Excerpt: Life of a Tackley Lad

The writing up of Gramp's memoirs continues at a snail's pace. As I've not got time to write anything original today, here is an excerpt that I prepared earlier. Gives a good idea of the generally tone and spirit of Volume 1:

"At the top of the back garden were the pigsties. One belonged to us, the other to Tommy Smith who lived next door. My dad usually kept two pigs at a time. When they weighed about sixteen score, one was sold for cash and the other was slaughtered outside the sty, with the meat retained for our use. Pig killing day was always exciting for the young boys in the village. A little streak of sadism seemed to lurk in us. Many of us used to hold the rope that secured the pig to the killing stool. The slaughter was always a gory task. A small sharp blade was inserted into the pig throat and the animal would bleed to death. It soon became law that all animals had to be shot before being cut.

My Uncle Harold Harris used to do the killing. He used to enjoy it. After despatching the pig he would hang it in our back shed overnight and then return the next day to butcher it. Nothing at all was wasted. The intestines were removed, cleaned, salted and used for a nice pan of ‘chitterlings’. Beautiful home-cured lard, seasoned with a little fresh rosemary from the garden, was made out of the pig flear. We had a lead trough in the back shed in which all the salting was performed. This is how we made our bacon and cured the ham. My dad used to make his own curing brine, using salt, treacle and a few selected spices. His secret ingredient was a drop of old ale. It worked wonders.

After they were cured, the bacon sides and hams were brought into the house. Hams were hung on the wall at the side of fire, and the sides hung from the ceiling in a rack. There they were left to mature until they developed an intense flavour that has no equal today."

Blind Man's Duff

When reaching into my "manbag" for my asthma inhalers, what should I find but my glasses, safe and sound in their case...

What a wally. At least I won't have to drive home squinting...

My Eyes!

Vic and I are exchanging cars everyday at the moment, a result of only having a single car seat for India. Today I drove Vic's car into work blind. I left my glasses in my car, which Vic had already departed in. With no vision correctors on, the drive to work was hair-raising. The world was a blur and I struggled to judge speed and distance. I felt I was wearing a goldfish bowl on my head. It was scary.

And I've got the return trip to look forward to later...

Athens

The Sunday Times Style magazine reports that the Greeks have ordered 130,000 condoms for the 17,000 athletes living in the Olympic Village over the next couple of weeks. A former athlete describes what goes on during the games as a 'f***fest'.

Now, these are purely my calculations, but figure 1 teaspoon of semen per condom. That's 5 ml times 130,000 condoms = 650 litres, or 1300 pints, of semen.

Almost enough for Ian Thorpe to swim in.