Letter to Rebecca #24-03

which is also a reply to #24-02. Who invented this stupid numbering system? Oh, hang on...

Dear Rebecca

Thank you for your recent letter, which I found most chortlesome. Before I respond to specific points, I thought you might like to view a map of London and a list of the iconic locations that will, surely, have a blue plaque erected to show that I visited or had some other connection with the place.

Starting on the right-hand side, Liverpool Street is where we met up. If you walk down from there you come to London Bridge. Although this looks like a long way away it’s only a half hour walk.

To the left of that is the Millennium Bridge which, rather disconcertingly, swayed when it first opened. “They” tried to convince us all it was a design feature, and perfectly safe. Oh yeah? I noticed that none of the polly tishans saying this volunteered to try it themselves. Well, it’s one way of dealing with overpopulation I suppose. They fixed it in response to public demand.

Meander up from there and discover St Paul’s, with its amazing ‘whispering gallery’. If you have the energy to climb all the stairs, go up there with a friend (if you have any) and you stand on one side of the gallery while your friend stands on the other, and whisper to each other. It’s amazing really.

To the left of St Paul’s, perhaps a 20 or 25 minute walk away, is Fleet Street, where newspapers used to be located. The term “Fleet Street” is still used as a generic name for the press in Britain.

Then if you carry on walking to the left and up a bit, you come to the Temple and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, full of lawyers. Then a bit further to the left, not shown on the map, is where I attend courses and also teach courses.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little diversion from the norm. Now to your epistle.

“…temporary traffic light in the very centre of the college lawn embellished with such a thick layer of snow that a picture of it would have been worthy of any Christmas card.”

Yes, I seem to remember reading about lots of traffic gridlocks in your area because someone had removed a traffic light.

“Do you really think that it’s a better idea to arrange books by colour rather than, say, in alphabetical order, by genre or according to subject matter?”

I’m game for anything, Rebecca. When we moved in to our house Elaine’s dad built bookshelves for us. But because of the limitations of both space and materials, some were very short in height while others were appreciably roomier. Consequently, we had to store our books according to how large they were. We were continually having conversations like this:

Me: Do you happen to know where the book of American short stories is?

Elaine: How big is it?

“How do you feel about culinary mash-ups and their portmanteau names, Terry?”

Reading this again has made me feel hungry. Anyway, I’m very happy about culinary mashups: experiment and try things out is what I say. But portmanteau words often annoy me. In fact, yours are the only ones I like (especially ‘letterospective’ and ‘expecteations’.) The portmanteau word I hate the most is ‘solopreneur’. A lot of entrepreneurs, probably all in fact, are on their own or possibly with one or two other people. There’s no need for anyone to invent such an ugly word.

On to pleasanter things. What are you reading now? I’m reading Sense and Sensibility. Some of it is chortleworthy. I’m quite a Jane Austen fan now.

Tomorrow I must practise the sax again. I’m really enjoying it now, but I do find that if I leave it for a day, and sometimes even if I don’t, I forget things. Elaine is doing a good job of teaching me music theory, and the tutor teaches it too, and we get to improvise to jazz tracks. One of these days, if I can make a decent recording, I’ll share a sample of my efforts. That will be a good way of reducing the number of my subscribers should I ever wish to.

But for now, I must away. I look forward to your reply to this letter.

Readers looking over my shoulder can find links to these letters here or here. Subscribe to Rebecca’s newsletter so as to avoid missing her reply, and other good stuff.

Thanks for reading!