder brother, the sister (bless her) and cousin Tim are skiing in Italy. Somehow I doubt that they are using the latest technological aids. I haven't skied with the elder brother since our childhood, but I would be surprised if he didn't still use yard-long laces to tie his ski boots, and I would expect his ski poles to be made of wood.

Back in Southern England I was feeling tired and grumpy in the office and thought it would be a good idea to wash some of the salt, grit and general snow-spray off the car. I therefore sloped off at around 3.00pm to visit the local car wash machine. Stupid mistake. A seemingly endless queue of cars which hadn't been pelting up and down the autoroutes of France all weekend was in place. Rather similar to "Operation Stack" which we experienced at the Channel Tunnel on Saturday (three hour delays due to an earlier security alert), the car drivers were hunched in their seats with baseball caps drawn down to their noses. Nothing better to do on a Monday afternoon so go and join the queue for the car wash. I declined the invitation and returned to work.

Work however was also full of little frustrations. I have now completed all the formalities for corporate registration as a seller on ebay but, needless to say, I've forgotten not only the clever password I gave myself, but also the clever user name. Oh, sod it!

Thy Kingdom Come

Last week I at last got around to leafing through George Courtauld’s “unpublishable” Pocket Book of Patriotism (an obvious target for a ranting blog if ever there was one). Okay, it’s not a pocket book unless you are wearing a Barbour jacket. Okay so what have the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer to do with British patriotism - surely they are of universal appeal?

But putting aside these and other questionable inclusions and exclusions, the very existence of the little book serves to concentrate the mind on the worrying issue of national identity. You see I’m not Scottish, Irish or Welsh. I’m English. Or am I more British than English? My country of origin according to Microsoft’s drop-down boxes is “United Kingdom”, my car has a GB plate and I’m confused. My first allegiance is to England and St George, or should it be to the Monarch? I don’t have an English passport but I do have an EEC passport. The national anthem is, depending on mood, God Save the Queen, Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. I haven't even mentioned Charles and Camilla and I am still more confused.

On to simpler matters - like kissing as the French do it. Saturday afternoon was emotionally charged as the wife and I paid a quick visit to our recently bereaved neighbour, Constant, who has now left our village in France and moved in with relatives in Dunkerque. My ration (greeting and departure) was a kiss on the left cheek, then the right cheek, then left again, then right again. Comparing notes afterwards the wife told me that hers went –Left –Right-Left-Right-then “Lips”.

Back to “Patriotism” I do get stirred up about the Six Nations Rugby. England’s third consecutive defeat goes to show how quickly a championship team can disintegrate, and how, when things start going wrong, it just keeps getting worse. A bit like my business really, but there’s always the hope that next year will be “Grand Slam Year”.Meanwhile it’s back to thoughts of the wooden spoon.

A Disorderly Mind

When my friend the Ayatollah and I (all those years back) struggled to find answers to Times crossword clues, our old chum Charles would become angry. He couldn’t abide a pastime which is at times inexact and frivolous (as well as utterly time-wasting). The idea that the clue conceals the answer rather than offering it in a straightforward way made no sense to him. Sadly Charles is not with us now to offer his thoughts on Su Doku the numbers game which has recently become a regular feature in both the Times and Telegraph.

Just in case, gentle reader, you are still unaware of Su Doku (also known as Sudoku) it is a numerical puzzle which derives from an American puzzle which was adopted by the Japanese The format is a grid with nine columns and nine rows (yes, that makes 81 squares). Within this grid there are nine “boxes” (three down, three across), and the puzzle-setter completes typically 32 squares with apparently random numbers from one to nine. All the solver has to do is to complete the remaining squares with numbers from one to nine in such a way as to leave every column, every row and each of the nine “boxes” carrying the numbers one to nine without omission or repetition. For every puzzle there can only be one correct solution.

If this sound complicated, you’d better look at www.sudoku.com where the thing is much better explained. But beware, this is a dangerously addictive pastime. I only got to fully understand the game (or whatever you call it) yesterday, and it is already eating into my day-time (and night-time) hours. I’m sure that the younger brother sits in his local pub solving the Times Su Doku grid in about four minutes flat. Our maternal grandmother would have been good at it, but personally I’m not so sure. I still prefer the uncertainty and randomness of crossword clues. Better to be able to argue about the answer to a clue than to have such mathematical strictness.

Constructing wooden legs…

But first the matter of “seasons”. Last night the wife and I consumed avocado pear, cauliflower, rhubarb (crumble) and a rather pleasing Waitrose “rich and creamy” stilton cheese with some walnuts. I mentioned to her that no food seems to have a “season” anymore. You can buy asparagus, raspberries and oysters at any time of year thanks to modern farming techniques and local suppliers in places like Peru. Hot cross buns are readily available from Sainsburys in November, and Spring Lamb in August. She managed to counter this with “what about marrows, then?” but it must be only a matter of time before I find a marrow in Waitrose proudly labelled “product of Zimbabwe”.

Now to these wooden legs. I am indebted to Dot Wordsworth’s Spectator column for drawing my attention to the wondrous vocabulary of church furnishings – “dossals and paenula-shaped chasubles, footpaces and tables of prothesis”. Now what is a table of prothesis doing in a church? It surely has something to do with artificial limbs? Off I go to seek out Shorter OED Volume 2 (Marl – Z) but somehow I have mislaid the mighty volumes. So it’s the Bloomsbury Encarta Dictionary that sorts me out: prothesis being, as all my readers will already know, another term for the Eucharist, and prosthesis being the wooden leg word. Bah, ignorant Nappa!

