1066 Country

I've just spent the week in Camber Sands. It would have been delightful if the weather had been a little better and the roof a little less sea gully. Unfortunately you can't count on the weather in the UK and sea gulls are remarkably unmoved by reasoned debate. One thing that did annoy me, perhaps unreasonably, was the signage promoting the entire county of East Sussex as "1066 Country."

I could be missing the point, East Sussex, of course, encompasses both Battle and Hastings, which can be famously joined with an "of" to give us the name of the UK's most memorable historical event*. But come on, it's not like the rest of the country wasn't around in 1066 either (or the entire universe for that matter.) And Sussex isn't even a country anyway. I suppose as a slogan it's not quite as snappy as "Decisive Moment in the Norman Conquest County" but it would be considerably less irritating. I don't even know why I even found it irritating in the first place, it's not entirely inaccurate given the aforementioned existence of the universe in 1066, so I can't complain there, the country bit is still wrong of course but it is a commonly used turn of phrase so I'm hard pushed to really complain about that too.

OK, I admit, I do know why I found it irritating, it's because I hate stupid marketing nonsense. Oh all right, it's because I'm a grumpy whatsit.

It's not even as if that's the only odd thing, after all the so called Battle of Hastings wasn't in Hastings anyway, it was, of course, in Battle. So it should be called the Battle of Battle, but that would be weird. And yes, I know the place was named after the battle, not the other way around. So let's just call it the Battle of Senlac Hill and say no more about it.

*The Hastings of Battle

If Your Mansion House Needs Haunting...

Yes, that is the first line of the Rentaghost theme song. The reason I am referencing it is because clearly Mr Claypole paid us a visit at the weekend and locked us out of our study. OK, I admit it could have been some other mischievous spirit, Mr Davenport for example - it probably wasn't Fred Mumford because we'd have noticed him standing in the kitchen bin or something.

Anyway, it was a very strange situation we found ourselves in. Somehow one of the drawers in the cabinet next to the study door had opened during the night. The study door opens inwards. And yes, as a result of this the study door now only opened inwards about one centimetre before hitting the drawer, which after taking into account the door frame was just enough to see a tiny sliver of the room if you pushed really hard at the top of the door but not enough to get anything through. Or not anything that could be used to shut a cabinet drawer anyway.

How did this happen? It's not like the house is on a slope and it's not like a giant lifted up the front of the house and then put it back either. I'm sure I would have noticed that and there would have been large footprints in the front garden. There weren't, I checked. So the only rational explanation therefore is that Mr Clapole (or perhaps Mr Davenport) zapped into the study, opened the drawer and then zapped himself out.

But why? It wasn't April the 1st and I've not done anything to upset him that I know of. And more importantly, how was I going to get back in? I checked the phonebook and Rentaghost must be ex-directory, which isn't very sound management practice but perhaps they prefer to rely on word of mouth. I asked the person with the nearest mouth but she didn't know the number either.

In the end, after a lot of cursing and swearing I managed to shut the drawer by bending a metal metre rule in an "L" shape and sliding it under the door. It was a very close thing and I for one will be being more careful about which ghosts I upset in the future.

Parental Pride

Is it wrong of me to be filled with pride at the sight of my two year old daughter running towards her cousin shouting "I want to eat your brains Tom!" and then pretending to gnaw on the base of his skull?