Two Chaps Talking

Mon vieux,

So I think it's all right. No one remembers exactly who was where and what they were doing. M'learned friends have given me the all clear and now it's all down to plausible deniability, but then, old love, what isn't these days?

I hear tell that the Idiot-in-Chief's man in London, Bliar or something (used to be a Labour man apparently) has invited him over for a few days, much to the chagrin of all right thinking folk. About as welcome as newly expelled wind in a telephone box I'm told. The thing is, you know the warnings one sees on trinkets and baubles about the avoidance of small parts being swallowed by little children who then quite inconveniently choke? Well the I-i-C has the brain of just such a small child and when left unattended has been known to choke on a packet of Golden Wonder. To avoid a diplomatic incident, should anyone want to, I would strongly advise keeping him well away from anything intended for three-year-olds and up. Including world affairs.

Measuring the number of little grey cells between the ears of such an imbecile might be a problem one might think. But the other day a chap down the club told me it's all about Quantum Physics. From minuscule non-entities like the aforementioned to the length of time I may or may not have recently spent on our Sceptre'd Isle. Or getting an Army Land Rover up a hill. Or indeed the time between consecutive editions of the Gazette. Quantum physics the lot of it.

Allow me to elucidate.

As you may now be beginning to remember I just spent a solid fortnight in Albion. (Don't worry about the blank spaces, that's repressed memory syndrome and jolly useful it is too.) Anyway Old Thing, some have asked how I am able to describe the duration of my trip as a round fortnight when it was anywhere between ten and thirteen days depending who's asking.

Quantum Physics.

Which are I am reliably informed all about measuring stuff quite accurately. Not unlike Ringpiece's measures when he's fixing up a snifter. Thus a fortnight is in fact precisely and exactly the amount of time between consecutive editions of the Two Chaps Fortnightly Gazette, be it ten days or thirty. I mean, if it wasn't then obviously we wouldn't call it a Fortnightly Gazette would we? Simple.

Now that's all very well but you may be wondering what this has to do with yours truly and an Army Land Rover and a hill? Bringing the beaters out for a shoot perhaps? Squaddies looking for the Idiot-in-Chief (and his man in London)'s fabled WMDs having given up in the East? A Soho House parvenu having taken a wrong turn en route to Babbington House to 'do the country thing'? No. None of the above. I was in fact the guest of a dear old friend who, for fun, likes to drive this ALR up and down steep hills where only the local hunt would otherwise canter. I believe there is a name for this but it escapes me now.

Under normal circ's this would be far from my agenda. For a flaneur the countryside is the merely the un-visited green bit above London on an OS map and to be avoided. Perhaps. But on this occasion I happened to be clad in a fetching windowpane thornproof, recently acquired on a trip to some foreign lakes, which was crying out for a rural backdrop. Not only that but I had it in mind to get a little genuine mud on the butterscotch brogues and chocolate moleskins. Something to show the chaps at the club.

Well the funny thing is I couldn't get it up. The hill that is, cheeky. For some inexplicable reason my hand was repeatedly drawn to the reverse gear and I simply couldn't peak. And yet mine host had no trouble at all. Quel horreur. An Englishman who couldn't throw a Land Rover over a small part of our green and pleasant land. What would Monty and his Desert Rats have said? Not only that but I had inadvertently adjusted the mirror to reflect my hair-do rather than whatever else it was supposed to be for.

Supernatural forces at work? Electric soup playing havoc with an already enfeebled brain? Or something altogether more pernicious? Nothing to do with Quantum Physics, surely? Well in my distress I naturally reached for the hip flask and in doing so discovered that the vents on my thornproof were a full half-an-inch too deep! A bloody outrage. And how did I know this? Quantum Physics that's how. Precise measurements.

Ripping the offending article from my person I happened to catch sight of the label and Ye Gods. Horror upon horror. It was made in Italy. No wonder I was drawn to reverse gear.

Now we all know that our dear Euro cousins can drive dead fast in those little red cars from Modena (though it takes a German driver to help them actually win anything). But as you mentioned recently, Italian tanks have five gears, one forward and four reverse. And here I was in a military vehicle, wearing an Italian jacket, trying to go forwards.

Previously the offending garment had only seen action in restaurants where constantly trying to reverse wasn't a problem, though it did go some way to explaining my uncharacteristically charitable attitude towards Bruno a bolshy Bolognese barrista. But that's another story entirely. Anyway once the offending article was consigned to a nearby drainage ditch I aced the hill in a trice.

We followed this driving experience with something called gardening. Which is very similar to what gardeners do but done by gentlemen. It involved sitting in a chair with a cocktail and watching the Trouble put small dirty lumps of coal in the ground. Amazing what people find to amuse themselves. At the conclusion of this strange ritual I tip-toed through the tulips to get a light patina of Wiltshire's finest top soil on my brogues. They should polish up nicely and I look forward to showing them to you on my next visit.

Before I dash off for last orders, or is it first by now, allow me to laud a little gem that happened by of late. Sent by a chap who was kind enough to comment on our correspondence it had hitherto been seen in the Guardian and other reliable places of note. It is from HM's Ambassador to Moscow and it was written during the darkest days of the Second Little Unpleasantness. Like our own Fortnightly Gazette it should be required reading for Englishmen abroad and needs no explanation other than to say Sir Archibald, we salute you.

Bugger. I think they've got my range. I'm off.

Yours aye,

S

PS. Do you think I'm still barred from SH?