Moreover, the subject of wooden legs reminds me of my Long John Silver impersonation at the granddaughter’s splendid birthday party last Saturday. All was going well with the twenty three- and four-year-olds happily playing on the bouncy castle in Grayswood Village Hall and eating lots of M & S junk food. Then the son wickedly produced pirate hats, eye patches and plastic swords for all. In the ensuing mayhem the children decided that there was only one real target for their politically incorrect aggression – the ancient Nappa. Every time I tried to slope off back to the bottle of Cotes du Rhone (provided for the parents and consumed by the Nappa) a little person would track me down and solicitously hand me a replacement sword. This done a hoard of little monsters would move back in for the kill.

Greetings Cards, Lemons and Mechanical Parts

As a dedicated gin drinker I’m always extremely pleased when Shrove Tuesday has come and been and gone. Pancake Day is the only day in the year that the Lemon Marketing Board can justifiably increase public awareness of its subject and, needless to say, all lemon producers and supermarkets jack up their prices. So I feel obliged to seek out limes (which are an enjoyable accompaniment to my evening glass but a bit too overwhelmingly fruity) or get in some cucumber in order to revisit my bottle of Hendrick's gin. But Shrove Tuesday acts as a herald for Easter which this year comes early.

You have to respect the man (whose son is called Clinton) who runs the extraordinarily successful chain of card shops. Hardly have the Christmas decorations been put away than it is St Valentine’s Day – an essential card-sending occasion. The very next day his card shops are pestering us about Mothering Sunday (or is it Mother’s Day?) which the window banners proclaim is only three week’s away on March 6th. The Village Store is awash with Easter Eggs and paraphernalia, but before Easter comes I will have had to deal with some birthdays – yes the wife, the son, the daughter, the mother, grandchild 1 and grandchild 2 to start the list. I’ve neglected cousin Judy’s seventieth and so will have to send a “belated greetings” card. I’m sure that St Patrick’s Day is not far way, etc., etc.

While I rant away about card occasions, the wife and I are having more gremlin trouble. The main laser printer at work was one thing, but the blocked kitchen sink has proved quite another. The wife has been desperately trying to unblock years-worth of accumulated grease, coffee grounds, a false tooth, hair, calcium, limescale and other unmentionables using pumps, wires, acids and caustic soda, all to little effect. Meanwhile it has transpired that I was talking rubbish about the “lambda sensor” in my car. It was the “crank angle sensor” or something of the sort which was to blame. The rechargeable torch won’t recharge, and the adding machine in my office is behaving strangely (lending some really strange forecast items to my new business plan).

While all this is going on I receive reports from the Essex Coast. My mother is reacting strangely to news of Charles and Diana’s forthcoming nuptials (even expressing a tendency towards republicanism). Good on them says the ranting nappa, but did the Daily Mail really have to celebrate the announcement with 21 pages of coverage?

I in turn am reacting strangely towards Ken Livingstone and his refusal to apologise for less-than-amicable remarks aimed at a reporter who was Jewish. As the Prime Minister and other New Labour dignitaries ask him to apologise and “move forward”, I find myself for the first time in my life firmly on the Mayor’s side. Whatever purpose is served by an “apology” unless it is fully intended and wholehearted. If Mr Livingstone feels that he cannot sincerely apologise then hats off to him for direct honesty (however naughty his comment may have been). It is absolutely typical of the PM and his colleagues to suggest that he tells a lie by making an apology without intending it, so that pre-election media coverage can concentrate on the more serious business of slagging off politicians of other parties. Yuck!

I'm Just an Essex Boy

It was all for nothing! After yesterday’s almost optimistic rant about the Jeep’s yellow warning light the business consultant promptly emailed to say that I couldn’t even spell “Lambda Sensor” (to which I pleaded the Dagenham exception – the Ford Focus has a “Lamda Sensor” dunnit).

But Mr Sparks (Automotive Electronics) had the last word. “Nothing to do with the sensors, it’s probably a Jeep thing. You’d best talk to them”. And the yellow warning light is back on. Oh, sod it!

Talking of the business consultant I’ve taken a peek at the latest Business Plan thing he sent me (just in case you are interested). It asks killer questions about quantifying your plan with market research statistics. Oh lordy, what bookseller on earth (with the exception of W H Smith and Borders who are not proper booksellers) ever gave a moments thought to market research.

My plan is simple. My business needs to “make” £350 a day to cover its costs and continue trading on a level plane. To achieve this magic figure I need to sell a whole load of books and some will make me £1 each and others £10 each. Now wouldn’t life be simple if every day I sold exactly 35 of the £10-margin books, a bell would ring and the Nappa would rush home to continue his vertical tasting of Hendrick’s Gin vs. Gordon’s Distillers Cut, or even swing a golf club. Sadly I have to be as interested in the £1-margin books as I do the £10-margin because it is the final total that matters, not the split of low-margin/high margin.

After that provocative statement (which will probably cause burst blood vessels chez the Business Consultant) I’ll turn to calmer ranting waters …such as the utterly ridiculous brainlessness of West Sussex people when confronted with murky early morning fog. The white van drivers en route from Chichester to Petersfield come pelting through the village at twice the speed of normal, and in Nyewood, would you believe, unlit cyclists dice with death, and on every country lane hitherto never seen wide-load tractors with virtually no lighting come out to join the fun, and the wretched, lazy pheasants, and the munkjacks, and, and, and ….

