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caddymanI'm back. It's done and that's that until 4 January. Hurrah!
Returning via North Finchley, I have ventured into toy shops and their ilk for the first time in many moons. I was worried that I shouldn't be able to find what I was after amongst the mountains of tat being sold at sky-high prices, but Lady Luck smiled upon me before my patience ran out; it was a photo-finish, and Lady Luck won by a short head.
Once again, the incomprehensibility of 21st Century life hits me: there is a clear mismatch in my mind between the quality of toys for young pre-school children and the prices we are expected to pay for them (the toys, not the kids). For kids of school age there are some respectable quality toys out there, but it would be cheaper in the long run to put down a payment on a car for their 17th birthday and show them brochures in the intervening years (some day, my boy, all this will be yours).
On the other hand, a trip to Steve's Sounds on Charing Cross Road means that I now have a copy of Kate Bush's Aerial for the princely sum of a tenner. I shall now wander back into my bedroom, collapse in a heap, and listen to what people have been raving about this last six weeks.
I am not leaving the Athenaeum Club again today, with the possible exception of a brief foray across the road for fish and chips around 8'o'clock. Even that may not happen as I consoled myself with a Swedish Meatball sandwich from Subway (the first time I've been in one since the franchise landed from the US). It was very tasty and very large and I am replete. I am even prepared to forgive them for calling them submarine sandwiches, when they are clearly torpedo rolls. I suspect that's another English term destined for the rubbish dump of history now that another US import has arrived.
But it was a very tasty sarnie, and I am willing to forgive and forget.
For now.
Returning via North Finchley, I have ventured into toy shops and their ilk for the first time in many moons. I was worried that I shouldn't be able to find what I was after amongst the mountains of tat being sold at sky-high prices, but Lady Luck smiled upon me before my patience ran out; it was a photo-finish, and Lady Luck won by a short head.
Once again, the incomprehensibility of 21st Century life hits me: there is a clear mismatch in my mind between the quality of toys for young pre-school children and the prices we are expected to pay for them (the toys, not the kids). For kids of school age there are some respectable quality toys out there, but it would be cheaper in the long run to put down a payment on a car for their 17th birthday and show them brochures in the intervening years (some day, my boy, all this will be yours).
On the other hand, a trip to Steve's Sounds on Charing Cross Road means that I now have a copy of Kate Bush's Aerial for the princely sum of a tenner. I shall now wander back into my bedroom, collapse in a heap, and listen to what people have been raving about this last six weeks.
I am not leaving the Athenaeum Club again today, with the possible exception of a brief foray across the road for fish and chips around 8'o'clock. Even that may not happen as I consoled myself with a Swedish Meatball sandwich from Subway (the first time I've been in one since the franchise landed from the US). It was very tasty and very large and I am replete. I am even prepared to forgive them for calling them submarine sandwiches, when they are clearly torpedo rolls. I suspect that's another English term destined for the rubbish dump of history now that another US import has arrived.
But it was a very tasty sarnie, and I am willing to forgive and forget.
For now.