Iced hydrangea..
My boots make a satisfying noise on the crisp snow, half crunch, half squeak. It is good to be about.
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The streets are almost deserted. It is only a little snow and the slush has not frozen yet. What has happened to people? "How are your supplies?" I ask the fishmonger across a well stocked slab. "No problem," he says. " If they want to get moving they can. Those who don't get on with the job are just being lazy, just taking advantage. That's the trouble with the whole country - schools, railways, shops the lot". He is a young man but he sounds to me like the comedy character in the old BBC programme called Take it from Here. In his weekly spot the character, played by Jimmy Edwards, would dictate a letter to the press signed "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells". The catchphrase has since been inseparably associated with this town. Perhaps the sentiment is catching. A strangely pleasing thought.
3 comments:
The catchphrase passed through further evolution though I can't remember on which radio programme. Straight man: What's your name?" Comic, adopting a heavy lisp: "Dithguthted of Tunbridge Wells will suffithe."
I note you have remained neutral on whether the sobriquet is deserved.
I always thought you were the complete antithesis of DoTW.
I'm not sure about the matter of whether one should pull oneself together and get on with the job regardless, it seems to me that's partly responsible for all the chaos, people refusing to admit defeat. However, I observe that while we've had no post or dustmen this morning, the private business delivery vans and farmers are getting about.
There are always more people out and about walking hereabouts when it snows, with something of a festive excited air, which is nice, but happily, fewer Thursday hunters today.
The hydrangea is lovely, not many seem to have stayed so well intact.
The thing about Digusted is that as you get older there is more and more to be disgusted about. I have chosen to adopt a persona which eschews disgust. However, if Tunbridge Wells is the sort of place where there is a high incidence of disgust, it could well be that there is a more than average number of people living here of taste and discernment. It could be ... but try walking in the High Street on Saturday night.
Lucy: My own preference is to soldier on, but that's the way I was brought up in wartime England.
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