Pandering to the Muslims

No, it’s not that sort of rant! I just happen to dislike the verb to pander, so much so in fact that I put aside A – Markworthy and reached for Volume II of the Shorter OED, the redoubtable Marl – Z, when the radio newscaster talked about some new Home Office edict “pandering to the Muslim community”. Sadly for my readers the word has been around a long time (Chaucer, Dr Johnson et al), so I cannot initiate a national “stop pandering” campaign. Indeed my researches discovered the rather interesting sounding panderess (“one who ministers to the baser passions or evil designs of others”). Maybe one day I’ll meet a panderess. Maybe I already have!

The new word/phrase/expression for the month of February has to be Lamda Sensor. This is apparently what is wrong with my Jeep and tomorrow Mr Sparks (Auto Electronics) is due to confirm this and tell me how much it will cost to replace.

The local garage-owner mumbled something about “lamda sensors” when fixing the intermittent yellow warning light on the car a couple of weeks ago, but I just tried to look insouciantly knowledgeable (wow, maybe my next blog will be “The Insouciant Nappa”) when he tried to tell me about what the trouble might be. He fixed the yellow light at the time without repairing or replacing anything, but last weekend the Jeep wreaked its vengeance – just as we departed for France the bloody warning light came back on.

The wife and I had decided to take a rather eccentric day trip to check out our maison secondaire. We took the Jeep on the night ferry to Le Havre on Friday disembarking early on Saturday morning eager to enjoy the 150-odd mile drive to the house mostly on excellent (and under-used) motorways. The Jeep had other ideas. As soon as we got on the motorway the wretched vehicle’s electronics system imposed a 100-kilometres-per-hour speed limit on itself. Yes, I lumbered along with a few lorries that also had 100-kilometres-per-hour speed delimiters, and every time I tried to overtake one of them the car would judder in protest and simply not respond. The shame of it all. But I did save myself at least one likely speeding fine.

On arrival at the house, the Jeep forgave me and for the return journey to catch the Saturday night ferry back to Portsmouth, it relaxed the delimiter. Indeed for the final 50 miles of the journey the bloody warning light went out completely and we have been pretending nothing is wrong at all. Damned cars. Damned Lamda Sensors (my business consultant is likely to be an expert on Lamda Sensors and will doubtless send me lengthy emails on the subject which, like cash-flow forecasts, I won’t quite fully understand). C’est la vie.

Nappa Goes in Search of Bling Bling

One of my New Year resolutions was to learn some new words. English words.

Over Christmas I picked up chav on the front page of the Telegraph and had to sit humbly while the Wimbledon niece (as opposed to the Wigan niece) explained the meaning and reassured me that the Ranting Nappa is not a chav.

Today I lost my way when a young man on the radio talked about “putting on some bling”. It seemed a good excuse to test the new MSN search engine against Google. Both had good results, the latter leading with a news article to say that the OED now includes bling bling (which of course means flashy jewellery). MSN led me to www.thinkbling.com which started well (links for Hip Hop Jewellery) but then confused the poor Nappa by linking him through to a “singles” dating agency (Looking for Bling Bling?). Oh heck!

On the subject of radio I have discovered Spirit FM – Chichester’s own commercial radio station. Now I know that small American towns have there own local stations, but this is ridiculous. The traffic news was “early morning build-up at the level crossing”, and “quite busy on the bypass” and didn’t fully justify the announcer’s excitement. There was a phone-in quiz with an escalating prize for recognising a mystery voice. Several farmers and a few jolly ladies had called in but none could identify the voice and the prize fund had soared to a giddy £30. But the advertisements are great, truly local stuff like “Buy your blankets at Sheppeys, 40 High Street – Sale Now On”. Presumably Spirit FM is in competition with Bognor Sound and Midhurst FM.

Went to London today and wore the big macintosh which makes me look rather larger than normal (very useful in trains when people are choosing which of the remaining seats to take for themselves). It does however give me a sort of Hagrid-look, and I absolutely terrified someone coming round a corner in a dark corridor of my office building.

London was rather bleak and very crowded. Before getting a haircut I wandered through Sicilian Avenue. The old shop is still empty, along with three or four others. All rather sad.

Back to Traditional Ranting

God save us from Sir Bernard (or is it “Lord”) Matthews - the turkey man. What the hell does he mean by marketing a product as “Turkey Ham”! Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being spent on TV advertisements to brainwash the new Tesco-generation of Britons into believing that such a substance exists and is good for you served like some sort of cheese on toast accompaniment.

Let’s put aside the New Labour Manifesto for a few moments and reflect, with a little help from the Shorter OED. Yes, “ham” is usually but not absolutely the product of the pig family. Yes, it refers to the meat on the upper thigh or “hough”, and technically it can come from other slaughtered animals. But a turkey? Doesn’t the poor fowl suffer enough at Christmas that it now has to have it’s legs chopped off to provide year-round sustenance to the starving customers of our supermarkets. Rant…rant…

And another thing.

The Atkins diet is not for me. I came down to the kitchen this morning and was very polite to the sister-in-law who was holding forth on a variety of topics. Now, I’m not my best as a conversationalist in the early morning, and certainly not before I’ve had a couple of mugs of strong coffee. Under Atkins I would have to give up coffee (and tea). Now I seriously believe I could survive a few weeks without alcohol (it’s happened before, even if a few people remember that month without much pleasure). But a month without coffee – no damned way. I would certainly be banned from collecting the newspaper from the village shop in the mornings (insufferable rudeness). The wife would move out (who could blame her). I’ll have to find another way to shed that stone. The cat is on something called the Hill formula diet and looks much better for it. Maybe I'll join her.

And another thing.

