Sunday, May 13, 2007

Tour baby, notices, puddle

One of the partners who run the restaurant called Ragged Trouser in the Pantiles is a guitarist. He has just returned from a tour of the USA with his rock group, which is called Todd. He is tall and thin, and usually wears a flat tweed cap. Describing the tour he says: "We did not make a lot of money, but we had a good time," and stroking his stomach, to indicate a degree of drinking and eating, " I've come back with a bit of a 'tour baby'".

I have always been fascinated by notices. There is one fixed to the shopping trolley ,which I am using in Sainsbury's this morning. It says: "The trolley will stop suddenly beyond the red line." There seems to be a metaphysical significance there, which extends beyond the matter in hand. I used to love the notice on London buses, when I was a young man. It said: "At the sign shown on the right all buses stop. At the sign on the left buses will only stop if you hail the driver."

There is an occasional puddle in two of the paving stones, which our friend Dave laid last year to replace some ugly, concrete squares. It drains away in less than an hour, so it doesn't worry us too much. And it serves a useful purpose. If you want to know how hard it is raining, or if it is still raining at all, you can tell by the number and intensity of the splashes on the surface.

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