Last night on the BBC’s World Service, I heard a lady (albeit an enterprising thief) now in her eighties recount how she had reduced the mileage in Patagonia upon which she was charged by driving backwards for ten miles. She must have risked developing a crick in her neck.
However, on another occasion she also noticed how low her fuel was when she was going forwards. So she opened her doors and was dragged along by the wind.
*****
I have not had a bet with Geoff Banks for many years. His firm had felt inhibited by my bets since one selection came quite close to my winning. I rang him the other day and was told that absent affordability checking I could not have a bet. I used to bet with his father John forty years ago on the rails.
Sadly, Duggie Goldstein is no longer with us. He would stand a bet when minded.
*****
The local election results have been amusing if disturbing. At the heart of the Conservatives’ failure is that they have lost their reputation for competence. Given that Corbyn came to prominence through each member, having so qualified by merely paying £5 p.a., having a vote, you would imagine that the Conservatives had been warned. For Corbyn’s massed children and OMOV got him as leader. And the electorate were not minded to be taken in. In these circumstances OMOV replicated by the Conservatives gave us Liz Truss. The rest is history. Government is a serious business and not a joke.
Mind you, Starmer has yet to offer any policies that could work better than those of Sunak. So Starmer is not a shoo-in.