RABAGLIATI BENTLEY

PHOTO HOLDEN BENTLEY

A near neighbour, Bill Holden, has contacted me after reading OLD MAN ON A BIKE. He owns a Bentley identical in body and paintwork to the car my stepfather campaigned - see the Rabagliati Bentley on the web.

OFFAL

Gorgeous day. Am cooking lamb kidneys and mushrooms in a cream and Jerez sauce together with a risotto of baby broad beans and chives. My offal chum, Roger Gill, is coming to lunch. We shall eat in the garden.

HEAVEN

My study opens off the corridor by the front door. Both the door and my windows are open. I sit at my desk and breathe the scent of roses. Shade and sunlight on the trees continually shifts in the breeze. Herefordshire is heaven on such a day...

TEMPTATION

Clematis and roses surrounding my study window are a temptation to sit outside with a mug of coffee. A cold wind chases me back indoors.
Received my royalty statement from Harper Collins last week. Sold 1094 copies of Old Man On A Bike over the past six months - good considering the book has been out three years. Bad is a royalty of £0.50 per copy. Have decided to self publish the following two in the travel series as Ebooks, Kindle and audio plus a short print run. Emailing printers for quotes. Started with Thailand...

WANTED: ENGLISH SPANISH TRANSLATOR

Wanted a translator for Old Man On A Bike. Must have sense of humour.

TOY BOY - OR TOY GRANDPA

Carin has turned the old tramp into a vaguely respectable grandpa...

BRAVE OLD BRIT

B threatened me: get my hair cut or exile to the garden shed.
I bought a dozen red roses this morning and knelt in the doorway of Carin's salon on the Market Square in Ledbury, face hidden behind the flowers.
Carin has forgiven me.
I have an appointment this afternoon.

SEVEN YEAR ITCH

Seven years ago I went to the multi-sex hairdressing salon in Barnards Green. A trainee, Carin, cut my hair brilliantly. Two years later she moved to Ledbury. I followed. Now she has set up her own salon. I was to be her second client. She telephoned three days before opening to remind me. My short term memory is nil. I forgot.
That was in December.
I keep meaning to buy her a huge box of chocolates and a huge bunch of flowers. I will kneel outside the salon door and beg for forgiveness.
Then, finally, I can have my hair cut.
I need to do this soon.
Or borrow a hair net.
Because I am easily mistaken for a decrepit old tramp (rather than what?).
Jed is embarrassed - particularly when he has guests home...

JEDEDIAH

Snowboard season is over. Jed has been home a week from the French Alps. He seems to grow each time that he is away.
Or am I shrinking in old age?
Maybe in height.
Not in girth.
Ah, well...

SPRING GARDEN SHOW

Sun shines. Roses break out of bud, Clematis in flower, scent of freshly mown lawn. B has a stand at the Spring Garden Show. She will have been standing all day, sore feet, sore back. She will probably head straight for the Malvern Spa before coming home, swim, have a sauna, chill in the meditation room.
I am so immensely fortunate to be so in love...

SECRET AGENTS IN TUXEDOS

I find particular pleasure in this commemoration of a mission planned by my stepfather, Colonel Euan Rabagliati (see web), given a scurrilous attack on his character in a recent "biography" of a Danish agent/adventurer.
Libeling the dead is risk-free and despicable.



Dear Mr Gandolfi,
I am organizing an event to commemorate the daring operation Contact Holland, which took place in 1941. This operation was a MI6-operation and was meant to establish a radio-contact between the UK and occupied Holland. In order to do this, a Dutch secret agent, Peter Tazelaar, was brought to the Dutch coast by a Motor Gun Boat. He went ashore wearing a tuxedo (in the sixties this element was used in the 007-movie Goldfinger). This operation was lead by your stepfather Euan Rabagliati. He was highly respected by Tazelaar and his comrades.

