Remembrance Sunday with a fox, a hen & maybe a German in Highgate, London

King’s Cross station, London, with Remembrance Day poppy

I was driving home late last night.

Well, it was the early hours of this morning.

And a fox ran across the road in front of me.

Nothing surprising in that.

London seems to have as many foxes at night as performers have neuroses.

I had to slow down approaching a wide road junction in Highgate village to let the fox cross the road ahead of me. It came out of a road to my left.

Then, out of the same road to my left, came a man on a motorcycle with sidecar attached. The sidecar was attached to the motorcycle, not to the man. The man appeared to be wearing a World War II German Army uniform. He was wearing a German WWII helmet. The sidecar had a cage sitting on it, which contained what appeared to be a hen.

At a mini-roundabout ahead, the man and his motorcycle and his sidecar and the cage containing what appeared to be a hen turned left.

I carried on.

It was Remembrance Sunday yesterday.

I do not drink.

I do not take drugs.

I have no explanation.

Criminal eggs and Canadian paintballers turned terrorists

The after effects of one day of unexpected sunshine in Britain

I still bear the scars of last weekend’s Word Egg Throwing Championships.

The ignominy of defeat has faded slightly, but now the skin on my forehead and the top of my head has started to flake. It was sunny all day in Lincolnshire last Sunday. Who knew such a thing could happen in Britain in June?

When I have a full day of sunshine and no lotion, my skin burns, I go red and a few days later – which is now – I start to flake. I am leaving little white flakes of me wherever I go whenever I rub my head. It is not an attractive physical characteristic.

Meanwhile, still on the subject of eggs, yesterday I got an e-mail from this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent, Anna Smith in Vancouver. When she last wrote a week ago, she was claiming it was a bit dull in the Dominion. Now she tells me things are perking up a bit. Her e-mail started thus:

“NAKED INTRUDER COOKS EGGS, say the headlines. A man broke into a house near Trout Lake, had a shower and was frying himself some eggs when he was discovered by the home owner. The clean naked egg frying  intruder has been receiving compliments from admirers on the comments pages of the local news.”

When he was confronted by the surprised home-owner he fled the scene, still naked and was arrested later by police, near Trout Lake, still naked.

Cop Brian Montague has advice on how to avoid naked men

According to CBC TV News, this happened at 7.00pm in the evening and Vancouver police constable Brian Montague reported: “We think he was on drugs at the time. I don’t know exactly what drugs, This incident highlights the need for homeowners to be careful about leaving doors and windows open during the warm summer weather. 400 of the 1,157 residential break-ins this year showed no sign of forced entry. Ensuring your doors and windows are locked is a simple deterrent.”

Meanwhile elsewhere, Anna tells me…

“In Surrey – a wretched and rapidly growing city on the eastern shore of the Fraser River occupying the psychic position of Essex to London – a young couple have been arrested on Vancouver Island, and accused of being home grown terrorists, with pressure cooker bombs similar to the ones used in Boston. They’re supposed to have planned to  cause explosions during Canada Day celebrations outside the provincial legislature buildings.

“The male of the pair had been a punk musician and anarchist, but lately things had gone downhill… Acquaintances of the couple have reacted in disbelief and have suggested that they must have been assisted… Others were amazed that the pair had made it all the way from Surrey to Vancouver island (about sixty kilometers) and wondered how they had managed to afford the (£10) ferry ride…”

John Nuttall (right) Canadian paintballer turned terrorist

According to CBC, on Canada Day last year, the two accused – John Nuttall and his wife Amanda Korody – planned to celebrate Canada’s freedom from England “by shooting each other in the face with brightly coloured paintballs.”

Fellow paintballer Randy Tetzlaff was quoted as saying that Amanda Korody came to play only once that he could remember and seemed intimidated by the game. Then she and Nuttall stopped coming last August, and he never saw them again.

Nine months ago on a YouTube, Nuttall responded to another commenter who insulted Muhammad:

“Hey kafir, you wanna say that to my face? I am a Mujahid and, inshAllah, I will die a Shaheed!” (ie “I am a Muslim who believes in jihad and, God-willing, I will die a martyr.”) He added: “Call me so we can set this up,” and included his phone number.

Meanwhile, says Anna…

Anna Smith enjoyed her Canada Day 2013

“On Canada Day this year I escaped from downtown and went out into the Annacis Channel of the Fraser River on a Zodiac inflatable boat.

“Several irregularly shaped compressions appeared, crop circle like, on the beds of water reeds that dart out from the downstream tip of Annacis Island. I named them aqua circles and tried to imagine a monster capable of creating such a massive flattening.

“Perhaps a shoal of giant mud eels? An amphibian white sturgeon? As the sun set, I watched the shadows sharpen on Mount Baker, the snow covered volcano that stands like Mount Fuji to the south. A local artist took dozens of photos of Mount Baker from different angles, the way Hokusai did with his woodcuts, only the local ones featured trailer parks and dredger moorings for the foreground.

“Oh – I almost forgot to mention – There is also a syphilis epidemic.”

New Year? Bah! Humbug and diarrhoea

Mint humbugs – the perfect accompaniment to New Year

I always find New Year’s Eve depressing.

Not because the old year is ending, but because I think:

Jesus! There’s yet another year ahead to plough through! 

New Year’s Day is a bit better because there’s not that ghastly neo-Dunkirk spirit around in Britain. I would have hated being in London in the Second World War. All that community singing in underground stations and bomb shelters.

There is something unhealthy about people singing in very large groups.

There should be a ban on all singing on New Year’s Eve and a ban on groups of more than two people congregating anywhere between 30th December and 2nd January.

These are some 1st January extracts from old diaries of mine:

1994

(I was in Beirut, which was still occupied by Syrian forces following the Lebanese Civil War.)

Another ad I have seen around is for the Tom Berenger movie of a few years ago which never made it to British cinemas. The posters have Berenger’s face covered in green, brown and black camouflage, just his eyes showing plus the film title: SNIPER.

It is incongruous that SNIPER is being watched for entertainment in Lebanon.

It seems to be popular.

2001

On the phone, my father told me he had had diarrhoea for three or four days. His sister Nettie, who used to work as a nurse, tells him it is probably a side effect of some of the new tablets he is taking.

(In June that year, he died. So it goes.)

2002

Mad inventor John Ward tells me he has got a new job working near Bedford, in a detention centre for immigrants. The application form included the questions:

“Are you a terrorist?”

“Have you ever tried to overthrow the state?”

(A month later, the detention centre was burned down by irate inmates. I do not think John Ward caused their ire, but I could be wrong.)

2003

My mother’s cousin’s husband Osmond is in hospital with diarrhoea.

(He died six days later. So it goes.)

2004

Last night, as midnight approached, my mother asked me if Edinburgh was the capital of Scotland.

(She was born in Scotland. She died three years later, aged 86. So it goes.)

2013

(This morning’s Scotsman newspaper carries a story headlined: SCOTLAND ENJOYED LESS RAIN THAN LAST YEAR – IT JUST DIDN’T FEEL LIKE IT TO MANY. Things must be getting better then…)

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning…”

This morning, I looked at my diary for 9th November 2001 – two days before Remembrance Day.

I had noted down some Facts I Didn’t Know.

This is back in 2001…

– In the last 100 years, there has only been one year in which no British serviceman was killed on active duty

– Since 1945, there have been 70 separate conflicts involving Britain

That was way back in 2001.

Now we are another ten years on.