Events dear boy events

When Harold Macmillan made this memorable observation on how polices and strategies are undermined by events it seemed better suited to the macro world of politics than the macro world of Robert Tickler but it was the best description of my day yesterday.

It began with the mild gastric upset I experienced in Nice and I reflected how I got round India in 2016 with no tummy problems only to be afflicted in the more hygienic city of Nice. I was meeting some old friends for a coffee and as I left my residence I realised I had not taken my wallet.

In retrieving same, curiosity of a just delivered letter got the better of me. This was an  enforcement notice of a traffic penalty. I had no notice of the penalty, did not know of any traffic infringement perpetrated, but all sorts of dire consequences flowed through non-payment.

I called the office to be confronted by a language I did not understand. As the office was in Colwyn Bay Wales I assumed this was Welsh and I wonder how many similar parties in my position would understand it. The lady there referred me back to the traffic department of my local council with a number.

I tried this three times, receiving a message that abuse would not be tolerated which would be difficult as on this and every other occasion no one answered. Eventually I discovered a photo of the Ticklermobile on the website of the council in a bus lane. I recall road works in the street in question and before I knew or could help it I was in a bus lane.

I will swallow the now £173 fine as part and parcel of living in a City I love despite being incompetently managed by the Greens with their carphobia. The latest manifestation of this is to ban Uber so we have to continue to suffer their expensive taxis.

The second event was more startling. I  recorded 100 years of British Airways as it was quite likely that three friends of mine would appear in it and one I had already seen in the trailer. In fact none of them appeared in the first programme but a social historian called Tom Quinn did.

I knew a Tom Quinn 37 years ago, he being the brother of the girl I was courting at the time. He was bald now but had  the same natural high intelligence and ebullience. Could it be him? My feeling was it might be was substantiated by a google search confirming he had written a book on angling, a recreation he always much enjoyed. I was not sure how to deal with this. To contact him, even if I could find a way of doing this, would not just surprise but disconcert him too as his sister had died tragically young. If there was a way of reintroducing myself but not seeing him that might work, but in the end (as one inevitably does) I resolved to do nothing.

The programme charting the early history of Imperial Airways based at Croydon aerodrome, BOAC  and the terrorist outrages was of some interest. Greater though – and I don’t know why – is watching  someone one knows on the telly. Occasionally my late father was summoned to Television House to deliberate  on some medical matter.  He once stopped off at Turnbull and Asser en route and bought a primrose yellow shirt to give himself a bit of colour. He was not a natural broadcaster but they liked him as he told them the questions to ask which he answered fully and fluently.