Awaiting my moment of Fame

We are temporarily living about 15 minutes from the City centre of Norwich. If you are an avid reader of Grumpy’s blog, you probably already knew this. However, it does no harm to be reminded and anyway there will be some of you who have not been paying attention.

You would never find Rose Valley on your own. Not that it is out in the sticks. Au Contraire. It is just off a main road into Norwich called the “Unthank Road”, apparently named after the family who owned the land a long time ago. This piece of information might be useful at a pub quiz and you will thank me later.

Rose Valley is like Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross in the Harry Potter books. You drive into this non-existent passage, more as an act of faith than navigation. There it is, a small cul-de-sac with about 20 houses. As another piece of trivial pursuit information, the one at the end of the cul-de-sac has a chimney made by DINAC, which is important as Kevin, my son-in-law, works at DINAC, so this is a very special chimney.

Our house is very well situated for serial shoppers like us. Back on the Unthank Road, only two minutes’ walk from us, there is an arcade consisting of a charity shop, a fish and chip shop, two Chinese takeaways, a pharmacy, a Lloyds Bank, one Indian Takeaway, which specialises in meat dishes without any meat, a funeral director, an estate agent and two off-licences, one very upmarket – so upmarket and expensive that it wouldn’t be out of place in Thalwil high street.

There is also a flower shop, two cafes (one of which calls itself a bistro) and two pubs (one of which calls itself a restaurant).  Last of all, there is a Co-op and a Tesco Express.

The Tesco Express occupies a crucial position in the universe for two reasons.

Firstly, it stands astride a zebra crossing, which has special rules which I have yet to determine. The normal rules about not parking on the jagged lines don’t apply to the flower shop, which must have a special exemption.

On this zebra crossing, pedestrians and motorists pit their wits against each other in the battle for supremacy. No self-respecting motorist wants to stop, even though the speed limit is 20 mph, for which the stopping distance is about 6 inches. However, the reflex times for Unthank Road motorists is about 13 minutes, so stand back when waiting at the zebra crossing.

I should add that I also have discovered that neither the speed limit of 20 mph nor the need to stop at this “just astride the Tesco Express” zebra crossing, does not apply to buses. They operate a minimum 40 mph speed rule on this stretch. Either this or they just hate pedestrians.

There is a second reason for noting this Tesco Express. This commercial marvel, designed to provide the Hawkers with their morning newspapers, milk and emergency provisions, as well as the daily experience of dealing with their very annoying automatic talking pay machines, sits on the junction of (as opposed to “astride of”) the Unthank Road and Trinity Street.

Trinity Street, so far in its insignificant history, has no particular significance. That’s the point of being insignificant. But all this may be about to change.

Three weeks ago, I was minding my own business, walking down the aforesaid insignificant Trinity Street, when along comes the wicked Google van, with its big teeth, long jaw and evil smile, and all the other paraphernalia on its roof, ready to record all images, download all images and private information within a 500 yard radius (but driving less than 20 mph, to distinguish itself from the local Number 25 bus).   

Imagine my excitement. I am going to be on the internet. There will be no missing me. I was wearing my bright blue winter waterproof, which has proved to be the most essential piece of clothing this “summer”. (Have I mentioned the weather yet?)

In my naive excitement and haste, but not so hasty that I couldn’t finish the latest episode of Lewis (when the murder was done by ….uuurrrghh….), I looked up “Street-view” on Google map, and searched on Trinity Street.

I know that you will share my pain and disappointment when the new super “Hawker included” version of Trinity Street did not appear. It not only did not show me in my radiant blue waterproof (being the third object visible from outer space), but showed a cyclist riding down the slope past a piece of waste ground, where Tesco Express should be.

This image, three weeks later, still remains on Street view. Perhaps it will never change. Perhaps, I am doomed never to achieve my moment of fame, apart from being visible from outer space.

Or is this a vision of the future, I ask myself? Perhaps Google has found a way of finding the images of the future. Now that could be useful.

But more importantly, if Tesco Express is no longer there, am I destined to have to walk an additional 200 yards to buy the morning newspaper and the milk for my bowl of Alpen?  

Battle of Waterloo Celebrations

Nigel Rogers and I are starting to prepare our talk on the Battle of Waterloo.

After our triumphant presentation in June 2005 to the noble members of the Zurich International Men’s Club on the “Life of Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805)”, to mark its 200^th anniversary, we decided, there and then, that the Battle of Waterloo should be the next subject.

This is a very big topic. We took 90 minutes to deliver our Trafalgar dissertation. The Battle of Waterloo probably needs about 8 hours. So the first challenge is to find an audience who will put up with this, and to lay on breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The other major challenge is what to call the combatants. In June 2005, Nigel and I made the mistake of referring to the English, as “The English”, and the French, as “The French” (not forgetting that the Spanish were referred to as “The Spanish”)

We were horrified, even mortified to learn of our error. This could have been very offensive to the French and very confusing if you were Spanish (as they were not always sure which side they should have been fighting for) and shameful if you were English. After all, who wants to boast about glorious military victories against former enemies and current allies? (I have been told that the French are our allies, notwithstanding the evil previous French President’s brush off of our glorious Prime Minister.)

The public celebrations for the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005 made no such awful mistake. Our brave and resourceful public servants were not going to fall into such an obvious trap and creatively and correctly named the two sides the “Reds” and the “Blues” (or was it the “Blues” and the “Reds”). It was a bit like the F.A. Cup Final with Chelsea and Liverpool, where Chelsea scored more goals, but, being good sports, said that Liverpool were jolly good chaps and could share the cup and winnings with them (Grumpy’s alternative version).

Now the Battle of Waterloo will be even more difficult territory. The French were the French, so that is simple enough. Instead of colours, this time we could use fruit. So we could call the French, the “Apple” team (no infringement of any copyright here, I hope).

The good guys, winning team, the Allies are more difficult to pin down as there were lots of them. There were the British, of course, a minority in their own army, whom we will call the bananas. The Prussians (Germans) had their own army, as well as forming one-third of the British Army, and will be called the Pineapples.

I had thought of Oranges. However that could be confused with a colour, as you might think that we were still re-enacting the Battle of Trafalgar. Kiwis are out as the New Zealanders did not take part in this particular European campaign, although I am sure that they would have done if the European Settlement of New Zealand had taken place by then.

We will make an exception of the fruit rule for the Dutch who should be the Tulips and the Belgians can be the grapes.

Now we have got that lot of old ***** protocol out of the way, Nigel and I can start to plan the 10 hour talk. By the time that we have finished this, I guess that the new Theme Park with Napoleon as its motif may be opened. I was trying to think of a way of celebrating a man responsible for the death of 5 million people in Europe, at a time when the population of England was less than 10 million. However, I failed. No doubt someone will manage it.

Probably the same people who thought of the “Reds” and the “Blues”.