Seeing that tomorrow is the first day of another month I must make some real resolutions for February. "Ranting Nappa" followers will be kept abreast on progress on the following:

No gambling - especially on The National Lottery.

Regular bike rides.

Bread-free days.

Read something worthwhile.

Write a new businessplan (having been chastised for my last comments on the subject).

Smarten up.

Be polite to all members of my family.

Ho hum!

All the fault of the “Trampette”, or was it the Wassail?

Ten to nine on a Sunday morning is not a sensible time to buy croissants from the village store – if you missed out on the eight am Holy Communion service. Yes, the vicar swept into the shop exuding righteousness and in flowing robes, and of course he gave me that knowing look – where were you, unbeliever?

The trampette* had got the weekend off to an enjoyable but bad start. “What are you doing, this evening?” she chirruped down the phone on Friday evening. “Why not a drink in the local pub?”

Inevitably I woke on Saturday morning with a sore head. But worse was to come. The sister duly arrived with her intended for the appointed wine tasting (six bottles to test out in readiness for her forthcoming nuptials). When I asked (it was late teatime) if they wanted a cuppa or a drink her intended looked crestfallen on hearing the news that we had no “ale” in the house, only lagers of one sort or another. Being the polite host I led him down to the village where we sampled (in order) pints of Palmers, Ballard’s Wassail, and then in the second pub he drank IPA and I had a London Pride.

Accordingly we were in fine spirits for the wine tasting. We made a fair amount of noise, voiced lots of opinions and, of course, I fell fast asleep at the dinner table. Oh, the disgrace of it all.

I’m hoping that February will be a better month for my resolutions. I’ve bought a bike. I’ve got a copy of the Atkins 14 Day Diet. I haven’t got too many social occasions in the diary. Yes, I’ll lose a stone – and go to church.

* The daughter (like her father) is extremely fashion-conscious, but (like her father) she tends to dress down in the workplace. I suppose that she is entitled to do this because as soon as she arrives at work she has to change from her normal clothes into whatever people who work in operating theatres wear. As a result she tends to arrive at her hospital looking a little less than a million dollars, and for that reason has been given the somewhat dubious nickname of “trampette”.

I might add that I find that it is my duty as a country bookseller to wear scruffy, food-stained pullovers, creaseless trousers and dirty shoes. It is part of a carefully nurtured image (even though I don’t get to meet with my customers any more, and don’t get given any more of a nickname than “Nappa”).

Winners (and Losers)

This week has been mostly about winning, and not just because Chelsea beat Manchester United in the Carling Cup. Good news has been flowing in thick and fast:

The younger brother has had his feet “done” – something that requires the National Health Service and carpenters tools (yes, planes, chisels, drills), but the result of which pleases his neighbours (and the wife) enormously.

The cat has made a miraculous recovery having been virtually given up for a “goner”. Rather similar to the younger brother she had had “claw problems” which had not been properly dealt with.

The sister-in-law has had her teeth fixed, or at least some of them.

The sister is planning a visit at the weekend bringing no less than six bottles of wine and fizz for my professional scrutiny. This is in view of her forthcoming nuptials. May my judgment be unclouded!

Cousin Tim is returning to Northern France in April, this time without his bike (see passim) and this gives an excuse for a trip to Montreuil (have to visit the new Wine Society premises anyway).

I have terminated my long-standing relationship with Weybridge Automobiles whereby every four weeks or so I deliver my vehicle for another five hundred pounds- worth of essential servicing and repairs.

I have succeeded (with a little help from the accountants, the wife and some rather expensive motor cycle couriers) in getting both personal and corporate tax papers filed minutes before their deadlines and consequent fines.

We’ve managed to sign up with a sensible medical practice in Petersfield (I’ve yet to hear back about the “sample” I gave to their Gloria), and they at least are taking interest in the wife and my respective blood pressures.

I discover that I have accumulated (over 58 years) some 678 air miles – enough for a return trip (on my own) to Amsterdam.

I also have enough American Express points for the wife to come to Amsterdam too, but on another airline.

But most importantly I have discovered the secret of succeeding in business. However little there may be in the bank, however illogical your business plan may be, you will always succeed if you have an absolute, positive belief in the future of your business (are you listening, Kevin?). In other words, get on with it and be damned.

Restaurant Review

Easier said than done to write interestingly about restaurants. The likes of Fay Maschler and AA Gill seem to do it effortlessly – often blending their comments on food, service, companions, décor, etc with essays on vaguely related subjects (Wagner, houseplants, prep schools, other diners, etc.).

The wife and I recently did ourselves proud at our local “star” restaurant (Michelin rosette, lots of good reviews – even in the national press, superb food, faultless service). There you are, a complete review in brackets, three adjectives and not a verb to be seen, except that I haven’t told you what we ate or even the name of the restaurant.

The Sunday Telegraph has a rather good restaurant reviewer called Lucy Bannell. In a recent piece (about a different restaurant) she described her companion as someone who goes in for competitive ordering (he likes to “win” each course). The wife and I seemed to have caught on to this game and for the past week we have been reminiscing about the meal and trying to recall the most memorable dishes. I think that I won on starters (honeyed roast suckling pig versus her scallops with cauliflower puree). The main courses however were more hotly contested: she rated her lamb as “brilliant”, whilst my hare cooked two ways (little fillet strips and in a pie) with root vegetables was absolutely terrific. I thought I was especially brave ordering the hare as my previous encounter with one of the blighters had cost me £200 for repairs to my car’s radiator grille, and I’m not hugely fond of eating rabbit. Next time I run a hare down, at least I’ll have a go at cooking it. Puddings were not contested as I had a selection of English cheeses and a glass of port. Extraordinary, really, how good English cheeses can be if they are well chosen and well served.
As for our fellow diners, I never noticed them. I didn’t pay much attention to the décor either. I think in future I’ll keep to ranting – rather than saying nice things about local eateries. I haven't even got round to giving the restaurant's name and address, and nor will I. It's quite difficult enough to get a table as it is.

