Hunt the ten coacher

Having reported a ten coacher at reference 1, I have sought to renew the experience, to be sure that I was not seeing things, so earlier in the week off to Earlsfield to see what I could do. Both train journeys failed to deliver, both trains being eights. But there was compensation on the second train in the form of a young mother, who had been down to London for the day with her toddler. I say down on the grounds that wherever it was in Surrey that she lived, somewhere between Epsom and Guildford, it was almost certainly above, in above sea level terms, central London, so she went down to London. She had, inter alia, been to the aquarium more or less underneath where I had taken tea the day before (search for Marriot), she knew all about the Isle of Wight and its quaint little train lines and she was born in Brazil - and on closer inspection she had the hint of red in her blonde which I associate with blondes from Latin countries, quite possibly quite wrongly. I was able to tell her all about the nudist camp at Havenstreet, which may have made her wonder about my leisure activities. See reference 2.

On the way, I found that the book shop which I had worried about on 8th April was open and could manage no less than two paperback copies of Švejk, both from Penguin, one the short version that I grew up with, in the gray livery of modern classics, and the long version which came out in 1973 and which was much more colourfully covered. Oddly, the long one which was more than twice the volume of the short one cost 50p less, perhaps reflecting the difficulty many of our young people have reading books. Although I believe the situation there might be more complicated than I would have it, with sales of books being as strong as ever, even if the young are not reading the sort of stuff considered de rigueur when I was young. Like Bertie Lawrence and Queenie Leavis, whose rather odd husband, was, as it happens, the product of the same school as the present writer.

I was then introduced to the Apple watch at Tooting. A smart looking gadget, as one would expect from Apple, clocking in at £300 or so, so rather dear for a watch and it could not even simulate the clock face of that well known clock at the top of Big Ben. But one could talk to the thing, it had many of the functions of a modern telephone and it could relate to one's actual telephone, provided, of course, that it came from Apple too. Other plus points included the fact that being strapped to your wrist you were unlikely to leave her (Siri speaks with a ladies' voice) lying around, unlike a telephone, and it having nifty holes on the underside which could both deliver a vibration to tell you something was up and count your heartbeats. I did not think to ask whether she would do a vibration if she thought you heart beat was a bit out of order. Maybe it just called for an ambulance. She did know where she was.

I was also introduced to the idea that the Ryan ambition in life was to give away aeroplane tickets for free and to make his money out of in-flight sales. On a few wines, this struck me as a very worthy target. Also that maybe the man has a sense of humour after all. But I still wonder how on earth he does it. Does he pay his staff in peanuts? Is he buying up planet unfriendly kerosene at some knock down price from some dodgy place in central Asia? And aeroplanes sold for scrap by BA during on of their periodic down turns?

Talking of which I managed several two's while waiting to go home from Earlsfield and very nearly a three. Evening sun handily hidden behind a tree, so the leaves are not all bad in this connection. I worked, on this occasion, from the northern end of the southbound platform, seeming better there on this occasion than at my usual spot.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/le-penseur.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=havenstreet and http://www.valeriansunclub.com/.