For your delight and aural delectation this week, the very pleasant Maps and ‘Frightened Rabbit’…..lovely strummy frottage.

More work this week on the house, mainly from Moraig’s brother, Craig. In common with most South Africans and colonials in general, he is obsessed with barbecueing – here is a picture of him that I have literally just taken at 7.30pm on a Saturday evening in October

…..still if it makes him happy. This is one of the less picturesque corners of the work in progress that is our garden – be assured there is a reason for the drainpipe ending half way down the wall, I’m just not going to tell you what it is.

The plastering of the landing, which is his main task whilst staying is almost complete, here is an especially crap picture of it which gives little or no indication of anything really but does take up valuable space and makes this post appear longer and more in depth that it actually is.

The roof height is about 7 metres so the boy has done well. We also found a tint that you mix into the ‘gear’ as it is apparently called, thereby obviating any need for paint…..many hurrahs all round.

The other highlight of the week was the annual general meeting of blog posters chez Helen last night – Myself (can I interest you in some software), Alan (naked in a hotel corridor) and Helen (that’s not a dachshund) were in attendance with other halves and much merriment was had by all, including a pudding with an extraordinary amount of pastry in it, in many ways it was like a club sandwich with pastry replacing the bread and something else replacing everything else.

Today’s small headache was cured by cheap red wine at lunch in Les Halles in Limoges which is the French equivalent of a fast food restaurant (even though you get starter, main course, cheese, pudding and coffee) where everyone sits on long benches and ignores the strangers sitting near them (or is that just me). Craig has already tried more adventurous food in the two weeks he has been here than I have in four years, today he opted for the calves trotters in a red wine sauce, I would have ordered that except it sounds fucking horrible and there was steak on the menu – I have few rules in life (always count the steps as you go down stairs and try not to shatter your kneecap falling awkwardly being one of them) but ‘always have the steak if it’s offered’ is my equivalent of the ten commandments wrapped up into one handy bite sized lifestyle hint – there is little else in the way of moral guidance that I can think one would need.

I can’t remember whether we were discussing it last night (probably not) but I remember recently explaining the rice on a chess board ‘problem’ to someone and they were having none of it. The point is an example of exponential growth – if you put one grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, then double it to 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth etc by the time you get to the 64th square you would need more rice that exists in the entire world. Whosoever I was explaining this to disputed the maths of this, going so far as to describe it as “bollocks”, however I have looked it up and it is true – on the 64th square alone you would need 2 to the 63 grains or 9,223,372,036,854,775,808…..which is a lot of rice in anyone’s book…or paddy field…..prroobabbberry.

I am currently obsessed with US elections, even getting up to watch the vice presidential debate the other morning, so finally two sides of the country that is the US of A – very shoddy rednecks and some spectacular body popping, as I believe it is called.

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