Highs and Hiyas

Hi there! It’s all the fault of email. I walk down to the village stores in the morning replying to the “Good Mornings” of passers-by with “Hi” or “Hi there” or, worse, “Hiya”. I find this rather distasteful but don’t seem able to stop myself. Having learnt how to send emails and text messages I seem to be stuck with this form of greeting. Long live those email correspondents who avoid the awful “Hi” and start off “Good Morning” or “Dear Ranting Nappa”. Having taught myself to say “Hi”, I’m just too old to change back.

One of the “highs” of 2005 so far was a long walk yesterday in the winter sunshine. I clambered up to the nearby South Downs Way and tramped for a mile or so looking down on my village below, whilst all the time being propelled forward by strong winds. Coming back down again was a different matter, slipping and sliding on a muddy path, negotiating fallen-down trees and blocked footpaths, and very nearly getting lost. But the end result was a feeling of achievement and general well-being rewarded by a couple of pints of London Pride in the local pub.

My 2005 resolutions are meeting with mixed success and failure. I’ve already had to apologise to the sister-in-law for my rudeness, and my quest for “new” has been stymied somewhat by my rediscovering Guy Crouchbank and his world in Men at Arms. I’d forgotten what a skilful writer Evelyn Waugh was and look forward to reuniting with Apthorpe (the thunderbox), Ritchie-Hook et al. over the coming weeks as I plough my way through the entire Sword of Honour trilogy … again. Next week, however, we are trying a different restaurant, and I have tested out a different gin (Heidricks – the cleverly marketed posh brand that you are meant to drink with cucumber instead of lemon). It’s not bad, but I’ll keep to the Gordons myself.

A final word of congratulation is for the cat. On Friday and throughout Saturday we feared the worse as the frail and elderly beast remained resolutely curled up in her basket, forsaking food, and looking as if she was passing gently into another world. Slowly she would make her one journey of the day to the gravel by my Jeep which serves as her traditional latrine, and early last evening she crept slowly through to the living room. Alerted by a paw being held off the ground, the wife discovered that a claw had inverted like an in-growing toenail and had more or less drilled completely through. An emergency call to the vet (who had to be wrested away from his Saturday supper and lottery results on TV), some work with clippers and antibiotics and, hey-ho, we have an active (though elderly) cat once more – although the wife had to fork out £79. Reminds me of Pam Ayres and her chicken.

New Years Resolutions

Learn new English words. I’ve already added “fascicle” to my vocabulary (thank you Donald Knuth and The Art of Computer Programming, Volume IV (Addison-Wesley 2005 if all goes to plan, available from at least one good online bookshop).

Learn new French words. It’s difficult to follow the meaning when a chap is explaining (in French) just how his wife got ill, the precise medical symptoms, how she died, and the arrangements for the funeral. All this whilst he is in floods of tears. It would be easier if I knew the French for pancreas, tumour, etc. I might even resurrect my only half-written book – a French/English Dictionary of Fish (pocket-size so you can take it to a restaurant with you).

Play more golf. Not difficult after 2004.

Love my fellow man (and woman). Very important, this resolution, and not just in case I need to borrow money.

Be more adventurous. Meaning not just trying out new restaurants, new pubs, new thriller writers, new ways of selling books; but eating more challenging food in those new restaurants, testing out new beers in the new pubs, becoming a thriller writer myself, and maybe throwing in the towel so far as books are concerned and selling seafood over the Internet instead.

Lose some weight. I must look good for the Sister’s Wedding (why capital letters, it makes it look like a film title?).

Improve my punctuation skills. You never know, but one day the redoubtable Mrs Chip might find this blog, and she doesn’t hold back when it comes to sloppy punctuation (as her partner will verify).

See more of my relations. At least improve my “keeping in touch” with my parent, my aunt, my cousins and brothers (thank heavens for some plurals), the sister and the sister-in-law.

See more of my friends. Yes even the American ones, the Manchester United supporter ones, the Ayatollahs of this world, the Welsh, and many of my old work colleagues.

The important one – Cherish my little family.

Ooh! This is a soppy Nappa, not a ranting one. Happy New Year!

Too Much Dying

The “Tsunami” thing is just too big to fully comprehend. Like the twoWorld Wars the vastness of the catalogue of death defies rational understanding. The wife and I “font part du décès” as they say in France of just one person. Our close neighbour Nicole died (or rather was “switched off”) on 27th December aged 62. She had collapsed earlier in the month while sitting at a table in her home preparing Christmas decorations. Sadly her death could have been averted had she consulted a doctor earlier in the year when she had suffered sudden pains, but she had stubbornly refused medical help. Needless to say that when she collapsed in December it was far, far too late.

The wife and I decided to take the British line and go only to the local village church “obsèques” and leave the viewing of the deceased prior, and the “incinération” at Abbeville afterwards, to the family. Poor old Constant, Nicole’s “companion” for the past 24 years managed bravely, but he is absolutely distraught and it will be several months before he is back on his bike again wearing his gaudy “Velo Club de Dominois” shorts and shirt and a big grin. Rather worryingly he suggested yesterday that I enrol as the second member (Dominois is a very small village) of this illustrious organization.

