Letter to Rebecca #24-17

We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave 🎶🎶

Terry waxes lyrical about Singapore, Phoenix and bottles of milk, crosswords, Bill Bryson and the Olympics, and triangles

Yo, Becks!

Thanks for your letter, which was very thought-provoking and full of variety, as usual.

So, do you like this heat? I don’t. Or rather, I don’t mind the heat, it’s the closeness.

I’ve been in two very hot places in my life, Singapore and Phoenix.

In Singapore, the heat was hot, and it was humid. I loved Singapore, the people were great, the food was delicious, the streets were spotless and the efficiency was amazing. For example, on my final day, someone came up to me while I was in the line for checking out of the hotel, and asked me if he could take my suitcase and my payment. I thought for a second he was the character from one of the Pink Panther films (only watch from when this starts to 2 minutes and 27 seconds):

On another occasion, we parked in a car park and, later, drove out of it without being required to pay.

“Is this car park free?, I asked my host?

“No”, he replied. “It uses number plate recognition and sends you the bill subsequently.”

Compare that with the set-up here, where you have to scrabble around trying to get a signal so you can use the Ringo app in order to pay 15p for the privilege of free parking.

But the heat and the humidity! I lost half a stone just in the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel.

But Phoenix was a dry heat. When I went, it was 118 degrees in the shade. I went there with a chest cold I’d been trying to get rid of for over two years. Two weeks later it had gone.

Fortunately, in both Singapore and Phoenix every building had air conditioning. Over here, the best place to be is in a supermarket from that point of view.

In America, I am pretty sure I came across a vending machine like the one you demonstrated. I have a vague recollection of it. One thing I do remember is nipping out for a bottle of milk once. Oh boy. This was in the days when the choice in the UK came down to whole milk, semi-skimmed and skimmed. That was it. In the USA — this was in, I think, 1980 — there was an entire aisle devoted to milk, including lactose-free milk. Eh? Anyway, I bought some milk which I assumed would be OK, as it was fortified with vitamin D or something. When I got back and poured it into my tea, I’d used three quarters of the bottle before the colour of my tea turned from black to a very dark brown.

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Your campervan camping looks like it might be almost enjoyable. Certainly gives you a lot of freedom. I’ve never been camping myself, unless you count my stay in a really ropey hotel about twenty years ago. I’m afraid I like my creature comforts.

Mind you, I’ve never asked for room service in a hotel, have you? I’m not used to that level of pampering. I don’t even get tea brought to me in bed, contrary to what you might think from the following conversation that took place at a conference a few years ago:

Girl from a company I had dealings with: How’s Elaine now? [She’d broken her ankle a month or so before.] It must be very hard.

Me: It is. Every morning when Elaine brings me my tea in bed, by the time she’s climbed the stairs half of the tea is in the saucer and the other half is cold.

Girl: I know you’re only joking but I really want to hit you.

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For a change, I thought it might be interesting to review a crossword clue rather than solve it. I came across one recently, in the Times I think, that was clever — perhaps too clever:

One Barking High Street (6)

This is very misleading, because Barking is actually the name of a district in London. But what the clue is asking for is something that barks — so there is no need for a capital ‘B’. The answer is: Setter. That’s an anagram of the word ‘Street’, as indicated by the word ‘High’ — which words, by the way, also do not need a capital initial. I was wondering how the word ‘high’ could possibly be an anagram indicator, and the only way it can, I think, is in the sense of meat going off. In that context, ‘high’ means decomposing.

Have you come across any clues that you particularly liked or disliked?

As for your crossword clues, here are the answers:

Fail to answer Mastermind question but progress (4)

The answer is ‘pass’, because that was the word contestants used when they couldn’t answer a question, and it also indicates progress.

Bishop surprisingly dominant in game (9)

We’re looking for the name of a game. The word ‘surprisingly’ suggests that we need an anagram of the word ‘dominant’. That doesn’t give us enough letters, but if we add a ‘b’, for ‘bishop’, we arrive at Badminton.

Great clues, o masterful one. Oh, and I enjoyed Jim’s jape!

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I haven’t read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, but I’ve read or dipped into several of his other books. He’s a very good writer: good research plus humour plus good writing. That reminds me, I should like to read The Road to Little Dribbling, which sounds quite chortlesome.

I’ve started to read Love Triangle, by Matt Parker. It’s about the importance of triangles in everyday life. At school we spent a lot of time discussing a bloke called Isosceles and his triangle, and stuff about the hypotenuse, without once being told why. I mean, as far as I know, I’ve never come across an Isosceles triangle in my life. Even if I did, what am I supposed to do with it? I sometimes feel that my entire secondary school education was spent having my head filled with a great load of stuff just in case it would come in handy one day. It’s why I went into teaching. I thought, why should I be the only one to suffer. <Snigger.>

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Finally, the Olympics. I tend not to watch sport. I occasionally watch the Tour de France, or parts of it, and I very much enjoyed the Paralympics in London in 2012. It was a wonderful atmosphere and a beautiful day. But I haven’t watched any Olympics since then, and I’d never watched the Olympics before then. Sorry! But I do admire the people who compete. Most of them have amazing skills.

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That’s it from me, Becks.

Bye for now!

Johnny Sax

To anyone reading this missive, you can see the whole archive here. Rebecca should reply next Wednesday, so make sure you don’t miss that by subscribing to hers.

Thanks for reading!