On May 3 the son & daughter of Tazelaar and myself will leave from the harbour of Lowestoft on board of an original Motor Torpedo Boat from WWII, quite similar to the MGB used in 1941. We will cross the North Sea with destination Scheveningen. On May 5 a re-enactment of the secret landing of Tazelaar will take place on the beach of Scheveningen.
Victor Laurentius

LORD PROFESSOR WINSTON - MOST IRRITATING MAN IN BRITISH POLITICS

Prime Minister Cameron recently named Ed Balls the most irritating man in British politics. Rude, yes. Boorish, yes. Conceited, certainly. But surely unpleasant rather than irritating.
My vote goes to Professor Doctor Lord Winston. Professor of Science and Society at Imperial College, Chairman of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Trust, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow, and the Institute of Biology, Chairman of the Council at the Royal College of Music.
Add honorary doctorates from sixteen universities, member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, patron of The Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Forgive me, Your Lordship, for any titles, positions and honours that I have failed to include.
Wow!
Lesser mortals attempt to hold the moral high ground. Lord Winston is the moral high ground. He speaks with a certainty that the Pope must envy. Mere mortals fear to contradict - even when His Lordship is in error.
In error?
Never.
Forgive me, Your Lordship. The very suggestion is a sin.
I will do penance by suffering that utterly confident monotone in my dreams...

BRIDGE OF THE AMERICAS, COSTA RICA/PANAMA

A Spanish biker, Alejandro Menendez-Chacon, has posted on Facebook a pic of the Bridge Of The Americas. It is a railway bridge built by United Fruit to connect their banana plantations on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica with the banana port of Almirante in Panama. Loose planks either side of the rails enable the bridge to be used by road traffic. Alejandro's pic shows the safety netting is new. This is my pic. I crossed in the rain on my ride south from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego - see pic in OLD MAN ON A BIKE. The wet planks were slippery and lengths of safety net were missing or had big holes. I lost my nerve and tipped the bike inward over the rails. A transport driver picked me up and loaded the bike into the back of his truck. See this Blog, July 8/9, 2006...

GERMAINE GREER

Germaine Greer is Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Comparative Studies at Warwick University. She gives me the impression of being both unpleasantly arrogant and conceited. I may be wrong.
She is often on the BBC TV Friday night art show. She seldom has anything pleasant to say concerning the reviewed works of writer, actor, composer or painter.
Last week she panned a film of war time children sent to Australia as researched "wrong" as opposed to wrongly researched. Though even the latter would have been poor English usage. Inadequate or incompetentt might be better.
Misuse of English is no big deal - unless when criticising the work of others in an intolerably superior manner.
Am I a pot calling the kettle black?

SYMPATHY FOR MR CRAWFORD

This is a Thank You to N Green of Austin, Texas for posting the following on Amazon last week:
Love bikes? Love travel? then you will love this book.
Simon Gandolfi has a humble, gentle writing style that captures your interest and your heart on the first page. This is the best motorcycle journey I have read since ' Jupiter's Travels'. He paints such beautiful images of the people and places he encountered. The only improvement I could ask for would be lots more photographs, but they are really not necessary, his words provide all the pictures you need...

I have only posted one other review from Amazon - from a Mrs. S. M. Crawford "Suzanne Crawford" of Hampshire, England.
I bought this for my husband at his request. He was fired with enthusiasm from an article he read in The Telegraph. He is totally disappointed in this book and literally had to struggle through it. He sums it up as a description of breakfast in many places. It is therefore not recommended.

My apologies to Mr Crawford and my condolences. How tragic to suffer an antipathy to breakfast.

SQUID AND CHORIZO - YUM!

For lunch on Wednesday cooked squid and cHorizo with chickpeas in a tomato and basil sauce - lots of chili, lots of garlic. Washed down with a bottle of Rioja Alto. YUM!
Today glorious Spring, trees in blossom, daffodils and primroses in our woodland garden. Ate outside in the sunshine, cold trout, cheese, baby tomatoes. On such a day England is heaven.

JOSH

Our eldest son, Josh, is down from Leeds for a week. He has ripped up the vile carpet in the back sitting room, disassembled and removed an equally vile sofa bed. Today he is out in the garden cutting the lawn, pruning. I wish he and Jen were here for the summer. What joy it would be to watch Josh play cricket again and have his friends dropping by of a summer evening, cold beer, good Herefordshire beef sizzling on the coals.

OBESITY INVESTMENT ADVICE

Visit a bike show, witness evidence of a future diabetes epidemic, invest in manufacturers of Insulin...

SCOTTISH MOTORCYCLE SHOW

Thank you to all those fearless Scottish bikers who donned their snow shoes and, braving blizzard and avalanche, ploughed their way to the bike show. A special thanks to readers who sought me out and to those who bought books and contributed the extra £1 to my Round The World Petrol Fund!