Back to the “obsèques”, we were interested to see what sort of send-off the French give their departed. We had been warned that very few people would attend but in the event the little church was pretty much crowded. Two ladies and a man (none wearing clerical robes) officiated saying prayers, announcing hymns (in French) and keeping control of the complex sound system. The service was very moving and without incident although one of the two lady clerics very nearly caught fire from one of the candles surrounding Nicole’s coffin. The entire congregation later filed past the head of the coffin each member making a sign of the cross with a strange implement whilst on the coffin a small salver of incense smoked away.

I had secretly hoped for a round of applause as the coffin was wheeled out of the church (remember the spontaneous outburst of clapping as Princess Diana’s coffin passed the French Embassy) but this was not the case. Nonetheless a suitable send-off for a friendly lady and I’m only pleased that we stayed on in France a few more days in order to attend.

Strange though that the twenty four hour period of Nicole’s sad demise saw more people killed in Asia than in any corresponding period in any World War, and possibly more lives lost in a single day than at any other time in history*. Another tragedy, and one the magnitude of which is impossible to fully absorb and comprehend.

*A comment like that sets one thinking and a couple of days in August 1945 probably have the Tsunami beat for sheer human loss. Reading a little about Hiroshima and Nagasaki makes the heart pound. Those events were man-caused, not nature-caused and, it is said, the bombs were unnecessary. The Japanese were already exploring avenues for surrender and the utter awfulness of the devastation might easily have been avoided. Oh, hell. Maybe the world would be a better place with a little less of the USA.

Seasonal Greetings

The movement to abolish the religious significance of Christmas gathers momentum.

My anxiety started at the end of November when I went looking for Advent Calendars for the wife and daughter. Sainsburys had them. Well sort of. But they are no longer called Advent Calenders - they are “seasonal” calendars - and behind each of the twenty-five doors there is a Malteser. References to Baby Jesus are not for Seasonal Calendars.

The National Trust is also a little bit wary about the religious aspect. Not for them the words “Happy Christmas”. All their cards have a “Seasons Greetings” message lest we offend people of other denominations. I know that the Red Cross bans all mention of Christmas in their charity shops, but I’m a bit mystified by it all. If someone of another denomination sent me a “Happy Ber-jal-ii” card or whatever, I’d be very pleased and treat the gesture as a compliment rather than an insult. I think I’d be a bit confused however if a card arrived in mid-June or whenever announcing mysteriously “Seasons Greetings”.

Maybe it’s all a plot by Clinton Cards to streamline their stock range by selling just one “Seasons Greetings” card all year round – suitable for Mothers Day, Fathers Day, St Valentines Day, Easter, Christmas and Birthdays.

And a Thought for the Poor and Needy …

The daughter brought back from Chicago a short video clip to remind me that Britain is not the only country to strive for correctness. It showed a group of young coloured teenagers playing (brilliantly) on sort-of-oil-can drums on a crowded sidewalk. The police came and chased them off (begging on the streets is illegal) to the shame and dismay of all passers-by who were both pleased with the high-quality percussion performance, and also happy to see the lads doing something constructive (and not overtly criminal) to improve their lot. Why, the question was asked, had the police not moved in against the Salvation Army collectors on the opposite side of the street? Were they, too, not begging and using musical instruments to reinforce their message?


And a Compliment to the Chef …

Slices from a well-chosen and precisely cooked Sussex Bronze (twenty-pounder), the inevitable sprouts*, parsnips and excellently roast potatoes, carrots and bread sauce, gravy and sausage, cranberry sauce and stuffing, all piled high on a single plate, and then second helpings, and then pudding (without pudding wine), then cheese (with pudding wine and port), then more and more. Well done to my sister (who to her chagrin has never previously featured in this blog) for preparing that lot, and for gathering a complete set of brothers, a parent, a betrothed, a sister-in-law, to say nothing of her own children all of us cheerful and well-behaved and peaceful (apart from the after-repast snoring in front of Harry Potter). No mean feat and sincere and public thanks for the huge effort.

*Too much Patrick O’Brien I’m afraid. I tried “ubiquitous” sprouts, then “froward” sprouts, then … well, I think we don’t want to go there, do we?

So long since....

Well, I've been busy!

Over the last six weeks I have physically moved my business down the corridor (better view, you see), done a fairly major show (Mac Expo in Islington), done some recruiting, some visits to France, but mainly have had to provide daily cover for the running of the business and a thousand other things.

Exhausting, really, for a decrepit 58-year-old (albeit with a lot of help from his even-older missus).

So, to the ranting bit: -

Public Service isn't what it used to be. My parents always told me that the way to succeed in life was to become a "professional"; a lawyer maybe, or an accountant, or a Doctor, or suchlike.

I never did.

But if I was asked by one of my grandchildren "What shall I do with my life, Grandpa Nappa?", I'd be tempted to point them towards Parliament. Britain now has over 1,000 MPs (including the "euros" and the increasing numbers of "regionals". Backing these guys (who currently receive princely rewards) are legions of Civil Servants, and the financial rewards for producing copious amounts of ever-futile and unnecessary over-legislation are becoming seriously envy-making.

Roll on the Revolution!

Which of course it can't. Because too many potential revolutionaries are already in the pay of the State. And so on. And so on.

So much to rant about … so little time!

It’s all my own bloody silly fault! I’ve de-staffed the business to such a skeletal level that the wife and I have been stretching ourselves in a fairly preposterous manner just to keep things moving. Over four hundred parcels have been shipped in two weeks and some have actually successfully reached their destinations. But the price has been high in terms of human suffering.

Wow! That sound like newspeak (“more soldiers of the Black Watch… but the price has been high in terms of human suffering”).

So, who have I missed the chance to rant about over the past couple of weeks?

George W Bush and all who voted for him must be high on the list. The staff of BMW Showroom/Service Centres almost beat the US President (and all those who voted for him) as classic examples of chinless ineptitude and people who are a total waste of time.

Then there are the murderous extremists who use religion as a shield and an excuse for their criminal deeds. Newspeak talks about “Moslem” extremists, but Irish Protestant and Catholic extremists have behaved equally appallingly in the recent past.

Then there is Manchester United!

Whoosh! I’ve just upset 1,000,000 readers who are either Irish, BMW workers, terrorists, the majority of Americans, and the world’s Manchester United fanbase.

I could, alternatively, have a rant about under-achieving retailers like M&S and Sainsburys, or, indeed, my own illustrious business where I have taken to insulting customers who are never home to receive their goods and then blame me for non-delivery.

There have been just a few better moments. The wife and I took a few hours off work last weekend to go shopping (pleasantly), and to witness the son’s hospitable firework display (very competitive in his part of Hampshire). I’ve also become interested in “festive menus”. The village pub suggests Venison with Chocolate Sauce as a Christmas main course, and Robert Harris’s “Pompeii” lists the following tantalizing fare for a feast day:

“Sow’s udder stuffed with kidneys, with the sow’s vulva served as a side dish … Roast boar filled with live thrushes…”

Yummy.

Curious Habits

We all have them. Some of us more than others:

My younger brother boils eggs in a kettle. I (in the company of friends) teased him the other evening about this absurd practice and he retorted that it wasn’t as bad as all that, “it’s a new kettle!”. I’m still trying to work that one out.

The wife’s sister enjoys “the element of surprise”, like turning up when you least expect her. This afternoon my little company was struggling away, trying to turn an honest dollar, when who should appear, not at the door, but rather as an apparition at the window…

The older brother would say that it not he who is eccentric, but rather his travel agent. Off he goes to attend some celebration at his old university (McGill in Montreal) and what happens – he gets endlessly delayed by immigration officials at Washington DC (“excuse me Sir, but are you aware that this is the USA, not Canada…there are perfectly good flights to Montreal directly from London…do you wish to do harm to our President?”).

I won’t mention the daughter who knows she is “next up”. She reads this blog a little too avidly (an eccentricity in its own right).

Neither will I mention the daughter-in-law’s “christening” trousers. Abercrombie and Finch they were not (nor even Land Rover Owners Club official gear).

Oh dear! Too many people insulted…too little time!

Looking the Part

Another Friday night, but it’s to London this time – catching the early evening train to Waterloo sensibly dressed in dinner jacket and black tie. I’m off to spend the evening with my friend Mr Angry at the Forty Club Annual Dinner at the Savoy (a cricket occasion if you really want to know, curious reader).

There is a tendency to feel a bit of a prat when you travel wearing a dinner jacket on a commuter train, surrounded by normally dressed people going about their normal life at 5.00pm. You have to “carry off” your appearance and a number of options occur. Obviously there is the “007” solution, total self-confidence and a look of superiority that says “these are my normal clothes, I have a gun and am off to a smart casino”. Then there is the “man from the band” solution, but you need a trumpet or other weird musical instrument case for that. I opted instead for the “total eccentric” solution as, having taken my seat, I produced a Bible from my briefcase and, somewhat ostentatiously, browsed through the Gospel according to St. Mark. Sadly this was not a sign of my devotion to religious matters, but rather swatting up on the reading I am to make at my granddaughter’s Christening later today. No-one took the empty seat beside me.

For the return journey, I was suitably refreshed with alcohol and felt quite normal with my tie askew, slumbering noisily all the way back to Petersfield. There I found that taxi drivers continue to exist in darkest Hampshire, even after midnight, and so I felt quite the part being chauffeur-driven back to my village and the somnolent wife and cat.

Long Windedness

The first criticism of the “Ranting Nappa” is that it is too long-winded. And of course it should be long-winded, after all that is the essence of ranting.

It helps being English because we have more words to play with than other languages. I read somewhere that Shakespeare used 20,000 words in all his plays; whereas across the channel Racine (or was it Moliere?) only employed 2,000 words. Pity the poor person who did the counting!

The daughter’s godmother’s husband (why don’t I just say “Steve”?) used to say that one of the pleasures of reading The Economist was that every issue included a word that he had never encountered before. I, however, have enough trouble trying to understand (and therefore use correctly) the words I already think I know.

“Trauma” is one. I can handle “traumatic”, but every time I think I understand what it means I find it being used in a different way. Does it mean the mental consequence of grief, or the mental consequence of actual physical pain? I dunno, the word seems to crop up in both contexts.

Boris Johnson and my old workmate Jamie Camplin both use “elide” when they mean “omit” or “strike out” (I think). Maybe I should stop calling this a “blog” and call it a modernist “eclogue” instead. After all it is something of a poetic oration, though not in verse, addressed to shepherds or sheep or something.

Enough of this! Maybe I should start a "Society for the Eliding of Words from the English Language”. Once we have finished with a word, it should be struck off the list thus making the English language more manageable. A good starter would be the word “polytechnic”. This redundant word came to mind while driving past the imposing “University of Roehampton” last week.

Friends and Foes

“Go and write your blog … quickly”, orders the wife “and it would be good if you put the cat out for half an hour”. It’s Friday night and the cat and I dutifully go about our business.

It has been a strange week. Work is coming out of my ears, and yet none of it seems particularly rewarding, either financially or in terms of work-satisfaction. My online world is definitely attracting the “wrong sort of customer”; hawk-eyed students spotting that my site is undercharging for some required text that the publisher has just raised the price by 25%. Irritating phone calls from people demanding to know why the hard-to-source Springer-Verlag (New York Office only) title they ordered two days ago hasn’t been delivered by return of post. I am extremely likely to verbally “nut” one of them very soon.

Doing a Linux show at Olympia on Wednesday and Thursday was a time of mixed emotions, too. So many people coming up to the stand to ask “what happened to Sicilian Avenue?; “the shop in the City?”; even “where’s Darren, now?”. There were the usual crises (the non-operational printer which meant a nocturnal 80-mile round-trip to source another), the non-operational PDQ machine, the dire warnings that one hasn’t brought enough of this, that or the other. But it all worked pretty well, and it was great to have companionable contact with customers once again.

When I left publishing to become a bookseller I quickly realised that by running a specialist business I was likely to attract a fairly specialist sort of customer, and these people could point me at the right titles to stock with much more insight than publishers’ reps. By listening to their comments at the till, and by chasing up their asked-for books, you quickly establish a better business. You just don’t get that sense of human contact running a virtual bookstore. Gone are the Westlake’s and Blake’s; the Molyneux’s, Dr Elias and the teams from the local training companies. I miss them.

I also miss the staff. Just about every one of them, who span my thirteen-odd years of bookselling in London (and Brum). It’s good to see that they too regard those days as days to be recalled and have occasional reunions. I’m not sure if this is more in the spirit of school reunions or the type of gathering my Dad used to attend – of his fellow prisoners-of-war. Probably the latter!

There used to be a saying when I worked at Penguin that when people left the company (whether voluntarily or not) they always did better. I guess every rule has to have its exception.

Not Bloggin’ Weather

On days like today you drive to work, headlights-on in the near-dark pouring rain and immediately immerse yourself in an orgy of customer complaints, record-level mail-order-processing, humungous amounts of goods-in, behind-with-the accounts stuff, a really unnecessary order for urgent maritime books for Cyprus and then (hours later) you look out of the window and realise that … it’s all blue skies and sunshine outside; people are doing happy things like playing golf or walking the South Downs Way; enjoying a lingering lunch at one of those nice-but-expensive South of England pubs, all that sort of stuff. Then…much later…you drive home in the dark and the pouring rain…

Work is sometimes a four-letter-word. But it could be worse (says he Candide-style). The writer could be trying to rant about the Tory conference. Hearing Ms Widdicombe on the radio this morning (and Stephen Norris last evening), one realises that we already have a conservative government and that Mr Howard’s lot have nothing particular to add.

Mr Blair’s lot are about the least “extreme” form of government that one could hope for. Okay, they are townies and spend too much money trying to improve the “right” things like health, education, transport, etc., with too much bureaucracy and too little action. But would any sane person really prefer to replace them with Ann Widdicombe, Stephen Norris and people like that. Hell, I’d hate to have the Soames-man leading the way in Iraq; far better the useless Hoon and Jack-whatever the Foreign Secretary who turns unmemorability into an art form.

You are fortunate, dear reader, that the writer hasn’t yet got his mind around UKIP!
A ranter like myself cannot bring himself to vote Tory, or anyone-else for that matter. Time, perhaps, to give up bookselling and to enter politics…the “Ranting Party” is formed.

PS to copy editors: There are two semi-colons in this piece, so he’s getting better. But what about all those “…” things. Interestingly (or incredibly boringly if you don’t like trivia), Microsoft Word’s edit-find feature will find semi-colons, but not “…” things.

House of Love

I’m pleased that I never chose the Church as a career. I have no doubt that I could render a fiery sermon, get muddled over the choice of hymns and generally do all or most of the things that vicars do. But I would have found “change” hard to deal with.

My birth sign is Cancer, you see, and that means that I (tenaciously) cling on to old stuff. I’m very fond of the old communion service, traditional hymns, slightly mystical prayers and all that. So Friday nights rather long (1hr, 35mins) service to “license” the new vicar unsettled me a bit.

The bishop (wonderful hat) made no bones about it: the appointment should be “confrontational” when it comes to sleepy Sussex parishes which might prefer to wallow in tradition. Now I like the new vicar. He is young, pleasant and had obviously made a success of his previous parish (in Littlehampton if that means anything). But I didn’t recognise the hymns and I got all agitated when the vow to HM Queen was omitted - we got the vow to the Bishop of Chichester, no problem, but why was the one to HMQ rather obviously omitted when it was printed on the prayer sheet? Have we a Republican in our midst? Isn’t HM Missus Kwin (as Kwaage called her) meant to be boss of the C of E, Defender of Faith, etc?

I also wondered what my Mum would say if she knew that we lived next door to the “House of Love”, as the bishop described the parish church? Ho, hum. At any rate in an odd sort of way I rather enjoyed the occasion. It seemed to typify everything about the New Britain. In the pew ahead of us was a Littlehampton family with a small (maybe six or seven) child who was given freedom of the church by her parents. She wandered up and down the aisles, interrupting her obviously devout parents every couple of minutes, and never ever being told to quieten down, sit still, etc. By the third hymn it was too much for the wife who gave the child a mild (by her standards) rebuke. This was apparently a new experience for the child, and we later recalled the young Zoe (daughter of American friends) who had similarly been reared as a free spirit. Ugh, spank ‘em every time!